Deliberative Democracy.. but where's the news? (1609-9)

The article on ‘Online Civic Engagement’ by Min, this week and the corresponding discussion posed some questions about deliberative democracy – a term that was totally new to me, but it kind of made sense in that it aims at creating an atmosphere of informed discussion among citizens that would lead to better democratic practice. Theoretically, deliberation is believed to induce active political participation. The discussion questions took me further into this aspect and what it really means to participate politically. I was awed by the backgrounds of some of my fellow classmates, that led them into active political situations.

As I am pondering over the question of what really constitutes political participation, I am reminded of my time in India - we used to get at least three different newspapers every morning - the first one my parents had a historical attachment with, the second was considered the most happening in the entire nation and the third carried the best local supplement each day. Needless to say, our large extended family was all seen poring over newspapers most of the time during the day. There were political discussions (which I passed off as 'drawing room talk') and everybody was expected to know 'the news'. Oh, and we didn't watch TV in our house at all pretty much, except for.. guess what... 'the news'!

Given all of that, it is probably very ironical that I developed into a political non-participant. I attribute this to the following factors: one, my family never went beyond the phase of putting forth their opinions and/or inviting comments (akin to blogging/twitter of the modern age?) and second, my personal lifestyle seemed to be practically uninfluenced by any real political issues. We learnt to accept red-tapism in our out-of-house dealings, helplessness of the common man and other every-day struggles because active engagement seemed to lead to more frustration and many sorry stories were highlighted each day. I got some experience with different forms of media while doing a diploma in Journalism and I realized that the stance of the media does not really give a true picture of the state of affairs anyway. My university studies kept me extremely busy due to the nature of work I was into (Biophysics - involving rigorous research and a lot of time and effort), so I tuned out of politics. Moving to Canada resulted in having to be even less bothered with such issues. As Clare pointed out in the discussion on deliberate democracy, “In a country like Canada, where we are relatively comfortable, and relatively safe, and relatively economically stable”, there is a culture of general indifference towards politics.

Getting to read this article was very timely for me. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking of how ‘out of it’ I was when it came to current affairs and so I was sort of gearing myself up for staying more in touch with the latest. After finishing the article, I got all motivated and went to watch some news on TV. Now I don’t know if that often happens to other people as well, but at least for me, it turned out to be a futile attempt. Not one channel (out of the hundred that my cable claims to provide – which really isn’t the case, but that’s another story) was broadcasting news! I managed to find one in the end that was telecasting some local news from a different province, but that was it! It was pretty frustrating. Being informed, enhancing political efficacy, increasing political participation seemed like pretty challenging goals all of a sudden. Yet again, it was the Internet to the rescue.

Makes me wonder if looking out for own selves has become an expectation for the times? Has the world transitioned into so much customization and self-learning, that you have to actually go look for what you need to learn? With RSS and other such information-management tools, it probably is one’s own prerogative to decide what one will choose. Open access to resources and universal availability of all kinds of information comes with a slight catch I guess. It’s all out there somewhere (on the cloud? In the air? Floating around?), but the onus is on you to tune into it. ‘The News’ ain’t comin' walking to me no more!

Technology and Gender Bias (1609-8)

Discussion shifted to gender biases in the use of technology as we read and discussed the present situation with boys still seeming to dominate the technology sector. There definitely seems to be rising appreciation of technology among girls, but the overall picture still looks pretty bent towards males. After one of the readings (by Vekiri and Chronaki) that outlined a Greek study about gender biases pertaining to technology usage, I decided to look into some other studies around the world, as I expected to see a rapidly shifting trend from boys to both girls and boys, considering what I see in the Canadian classroom every day (girls more keen on using the computer, even during their free time – although they put it to more ‘intellectual’ use than I think boys would). Natalia brought up the point of the article’s Canadian study being slightly dated as well (from 1995) in the present context where, as she pointed out in a reference, the number of female enrolments in engineering programs at Queen’s University were outlined to be on the rise.

