Zone of Proximal Development | Writing to learn and learning about learning.

Tim O’Reilly has issued a Call for a Blogger’s Code of Conduct. The way I read it, it sounds like a framework for a posting license agreement. There are many blogs that already explicitly state their posting guidelines. Posting to them is subject to their terms. Anyone can offer a posting, but it must meet the guidelines or it will be sent to the bit-bucket. Pretty straight forward. But where it gets interesting is for the blog authors. What are the T&Cs for being a blog author? Currently, there are none. Anyone can start a blog on any topic and say anything, or nothing. That’s great and immensely powerful. But, with great power comes great responsibility. Uncle Ben had it right, and that’s why even though one can say anything, there are some things that are better left unsaid. It’s the responsible thing to do. It takes a certain amount of maturity to see that and exercise the necessary restraint.

So, what should be done? Require a maturity test prior being given a blogging permit? It’s tempting, but unworkable. So is every other type of restriction. The ease of publishing is both the strength and weakness of the blogging milieu. It seems it’s one we are going to have to live with. Will blogs die like usenet did, under the weight of spam and abuse? I don’t think so. The primary difference is a blog has an owner, someone responsible for its content. The vase majority of usenet groups did not. With no one accountable, few were inclined to step up and enforce a posting standard where none had been before. Coordinated feedback mechanisms were subject to the same problem as the usenet groups. With blogs it’s different. There are many blogs where discussions can be held. Those that create a supportive environment for discussion will thrive on the discussion. Those that don’t I expect will vanish under the weight of their own conflict.

But the real reason I think we (collectively) will succeed is because we have come this far. We have built societies on shared values that endure. Those values are now being defended and expected on the web. The more blogs promote them and defend them, the more normal they will appear and the more they will be expected. We can no more eliminate undesirable behaviour on blogs, or the internet in general, than we can in real life. After all, the internet is comprised of people and as such is going to be a reflection of the people who use it. For good or ill. Large communities, like towns and cities reflect their occupants too. So I expect it will be with the internet.
I mentioned above that some blogs already have posting guidelines. This isn’t one of them, yet. I will be adding some soon.

update: there are now posting guidelines.

Over on Creating Passionate Users there is an intense discussion taking place. Kathy, CPU’s maintainer, received a particularly noxious series of notes and images. Calling them depraved is being charitable. No one should be subjected to that kind of abuse. Fortunately, a great many people agree with that sentiment. Unfortunately, there are some who just don’t get it. It’s amazing to me that some people make it out of elementary school and don’t understand, or don’t care, about the damage words and images can do.

You need training and a license to drive a car unsupervised because they are dangerous and you could hurt yourself, or someone else. So how far away are we from requiring a courtesy test to obtain a license before being allowed to use the internet? People are getting hurt.

The SFU Educational Review is a project I’ve been working on with Johanne Provençal and Susan Barber. Johanne is the project director, Susan is the editor and I’m the web developer/designer. We have just published the first issue. The intent is that this journal will be published annually featuring the work of the SFU’s education graduate students. The big hope is that it will become a model that other departments will follow.
Our thanks to Dean Shaker, Director of Graduate Programs Tom O’Shea, the EGSA and the other project sponsors and supporters for making this possible.

Here are some papers I’ve written and presentations I’ve given. This will provide some orientation on what I’ve been thinking and doing.

Usability Testing Virtual Margins, poster

I presented this poster at the Education Department’s open house as part of SFU’s 40^th anniversary in June 2006.

Usability Testing Virtual Margins, Thesis Proposal

When I started the Education and Technology Masters program, I didn’t intend to do a thesis. But as they say, I identified a gap in the literature where I think I can contribute. This paper outlines my starting point.

Usability Testing Virtual Margins

I presented this paper at IKIT in Toronto in August 2005.

Reflective Portfolio Essay

This is an essay describing my changes in understanding concerning Functions and Methods of Research on Learning, Roles of Technology in Education, Nature of Teaching and Learning, and my ability to Design and Evaluate Curricula, Tools, Systems or Practices That Incorporate Technology. It was used as an exemplar for subsequent cohorts.

