Crystal Li-chin Huang and Learning Technologies (Instructional System & Technology)

Revision of A Talk: Empowering Women through Education-3 Women's Stories from Taiwan at the International Panel of AAUW, Rapid City, South Dakota followed by the 被割割 episode

huangxena@yahoo.com — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:57:00 +0000

BBC news reported yesterday (Jan. 26, 2012) that a Pakistani woman was brutally cut off her nose and ears by two men due to being late to bring back water from the well site. This unbearable event reminds me of a talk that I gave about nine years ago. I revised a little bit (when I first wrote it, I used the "present tense" relating to my mother, which needs to be changed into past tense, for my mother passed away in 2005) and re-posted here to share with you.

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Dear Friends of AAUW,

First of all, I would like to thank you for the fantastic job you have done to open my eyes as a brand new member. Then, I want to thank Kathleen who introduced and encouraged me to join this big family, so I have this opportunity to learn from you. Peg picked us from the airport along the way to the conference that made me feel so welcomed. Cheryl and Rusty, thanks for the email connection and the sincere help to make this trip possible. Finally, I want to show my appreciation to your Mayor who sang a wonderful song for us. I won’t forget his wonderful voice. Please promise to say our thanks to him.

I was amazed to know that AAUW was 121 years young. 121 years is equivalent to my grandma, my mother, myself, plus my nieces’ generation together. During that century, when AAUW had accomplished so many great jobs to encourage /help girls and women to reach their potential, what did my grandma, and mother do? And what about my generation and nieces’ are doing? So, I decided to tell three women’s stories from Taiwan. Don’t be surprised or disappointed, I will be one of them.

Once upon a time, a little girl was born in Taipei, Taiwan, 19xx. Her name is Li-chin Huang. When she was about 6 or 7 years old, she told her mom that she would like to be an artist, ballerina, poet, and diplomat. This is the first story of the three. So, you can see, most of her interests seemed relating to feminine fields. But think about it, a 7 years old girl was hardly qualified to be enlightened as a young "feminist" during 1960s in Taiwan. The possibility of being a female computer scientist or engineer was equivalent to the cats in “A Room of One’s Own” wanting to go to the heaven.

Since talking about cats, which the bishop commented in the Virginia Woolf’s article, I needed to confess that I had not read it when I was young. If I had known I needed a room of my own with a lot of CASH to be myself, I dared not to tell my mom about my wannabe. Furthermore, if I had learned earlier about John Adams’ famous remarks, I dare not to have made such an “enormous” wish. He once said “ Because of my father’s hard working, so I can study military and politics, so my sons can learn law and engineering, thus my grandsons can be artists or poets,” something like that…. You see, what an interesting statement that made me think!

First of all, it is all about men- the father, himself, the sons, and the grandsons. Where were the great grandma, grandma and the mother, the daughters and daughters-in-law, and the “Shakespeare’s sisters”? Secondly, it lets me think how wonderful or how lucky it could be to have a father from Adams’ family!

Finally, darn it, I am not a son, but another Shakespeare’s-sister-could-be!

Since I have mentioned "father", let me just quickly and briefly introduce my father (though we are talking about women, without men, women's stories would have been much more different??). I need to be objective and neutral toward my father who passed away several years ago. My father was born in 1910 during the Japanese’s occupation. Putting in this way, let us recalling a movie, maybe you have seen it- “The Last Emperor.” It was the last Sino-Japanese war of the last dynasty, the Qing was defeated and gave away Taiwan to Japan. From 1985 to 1945, Taiwanese people like orphans suddenly tossed away to a foreign regime that strategically ruled her (both repressive and assuaging tactics) for half of a century. After having depicted the historical background, let me go to some details about him. He was forced to have 4 years’ Japanese elementary (to uproot the culture heritage) education which was all he could attend. Such a "privilege" given to him perhaps, he was born with a desirable gender.

To save time for the key stories, I would skip my father's, and go into the second one. It is about my mother. Born during Japanese’s colonization, like most of the poor women, she was encouraged to have as many children as possible. The "reproductive machines” were highly demanded to produce more workers, and soldiers for Japan’s military expansion needs. My mother did have 10 children. According to the comparative advantage, and since some education would damage the womb (Edward Clarke, 1873), my mother, and women of her generations were deprived the opportunities of education. So, she could not read, nor write. Although she was so-called “illiterate”, she insisted that children should have education.” “Children should have education” is equivalent to “people need to breathe, to eat, and to drink” in today’s society. So what’s new about it?

Now, again the story needs to be situated in the historical context (for detailed conditions, refer to my thesis: A Multi-Level Analysis of 228 Social Movement (A Massacre) of 1947 in Taiwan, deposited in the General Library of UW-Madison). Among her peers, education to women is like a camel wanting to go through the needle’s eye. Just taking a look of her contemporaries dealing with their daughters, you can imagine how noble an idea my mother had! Among Taiwanese women of her age group, approximately 95% were poor and illiterate. One of the major anxieties of them was not able to pay daughters’ future dowries, thus giving away or exchange daughters for the future-babybrides-in-law (童養媳-who were usually brutally mistreated by the future mothers-in-law) was a popular practice in the low social class. Many young girls were even sold to rich families as child laborers or chateau slaves, and some of them ended up in the highly demanded business - brothels.

My mother loved us children very much. Those young girls’ horrifying nightmares had never happened to us female siblings. However, my eldest sister had to sacrifice herself to help out family. Right after graduating from elementary school, at that young age, she worked at textile factory as a weaver- a very popular and booming industry at that time during the first wave of globalization marching through Taiwan. As to me, I realized how important money was to my family. I always had a strong desire to please my mom to soothe her constant anxiety of family financial stress. I worked many tiny jobs starting from elementary school days. Two of them were multinational corporate company’s branches in Taipei. One was the Max Factor Cosmetic Inc., the other one was an International Traveling Bags Manufacturing Company. I remembered I took my younger sister Li-chun working at those difficult working conditions to earn 3-8 cents per hour. No such a word -"child laborers” existed at that time, not to mention the Child Labor Laws ever been heard off, because children were assets not liabilities when time did not favor children's innocence! Kathleen just now mentioned the positive and negative sides of Globalization (not Internationalization), I think my female siblings are good witnesses of those there the days of sweet-bitterness!

Definitely, us female siblings did contribute efforts to the first stage of globalization in Taiwan, and were also part of the legend in establishing the famous MIT (Made In Taiwan) kingdom with unimaginable joy (tiny yet significant money) and sacrifice (terrible working conditions). Male siblings even born in the humble background still could get enough attention and protection from my mother and nurturing from sisters. For example, I had to do all family laundry by hands and cleaned brothers’ rooms when I was a very little girl. Us sisters took turns to do cooking and cleaning. Recall when I was in high school which was a very competitive one (the Taipei Municipal First Girls’ Senior High School), I anxiously saw most of my classmates staying at cramming schools after class for another 2-3 hours' extra home assignment drills and preparation, so they could do well on next day’s quizzes/exams and kept very competitive in class, while I had to go to families hiring me to tutor their children so I could bring some money home. You can imagine, after family chores, tutoring jobs, school works, there was not so much time for me to prepare myself for the next day’s challenges in school. But fortunately, through those events, I learned to keep the head above the water, and survived well. Who says that “What cannot break you, make you stronger,” indeed!

