Chantelle's E-learning and Digital Cultures site

Flight Paths as mentioned in Thomas et al (2007), Transliteracy : Crossing Divides.

This concept of a network work of fiction, a transliterate production, is truly inspiring. I am inclined to try to create one if it is not too large an undertaking.

I love the simplicity, the subtle use of different modalities and dynamic dialogue and the effectiveness of the message conveyed this way through collective authorship across multiple platforms.

Having been partly responsible for the creation of a massive resource package in 2003, with films, flashcards, website, and teachers’ guide called Refuge, I can see clearly how much more effective and refreshing a transliteracy model is. Much leaner and much more appealing.

More to be said later about transliteracy to be posted here.

Before I begin reviewing Week Three materials, I would like to comment on the Blade Runner.

In the film,  genetically engineered organic robots called replicants are manufactured.  The replicants have a shorter life span so that they do not become masters but always subservient to the manufacturer. There have been designed to be like human to perform menial and dangerous tasks.

There are many parallels in real life in the context of immigration where new comers are sometimes regarded as second class citizens, and once their service is no longer required, they are not welcome any more.  In fact, there is much to learn from the new comers, apart from the diversity it brings, they also introduce different skills and talents and they are as human as anyone else.

A question was posed about being human, in this last series of the film festival, and it certainly gives us something to think about.  What is human in the virtual domain, and when is there a cross over between the virtual and the real? In the Blade Runner, it seems to me the values of humans, are lower than those possessed by the replicants.  The line, “tears in the rain” is apt to describe how we regard the feelings of the replicant  as non-relevant, like tears in the rain.

This week has been interesting for me personally as I was crossing physical boundaries of the UK and the States, and yet able to remain connected to the EDEC course.  There is a heavy reliant on text based post as a result of being in transition between the continents.

My first post reflects the core reading on Hand  which started the thought  process  about the different philosophical perspectives in understanding digital cultures. One of that was the Foucalt’s panopticon described in Hand’s (2008) article. It is fascinating way of looking at and understanding the many issues surrounding data privacy, anonymity and virtual identities.

My next post was a screen capture of the wonders of twittorial.  I thought it demonstrated a very effective way to use social media in an educational context.

My third post focused on the construct of the online identity and related issue of ethics discussed by Poster (2006).   There are many questions raised but Poster has presented useful pointers for consideration of how to think about ethical considerations in the digital world.

And the final post was a link to the edcMooc sliderocket presentation on the various work already put together by the participants.  It showed the motivation and drive of some of the edcMoocers and also the strength of collective connections and leadership. I entitled this an elearning Utopia? Reflecting the great potentiality and success of such a course.

Reference:

Hand, Martin, (2008) “Hardware to everyware: Narratives of promise and threat” from Hand, Martin, Making digital cultures : access, interactivity, and authenticity    pp.15-42, Aldershot: Ashgate

Poster, Mark, (2006) “The good, the bad and the virtual” from Poster, Mark, Information please : culture and politics in the age of digital machines    pp.139-160,274-275, Durham, NC ; London: Duke University Press

Mark Poster (2006:141) posits the question if standards used in f2f  each day has limited application in the information age.  Examples provided points to the fact that different rules seem to apply for the virtual world. He highlights the fact that computer-mediated communication removes all traces of the embodied person, his or her voice, appearance, and gestures.(150)  We now have a username, and an avatar.  No one need to know who the real person is.

This news report “Google, Facebook and Twitter may ‘face EU defamation and privacy cases’“surfaces the issues of the digital world, pertaining to how fast rumours and news could spread, and also the anonymity of online users.

On the other hand, there is the debate about enacting sweeping privacy protection for digital data.

Hand (2008) writes that for Robins and Webster ‘the network society is a more transparent society, and a more transparent society is, potentially, a more disciplined society’ (1999: 118).  In the light of the issues raised here of ethics in the virtual domains and the anonymity of online users, the question is whether  transparency should be continued, and if it actually promotes more discipline.

And if we were to use the metaphor of the virtual panopticon in my previous post, are we encouraging neighbours to tell on each other or do we impose a layer of policing from the non-virtual domain?  Where does morals stand for the individual? And which or whose ethics?

Poster argues for a different way to measure or think about ethics in the virtual or Information era, as several factors are fundamentally different from the non-virtual:
1.    the person whom the online user is communicating with is made up of pixels in the screen. It is not permanent as once shut down, it is no longer there but there is a requirement to honour the relationship it holds with others;
2.    the debates that ensue following broadcast of a sex change operation was not about the operation but whether it is ethical to webcast it online, it was the blurring of the line between private and public;
3.    in the new deterritorialiased space there is all sorts of information available from diverse sources which perhaps require a different moral restraint;
4.    and the individual has to process the bits and pieces of disassociated culture and reorganise them or a transvaluation of values emerging from the chaos experienced as part of a process of building the online identity.
5.    Poster believes that there is an act of determinism of the good in the innovation of the Internet.

Reference:

Poster, M (2006) The good, the bad and the virtual, chapter 7 of Information please: culture and politics in the age of digital machines. Duke University Press. pp.139-160.

It was a week of experimenting with publishing a selection of things related to the topic of digital cultures, and re-acquainting myself with twittering. I am finding interesting digital artifacts and content to surface on my tumblog as a way to orientate myself to the topic.

Hence you can see words like dystopia and  utopia explained in the first two posts. My third post is a Wordle presentation of the notes from Hand’s Hardware to Everyware: narratives of promise and threat which provides the background to the main themes of dystopia and utopia.