Well, based on my resource findings and some excellent contributions from other classmates, I came to the conclusion that whereas some trends were changing, the transition is probably going to be a rather slow one. Not surprisingly, there was discussion around the reasons as to what it was with technology that attracted boys’ attention more than girls’? Clare revealed some interesting facts that led to a well-taken understanding that “cultural/gender etc influences are very subtle and complex phenomena and often hard to definitively talk about.” And indeed, as we continued to explore, we found some plausible reasoning in factors such as Jane Austen-esk values of the arts as a woman-thing being passed down from generations (Michelle), computers being initiated as a corporate-world thing that seemed to have been a male-dominated area (Jessica) and different family/cultural expectations for males and females – males being expected to be more involved with hands-on fields (Michelle).

The last point seems to be a significant one and one that is found to be a common factor in several gender gap studies. It reminded me of a rather interesting article, “Retooling Play: Dystopia, Dysphoria, and Difference” (By Suzanne de Castell & Mary Bryson) that I read earlier. It strongly points out how family expectations set the basis for what a girl or boy will experience for the rest of his or her life. The gender gap is exemplified by the words of the authors - “We know that women have always had access to technology; whether reproductive, domestic, industrial, or educational. The kinds of technologies made readily accessible to women, however—like the Fabulous Mark Eden Bust Developer, the Hamilton Beach Food Mixer, the Wang Word Processor, or the Dalkon Shield—have tended both to reify, and to produce, gender effects; effects which, in fact, consolidate already inequitable class and race positionings.”

An interesting view about these gender gaps has been articulated in An Educator's Guide to Gender Bias Issues which emphasized the roles of parents, educators and school administrators in bridging the gender gap. Whereas there are huge initiatives on ‘We’re Erasing prejudice for good’ (an ETFO publication) and ‘Education for All’ (a UN initiative), how much is really being done in the classroom to eliminate stereotypes when it comes to technology use? Are female teachers being role models or are the guy teachers usually the technology-experts at schools? And another probable question could be – should we even try? Could it be just a girl/boy thing? Just like some of us gravitate towards a personal like or dislike based on instinct, is it like that with technology use among boys and girls? If the way we treat girls or boys influences their appreciation and understanding of technology, then I think we might hold some power over this issue.

Online courses and Socialization (1609-7)

We continued to discuss the nuances and details of online communication in educational settings. A point that made me ponder over my own perceptions of computer-mediated communication was when I got into a discussion with Natalia, Michael and Dan about the importance of healthy conflict, which is more naturally possible in face to face environments as opposed to online settings. I think back to some classes where direct conflict has either led to embarrassing moments or has led to the discussion being swayed in a direction different from the goal of the class, which led to discontentment and waste of the participants’ precious time. In online courses, it is easier to talk about various other things as the course is self-paced and those who are interested have the liberty to participate in the particular discussion at their own leisure, while the ‘keeners’ can choose to stick to the ‘business’.

Another question raised by this week’s readings was that of individual responsibility being required for online courses. At the first go, I found the article Student Role Adjustment in Online Communities of Inquiry: Model and Instrument Validation by Garrison et al., pretty informative with a deep reflection of how online learning can inspire way more cognitive learning. But after I read some of my fellow students’ viewpoints and looked over the reading again, I noticed how the author was leading the readers into believing that online courses were a notch above face to face courses. Jennifer brought my attention to the interesting fact that the author was a professor of a university that delivered courses only through online mode, which could be a cause for the bias.

Indeed, some issues in online courses need to be dealt with in order to make the learning useful for everyone – not just for keen writers or those familiar with (and comfortable with) online socialization. Even though I personally like online learning, yet the reality is that we live in a ‘real’ world, not ‘virtual’ and therefore the social etiquette is equally important to learn.