Now I had better quickly jump to the third woman’s story. I am running out of time. She was a wet-nanny. A wet-nanny, mainly, a woman living in poverty, who saved her milk to nurture other families’ babies for whose mother could not or did not want to raise them. Thus the nanny was called in to serve and earned the service fees. The third story was also relating to my mother. My biological grandma died right after giving birth to my mom. You know at that time, woman’s partition was similar to put one of her legs into the casket ( just recall the horrifying and ordeal that Mary Wollstonecraft had been through for such a tragedy!) It was a 50-50 % chance to survive for most of the babies and the mothers. The grandpa had to marry a widow with 4 children of her own. He witnessed the abusive behaviors of the step mom toward the little baby – my mom, thus he decided to save the baby’s life by sending her to the wet-nanny’s house and paid her some meager fees. In the long run, my mother decided not to go back to the step-mother's and stayed with the nanny's family.

The nanny (we called grandma) had 7 children, three boys and four girls. Each time she gave birth a baby, if boy, she kept him, if not, she would arrange to sell or give away the female infants (named with gender derogation, such as 罔腰, 招弟, 一招, 再招 - frequently seen at that time. For more details, refer to my thesis: Social Ideology and Gender roles- Contemporary Women's Issues in Taiwan (社會意識型態與性別角色-論臺灣社會變遷中婦女問題 ) deposited in the Grad Library of National Taiwan University). Thus, the milk could be saved to nurture other families’ babies. She only kept one girl for family chores and took care of other family members. Two of her daughters were sold, and one of them almost ended up in brothel, whom my mother (she became the oldest one in the nanny's family whom the nanny dare not to touch) used all the possible methods to rescue her out of the misery. As to the money the nanny earned, she used to support the whole family. Remember, during Japanese’s occupation, Taiwanese men were oppressed in a different fashion!

Now, I hope you won’t be misled by my anecdotal stories about the true face of women in Taiwan during the early 20th century. I wish I would have presented more accurate data about the social condition during those days. But, now, the misery of women has been replaced with a new vitality through a tremendous socio-economic transformation: just comparing my current academic and career conditions to my mother’s.

So, regarding the generation next to mine, are you curious about it?

Yes, let me tell you, each time I go back to Taiwan, I just could not tell whether my nieces are American girls or Japanese young ladies! They enjoyed the tremendous economic affluence in Taiwan. They dyed/hightlighted their hair, changed their contact lens by colors, and dressed up like Japanese girls or westerners with all sorts of fancy stuff which make their auntie Crystal look like a modern pumpkin. They just want everything that the modern American and Japanese girls enjoy! They are experiencing the fourth stage of Rostow’s economic development model- the “high consumption era.”

The trajectory of women’s development in many societies has striking similarity reflecting her specific socio-economic conditions and the cultural ideology. That's why it is important for women from different cultures, nations, races, and classes getting together to share our female experiences.

Taiwan presents a wonderful case study for women’s striving for justice among developing countries in the 20th and 21st centuries. The history of development of women in Taiwan was young, but impressive. The female grass-root movements have generated more than 50 NGOs (non government organizations) to fight for the women's rights. Via 30 years’ empowerment of education, women’s movements led by the well educated middle class women and their relevant associations have accomplished the following major successes legislatively, economically and politically a decade ago:

1. Taiwan had the first female Vice President in Far Eastern Asia, elected in 2000, and the first female
Presidential candidate running against two males with a narrow margin of loss in January 2012;
2. passed the Equal Rights, Equal Pays Law;
3. amended several family laws to protect single parent and divorced women in; and
4. passed the Civil Liberty Union Law that same sex can legally marry and is protect by the law.

Due to time constraint, the statistic data relating to the changing socio-economic statuses of women in Taiwan will be shown through the slides/PowerPoint presentation! Thanks for all of your attention and patience.

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A minor article might not directly relate to the above story and was not a new story either. But I would like to put them together as a response to a Mainlander-official who worked in the Taiwanese Foreign Affairs Dept in Canada as a public serviceman, paid by Taiwanese taxpayers. (Note -There are Taiwanese Chinese, Chinese Taiwanese, Taiwanese, and the natives as well as other different ethnic groups in Taiwan). This gentleman derogated Taiwanese people's multiple-century suffering into insignificance that caused a socio-political scandal a couple of years ago.
他的名子叫被割割 March 2009 Crystal Li-chin Huang
他的名子叫被割割。這個名子犯不著對 "范蘭欽" 有任何自由聯想或對他有畫蛇添足之 "閒"。(這仁兄宣稱臺灣人是"賤"民. 是可忍孰不不不不不不可忍?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (You could see this was done by a big turtle in typing characters).

被割割很認命與守舊。深信書中自有外交屋，書中自有謙忠恕。中學作文得數獎，大學聯考歷史考了個一百分。算是個左腦 (右腦是在媒國啓蒙的) 有開發的人。被割割一心一意想拼個謙忠恕外交官以報家國養育之恩 (真是顽固迂腐到極點!)。首度赴特考戰戰兢兢, 然而慘遭敗北 - 這科國際公法雖非本行, 也不該考個如此無能的分數。捲土重來信心十足。不料晴天闢靂高分落選。

回想多年前時的被割割並非輸不起那一分，而是被割割那不識字的母親滿懷疑問 "那ㄝ安內生? 歷哪目賙放ㄎㄨㄟㄎㄨㄟ去考，歷史也不會考二十五分!!!" 一輩子沒機會上一天學的老母卻苦苦巴望她十個苦命兒中能有一兩個有出脫當個像包清天那樣的 ”官”，一如歌仔戲 (忠孝節義封建承控機制) 中那十年寒窗一舉揚眉顯親的莘莘學子鬆口氣地說， ”此後不再受虐於猛逾虎的苛政”。然而複查成績的結果是白紙四大黑字- "查無錯誤"。

被割割只好安慰老母: “媽，您的每日清晨夜晚虔誠欽天敬祖，燒好香做好待，祖宗神明會原諒我的失誤。” 然後被割割嬉皮笑臉地對媽說 “可能是真的，想當官要燒三代的好香做好事呢! 媽，一定是前兩代阿公阿祖香沒燒夠!” 私底下，被割割卻無奈地想著那報考的履歷表上的確是要你提及祖宗三代。不過不是有關燒好香做好事，而是祖宗們的學經歷背景。被割割的兄妹們倒是黃家頭一代出產的識字人。在台灣，這是一件很值得誇耀的事。

言歸正傳，這 “ 二十五分的歷史教訓 ” 從此深深烙印在這個社會學没讀透的狂狷青年心頭。

話說山不轉路轉、當不了駐外人，被割割倒也扛轎周旋於幾個小型官場，看了幾齣現形記 (時當解嚴天蠶劇變之際，於國府殿堂)。厚黑與薄白戲碼趁機上演，看得眼花撩亂，做得澎湃洶湧。說得遲那時快，一個有份量的獎學金使被割割覺悟一切有為法，如夢幻泡影 - 痛心地空遁到海外, 專心投入百年樹 (媒國)人的工作 (不夠格樹本國人，只好退而求其次)。所以, 從一個當了七年親愛精誠的丘八官與抬轎人如今成了個 “住” 外的樹人。

如此一來，被割割時而仰天長嘯壯懷激烈一番, 時而自我調侃自我阿Q，自封個背 "彩虹旗" 的人 (有綠，有藍，有紅，有黑，更有白)。如果你要為被割割駐個名 (不論是加罪或加封)- 這嗎騎牆騎得太離譜??

