Sindhu's E-learning and Digital Cultures Blog

Lifestream activities for week one started with the theme “Popular Cyber Cultures” and finished in week four. Postings of Hand, M (2008) reading on digital commodification, digital divide, and computer mediated democratic representation, along with film festival experience from the movie “Bendito Machine” and “Existenz”, appeared in week one. Tweets of cyberspace, digital democratisation of political life, exploitative practices of digital commodification were also in the postings.  Week two Lifestream was on Bell, D (2001) which included tweets on cyberspace, social organisation of cyberspace and intensity of action sequences in a YouTube video. Posts included texts, pictures and video on Bell, D (2001) related to political economy stories, work stories and virtual reality stories, as well as cyber punk and pop culture. Week two has film festival experience from the movies “World Builder”, “Tears in rain” and “AI: final scene”. The blog quotes, videos and pictures of week three were on two core readings-Carpenter (2009) and Thomas, et al (2007). Postings of transliteracy, different media and modes of communication also appear along with Vimeo videos of transliteracy. Week four was on Kress’s readings on the landscape of communication, mode of representation, medium of dissemination and digital literacy. Tweets of videos on Kress’s reading appeared this week along with postings related to wallwisher digital artefact.

Week five, week six and week seven postings were on “Virtual Communities”. Week five activities were a clear demonstration of Bell (2009) and Hine (2000) readings. Postings included my understanding of Bell’s description of virtual community and a summary of what I gathered from Hine’s reading about virtual ethnography and various possibilities within it. For this week I have tweeted links from YouTube videos on online research, tweets on anthropological introduction to YouTube, and a link to community map through Tumblr. Week six postings in textual and picture forms were on core reading Kozinets et.al. (2010)’s understanding culture online. It also includes the “Status Equilisation Effect” from Dubrovsky et.al 1991 and study of online support groups from Davison et.al 2000. Postings related to slide share link of my micro virtual ethnographic project appeared in week seven.

Postings related to week eight, nine and ten are on “Critical Perspectives”. Week eight postings highlighted the important points from Hayles (2006), Hayles (1999) and Shields (2006) readings. Postings also included the difference between Cyborg and Posthuman in pictures and tweets of YouTube videos based on Cyborg and Transhuman themes. Week nine postings were on Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, which include a YouTube video that questions why humankind allowed the birth of CYBORG. Week ten’s postings were related to human pedagogy task. It reflects Nick Bostrum, (1999) view of enhancing human intellectual capacity as a requirement for a post human future, Edward (2010)’s lifelong learning concept and Bayne (2010)’s technological experiments in overcoming troublesome knowledge. I must say my Lifestream experience itself is an excellent example of overcoming troublesome knowledge!

Week eleven was all about readings and data collection related to my final assignment. It also included discussions with my tutor, feedback and final confirmation of the research design.

The main focus of week eleven is posting comments about Post Human Pedagogy. My response to the comments for my own post human task mainly focuses on reinforcing my points about the possibilities of various digital environments in discussing, arguing, co-constructing, analysing and reflecting. I have also posted a handful of comments for my colleagues post human pedagogy task. Mainly related to threshold concept, troublesome knowledge, etc. I really liked one of the post human pedagogy which highlights the importance of dialogue between teacher and student which enables critical thinking and reflection for knowledge construction and development.

My final assignment is a case study to find the scope of Knowledge Management in virtual community. I have started data collection through virtual ethnography this week and started my readings related to Knowledge Management. It was a revisit to my Human Resource back ground. Most of the articles present Knowledge Management as a practice to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge. Also it discusses two types of knowledge both   tacit and explicit and viewing it as individual and collective knowledge. I feel the definition and type of knowledge is an important factor to understand the role of virtual communities for Knowledge Management. After finishing some of the readings for my virtual ethnography, I find the virtual communities could support a web of connections among people to interact and collaborate. Virtual communities offer a community platform equipped with different features and link people without geographic constraints, allowing them to interact and collaborate.