Kneading Perspectives (1609-6)

A particularly useful activity I found last week was listing my goals for this course. The moderators based this task on a study by Scardamalia wherein school students were asked what they would like to learn if they had an extra hour each week for learning whatever they wished. I found it was even better that I got to do this mid-way through the course. At the beginning of the course, I would have probably said that I wanted to learn more practical, hands-on strategies for using instructional technology. But as I had had a chance to go over a few excellent discussions already in the course of this semester, I thought my real goal was to find out multiple perspectives and assimilate, integrate and synthesize my understanding of computer-mediated communication and reach a holistic perspective.

At the end of the week, Clare’s video was a great source of inspiration. Despite all the administrative work she is doing, the problems in the software she was using and a terribly busy schedule, she effectively summed up the main issue in this week’s discussion. She was honest in stating that we are not quite there yet in terms of evaluating online discourses. The readings of the week made an attempt to compare online courses with face-to-face ones and even though some inferences can be drawn, it is a difficult task to compare the two media. They both seem to offer distinct advantages different from the other.

In retrospection, I am thinking that one big advantage of online courses seems to be the ready repository of resources. Not just the class notes and discourse, but the actual resources are also easier to compile and refer to. For my other in-class courses, I have binders – supposedly organized well too – but I find that I don’t consult them often, even though sometimes I remember something from one of them and feel I could reference it. I prefer resorting to my online collection of resources – most of which have been gathered from online courses or self-learning.

On another note, yesterday some group members on the team for the Elementary Case Study assignment met in a KeC chatroom. The synchronous discussion turned out very productive. Although we have a separate asynchronous conference for this assignment where we have been firing off our own ideas and trying to organize them clearly, yesterday’s ‘meeting’ seemed like a pretty important step. This makes me wonder whether the entire class has been undermining the importance of synchronous discussion as evidenced by the Week 3 responses to the task of stating preferences for the system of their choice. Most of us had picked asynchronous, articulating the need for flexibility, control, ‘no-pressure’, better focus, choice of time and so on. But I guess, what one can do, the other sometimes cannot. For example, after yesterday’s chat, we all have a timeframe, are clear on what sections each person is to cover (as opposed to randomly contribute wherever whenever) and what the general outline of the paper is to look like. With a large group, it was getting difficult to smooth out these issues all on asynchronous forums.

So, definitely my perspective has broadened this week about computer-mediated communication in general as well as about the modes and principles through which it is carried out, in specific.

Checking in (1609 - 5)

This week’s readings focus on Teaching Presence and Knowledge-Building. Two weeks ago, we had already started a little bit of discussion on how to build social presence and the importance of facilitation (as mentioned in a previous journal entry) . This week seems to be focussed entirely on that and it gives everyone a chance to analyze online environments more thoroughly.
With regards to the topic being discussed this week, I found it very interesting to compare Asynchronous/online learning environments and Face-to-face learning environments on the basis of a structured framework. The facilitators referenced another article on online teaching effectiveness, which I thought was an excellent idea as it touched up on the topic of discussion very clearly and referenced some ‘teacher traits’ that need to be present in both face to face and online environments.

I know some people who opt for online courses because they think they are ‘quick and easy’. Others (including myself) like them more because they give them time to chew and process the information and work the way they want to. It is so interesting to see contrasting viewpoints about the same issue.

Based on the reading on ‘Collective Cognitive Responsibility for the Advancement of Knowledge’, the moderators have posted a question about our learning goals from this course, steps towards achieving them and foreseen obstacles. I found that activity very helpful as it gave me a checkpoint to see how well I was progressing and what else I needed to do. There are times when there is so much to do and online courses become so overwhelming with the amount of information that one resorts to quick responses to discussions. I was made aware of this through one of the readings in this course (A content analytic comparison of learning processes in online and face-to-face case study discussions) which suggested that in online environments students rushed into posting as they had control over that aspect, sometimes even before exploring concrete details about the subject. This leads to a lack of analysis and integration. I hope to be able to avoid this hasty disposition throughout the course.