不過看官要是知曉這荒唐辛酸個中味，說真的，這種旗也真重得難扛。試想被割割對著大鼻混眼的媒國學生唱著望你早歸，梅花，雨夜花，易水寒, 與高山青以解說社會階層和族群理論時，卻無法用那美麗的母語的精神分裂折騰?! 被割割的自我流放, 值得反省, 值得三思..

The temporary residents on this planet – Life beyond possessions

huangxena@yahoo.com — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 17:37:00 +0000

Weekly laugh-if-off (on my Facebook):
與大學同學紙上談兵,隨興所稚,
我也狗尾續貂做"七言覺句(十)-無聊詩"一首: (The temporary residents on this planet – Life beyond possessions). Share with you-
位高權重人人靚, 遊山玩水日日春;
縱橫綼闔處處行, 金銀財寶月月進;
妻妾成行個個幸, 兒孫子女年年增;
麻將梭哈時時贏, 宅豪戶廣歲歲營;
吃喝嫖賭樣樣精, 無憂無愁常常暝.

August 24 internal sharing

huangxena@yahoo.com — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 00:22:00 +0000

Greetings,

Thanks to colleagues, for the valuable information from the Dr. Jones', in particular, the right hand, left hand analogies.

Others are, "A wind of unearned privilege behind some people's sail gets them further along in their journey"; "Understanding unearned privilege is not about blaming people for the past"; "The culturally-based definition of normal is then extended to everyone and everything"!!

Thank you guys for keeping diversity issues (both teaching and learning) updated and inspiring.

With the dynamic supports from students' unreserved discussions and expressing their genuine feelings in the classroom, my unearned privileges get me sailing further. Perhaps, you have the similar experience as I do.

Have a great semester!

Crystal

7/11/11 RED class logs and reminder

huangxena@yahoo.com — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:07:00 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen,

Today I explained a little bit about the nature of RED curriculum and design required by our State.

Some peers expressed that this course was relevant to personal life, family and future, and some are still searching/questioning deeper issues which might involve with other dimensional understanding and experiences.

Since the RED course is heavily relating to History, Philosophy, and Socio-political science, I wish we had more time to touch on/or review those essential info to enhance our critical thinking and understanding of the complexity in human thinking and behaving.

We finished "Beyond our Differences". Hope you found beneficial info to help your Actions with Plan - understanding the past, not repeating the same problems but becoming a solution - being a change agent from very simple yet significant step for improving ourselves and society.

Thanks for two groups' sharing Essay III - Melissa+ Lynn, Michelle, Ashley+Dean+Matt. I have your peer-review scores.

Reminder:
1. We have 2 guest speakers to come to our class and share their experience with us tomorrow.
Some background info was addressed briefly in the Beyond the Differences film.
2. You will think about some questions relating to Diversity tonight.
They will present info and then a mini-panel/Q and A discussions will be held.
You will turn in a page of in-class writing
at the end of the class.
3. You still can modify or enhance your Essay III and Reading 49 before presentation.
4. I am also organizing an internal panel discussion (from peers who wish to share experiences relating to RED, please email me a brief contents you would like to discuss with our class. This will be held on next Tuesday.)

Email me if you have questions. lhuang@cvtc.edu

A discussion (7/5/11) and feedback 7/6/11

huangxena@yahoo.com — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 00:49:00 +0000

Greetings,

Thanks for your info sharing regarding RED (race, ethnicity and diversity studies) course content issues (070511).

I would like to share some of my observations which you might be familiar with (or interested in) as well.

I do agree that among the 6 +1 major themes in this course (race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, and disability, as well as their intersectionalities), the RACE part is the toughest one to convey and discuss in a predominantly Caucasian student body - not to mention to cover these 7 heavily weighted fields within A semester!

This issue happened before when I taught at a neighboor University. Some students argued that there was no racial issue in Wisconsin, and why they needed to learn those "unnecessary stuff" - Surprising? Not at all! A few days ago, one of the Presidential candidates proclaimed that the hard-working "founding fathers" (such as "John Quincy Adams"...as she harangued) had eliminated racial problems from America !!

I do small surveys every semester to understand the prior knowledge that students have to take RED. (In many colleges, Intro Soc is the prerequisite to take RED. At some universities, RED is a 400 senior level course). Generally speaking about 2/3 of my students have no soc background and expect RED is about learning different "interesting" cultural facts and practices and then surprisingly to know there are some "unhappy" Racial events in the "unknown" history and in current practices that make one feel uneasy.

Even though I usually spend a week to review or provide basic SOC concepts and introduce the rich and complex dimensions of this course at the beginning of the semester, I still expect the phenomena as this specific student expressed to her.

Yes, some reparations are needed. Thank you to bring it up to the WTCS General Education Deans group regarding the potential for revision and updating in the future for this course.

Hope you are enjoying the summer break!

Crystal (070511)

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Good morning, Thanks for the prompt feedback and comments on RED issues (070611).

Just another small episode happening in my summer class to share with you:

Having been teaching this course for a while, I understand the parameters of presenting and am aware of the boundary of students' "comfort zone" within a proper probing without stinging.

To teach this course, one strategy, as you know well, is to let them bring in learning materials and conduct mini-sharing and teaching within rubrics at the first 5-10 minutes of class.

What has happened in this summer so far is that some students did bring in very "spicy" materials that could be categorized as this specific student said -"demoralizing" and "feeling no good" stuff which are really provocative, yet good for critical thinking.

I truly appreciate and enjoy some students who are willingly (or are able ) to stand outside of their comfortable boxes and contribute to our collective learning.

As to the uncomfortable part of the stories, due to the textbook I use having a special design and purposes, in the 2nd and 3rd part of sections (now we are in) , the feeling of "sitting on fire" would be aroused. And I am glad that some students do feel that way.

The final part - from my previous semesters' experience - they would get the AHA! moments.

Again, thank you to raise the question of rewriting the course competencies at the state level during last semester and C's brought it up to the Deans' group discussion.