Reflective Portfolio Presentation

In conjunction with the portfolio essay, we had to do a 15 minute presentation. Instead of a monologue, I initiated a series of dialogs based on a set of quotations. During the program we used a couple of different web based communications forums. I made it a habit to end my postings with a relevant quotation. It seemed fitting to end my coursework with a selection of those quotations and have the group interpret them.

Designing a 3^rd Generation Knowledge Building Tool

I wrote this paper for EDUC 853. It was here that I came up with the virtual margin idea.

The Educational Tradition of Anchored Instruction

The first major paper I wrote in my program. It was used as an exemplar for subsequent cohorts.

Slashdot, one of the oldest news sites, is having a contest to redesign their site. Here is my entry for the contest. First a couple of notes about it:

• XHTML 1.0 Strict validates cleanly,
• retains the top left curve and Coliseo font
• new presentation, yet echos the original design (still looks like Slashdot)
• header & logo are echoed in the article intro presentations
• renders properly in Firefox, Safari, Opera, Camino (IE, probably not so much)
• the # mark in the logo: it can refer to the unix root prompt, C#, music or telephony, all nerd interests
• narrower columns are easier to scan than wider ones
• sixteen articles in two columns of eight, nerd numbers if ever there were any
• topic icons light up on mouse over
• poll choice can be made by clicking the text next to the desired radio button (Fitt’s Law)
• the expanding/contracting menu on the right requires JavaScript to work
• the toggle JS routine has a commented out call to update the user’s profile, the idea is that when a user is logged in, each time a slashbox is opened or closed, the change of state would be sent back to the server and recorded in the person’s profile. Next time the page is requested, it would render the way the person last saw it. for example the login box (see next point)
• note that the login box is closed, this is done simply by having it inherit from two classes: content and closed, and having the title box’s class assigned appropriately, this should be easy to add on the server side
• no tables were harmed in making this layout
• enjoy

My redesign can be seen here: http://slashdot.stormlantern.ca/ if you’re using IE and it the redesign looks messed up, it is supposed to look like this.

Yesterday I had lunch seminar at the Diamond Alumni Centre at SFU. The occasion was Douglas Todd was speaking on “Raising Tough Spiritual and Ethical Issues in the Classroom.” He covered a broad range of issues centred around what he called the moral collapse of the university. A couple of introductory points he touched on were disintegrating rationaliztion, training for technique based jobs, no opportunity to ask the deeper questions and so losing the “heart” of interdisciplinary education. He posits that students should be taught values and meaning so they develop moral reasoning and ethical maturity. What students are learning is “errant objectivity”. Pure objectivity is impossible, so he suggests pragmatic objectivity instead. Pragmatic objectivity is characterized by fair, accurate and balanced assessment. Which sounds fine, but who decides what is fair, how is fair decided? The accuracy of statements in an ethical conflict can be hard to pin down. Who can argue with balanced, but who calibrates the scale?

Douglass offered three suggestions for handling ethical conflicts:

1. focus on people in their situation, respect their humanity and avoid generalizations
2. avoid sweeping conclusions based on few events, back up statements with data
3. let people speak in their own voice, dissenters are worth talking to

One point he made, that he attributed to someone named Taylor, was that everyone is a member of one minority group or another. That’s an interesting thought. I’m not sure what to make of it.

A point he made that I readily agree with is that stereotypes silence dialog. One of his objectives is to keep people at the table of dialog. That’s certainly a worthy goal. He believes that everyone is worthy of respect but no one is above criticism. He coined the term ethical imperfectionism to convey the idea that all of us are imperfect, yet we should keep on trying.

