What I sent to our vice provost

One of the reasons I enjoy my work is because I am often challenged to think.  That's a good thing.  So, having been challenged (asked) by our new vice provost for distance education about my objection to the use of "innovative technology" to describe our distance education strategy, I took some time to consider my objection:

There's a reason I am not in marketing, despite having been assured many times that I'd be "perfect" in that role.  I can understand why people might think I'd be a fit for marketing, when the reality is that I am a questioner, a challenger, and, when I believe in something, a persuader.  Marketing tends to be selling the sizzle, creating the buzz, etc.  It's important and brands are built that way, but it's not what I do best.  

Unless I'm overlooking something (or it's somewhere on campus that I haven't been), my university is behind in our pursuit of quality distance education.  That's actually the good news, because the innovators take the risks, make the mistakes, and blaze the path.  It's the ones who come later (second movers or those who adapt to survive) who can learn from the mistakes and offer a better product.  

I don't see innovative technology on our campus.  We have some of the basics (Blackboard, Skype, some pockets of other technologies, etc.) and some very large holes that even the two-year colleges within our system have filled better than we have.  So, from my perspective, only a marketer could describe our technology as innovative and cutting edge.  

But what we DO have are innovative ideas, innovative people, and a system-wide spirit of innovation to address the opportunity and challenge of the things you've articulated very well (below).  What I'd like to see us do is not simply copy or play catch-up with others in this space, but to step back, start without any pre-conceived ideas, and see what possible solutions our innovation can provide.  Innovative solutions.

One example:  Our system does not function as a system, but as disparate and, sometimes, competing entities.  That wouldn't matter, perhaps, except that the big losers are the students we are trying to serve.  If I am a student (traditional college age or older student who is seeking a college degree later in life), the system is a morass of conflicting and confusing offerings.  If I am fortunate enough to find one of the two-year colleges who offer me a mostly (or fully) distance/online schedule and I work diligently to gain my associates degree, then what?  The majority of the distance/online offerings at my campus are graduate degrees, which are of no use to me at all until/unless I complete two more years of online offerings (which could be blended and include some monthly or weekly sessions at my local high school or library).  Where in the system can I find the solution to my problem?  And why is that not one of the questions we are addressing?

Medici at the improv

Focus. I admire focus.  Occasionally, I emulate focus.  Far more often, though, my mind flits or races in seemingly random ways, seeing intersections that beckon and distract.  The cost to my ability to stay on track and complete something (anything) is high, but the benefit to my imagination and curiosity is equally high.  And I've been willing to pay the price, largely because I can't seem to function any other way.

So imagine how much fun it is to hear "I have a book for you"...and find that seeing intersections and asking lost of questions is the subject of the book called The Medici Effect.  Part of the appeal of the book is the historical linkage to the Medici family and their influence in making Florence the culture center of Europe around the time of the Renaissance.

Perhaps The Medici Effect explains why I recently sign up for improvisational comedy classes.  That explanation works as well as any other.

6 + 7 = 22

It's all a story, whether we tell the story with numbers, movement, paint, notes, or words. History, philosophy, genealogy.  We make meaning of our lives through stories, our own and those of others.  We laugh, we cry, we learn from stories.

College students take exception when they hear that there are only seven stories in the world, believing--as every generation believes, despite irrefutable evidence--that they are masters of their unique destinies.  One can't blame them, really, as we no longer put much emphasis on the study of Aristotle's seven characteristics of tragedy or its six component parts.  Nor are we avid readers of Christopher Booker's tome on the seven basic plots and why we feel the need to (re)tell them.

But if one is patient, reasonably informed, and willing to find the teaching moment, the Pixar generation will offer 22 "story basics" to confirm that nothing is really new, from Aristotle's view of the world in about 350 BC to the coolest, hippest storytellers of 2012.  

It sums beautifully.

Creative destruction

What is the tipping point that determines when one thing (a wall or a tree, for example) should be destroyed to make room for another, presumably better, thing?  How do we know?  How do we decide?  And who gets to make the decisions?

Today, I can see--and hear--the removal of the top layer of a brick wall, brick by brick. The construction fences, scaffolding, and machinery disrupt the flow of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, as the noise disrupts the flow of thought.  Large swaths of trees, pavement, and buildings are disappearing to make way for something else.

Yes, there is the need for change and progress.  I teach these topics, so I know these things.  I know that backing up is sometimes necessary to go forward, that disruptive technology can also destroy, and that loss accompanies all growth.  But there is a part of me that mourns the loss of a majestic tree and questions the removal (at some unknown cost for man and machine) of a perfectly good wall.

The changes I initiate (and support) should make sense to me.  And the others?  The ones I don't initiate?  They should make sense to someone...

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.  -- George Bernard Shaw

The magic of technology

Technology has magical properties. It exists without benefit of human effort, performs without human oversight, does not take up physical space...and it's free!  Wow!  

Last semester, when asked what might have prevented or minimized the industrial tragedy at Bhopal, one of my students wrote:

One other large mistake...was the fact that they depended on manual operations.  It is much more likely for a human to make mistakes than a machine.  All they had to do was spend a little extra money on quality technology that will make sure things are done correctly.

