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The Democratic Experts

Downes makes an excellent distinction between becoming an expert and being appointed one. Expert bloggers uniquely achieve their standing without being annointed by one party or another. They achieve their standing by being read and by being quoted in other blogs.

In many respects, blogging is more democratic than any other institution that calls itself democratic. Sure, I have voted for Prime Ministers, but the all the candidates owe their positions to various powers both in and out of their respective parties. What I am really voting for is a collection of debts to various interests owed by each candidate.

Caesar’s King

Is blogger Ewan McIntosh really compromising his freedom by taking part in the Economist debates? I would say no.

It may be true, as Downes asserts, that “when you accept Caesar’s crown, you become Caesar’s king,” but, unlike writers for the Economist, Ewan McIntosh doesn’t owe his position to the Economist.

Last night, I read Stephen Downe’s reaction to the next Economist debate, about the impact of social networks on education, and was surprised by his rather vitriolic response.

Downes points to a couple of well-informed blog posts by Will Richardson and danah boyd as examples of better-informed opinions on the subject.

The Economist is Not a Education Jounal; It Shouldn’t be Held to those Standards

What Downes misses is that the Economist debates are for everyone, well Economist readers and others interested in the subject. These debates will reach more people from wider backgrounds than even the most popular education blog. Downes writes:

“I have been talking about social networks for a long time now - and you think it would be useful to go back to a question as simplistic and naive as whether they have a ‘positive impact’?”

A generalist news magazine can’t explore issues to the same degree as the experts in that issue. The Economist’s audience needs to start the debate at the beginning and not jump in at the point where the experts are. I don’t generally agree with the Economist’s politics, but I enjoy reading the magazine because it covers issues in greater depth than other publications while being accessible to non-expert readers.

There Are Experts and The Economist is the Place to Find Them

I find it rather ironic that Downes complains about the Economist’s “cult of ‘experts’” when, until now, I always presumed Downes to be a member of the cult of education experts. Isn’t Downes one of the academic elite in education? He writes:

“People who are taking part in this are very much promoting this political point - specifically, the point that ‘there are experts’ and that ‘publications’ like the Economist are the (privileged) place to find them.”

I absolutely agree with Downes’ point. There are experts and publications like the Economist are the privileged place to find them. And its a good thing too! I don’t want to waste my time sorting through every article on a subject I’m interested in. I like my information distilled.

There Are Experts and Stephen’s Web is the Place to Find Them

What is even more ironic is that Downes mostly just posts links to bloggers and interesting news articles without adding to the discussion. I don’t see how this is different from the Economist. He is like an editor who chooses which stories will interest his readers. There are experts and publications like Stephen’s Web are the privileged place to find them.

Wikipedia vs The Experts

The issues Downes raises neatly reflect the debate currently going over the value of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is completely open, but this openness discounts the value of expert opinions. New projects, like Citizendium and Google’s Knol, were created in response to this criticism to give expert opinions more weight.

What then is the value an expert opinion and who decides what makes an expert an expert?

The Internet has made this a very current question. It makes it easy for anyone to publish; it makes it easy for artists to show their work to a global audience; it makes it easy for musicians to do the same. But how is an art lover to find a piece of art that moves the art lover when the Internet is flooded with mediocre (or worse) artists? How do you find great music on the web? Great bloggers? Who separates the wheat from the chaff?

You decide who filters information for you. Following the recommendations of a blogger who you respect is no different from reading a magazine. If you like the choices that the editor makes, then you get the magazine; if you don’t like the choices, then you would be stupid to get it. Adding blogs to this environment only makes it richer, but that is not a reason to dismiss traditional media.

Governments and universities everywhere should compete to attract qualified students, regardless of nationality or residence.

Early voting is strongly in favour of the proposition by about 2 to 1.

The pro-side mostly argues that international students pay more than other students resulting in a financial windfall for the institution, and the mixing of cultures is beneficial to international and local students.

The con-side mostly worries that the students will stay and steal high-paying jobs from locals, or take their skills back home and use them to out-compete locals, or that the focus should be on educating their constituents.

I would argue that there is a very real economic benefit for all parties when knowledge is shared.

The work on Ask Olli is an example of the benefits of sharing knowledge. The programmer who did most of the work is Polish. Programmers are in high demand and command a healthy salary, and this programmer was no different.

Should I be resentful because he put in the effort to learn a difficult and in-demand skill. No. Actually, I should be greatful because, as expensive as the programming was, the programming would have been even more expensive, beyond my reach, if countries like Canada, the US, and Britain drove away away foreign students. Without foreign students staying and taking these jobs, the demand for programmers would far outstrip the supply.