Have a nice day.
Crystal (070611)

2009 AECT Convention (Oct 27-31) Presenting:

huangxena@yahoo.com — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:25:00 +0000

Topic: Learning Information Techologies as Empowering Tools to Narrow the Class and Gender Gap in Rural-Urban Spetrums- A review from Global to U.S. Perspective.

Presenter: Li-chin (Crystal) Huang, 10/30/09 , Louisville
Abstract

Information technologies are rapidly reshaping the world, but the digital divide has been a growing concern both in the domestic and international discourse. Generally speaking, the poor and the disadvantaged tend to live in the remotely isolated rural areas. Gender plays a role in this scenario. This paper provides a review of learning technologies as empowering tools for rural low income women from global and domestic perspectives.

Though information technology (IT) is no longer considered a luxury in many affluent societies, the digital divide continues to be a major concern both in domestic and international discourse (NPA Report, 2002; PEW, 2004). Statistics shows a significant gap in access and knowledge of IT among the rural, urban and suburban areas where socio-economic status, gender, and racial background distinguish such disparity (World Bank, 2002). Issues with accessing opportunities and resources relating to IT imply the increasingly marginalization of low-income rural mothers. As Dean (2000) remarks those who with lack of access to information technologies will become the second class citizens of the future.

Rural low-income women are disproportionately burdened with task loads, and have the least social mobility to access resources and services such as health care, child care facilities, social supports, education, and job opportunities. Many government policies, including U.S. Welfare Reform in the 1990s intend to support low income mothers’ independence by providing job and skill training, education opportunities and other relevant self-sufficient strategies. Learning technologies have been deemed as powerful tools to transform many aspects of human lives (Brown, et al, 2009). The following are some practices gleaned from different regions of the world.

At the global level, in its Gender and Development Plan of Action, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations recognized the power of IT in transforming both natural and human capital development. It pointed out that changes could accelerate progress through gender equality. It calls for policymakers, practitioners and communities to give attention to the risks and burden that women bear and suggested that unless women have access and use new technologies, the inequality could be exacerbated (FAO, 2002). We reviewed several countries across different continents regarding their conditions and practices.
With this brief glance of gender and technology in developed, developing and underdeveloped countries, we focuses on the conditions in the U.S and reviews research related to IT use and needs from a project on rural low income mothers. The data of this research were generated from the Rural Families Speak (RFS) - a multistate longitudinal research project focusing on the well-being of rural low-income families in the context of welfare reform. The original project began in 2000 across 17 states, targeting on mothers with at least one child under the age of 12 living at home and with an income at or below 200% of the federal poverty line. Data were collected from 413 families in rural counties (with population centers of less than 20,000).

Questions regarding low income mothers’ job training, educational opportunities and family life revealed serendipitous information relating to computer and the Internet usages. These face to face interview results provided an opportunity for investigation of IT use in the rural low income mothers’ lives. Based on this discovery, we formulated our research question to probe into low income mothers’ relationship with IT - “What are rural low income mothers’ perceptions, experiences, barriers and supports relating to computer and Internet usage?”

We read through original transcripts several times. A search through interview texts for the words ‘computer” and “Internet” via software Maxqda2 revealed 165 cases with segments containing the searched expressions. To examine the salient themes from computer usage and Internet access, we tabulated the collected segments to extract the essences that potentially contribute to a theme. All the proper segments went through thematic reduction process and qualitative analysis techniques (Miles & Huberman,1994; Strauss & Corbin, 2002).

After several readings of the extracted texts of 165 cases, 33 were identified with meaningful segments related to perceptions and experiences with information technologies. Based on the above criteria, the similar statements of participants’ expressions were grouped into categories which were then clustered into sub-codes and codes. Through back and forth inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning processes, similar segments were clustered into three primary themes: general usage, barriers, and supports.

Results

The primary and sub-codes were organized and explained as follows:

Figure 1: Primary Codes and Sub-codes of Rural Low Income Mothers’ Using IT
(The inter-rating validity was done with Dr. S. Walker, U of M).

General speaking, rural low income mothers revealed the uses of IT, primarily for family and employment purposes, which encountering barriers to access and relaying on family and friends, community and employment resources as supports. Cost was the largest barrier, and most mothers reported not having the Internet in their homes. Based on mothers’ comments, many did not have computers at all due to the cost of purchase or maintenance. Using computers in public places and at work were resources for mothers’ use. Family and friends also were supports, letting mothers use their computers, or giving them old computers. This issue resonated Hargittai’s (2002) the double levels of digital divide: the first level of computer ownership and the second-level of multiple effects on digital divide, which extend to broadband access; machine vintage; connectivity; online skills; autonomy and freedom of access; and computer-use support (Hawkins, Rudy, & Nicolich, 2005). Horrigan (2004) also pointed out that solving the availability problem would get higher IT adoption in rural areas. Broadband technology is the ideal mechanism to narrow the divided gap. Practical uses of technology in diverse learning environments, in particular, the remote rural areas, the distant killers can conquer the distance barriers.

Having access to broadband Internet means that rural low income mothers obtain new kinds of support systems to provide the communication mechanism for their children, schools, teachers and other stakeholders. It opens up new ways of exploring resources and opportunities, which has impact on children’s well being. Such learning environment includes local libraries, community centers, and K-12 schools where all members of the community have access to meaningful programs and providing useful lifelong knowledge and skills.

Domestically, many non-profit organizations,[1] promote a wide range of free broadband for everyone and Internet neutrality issues. They have been organizing grass-root movements to raise the consciousness and to persuade policy makers. For example, Socialfreenet advocates free broadband Internet access to low-income families that are in need of high-speed access to attain financial, educational and employment goals. Other organizations such as Geekcorps, EduVision and Inveneo also help to overcome the digital divide through the use of education systems that draw on IT. The technology they employ often includes low-cost laptops/subnotebooks, handhelds tablet PCs, Mini-ITX PCs and low-cost WiFi-extending technology as cantennas and WokFis. Other well-known projects like One Laptop per Child and 50x15 offer a partial solution to the global digital divide; these projects tend to rely heavily upon open standards and free open source software. The OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world, to provide them with access to knowledge. Programmer and free software advocate Richard Stallman has highlighted the importance of free software among groups concerned with the digital divide such as the World Summit on the Information Society.

As of today, Finland is the first country to announce every Fin citizen to access a 1 megabit-per-second broadband connection in next year, and a 100 megabit-per-second broadband connection at the end of 2015. This move inspires other countries to start perceiving broadband as citizens’ inalienable legal right, akin to part of the First Amendment.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to vote Dec. 18 on whether to auction off the so-called AWS-3 spectrum, an unused chunk of airwaves. The winner would have to agree to use at least 25 percent of the spectrum to build a free, national broadband network which would reach 95 percent of the U.S. population, especially those in rural areas where broadband is less accessible, We suggest that US federal government play a more active role to shorten the digital divide in broadband access. This means investing and renovating IT infrastructures at local public organizations, such as community centers, child care facilities, transportation agencies, job centers, libraries, schools and churches can open up wider opportunities for learning, training, and guidance to low income mothers.