Week Ten was all about Human Pedagogy and discussions about essay topic with my tutor. My human pedagogy ideas were a revisit to some of the readings I completed for my last semester’s “Effective course design for e-learning”. My post human pedagogy is to enhance human intellectual capacity which is a requirement for a post human future according to Nick Bostrum, 1999. For me post humanism is a state of “enlightenment” which is an equivalent of “Nirvana” in Buddhism and is completely free of ignorance. I strongly feel post humanism is the final and mature stage with solutions after approaching practical problems through active experimentation, reflective observation and inquiry [Kolb (2003) about experiential learning]. Study based on experiences like role plays, volunteering, community projects etc are suited to lifelong learning and it helps to solve real word problems by reflecting on these experiences. Post human pedagogy is based on lifelong learning concept (Edwards 2010) and its potential in producing a higher level of thought, better problem identification and better problem solving. Cognitive based approaches which include collaborative discussions, case study analysis, quizzes, mind mapping etc help to develop rigorous thinking and critical analysis. Support of technology mediated learning helps to learn in a reflective setting and to cross threshold and overcome troublesome knowledge as Bayne (2010) mentions. So this is a post human pedagogy of technological experiments with bodily experiences. My essay topic is based on virtual community and I had some preliminary discussions with my tutor and more discussions will undergo next week.

POST HUMAN PEDAGOGY- Based on Problem Based Learning (Hybrid of EXPERIENTIAL  and COGNITIVE  approaches) for COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT and KNOWLEDGE  CONSTRUCTION.

 RATIONALE BEHIND THE DECISION

“Post Human condition end of Life Long Learning ” ( Edwards 2010)

“Lifelong learning is an intervention to beat challenges, reduce unpredictability and uncertainty among humans on a lifelong basis”( Edwards 2010)

“A pedagogy of lifelong learning is a pedagogy of Critical thinking” (Hinchliffe 2006)

“Cognitive skills like critical thinking refers to the cognitive based approach, and its objective is to develop a thinking process capable of producing a higher level of thought, expressed in more rigorous analysis and argument, better problem identification and better problem solving” (Toohey 1999)

“Study based on experience is a continuous process. It refers to experiential or personal relevance approach, which helps the learner to perform a task, solve a problem or live in a more satisfying way, and the learning experiences are organised around life situations rather than according to subject matter units” (Toohey 1999)

“From a pedagogical perspective, communication facilities for discussion and argument through technology-mediated learning and collaborative learning enable the learners to articulate their ideas and learn in a reflective setting” (Oliver and Herrington 2003).

“Multiple synchronicities of online communication help to overcome the threshold caused by the ‘troublesome’ areas of curriculum” (Bayne 2010)

 Just to share

Imagining this as a constructivist approach to overcome troublesome knowledge and  attain posthumanism?

The main focus of week nine was Haraway’s reading on “CYBORG MANIFESTO”. Haraway presents CYBORG as a cultural icon with the possibility of eradicating gender difference .I does support Haraways view of seeing CYBORG as genderless as is a hybrid of man/animal and Machine which is produced outside the natural rules of reproduction. According to Haraway, CYBORG is a radical object which challenges typical patriarchal values and social morals. I could also see the dehumanising side of CYBORG when an organism is coupled with machine and this is what Haraway says modern machine is full of cyborgs each conceived as coded device. Though I could see some closeness between Hayle’s POSTHUMAN and Haraway’s conception of the CYBORG, I can’t support this idea simply because POSTHUMAN emphasises cognition over embodiment and is a self information processing device by enhanced intelligence to enjoy the fulfilling life of a cosmic mind and the result is a Humanity Plus (H+) . Haraway sees CYBORG as a pleasure in breaching the boundaries between MAN and ANIMAL, MAN and MACHINE,PHYSICAL and NON PHYSICAL or VIRTUAL, but a responsibility in its construction. 

I tried to demonstrate my knowledge from this reading by blogging through texts, pictures and a video. I have also tweeted a You Tube video based on the theme of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”. This presentation questions why humankind allowed the birth of CYBORG with dualisms of two previous species and a blend of all their binaries and sees this new entity as a destruction of mankind.

This week I really find it hard in abstracting information from Hayles (2006), Hayles (1999) and Shields (2006) readings and conceiving separately that information from that print medium and pureeing it in my brain (Hayles,1999). Though there is some common ground in Hayles (1999) and Hayles (2006), I find the information from  Shields (2006) quite clashing regarding what CYBORG and POSTHUMAN means-seeing POSTHUMAN as an extension of CYBORG. 

As I mentioned in the collaborative Wall Wisher, I feel CYBORG (less human -a hybrid of man –machine and emotionless) and POST HUMAN (with enhanced physical, intellectual and psychological capacities without the influence of aging- a cosmic appearance) are pre and post extremes of HUMAN.I don’t find pleasing about what Shields say of POSTHUMAN as a continuation and further development of CYBORG, instead I feel POSTHUMAN as a continuation and further development of HUMAN. For me CYBORG is something frightening (Devil) and POSTHUMAN has a saviour status (GOD). 