What about people taking those skills abroad? I could have very easily hired a group of India-based programmers to save some money. As it was, I was able to work with someone locally, but cheaper, foreign-based programmers make the skills more accessible to people like myself.

The point is that everyone benefits from the spread of knowledge because it makes that knowledge more accessible to everyone. Without foreign-born engineers, scientists doctors, and programmers, domestic and world economies would not function.

• pedagogy must be improved; and
• schools should recognise qualifications and experience and pay accordingly.

While the article is about English education in Korea, I know from my experience teaching in Japan that the dialogue between the author and the readers taking place in the comments is relevant to English education in Japan and, I would presume, other countries.

In my opinion, Sabio’s suggestions for improving pedagogy, although well-intentioned, aren’t realistic propositions, at least in Japan where I taught for six years. Sabio argues that Korean English teachers need to focus more on teaching English as it is used—specifically, teaching communication. In schools, however, students learn a lot of grammar translation which doesn’t help them when they need to communicate while away on holidays or business.

I would say too that Japanese English teachers would better serve their students if they could focus more on communication. However, there is a very good reason why this isn’t practical in Japan. There is simply too much demand for English teachers and English speakers in the workforce.

Someone with strong English skills can probably make more money in another field so this instantly removes many of the strongest candidates from the teacher pool. This leaves us with too many teaching jobs and not enough qualified candidates with strong English skills. As a result, many teachers have to stick to teaching grammar because they are comfortable teaching grammar and know their communication skills aren’t strong enough to serve their students.

Private and Public school administators, and the teachers themselves, know this is a problem and have a simple solution: hire native English speakers to teach. The problem with hiring all these native English speakers, again, is too many teaching jobs and not enough qualified candidates.

I will use myself as an example, although I know many others who have had similar experiences. When I first started teaching in a Japanese juku (cram school) my pedagogy was limited to an advanced TESOL certificate (a one-week intensive course, for the basic TESOL certificate they just check your pulse). I had a minimum of pedagogical training and many years experience coaching swimming and water-polo, which is more than many English teachers have when they start, but it took a few months before I was really able to properly serve my students. I did learn to be at least an adequate English teacher. But I don’t think it was really fair to my students that first year who had to suffer through my mistakes as I grasped the ins and outs of teaching English.

For many native English teachers working abroad, teaching is a short-term job: graduate from college, go abroad, and get paid. These people aren’t going to have a strong pedagogical background as long as the global demand for native English speaking teachers remains high.

The difficulties finding good teachers goes beyond experience and education. Some inexperienced and undereducated teachers will still be passionate about teaching and dedicated to their students and have plenty to give their students in spite of their lack of experience and education. However, as long as the demand for native English teachers is greater than their supply, there will also be exceedingly poor teachers who bring themselves, their countries, and their professions in to disrepute.

This is a Catch 22 situation. Many Japanese English teachers won’t be able to teach English conversation better until they learn English conversation. For that to happen, they need better English conversation teachers (native English teachers) which they won’t get because there is too high a demand for native English teachers.

There is at least one thing that might help improve the situation. The Japanese English teachers will almost always be more constant, more involved in the long-term progress of their students. On average they also have a much higher level of pedagogical education. Learning how to effectively use and manage inexperienced native English teachers with little or no pedagogical background should be an essential part of the non-native English teacher’s pedagogical education until such a time as inexperienced and undereducated English teachers are no longer needed.

These inexperienced and undereducated English teachers are an unfortunate necessity. Until, through experience and education, they become worthy teachers, they should be used as tools in the classroom; they need to be guided to most benefit students and it is their Japanese colleagues who are best positioned to guide them.

But, magistrate, I was only curious, only looking around. I didn’t realise that I was entering a forbidden zone. Besides, there were signs inviting visitors to look around. I’m sorry…

Silence, worm. The Law belongs to everyone. Your ignorance betrays a contempt for The Law and everyone who is governed by it. You’re guilty.

Well, it wasn’t really that bad, but I’m sure they could implement a friendlier way to keep people out of places they shouldn’t be.
Friendly: Repeat “Sorry, No Entry” hundreds of times across the screen in a tight grid.

Friendlier: Repeat “Sorry, No Entry” just once.

There are a number of real-world models that could be used. The door, for example, is a lot nicer way to keep people out than the electrified grid. Nobody likes finding a locked door blocking their way, but it is accepted that the locked door means no entry, at least for now. We aren’t shocked to find a locked door the way we are shocked to find an electrified orange grid light up and repel our advance.

But a door only keeps people out of buildings, if you want to keep people out of some land, you use a fence. It’s not fun to find a fence barring our way, but it is still a much more acceptable barrier than the electric orange grid.

