Blog posts

As we've <a href="http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/06/web_making_us_worrie.html">noted</a> <a href="http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/09/too_much_too_young.html">several</a> <a href="http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/07/facebook_ate_my_psyc.html">times</a>, leading scientists or commentators can make international headlines by simply suggesting that new technology is harming the mind, brain and relationships of the modern citizen, despite a general lack of evidence or flat out evidence to the contrary.

So basically from what I can see there is no point in ever going below 32kbps as you’re gaining filesize and losing quality.

For neuroscience to mean something to teachers, it must provide information beyond what is available without neuroscientific methods. It’s not enough to describe what’s happening in the brain, and pretend that you’ve learned something useful.

In general, if you are interested in describing effects at a given level of analysis, you are most likely to make progress by sticking to that level of analysis. If you’re interested in describing ways that students learn best, it makes sense to study classroom situations. To the extent that neuroscience will inform good teaching practice, it seems most likely that this influence will be funneled through the cognitive level of analysis: For example, neuroscience will help us better understand memory, and this improved understanding of memory might be used to improve classroom practice. It’s unlikely that leapfrogging the cognitive level analysis and going straight from the brain to the classroom will work out very often.

This is why - I think unconsciously - so many academics and educators resist contemporary ICT so fiercely. Accepting these new technologies means that the advantages they were taught to prize in themselves - their study habits, their ability to focus, their willingness to depend on authoritative sources and to observe classroom rules - might prove to be their undoing. And the disadvantages they despised in others, ADHD for example, processing information via pictures instead of the abstraction of text as another, the disadvantages that have been labelled as pathological "disabilities," might prove to be advantageous in this new world.

That ADHD kid might be far better in front of multiple monitors with a dozen windows open and 15 tabs going in Firefox than the professor and former high school valedictorian who is really uncomfortable if a TV is on while she is reading. That Asperger's kid who processes images efficiently might be far better at analysing changing maps than the text-dependent historian.

I feel the same watching most classrooms, seeing most reading assignments, observing how assessments are conducted in educational institutions. Yes, that carriage is wonderful, but the cars will rush past it. Yes, that calligraphy is beautiful but you just spent six months creating a single book. Certainly, that bronze sword is beautiful but the steel weapon will cut it in half. Yes, you did wonderfully on the multiple-choice exam but I need people who can find information and develop new ideas, not repeat what I already know. Yes, you read that whole book, but I need to know the range of observations from these twelve sources around the globe.

<td width="18"><strong>1.</strong></td> <td width="96%"><strong>Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity</strong></td>

<td width="18"><strong>2.</strong></td> <td><strong>Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments</strong></td>

<td width="18"><strong>3.</strong></td> <td><strong>Model Digital-Age Work and Learning</strong></td>

<td width="18"><strong>4.</strong></td> <td><strong>Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility</strong></td>

<td width="18"><strong>5.</strong></td> <td><strong>Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership</strong></td>

<p><font face="VERDANA">Some of the key questions revolve around how culture is, or is not, experienced online: </font></p><p></p><ul> <font face="VERDANA"><li>Is it easier to work across cultures free from visuals cues, which tap into our prejudices? </li><li>Is it harder without visual cues so that we miss sensitive cultural cues? </li><li>Just how do we maximise the diversity and respect for cultures while tutoring online? </li></font></ul>

Because computer mediated communications is language (specifically, written word) dependant, it is subject to the constraints of low/high context cultural patterns <a href="#morse46">[46]</a>. As indicated earlier, the role of language is to carry meaning, and interpretation is an integral part of culture. Language is one means of establishing context among participants of a particular culture group. In low context cultures, language must be specific and well defined, to provide the contextual definition in which to interpret the communication. On the other hand, in a high context culture language may be vague, lacking the specificity of the low context culture, as the environment within which communication takes place clarifies the specific meaning of language <a href="#morse36">[36,</a> <a href="#morse41">41]</a>. Thus language plays a key role in the communication process. A key issue determining the success of computer mediated communication is the encoding/decoding by which that communication is done. Given that computer-mediated communication is a textual (electronic) rather than a visual (face-to-face) medium, meaning must be carried by the language itself rather than relying on the environmental context as the means of communication and/or interpretation. Given this relationship, because the language of communication is English, low context communication is presumed, thus perhaps disadvantaging those whose cultural background relies on high context communication.

Interestingly, low context participants concentrate on the participation environment, while high context participants concentrate on their individual work/effort and/or skills in the discussion.

Noticeably however, the responses indicate that cultural background directly influences the priority of perceived benefits received and challenges posed from the same asynchronous communication network. The perceptions are based on learning patterns which are developed as part of a participants’ ethnic/cultural development, and are potentially challenged by participation in an asynchronous communication network, which of itself is implicitly culturally based. Further, high context participants in an asynchronously delivered seminar, while assured of higher quality participation through an offline ability to infer meaning through low context communications, are at least initially more likely to be disadvantaged by technology differences as well as the communications norms implicit in their cultural background.