 “Information viewed as pattern and not tied to a particular instantiation is information free to travel across time and space”, “Information is increasingly perceived as interpenetrating material form”, “Perceiving information as mobile” (Hayles,1999) etc also are the principles of e-learning. I find it quite fascinating when Hales (1999) mentions CYBORG in a more general sense of technological interfacing. Can we say that when we do e-learning, we are interacting with a CYBORG, some thing less human ? 

This week I have also tweeted two you tube videos based on CYBORG and TRANSHUMAN themes.

WEEK 8 and WEEK 9 READINGS

CYBORG AND POSTHUMAN-DIFFERENCES

                                                                                                                                                    CYBORGS-A hybrid identity which is less than human,frightening and emotionless or with negative emotions like pride,anger etc.

POST HUMAN-Enjoying the fulfilling life of a cosmic mind by overcoming age and death through technological advancement.

Cyborg according to Hayles (2006) reading

• The Cyborg can’t resist or co-opt because it is not networked enough.
• Human body modified with cybermechanical device is a Cyborg.

Posthuman according to Hayles (2006) reading

• An informational pattern that happens to be an abstract concept in a biological substrate.
• An accurate view of cognition as embodied throughout human flesh and extended into the social and technological environment.

CYBORG AND POSTHUMAN from Hayles (1999) reading

• CYBORGS are relevant because they exist; not only in the case of people with implants ranging from pacemakers to artificial hips and more, but also in a more general sense of technological interfacing.
• CYBORG as technological artefact and cultural icon
• POSTHUMAN is a continuation and further development of CYBORG.
• POSTHUMAN is based on four premises; information over matter, consciousness as epiphenomenon, the body as the original prosthesis, and that the human being can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines.
• POSTHUMAN is the union of human with the intelligent machine.

  CYBORG from Shields(2006) readings

CYBORG AND POSTHUMAN are the same?

• CYBORG as a surrogate self for the disoriented feminist or social scientist. 
• CYBORG is a science fiction literary device that encapsulates truths of genetic space.
• A CYBORG body is not innocent.
• CYBORGS are both a writerly device and a molecular or smaller scale biotechnical idiom.
• Examples of CYBORG functioning-regrowing organs, replacing body parts, manipulating stem cells etc.
• The CYBORG is neither software not hardware but sub-molecular ‘wetware’ (Doyle 2003.
• In a CYBORG analysis, any objects, spaces or bodies can be interfaced with any other if the proper standard, the proper code can be constructed.
• The CYBORG as stimulation is a quasi body.
• CYBORG analysis suggests the body as a lived site and surface and it suggests processes of regeneration than rebirth.

Haraway (2007) reading-Week 9

CYBORG appears where HUMAN ANIMAL boundary is transgressed (Haraway,2007)

Coding Problem?

Dualism of MIND and BODY concept  in Haraway’s CYBORG myth which is a result of transgressed boundaries,potent fusions and dangerous possibilities.

Haraway present CYBORG in four different ways.

• A cybernetic organism
• A hybrid of machine and organism
• A creature of lived social reality
• A creature of fiction

According to Haraway “CYBORG is oppositional,utopian and completely without innocence”

A video with some bits of Haraways CYBORG MANIFESTO and more close to my view of the term “CYBORG”

 Week Ten readings.

My contemplation prior to the readings

NIRVANA- A posthuman condition after lifelong learning?

In the Dhammapada (Best known buddhist scripture), the Buddha says of Nirvana that it is “the highest happiness”, the happiness which is an enduring,transcendal happiness integral to the calmness attained through enlightenment or bodhi, rather than the happiness derived from impermanent things. The knowledge accompanying Nirvana is expressed through the word bodhi.

Is posthuman pedagogy an intersection of body and machine? If so Artifical intelligence based on Machine Learning can be considered as a Posthuman Pedagogy? Intelligence which is the central property of humans can be simulated by machines which produces AI? Can  e-learning be considered as a posthuman pedagogy?

Edwards (2010) from  my posthuman perspective.

The end of lifelong learning is a posthuman condition?

World of lifelong learning -A world of gathering things together,  responsible experimenting  and intervene with it. 

A posthuman status-The end of lifelong learning  reaches  the peak point of capability in doing things by meeting the intertwined epidemiological-ontological requirements .