After Douglas’ talk two education faculty members spoke for about 5 minutes each in response. This was followed by a question and answer period. Near the end of the discussion someone (I regret I didn’t catch who) said “the ultimate expression of humanity is spirituality.” I’d turn that around and say that the manifestation of one’s spirituality is in one’s humanity. Marela Dichupa asked the question “Do we assume at the end of the day we will have consensus?” Douglas’ response was no, we shouldn’t assume that. I found that answer frustrating. I can see his point, but progress and relationships are built on concensus. I asked the question “If we don’t expect concensus, then what’s the point?” I think my frustration was showing a little bit. My sense of his response is that we should enter into discussions with the intent of concensus, but we shouldn’t expect that we will achieve it.

After the discussion, Paul Shaker, Dean of Education, spoke for about 10 minutes. I was very impressed with how easily and eloquently he described what was on his heart and mind concerning ethics in education. If I could speak half as well as he, I’d be pleased.

I recall that when I was in my early teens I went on a trip with my brothers and my mom to a large outdoor garden, probably in the Vancouver, BC area. The garden, which I’m sure was beautiful, wasn’t what had the biggest impact on me. What had the biggest impact was the comedian who was performing there. At the start of his act he described how to catch a kangaroo. Kangaroos, as you know, he said, are very unique creatures and can be quite tricky. You must be very clever to catch a kangaroo. But, he assured us, it can be done. The way you catch a kangaroo is unique up on it. (for the non-native english speakers, that’s a play on ‘you sneak’ up on it.)

What does that have to do with education? Well, creating a stimulating learning environment is like catching kangaroos. It’s kinda tricky and you can’t be obvious about what you’re doing. If you try to approach it in a straight forward obvious way, the stimulating learning environment just seems to wander off and find something else to do. The way to create a stimulating learning environment is unique up on it. It has to be custom tailed for the content, context and learners. All three, you don’t get to pick two  and call it good.

The context is the hardest of these to get right. You don’t usually get to choose who the learners are, and the content is generally prescribed too. So, context is what you have to work with. My particular interest is in computer supported learning environments. In my graduate studies I’ve used a few web based learning environments and played a  variety of educational games with my kids. It seems to me that the designers of these environments haven’t been catching many kangaroos. It’s a tough problem. One I want to understand better and make a contribution toward. I have some ideas I’ll share in future postings.

The Zone of Proximal Development…? What kind of bafflegab is that? The phrase embodies the idea that learning is a social process. In particular, it refers to the difference between what one can learn on one’s own as compared to what one can learn in conjunction with one’s peers or someone more experienced. This idea orginated with Lev Vygotsky. It was the subject of much discussion during my studies. You can find a short discription of it in the Wikipedia. For me, it provides a lucidly simple description of intellectual growth while at the same time having a depth of nuance that makes it useful beyond the naive interpretation.

So, that’s the context of my purpose here. By contributing my thoughts here, I’m helping others (I hope) and at the same time I am stretching the limits of my own development.

I’ve always had a distasteful association with schmoozing. It just felt wrong to appear interested in someone just so I could get something from him. And yeah, approached that way it’s usually pretty ineffective. So that’s the wrong way to go about it. It wasn’t until I read Guy Kawasaki’s posting on the Art of Schmoozing that I understood that I was looking at it the wrong way. Schmoozing isn’t about what you can do for me, but what I can do for you. That puts a completely different spin on it. A great many blogs seem to be vanity presses. Look at mes. I’ve never been comfortable with that kind of attention getting either. But schmoozing with Guy’s attitude, that is more my style. Here’s what I think I know, believe, think or found out. Maybe you’ll find it useful. Maybe there’s something I can help you with. Maybe you can point out a flaw in my thinking or something I’ve overlooked. Maybe we’ll just get to know each other, how bad can that be?

I’m a graduate student in the Masters of Education and Technology program at Simon Fraser University (the link is to the newly revised program). My particular interest is in computer mediated communications. Particularly as used in Knowledge Building. More on that later.

I’m also a web application architect for Premier Agendas. I wrote and support the site that allows customers to customize their planner and calendar orders.
So that’s a little about what I do and why I’m here. I’m glad to meet you.