[1] Such as Freepress ( http://freepress.net/media_issues/internet), SaveTheInterent (http://www.savetheinternet.com/), Finding Dulcinea (http://www.findingdulcinea.com/guides/Technology/Internet/Free-Use-Media.pg_05.html,) , and Socialfreenet (http://socalfreenet.org/mission).
This project was completed under the team leader Dr. S. Walker's guidance.

AECT 2009 Louisville International Convention (Oct 27-31)

huangxena@yahoo.com — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:20:00 +0000

Presenter- Topic: What is the Lived Experience of Designing and Teaching Multiple Delivery Methods -Live Meeting, Hybrid, Online, and Face To Face (f2f) within a Semester at a Technical College Setting?

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/lchuang-276649-102909-situated-teaching-experience-new-entertainment-ppt-powerpoint/

The 25th Annual Conference of Distance Teaching and Learning Brief Report (Aug. 5-7, 2009 at UW-Madison)

huangxena@yahoo.com — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:18:00 +0000

Dr. Moore, Mary, and Crystal --------T. Arina, Crystal, and Dr. Kamau

Aug. 5 (W). I participated in FD-3 whole day Workshop

Topic- Imagination Engine: Visual Concept Design process for Interactive media development
It is about creating instructional materials via software tool in the 2nd life environment.
Summary-Distance education professionals continue to evaluate and discover new ways to combine and apply new information discovery and visual design tools to produce educational content. Following an overview of the steps in the Imagination Engine process and a demonstration of the tools used to develop scenario content. We worked in group to:

1. Develop a digital media design using the Imagination Engine process and the latest software tools
2. Brainstorm, visualize, storyboard, and produce imagery for use in interactive instructional content
3. Review and evaluate group experiences.
Comments- Our school has not officially emphasized 2nd life as a teaching and learning tool.
This area can be developed tailored to 2-year colleges' needs.

Aug 6 (R).
11. Creating online learning communities using Web.2.0 technology
Comments- We have done some part of it at our school. But I listened the whole session patiently.

25. FD Model; Overcoming attitudinal and infrastructure barriers to enfranchise remote faculty
My reflection was how 4-year colleges work hard to provide online courses, but bureaucracy and barriers still exist in their specific environment. The presentation provides a model (similar to ADDIE, intending to recruit more pure online faculty for program instructions).
Comments – I was interested in how they render the “Quality Assurance” issues.

14. Enhancing student persistence online: Retention and reporting a multi-dimensional approach In the second part Mr. Ice provided research data regarding retention which is beneficial.

Aug 7 (F).
43. Studio e: A professional development model for e-learning
Comments- Our school has done the contents of this presentation.
Good to know how other schools tackle problems.

Conclusion:
Generally speaking, I feel that 2-year colleges are still a little bit ahead of general 4-year universities in terms of mobility and adaptation, except some cutting-edge Tech research institutes such as MIT, Nova, and proprietary universities. The Conference has more focuses from general 4-year colleges’ perspectives. The characteristics of student population, faculty, and the edu-ecology between 4-year vs. 2-year are quite different. These can be my personal bias.

Overall, in addition to Michael G. Moore's presentation, two events stood out as my favorites – Teemu Arina’s Keynote and the fascinating E-Poster sessions in the Exhibit Hall.

# For the E-Poster sessions, I would like to share my thoughts:

Ideas- School can purchase wide Plasma (HD Koisk, twice or much larger than the ones we have currently ) screens installed in different campuses for each division, department, or program. Projects from faculty, students or other kind of collaborative works presented in the e-poster format can be instantly shown on the Wide Screen high density of Plasma around all campuses.

Doable conditions- Encourage each department, division, or program to provide teaching&learning relating project plans, work-in-progress, or completed projects on E-Poster with “specific incentives” as rewards.

Match the Green sustainable cores: E- poster saves the project materials (such as paper, tripartites, color, paints and other presenting items…etc.) The whole product-process activity relating to Green Initiatives is pedagogically and economically sustainable (except time spent on projects).

Potential impact- showcase individual and collaborative work via e-poster presentation in an omnipresent fashion to share information and recognize participants’ endeavor and contribution. Promote 2-year college type of scholarship.

Crystal Li-chin Huang Handouts 082709

Small Minimum Wage, Big Structural Hurdle

huangxena@yahoo.com — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:59:00 +0000

Our union (CVTCEA) president Ms. Peck emailed faculty members regarding a blog site for sharing ideas. The latest issue was about "minimum wage". See the following Tech Blog site: http://www.weac.org/multimedia/blogs/wtcs_blog/09-08-07/Minimum_Wage.aspx

I agree with the author's "...But while it is easy to point to education and training as a solution, it’s much more difficult for low-wage workers to attain the skills that will lead them to family supporting employment." But I would also like to go back to President Eisenhower’s 3 old principles on the philosophy of labor as a background understanding.

The first principles – he states, “the ultimate values of mankind are spiritual; these values include liberty, human dignity, opportunity and equal rights and justice.”

The second principle, he speaks of the economic interest of the employer and employee being a mutual prosperity.

It is the last principle that we have seen a great skepticism as well as modification . He stated: “labor relations will be managed best when worked out in honest negotiation between employers and unions, ‘without Government’s unwarranted interference’.” History tells us that improving the lives of workers through education, job training, and consciousness raising can never be enough.

Capitalism has been spearheading with a double-edged-sword wielding its blessings and curses in the U.S. for more than a century, while other countries such as England, France, Germany, Australia , and countries in the Scandinavian regions have historically developed strong Labor Parties , Socialist Parties, and various kind of third parties that played a prominent role in strengthening the unions and general well being of their citizens. Two party system – is not the norm, which may take on unicameral functions.

Though labor union laws vary from country to country, immersing in a broader International framework could provide a mirror to reflect on the accolades and criticisms of unions of what we have practiced - if change is not a phantom or rhetoric!

Big Carrot, Invisible Stick - Think about the good will - $9 billion grants

huangxena@yahoo.com — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:07:00 +0000

Recently Federal Government announced that there would be a $9 billion block grant for improving 2-year colleges. With such an amount of grant, the high expectation is inevitable.

To Achieve the Dream, U.S. House of Representatives laid out a series of benchmarks that colleges and states would have to meet to receive the grants. Though still under the floor action, suggested goals such as program completion, work-force preparation, and job placement and so on are familiar anticipations to the interested parties.

I have an ambivalent perspective toward this grandiose event as an instructor at a two-year Tech college for six years. The aid can be an edu-political good will with turbulence run deep underneath this unique educational system. It can be a high time to diagnose the accumulated problems and controversies with systematic/systemic approach instead of the habitual piece-meal work.