“The more challenges and uncertainty in the world, the more one must learn” 

So lifelong learning is an intervention to beat challenges, reduce unpredictability and uncertainty among humans on a lifelong basis  and posthumanism is the end result . 

Bayne(2010) from my posthuman perspective.

Technologically mediated communication makes distant engagement with its pedagogies increasingly viable and desirable. Multiple synchronicities of online communication help to overcome the threshold caused by the ‘troublesome’ areas of curriculum. Eliminate ‘intellectual uncertainty’ through new ways of defining and rethinking contact. ‘Avatars’ represent a “re-embodiment” by scattering our bodies across the web which results in independence. So a positive ending which attains posthumanism.

The week for online ethnography

http://www.slideshare.net/isleworth/is-mashable-an-online-community

. Was busy with submitting my microethnographic project and commenting a few of my colleagues work.

My choice of study was a news weblog focusing on social networking web sites and Social Media- http://mashable.com/

 Why I choose this?  Simply because of its digital and social media touch. Though I submitted my project, I carry on visiting this site because I found it very informative and still enjoying the status of a lurker, may become a newbie, a neo or neophyte in the near future.

Preliminary objective of this study is to find out whether there is anything concrete in Mashable as (Rheingold 1999: 41 4) mentions to call this an online community. Then I made an assumption that I could list this site among online communities if one or more than one of activities like any argument or engagement of intellectual intercourse, commercial performance, knowledge exchange etc happens there from Rheingold’s list. I made this ethnographic performance by looking, by reading, by imaging and by imagining.

This project is a reflection of my understanding of Hine, C, (2000), Kozinets, Robert V. (2001), Bell (2001) and H Rheingold (1993).For data collection mainly I relied on text based contribution through postings and identifies the participants by visiting their profile from their personal websites or twitter. I spent one hour each day for exploring the site and a total of seven days. Based on the information delivered by the data I did a result analysis and came in to a conclusion that Mashable is a Geek online community with a diverse demography of devotees enjoying a status equilisation effect.

This week I finished the core reading Kozinets et.al. (2010) . I tried to reflect what I absorbed from this reading as blogs in textual and picture forms. Kozinets reading is about online culture. It discusses some major social changes and its effect on people’s everyday life with the communication and coordination possible through net worked computers. It is mentioned that compared to face to face communications, online communications suffer a reduction in social cues because of online medium’s limited capacity to produce voice, facial expressions, posture, body language, movement, touching and how features like emoticons, images, text based art  etc reduce these cues of affection, affiliation etc. This reading also  highlight the flattening of hierarchies in online communication as well as the role of anonymity and accessibility in creating a distinctive style of online interaction. This reading also distinguishes four different online community members:-Newbie’s-who has only a superficial and passing interest in online activity, Minglers- who have strong online social ties  but only superficial interest in online activity, Devotees-who have weak social ties online but strong interest and enthusiasm for the consumption activity in the online community, insiders-who have strong social ties as well as enthusiasm and aptitude in understanding core online consumption activity. Depending on the social relationships between members as well as their interaction with online consumption activity, Kozinets classifies online communities in to four-Cruising communities ,Bonding communities, Geeking communities and Building communities.

Hope to apply these knowledge in the micro ethnographic project.

This week I finished two core readings Bell (2009) and Hine (2000). I tried to demonstrate the knowledge from these two readings by blogging in textual and picture forms. I have tweeted links from you tube videos about online research, its difference with traditional research, it’s purpose, population and procedures as well as publication of online research results. I have tweeted an anthropological introduction to You Tube and  provide  a link to community map through Tumblr.

Bell’s reading is about a virtual community starting with traditional community , it’s features, various reasons for the birth of virtual communities, the difference and common ground between these two  communities, the prerequisites and characteristics of a virtual community ,the changes happening in various online communities from time to time etc. There was also a debate about whether cyberspace is a ‘solution’ to the problem of community or it make things worse.

Reading Hines gives some concrete idea about virtual ethnography. It tells us about various possibilities for travel and face to face interaction in virtual ethnography without making a physical field site visit. It also gives us an idea of how texts become meaningful in virtual ethnography when it is situated in a cultural context. There is also some discussion about the impact of competency in using internet on virtual ethnography for some deeper engagement and conversations which results in reflexivity. The role of hypertext and multimedia in virtual ethnography is also discussed in this reading . All these knowledge will really help me in the micro ethnographic project.