[Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky

[Bill Kerr]

hi Michael Glassman,

I took my eye off the IT ball for a few years doing other things, getting
back to it now. What I'm faced with really is too many balls to juggle on
my own and so am looking around to recruit  team members.

By digital immersion I mean that the poor need their own hardware, you
don't learn computing by visiting a lab twice a week. In practice this
seems to have evolved into a situation where the computer they carry in
their pocket (mobile phone) is forbidden in school and vanilla applications
tediously rolled out (MS Office etc.). Many aboriginal Australians in
central Australia don't have computers at home and their phone is shared.
Then groups setup to bridge the digital divide will bring ipads to them, do
some training and then take them away. I see this as falling well short of
what should be done.

>From my limited knowledge Apple has a big influence in Australia too
particularly through ipads. Quite a bit of my inspiration re open source
and cheap hardware comes from American exemplars.

I mentioned Learning Equality  https://learningequality.org/ which is an
American based group. So far their main work has been to combine the cheap
hardware (raspberry pi, tablets etc.) with the Salman Khan Academy maths
programs. I need to look more into what they are doing.

Elliot Soloway https://www.imlc.io/ (intergalactic mobile) has developed a
suite of collaboration software to be run on device agnostic browser based
BYOD. Scroll to the bottom of his FAQ page to read his position papers
https://www.imlc.io/faq

Mark Guzdial has been talking up teaching computer science using cheap
hardware approach on his blog for some time,
eg.
https://computinged.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/using-tablets-to-broaden-access-to-computing-education-elliot-soloway-and-truly-making-cs-for-all/

Have I answered your questions?












On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:44 PM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> Hi Bill,
>
> Could you go a little deeper about what you mean about digital immersion.
> Here in the US it usually means immersive environment/platform like Virtual
> Reality or Augmentative Reality.  Obviously that's not what you mean as you
> rightly point out developing learning ecologies don't have access to the
> necessary software (cost) or hardware (the level of connectivity and
> support is just not available).
>
> Are you specifically talking using tablets and Open Source applications.
> Which ones? I know there are good ones out there.  The tablet research has
> not been very successful so far, even in environments with a great deal of
> resources.  It is also interesting that you use Android.  The other day one
> of my students pointed out to me that many universities in the US are
> developing through ios under Apple's influence, but much of the rest of the
> world is focusing on Android technology. This might create ugly chasms and
> isolate the US in terms of how we use digital technology.  I don't know if
> anybody watched it but Tim Cook did a Town Hall the first part of which he
> talked about education. Not because it was good but because it was kind of
> scary.  Apple for instance is pushing curricula in coding and giving free
> training.  From my own experience I would be you my last dollar that coding
> is in ios, trying to make non-Apple technologies obsolete in the US.  It I
> believe is easier to do Android FOSS but not sure.
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> On Behalf Of Bill Kerr
> Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2018 8:03 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky
>
> I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to get
> to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct Instruction
> approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs as a good location
> for further action research into Australian indigenous issues.
>
> DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY
> - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology
>
> The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way (pragmatically)
> to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This turned into a hands
> on exploration of disparate fields which for convenience can be organised
> under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together:
>
> *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all knowledge
> is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying detailed
> attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting and evaluating
> what is going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view is critical of other
> learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist.
>
> *Culture*: Martin Nakata’s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah’s
> (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is mongrel
> (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex threads created
> by the intermingling of the traditional with the colonial. It follows from
> this that effective communication between different cultures must be
> contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now.
>
> *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies
> originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving bits) is
> now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only effective way
> to master digital technology is through full immersion in the medium. Some
> groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third World have understood
> this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable hardware (Raspberry Pi and
> low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) and infrastructure (sneakernet
> where internet connectivity is limited).
>
> Combining these approached leads to “Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky”.
> The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual sweet
> spot in the middle of the teething rings.
>
> *Reference*:
> Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
> (2007)
> Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ Nakata, Martin.
> Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) Roth,
> Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the Late,
> Spinozist Vygotsky (2017)
>
>