In terms of access vs. success, 2-year colleges are not exactly FOR the under-served, OF the less-prepared, and least BY the under-privileged. As the saying goes, it is much more a unique hybrid entity of socio-politics, industrial-business compound, and rhetoric than that of the concern of what teaching and learning actually happens to improve the “human capital”.

I am still baffled by the long term “sacrosanct”(sacred cow?) state imposed on the 2-year colleges. What I am looking for is a systematic and theoretical based of this multifunctional and controversial system to be tangibly understood by the majority of stakeholders, like that of the K-12, or at least the 15+ systems.
This lost child (13-14) educational setting shall not be an edu-business-political hot potato as it used to be! I am embarking on piecing together for this missing link.

Here is my tiny step- http://cvtcscholarship.wetpaint.com - a developing wikiblog invites your input.

Sacred Cow vs. Multifunctional Economical Cow

huangxena@yahoo.com — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:42:00 +0000

A letter-to-the-editor fingerpointing (as this writer's usual tone) 2-year colleges were "Sacred Cow" of the state in terms of the funding issues shown up in the local newspaper yesterday.

Here is my point, published on June 10 (W), 2009 in the local Dunn County Newspaper. Share with you.

"Public 2-year colleges account for close to fifty percent of higher education institutions. They have been commonly portrayed with the image of a “step or foster child” of the pk-16 educational system due to the historical necessity of openness to non-traditional students, their key role in vocational training, and the democratic notion of access to higher education. Given their centrality to higher education while not yet reaching the status of the “multi-functional cow”, 2-year colleges play crucial roles for extending college opportunities in a systematic and cost-efficient way.

Teaching at a Tech College reminds me of the experience as an adjunct at 4-year colleges where a full-time teaching of 6-12 credits plus scholarship is the norm. Though 2-year colleges have not specifically emphasized scholarly endeavors, they require an “18 to 21” credit teaching load under “economic” and efficient infrastructures to produce well-reported high educational engagements among students, faculty and staff, in addition to the reputable job placement rate.

Here is a vivid example of 2-year Colleges’ playing myriad roles in the democratic capitalist society - GM’s mass laid-off of approximately 1,800 employees in Janesville that created a major social issue resulting from the downturned economy. Fortunately, it was Blackhawk Tech College strategically and effectively absorbing the displaced workers into job retraining relating educational programs.

We have not yet heard of any 4-year institutions providing that mobility and flexibility to partake in the similar unexpected consequences of societal operations. Chippewa Valley Technical College has been functioning in similar way to educate and train many locally needed professions and adapting to the fast changing society’s needs.

Engaging with a wide spectrum of students with less advantaged backgrounds in a tech college on a daily basis, if it is not for a noble calling, then it is a call of challenge as an educator.

Learning Technologies and Me

huangxena@yahoo.com — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:49:00 +0000

My role as an academic in the LT community

Within the LT community, I am a believer that innovation and responsibility go hand in hand. Being one of the digital immigrants of this information technology revolution, I would consider myself to be an enthusiastic, caring, and conscientious teacher-researcher. Focusing on the need to be at the forefront of educational change and innovation has been an important part of my academic endeavors.

Inspired by the power of multimedia technology as an art student in1995 began my life-long journey with learning technologies. I started integrating multimedia technology into Art curriculum as a grad student and teaching assistant, and later into my Social Science teaching both at two and four year colleges. I perceive myself as a rational and zealous LT educator with an adventurous quality to cross cultures and to immerse in multiple ways of teaching and learning.

My current career goal is to be a diligent educator- researcher. I have been designing and implementing curriculum and instruction for six years at my current work setting. I am also one of those who “dare to teach-research-serve, never cease to learn”. Thus, learning and teaching become an important part of my life. For example, the curiosity and desire to learn have led me to a multi-disciplinary background through three previous Master’s degrees and the current Ph.D. program. I ended up having five majors and four minors.[1] Fortunately, Learning Technologies weave my previous multidisciplinary teaching and learning experience into a holistic tapestry. In this sense, I would also perceive myself as an artistic and versatile educator and learner, who actively participates in many scholarly activities and productions at my previous wrokplace, UW-Stout, and currently - Chippewa Valley Technical College, as well as at University of Minnesota -Twin Cities.

In connection to technologies, Marshall McLuhan once pointed out that we shaped our tools, but then our tools shaped us. The dramatic change of information technology since 1960s with the PLATO system along with today’s Web 2.0 provides myriad teaching and learning possibilities for more facilitators and learners than ever before to access knowledge. With this constant advance in computer and communications technologies, research in educational technologies has undergone a paradigmatic shift toward a new horizon: enhancing the fluid mobility between theories and actions. This new horizon focuses on merging the study of learning in complete, complex, and interactive learning environments with the use of emerging technology to advance the integration of contents, pedagogy, and technology.

Those Who Can, Teach – Creatively, And Responsibly. – Crystal

My teaching philosophy

In a differentiated teaching methods seminar, I found an inspirational message - “When we identify a student who doesn’t understand, louder and slower won’t do it. We need to be more creative than ever; when we identify students who already understand, doing it again isn’t acceptable. We need to be more creative than ever”. Students learn in different ways and paces under various circumstances. This is what I consider to be the most challenging issue in the digital age. The key solution is “we need to be more creative than ever” which I emphasized at the beginning of this statement – Innovation and responsibility go hand in hand.

At the individual level, being a cross cultural learner and educator, immersed in this best and the most revolutionary period of time, teaching has always been a challenging yet highly rewarding profession. At the collective level, this sense of challenge is particularly acute for educators today. Educators have been facing increasingly diverse student population and the demands of accountabilities. At the same time, education in the digital age is endowed with an environment of unprecedented opportunities. Learning technology is a gift to practitioners with golden opportunities that open windows for the further engaging with students’ learning, communicating with parents, building learning communities, advocating the future of learning technologies, convincing policy makers, and empowering the human capital, just to name a few positive functions.

These opportunities demand all stakeholders reshape and reflect on the goals and purpose of education. The technology affordances of the Internet and the constant innovated interactivities make it feasible both in access and delivery of interactive/
differentiated methods tailored to diverse students’ needs. Thus, it is imperative for educators to be innovative, responsible, and insightful in designing, implementing, and assessing the affordances of technologies in enhancing student learning.

As a conscientious educator, I don’t take any available opportunities to engage my educational environment for granted. I value every interaction with students, colleagues, Union, administrators, and the whole edu-ecological system. I deeply believe that the well informed citizens are the currency of democracy. I envision the digital citizenship prevailing in every corner of human societies. And this democratic reality has been growing fruitfully via the omnipresent NGI super Broadband accessibility. But for learning to happen effectively, it needs seamless hardware and software interface. It needs the innovative integration of contents, pedagogies with technological affordances. It needs a conscientious educator to take on her/his catalyst role to make it happen effectively and efficiently.