If the barrier has to be fearsome, does it have to be a reminder that, while technology has progressed a lot, our imaginations haven’t progressed at all beyond Tron. The electrified grid has to be one of the cheesiest science fiction clichés and I’m hugely disappointed that the most popular virtual world implements this cliché in the world.

Maybe the programmers could look to the past instead of science fiction. Something like the guardians that protect the gates to Buddhist temples would be a lot more imaginative. It wouldn’t be difficult to animate the guardians to block the way of anyone who is not authorised to pass. The barrier would be scary. And it wouldn’t be clichéd and might actually be fun and educational.

If you are going to the trouble of animating guardians, you might as well give people the ability choose their form. Wouldn’t it be fun and campy to have your way blocked by a pair of giant Hello Kitties. I’m sure others would come up with all sorts of fun and inventive ways of blocking entry if they were only given the opportunity.

Sure, I may have been guilty of violating The Law, but being clichéd and unimaginative is also a violation.

The people at Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, anticipated that people might need help finding things to do and added a powerful search feature to the Second Life client software. Users can search by different parameters, very much like the Search feature on Ask Olli, making it easy to narrow your search. The Search window has Classifieds, Events, Popular Places, Land Sales, Places, People, and Group tabs. You can search for the items listed in each of these tabs further subdivided by categories like Discussions, Sports, Live Music, Commercial, Nightlife/Entertainment, Games/Contests, Pageants, Education, Arts and Culture, and Charities/Support Groups.

So, I decided to look for some Events. I selected the “Events” tab and had a look at the different categories. The Live Music category caught my eye as being the most interesting.

I quickly found at least a dozen concerts with guitar and vocals one-person shows and DJ’s being most represented. I checked out several artists, including Phoenix Fisseux and Blue Maverick, among others. The concerts were reasonably well attended with about two-dozen avatars at each concert. The performers clearly knew most of the avatars in attendance and put on a good show.

I was surprised at how many avatars were dancing at the concerts. The music wasn’t exactly dance-friendly either. Ironically, one of the video tutorials that I tried and gave up on before actually signing up for Second Life was about dancing. Dancing is basically done by programming a series of moves before-hand and then stringing your programmed moves together or setting them on repeat. While it looks pretty cool at first, the effect gets lost when you realise that the dancers aren’t synchronised to the music (technically very difficult) and that the dancers keep dancing while the singer is talking between songs. I quickly tired of the visual aspects of the performances and often, as is the case now, left the music in the background while doing other things on the computer.

I enjoyed the musical performances but, since I tired of the visual aspects at the performance, they became little more than glorified internet radio. The social aspect is, no doubt, very important and, being the stranger in the room, not something that I can fairly say I experienced. I am a live music nut and there’s a social aspect to live music that I enjoy. Second Life is convenient because you don’t have to leave your house. It also lets you hear musicians from all over the world, but in, Vancouver, where I live, there are plenty of great musicians covering virtually every style, so this isn’t so important to me.

I look at the other categories and can’t really see myself getting in to them anymore than music. I don’t see myself becoming a Second Life regular, but I gave it a try. What remains to be done is the big job: finding out about the different places in Second Life where you can learn languages, seeing how they are taught, and discovering the advantages of learning in Second Life.

I signed in and was taken straight away to Orientation Island. The people at Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, were very thoughtful to create an island with tutorials, in English, Japanese, and Korean, for new visitors. There are four areas on Orientation island devoted to learning how to do different things in Second Life: communicate, search, move, and editing your appearance. The grammarian in me wants to see consistent titles (communicate, search, move and, edit your appearance or communicating, searching, moving, and editing your appearance), but the tutorials do a good job of helping learn the basics of Second Life.

I was greeted on my first visit by a naked avatar who ran around Orientation Island saying hello to all the newbies like myself. I don’t know what this person was trying to prove; it wasn’t particularly funny, clever, or shocking. The avatar just moved around Orientation Island, walking up to other avatars trying to get through the tutorials, and said hello, naked.

Aside from the juvenile distraction, the tutorials were mostly pretty straightforward. They stuck to the basics and made Second Life seem simple and manageable, unlike the online tutorials that I tried first. I think this is quite a feat considering how much you can do on Second Life. I would have liked to learn more about Inventory. In particular, I would have liked to have learned more about the difference between My Inventory and the Library because they seem to do much of the same things. Still, considering how easy it would be to overwhelm beginners, Linden Lab did an excellent job of communicating the basics.

There are still a lot of things that I could learn, but I feel confident enough to start exploring Second Life.