Just this past week, I asked a group of students why unlimited data plans had been scrutinized so carefully by service providers and why, with few exceptions, the prices for these plans have risen steeply.  The immediate and emphatic answer:  "Because they just want to make more money.  It doesn't cost them anything." 

Survey any group--whether high school students, college students, or working professionals--to define 'the cloud' and few will be able to explain the linkage of physical entities (servers, cables, routers, databases, etc.) responsible for the magic we see on our screens of choice.  And if we can't understand the physical entities required to provide the magic we call technology, we will be oblivious to the environmental impact (yes, there is one) of the very real data centers required for the existence of the invisible cloud.  

Technology cannot exist or function without human creation, human intervention, and human maintenance.  The tragedy-behind-the-tragedy at Bhopal is that there were technology safeguards in place to prevent and/or minimize the potential negative impact to people--but the human intervention required for maintenance and monitoring did not allow the technology to function as it was designed.  

Bandwidth (another magical concept) is a physical entity with a dollar cost; so, too, the 'server farms' required to deliver the computing speed to which we seem to feel entitled. I'm not bemoaning the proliferation of technology (at least not in this post) but the proliferation of illusion:

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. -- Stephen Hawking

News that isn't

Yikes.  I know it's not a particularly professional response to what I'm reading this morning, but it's honest.  I guess I could go with 'wow' or 'how frustratingly short-sighted,' but I think I'll stick with the mono-syllabic expression of shock and alarm that preserves the element of humor.  A bit of humor and a strong dose of get-a-grip seems helpful when reading that tools can do some things better than people (gasp!) and how that's all well and good right up until the trite we-can't-let-machines-replace-us fear is invoked.  

It may be the slightest bit hypocritical and/or short-sighted to be thankful for a hammer (which works far better than the heel of my shoe...) or a screwdriver (try using fingernails...it's not pretty) and bemoan tools that specifically--and selectively--affect my own profession.  What has me a bit ruffled this morning is the NPR article which opens with this paragraph:

Computers have been grading multiple-choice test in schools for years.  To the relief of English teachers everywhere, essays have been tougher to gauge.  But look out, teachers:  A new study finds that software designed to automatically read and grade essays can do as good a job as humans--maybe even better.

It doesn't get a lot better from there, as the NPR article continues to sound the alarm about the tool, how students might game the tool, and the danger(s) of using the tool to replace both good teaching and good teachers.  Credibility is lent to the NPR article through judicious quotes from (with requisite links to) a New York Times article about a study conducted at the University of Akron.

The scary part is this:  The NPR story was largely based on an interview with the author of the New York Times article.  But only the reader (not the listener..) who takes the time to read the NPR article, follow the links to the New York Times article, and then follow those links to the original source will find this:

Shermis, the lead author of the Akron study, says thrift-minded administrators and politician should not take his results as ammunition in a crusade to replace composition instructors with...robots.  Ideally, educators at all levels would use the software 'as a supplement for overworked [instructors of] entry-level writing courses, where students are really learning fundamental writing skills and can use all the feedback they can get.' "

At this point, I have so many browser windows open (love this tool!) that I'm having a bit of trouble keeping them in the order that makes sense to me.  But by now I also have access (because of this amazing tool...) to the original study conducted at the University of Akron.

I can read the study for myself and draw my own conclusions, conclusions which are likely to be far more similar to those of the lead author than those of the NPR writer who does not quote or reference the original work--at all.  Yikes.

Fluffy reads

I'm trying to keep an open mind about virtual books and to listen respectfully to those with whom I disagree.  All too willing to accept that my preference for books (the ones with actual paper in them) may be rooted in emotion or history, I've been pretty quiet about those preferences.  Until now.

While reading levels of American high school students continue to fall, it's time to ask when we accepted the fallacy that reading is supposed to be easy and fun.  Light reading for pleasure while on holiday, sure.  But all reading?  I don't think so.

The best writing (of the caliber of Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, Socrates, or Homer) is intended to challenge the reader, to make the reader think, to force the reader to The Oxford English Dictionary or another study aid, or to require the reader to tackle a paragraph s-l-o-w-l-y one or more times before the dense text becomes clear.  Great writing takes work, both for the author and for the reader.  And it's not the kind of work that lends itself to handy electronic devices far better suited for popular contemporary fiction.

Most American high school and college students write poorly, largely because they read poorly.  And the need for curriculum to develop 'critical thinking' would be diminished, if not eliminated, by requiring students to read prose and poetry above their grade level, grapple with the complexity of what they are reading, and explain the meaning--in writing. That's critical thinking.  The critical thinking employers want.  And learning to read Dante well helps with reading--and writing--case law, historical documents, philosophy, learning objectives, short stories, instructional manuals, position papers, and annual reports.

Consider, for example, Bram Stoker's Dracula, which can be read here courtesy of Project Gutenberg.  Written in 1897, Dracula could be considered 'light' reading of that era.  The writing style, the historical references, and the cultural differences illustrated by the narrative are what make Dracula harder to read in 2012 than it was in 1897.  And those are exactly the reasons for students to read Dracula rather than--or, at a minimum, in addition to--one of the plethora of current teen best sellers.  If students aren't able to grapple with adventure writing from 1897, what are their chances of understanding philosophy from 400 B.C. or poetry from the 16th century?

What we seem to want is the reading and learning equivalent of cotton candy.