Personally, I benefit from rich media technology’s affordances that assist my teaching philosophy and pedagogies toward fruition. During the last ten years’ college teaching experiences, I was a recipient of the outstanding contributor to UW-System and Color of Woman Award in 2001 representing UW-Stout, and Teacher of the Year in 2007, representing my district for Chippewa Valley Technical College. Educational technology is one of the key scaffolds supporting my pedagogical success.

An Integrated Research Approach

My Research Agenda

In the Educational Technologies field, many disciplines have assisted in building the knowledge foundation necessary to understand human learning and interacting with the aids of technologies. For example, Behavioral-cognitive-Psychology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, and numerous renowned learning technology scholars’ endeavors have contributed immensely to this understanding from a wide range of perspectives.

Having come originally from a Sociology/Social Psychology background, I envision sociological perspectives well integrated into the mainstream research trends. I am interested in the social forces shaping daily reality in the digital age from the micro and macro aspects. These approaches such as structure and functionalism, symbolic interactionism, social conflict perspectives and their combined methods have generated several strands of research agenda that guide my current and future studies.

The macro structural-functional perspective sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. During the last decade, research in the field of human capital management (e.g., HPI or HPT) and organizational cost-effectiveness research tinted with the flavor of this perspective. Tied to my teaching philosophy, to keep the currency of democracy up-to-date, educator-researchers have to confront the issues of empowering human capital and enhancing the quality of access and application of information technology in the digital age.[2]

One of the concrete examples of this research orientation is my interest in studying e-learning in a technical college setting. My last ten years’ teaching at a four year poly-technical university and current two-year technical college provides me rich information regarding how different structures and functions of educational ecology and potential changes affect teaching and learning pertaining to learning technologies.

Though most two year technical colleges, comprehensive community colleges, and four year colleges tend to be lumped together as the post-secondary educational system or “higher educational” institution,[3] they are fundamentally different in many aspects. These include educational missions, climates, diversity of student body, specific roles of faculty and staff, funding, infrastructure and the overall ecological configuration, just to name a few, comprise the uniqueness of two-year technical colleges that stand out as a special and controversial educational entity. These two-year colleges play a crucial role in American economic, political, and educational reality. But there is limited amount of research focusing on the complex educational ecology of two year colleges that affects the daily teaching and learning, in particular, when relating to learning technologies. This is a field that I would like to focus on.

The social conflict perspective is a framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change. From this aspect, I focus on social stratification[4] both in domestic and global domains tied to digital equity and quality, as well as the potential systematic/systemic change. For example, digital-divide is one of established fields of research tackling the gaps and effects of race/ethnicity, gender, social class, disabilities, as well as others relating socially constructed reality in the digital era. One of my previous studies of this approach was the last semester’s collaborative “Rural Families Speak” project (2007-8). It was a longitudinal multistate research focusing on rural low income mothers’ well being. My team narrowed down to study what the role of the Intent playing out in these low-income (intersections of geo-social class and gender) mothers’ lives.

The micro symbolic-interaction perspective sees society is the reality that people construct for themselves as they interact with one another. The cyber phenomena have been constantly created and re-created by different digital generations through their daily interactions. The formation of learning communities, TPCK integration in classrooms, and quality assurance in the online learning are the three fields that I would like to investigate in the higher education setting within this perspective. Hermeneutic phenomenology, ethnomethodology, virtual and auto-ethnography are applicable research methods for this approach. A real life case to illustrate this perspective is that I am documenting my daily interactions with my four course delivery formats within current semester – online, hybrid, Live Meeting, and face to face with web-enhanced curriculum.

Generally speaking, my research agenda is based on a framework integrating sociology and learning technologies to examine different aspects of digital reality shaped by multifaceted social forces.

Individually, We Are One Drop. Together, We Are An Ocean

My role-model within the LT field

All effective and conscientious scholars, practitioners, educators, policy makers and individuals with rational enthusiasm serve as my role model. A visionary role model, who is a resolute social change agent and leader, whose passion for learning, teaching and research envisage educational technologies as a positive transformative mechanism that democratizes human societies. A rational and enthusiastic innovator who foresees the potentials of learning technologies that can lead to an authentic democratic society guides my enthusiasm and energy to the common good.

They are many of role models in our field, exemplifying tenacity and unwaveringness, so I learn and have the courage to select the road less travelled.

If Technology Is Not Used For Enhancing Humanity, Then For What?

The future of Learning Technologies

We are witnessing the accelerated effect of cybernetics which is all about humans and technology interacting to form the foundation of human infrastructure. In this cyber-structure, the high tech and high touch can be mutually complementary. Different digital generations are constructing ways of facilitating multi-generational and global communications. The current Web 2.0 is such a transformative tool reshaping the educational experience. The line between space and time is rapidly becoming blurred and may cease to exist in the foreseeable future. E-learning in both “virtual” and “real” worlds simultaneously creates “inter-reality“ phenomenon that implies more options available to effectively merge teaching and learning in a seamless way.

I envision one day the “cutting edge” and “innovative” is no longer the nick name of the business world or industrial-military compounds. Those who can, teach – creatively and responsibly, are the catalysts to the systematic and systemic change of our society. Learning technologies will be the hardest science that requires robust digital engagers to take on studies that are dynamic and contingent. In such a profession, only those stakeholders who tackle the challenge as a way of conscious living will reshape the future of our society.

I envision an omnipresent and mobile environment for all learners to create the -world-is-flat phenomenon. A new term of Blog 2.0 encapsulates the idea of the proliferation of interconnectivity and interactivity of the e-effects. It opens up sky-is-the-limit possibilities to transform learning to defy various digital divides in domestic and global domains.

The optimism and challenge are co-existent in this unprecedented epoch. Learning Technology is a gift as well as a social responsibility to the educators and relevant stakeholders. It is a golden opportunity to reach diverse learners to optimize human capitals and shorten the digital gaps. It is time to redirect such powerful capacity of learning technologies into the humanitarian change.

It is a goal, an action, a commitment, and most importantly, a responsibility!

[1] My majors are: Sociology/Social Psychology, Socio-political science, Studio Art, Art Education, Learning Technologies. The minors are Computer Science, Women’s Studies, Journalism, and Military Education.
[2] I expanded three extra current digital populations into the original categories: the “digital elite”, the digital native, the digital immigrant, and the “digital behind”, and the “digital deprived”.
[3] Technical colleges play a key role to bridge PK-12 and 15-16 educational settings. Yet, most people consider two year colleges being only a peripheral part (a step-child or child out of the educational wed-lock) of the collegiate system, or a “catch basin” for those few students unable or unwilling to enter “regular” colleges.
[4] Such as race/ethnicity, gender, social class, disability and various types of intersectional theories .

Who takes care of the "Culture Inc."?

huangxena@yahoo.com — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:06:00 +0000

I would like to share a posting relating to an article that I read from another Ning-group. It was about why sustainable education is an enemy to the edu-capitalism or edu-imperialism, if we are not too far away from the ed-utopia?