The subsequent posts were a search for the meaning of culture. I made a detour and look at Fashion Digital Studio and see how the Digital Culture is impacting other industries other than education.   I also wrote a piece on personal reflection of what culture has meant to me in the past.

The film festival so far presented a gentle introduction to the themes, and Benito’s machine has provided a lot to think about: whether technology is a positive or a negative development for societies and individuals.  It also presented interesting questions about the portrayal of academic discourse in short films such as Benito’s machine.

These thoughts, emotions and questions hung in my head all week:
1.    Excitement and apprehension in building an empowering online community through blogging and twittering
2.    Having to present my thoughts in images, stories, music and different representations
3.    How to ensure this tumblog is inclusive and accessible to others who may not know much about digital cultures

I wonder if this is a common experience of an introverted individual having to create a public persona?

Reference:

Hand, M (2008) Hardware to everywhere: narratives of promise and threat, chapter 1 of Making digital cultures: access, interactivity and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp 15-42.

I am writing this as a follow up to  Annabel’s post on culture.

To discuss what culture really means, I am taking a few steps back to reflect on what the word culture had meant to me.

I grew up in an extended family environment, and I realised when I went to school, things were very different from what I had experienced at home: language, way of doing things, friendship groups and what they were reading (yes, even at the age of 7!), and different routines.  I moved on to my studies abroad, and found that although we shared a common language, the shared culture was subtly different. So I was caught out.  When I started working in a different environment again, I had to adjust and learn a whole set of different rules of communicating, working and living.  A few years later, I moved to another country for work, and there I had to learn a whole new different culture! And so the story continues as I made several more moves in my life.

All this time, I had an inkling that there were two separate notions to understanding the culture I had to adopt: the one that aspire to the classical and traditional, and the other was about sharing lives.

When I was teaching in schools, part of the curriculum was to introduce Asian students to the protocols of listening to classical music concert!  Little did I question then why this was so important to the school which I was working!  It certainly says a lot about what was being aspired!

My interest in technology certainly had taken me to places, but at the same time, I had come across as an alienating factor because, I was moving a few steps ahead of a lot people.  I realised that I was adopting a culture which was not shared by everyone then  although it was not bound by culture rooted in a geographical location.

Having read Hand (2008) and Bell (2001), and listening to the episodes on the Value of Culture on Radio 4, I understand now that I was joining a different tribe!  A tribe which is planetary or global.

So has this experience dominated both the economy and experience in every day life as expressed by Lash and Lury (2007)?

“[Culture] is so ubiquitous that it, as it were, seeps out of the superstructure and comes to infiltrate, and then take over, the infrastructure itself. It comes to dominate both the economy and experience in everyday life (Lash and Lury 2007: 4)” cited by Hand, p17

The answer to that can be measured somewhat in what my toddler is doing.  She talks to my family members situated in different continents once every two days on skype, she learns sign language from youtube videos, and her mom and dad have to escape into locked rooms when we use the computers, so she does not take over the keyboard!  And because shopping is challenging with a toddler, I do most of my shopping online.  We work hard to stop contact time with the internet so we can have face-to-face contact time as a family.

There are more stories to tell but for now suffice to leave it as that, as the next story will be in a multi-modal presentation, and hopefully something which can involve you as the reader, synchronously.   I hope that this gives a sense of what my understanding of culture has been.

Reference:

Hand, Martin, (2008) “Hardware to everyware: Narratives of promise and threat” from Hand, Martin, Making digital cultures : access, interactivity, and authenticity    pp.15-42, Aldershot: Ashgate

I was at my trusted hairstylist last Saturday and it seems remarkable that his hair saloon does not have a website.  In Mark’s own words, “You are my advertisement. It is all through word of mouth.”  Has this local industry escaped the hype about having a spot in the cyber space?

I was curious how digital technologies have impacted the fashion industry.  Here is a  site which to me gives a preview of the fascinating transformation in the field as a result of digital technology.  A utopia perhaps?

It is hard to get going again after such a fabulous Christmas and New Year break.  With the arrival of Sian’s email , welcoming us and outlining some of the requirements for the orientation week, a wave of excitement, nervousness and panic set in!

However, Hand (2008) Hardware to everywhere: narratives of promise and threat, and Bell  (2001) Storying cyberspace 1: material and symbolic stories, have reassured me that it will be an accessible module.  Watching the videos on the EDC13 Lino Wall  has also whetted  my appetite for learning more about Digital Culture.

My feelings at the moment can be somewhat personified in the artform by Kasey Mcmahon found on this site: http://www.switched.com/2010/04/22/kasey-mcmahons-connected-cables-elevate-ethernet-to-art/

Mcmahon’s sculpture of the Wire Woman, is  interesting, as although it is named connected, it seems to have captured or bound the person up, indicating both the positive and negative dimension of  digital culture.

At the moment I am not sure which camp I belong to:  utopia or  dystopia view of  digital culture. Certainly my exploration this week, has already helped debunk some myths I had about cybercultures.

Finally, I have to say that my favourite terminology that I have come across this week is cyberpunk.

Reference:

Hand, M (2008) Hardware to everywhere: narratives of promise and threat, chapter 1 of Making digital cultures: access, interactivity and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp 15-42.

Bell, D (2001) Storying cyberspace 1: material and symbolic stories, chapter 2 of An introduction to cybercultures. Abingdon: Routledge. pp6-29.