The article originated from a student’s question posted on May 8, 2008 Chronicle titled "Invest in People, Not Buildings.” Here it goes:

“Everywhere I hear the sound of dump trucks. It’s my fourth year at the University of Virginia, and they haven’t stopped building since I got here. A new commerce school, a new theater. If UVA is any example of the state of public education in general, we need to evaluate our priorities before another brick gets bought.”

Later in October 3, 2008 Chronicle has another article about the 375-Billion Dollar Question: Why Does College Cost So Much? In the October 20, a faculty member Mr. Orr, put it in a tangible way in his article “Meditation on Building”-

“It is estimated that the construction, maintenance, and operation of buildings in the United States consumes close to 40 percent of the country’s raw materials and energy and is responsible for about 33 percent of our CO2 emissions, 25 percent of our wood use, and 16 percent of our water use. In 1990, 70 percent of the 2.5 million metric tons of non-fuel materials that moved through the economy were used in construction.”

Fine, these inquiries were from the typical "resourceful" 4-year universities. Though the size of a textbook in our 2-year colleges can never be comparable to that of an edu-building, to what extent the open textbook project is a potential omen to the "Culture Inc."?

A couple of my recent blog postings on social networks ( The info of Dr. Kanter's nomination to the Dept of Edu was attached here)

huangxena@yahoo.com — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:46:00 +0000

Several Innovate-blog postings regarding the open e-university reminded my recent CCCOER (The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources) networking. It is a joint effort by the League for Innovation in the Community College and many other community colleges and university partners to develop and use open educational resources (OER) and in particular, open textbooks for community college courses, since the demographic features of our students (tech colleges) are much different from those of the typical 4-year universities/colleges in terms of, SES in particular. Welcome to participate in this joint effort of OER movement.

The following is the open textbook site.
http://oerconsortium.org/discipline-specific

The CCCOER is a grand scale of collaborative work-in-progress project. There are still many issues opened up for input, such as the models of collaborations, time, energy, usage criteria, altruism/compensation, intellectual property right, as well as other emerging issues.

Hope you can help provide information, experience and advice.

(For more details, see the It Takes a Consortium to Support Open Textbooks article in the January/February 2009 issue of Educause Review magazine).

A couple of open journal sites were posted here as well
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=130
Open Journals
http://innovateonline.info/

The other one is about technology resistence:

One of my network groups opened a forum for discussing the technology resistence. There are many real life experiences and observations from relevant stakeholders.
I also added a piece of info to the discussion:

Pajo and Wallace (2001) categorized barriers to info tech resistence from personal barrier, attitudinal barriers, and organizational perspectives. Berge Muilenberg, and van Hangegh (2001) also indentify 64 barriers to the adoption of technology.

According to Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation, the various adopter categories form the shape a of bell curve. Innovators who readily adopt, are making up 2.5 %; early adopters, about 13%; early majority, 34%; later majority, 34%; and laggards 16%. He identified attributes to the resistance as: the relative advantage to adopters, compatibility to the adopters’ values, offering better ways to do things, the degree of complexity of the technology, triability before adoption; and the observable benefits.

If Roger’s theory is not too far away from reality, then we look at current 3.2 million educational employees scattering in the differently edu-systems: 2.5 % of innovators who are ready to adopt are about 80,000 individuals spreading over numerous PK to 16+ educational institutions, and the later adopters as well as laggards will be 1.6 million.

The following exciting message was excerpted from Inside Higher Ed, April 2.

As a faculty member of the 2-year college communities, I see the significance of this event if Dr. Kanter is nominated and take on this important role in the Dept of Edu at Washington D.C.

"President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will nominate Chancellor Martha J. Kanter of Foothill-De Anza Community College District , as U.S. under secretary of education, which is the second- or third-highest ranking position in the Education Department. The nomination was made official Wednesday evening, hours after Duncan, apparently prematurely, let slip news of the nomination during a speech to a meeting of Ohio college presidents convened by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.

If confirmed, Kanter would be the first community college official to reach such a high rank within the U.S. Education Department. Community college officials have headed the agency's vocational education branch, and Diane Auer Jones, assistant secretary for postsecondary education in 2007, had been a two-year college faculty member and administrator. But the idea of having a community college leader in such a high profile position elated officials in the sector. The under secretary oversees policies, programs, and activities related to postsecondary education, vocational and adult education, and federal student aid.Colleagues describe Kanter as a hard worker and an inclusive leader, and particularly cite her interest in and passion for using technology to make educational resources freely available, spearheading the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources and the Community College Open Textbook Project. "

My understanding and stance toward the three debates in the learning technologies field

huangxena@yahoo.com — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:58:00 +0000

My understanding and stance toward the three debates in the learning technologies field were summarized as follows:
1.The Media vs. Message (methods)
2. Learning sciences (LS) vs. Instructional sciences (IS): (Instruction systems, Instructional Design, Instructional Systems and Design)
3. Constructivism vs. Instructivism

1. For the first debate, Richard Clark published his controversial paper in 1983, titled “Reconsidering Media research on learning” which he cited numerous research from last 70 years (e.g., in particular, from Lumsdaine, Mielke) to assert that media do not have influence on learning and coined the well-known "truck and groceries' metaphor. He propounded that media function as delivery vehicle conveying the methods (instructional strategies). Later in 1991, Robert Kozma, “ 7” years (it does “need “ the time) responded with an article of learning with Media , and revisited in 1994 “Will media influence learning “ to open up the heated debate. Kozma posited the media and methods should not be separated. He proclaimed that via the activities provided by media’s symbol systems, nature/characteristics of media, and the cognitive structures where learners constructed their knowledge in the specific contexts. He used two media-based examples as illustrations, one was developed by White’s computer mediated Thinkertools and the other one was Cognition and Technology group of Vanderbilt University’s Japer Woodbury video series to strengthen his arguments.

There are mediator (Steve Ross) and reviewers (Ullmer, Reiser, Morrison, Shrock, Jonassen, Campbell and Davison (deceased) provided various valuable comments on this debate. Later Barney Dalgarno revisited this Media Effects debate in 1996 - at a time technology has dramatically changing the educational technology landscape. Hence the themes of the debate moved from "media to message", to "contents", "contexts" up to current “Interactivity” as the central concern.

My position on this debate:
To reflect on this debate, I would like to refer to a small episode in James Ellsworth’s Surviving Change- a Survey on Educational Change Models. In his book, there was a short passage about the field of human inquiry which is somewhat like the fabled blind men examining an elephant. After the probing the elephant, one of the pioneers excitedly exclaimed - the elephant is “over there”, and pointed the right directions for others to follow. Not until others stumbled with something else, did they find something fishy. Then they paused and compared one another’s “touching” notes. They found they all had different ideas and descriptions about what elephant was, and suspected others’ were wrong because they knew what they exactly felt ( for example, emic perspective) from the elephant. “The other” (for example, etic perspective) got to be wrong in their “methodology”. Not until another groups of new comers added to the extra info in new contexts, and analyzed why they were quarrelling, did they start the reconciliation and understand why and how conflicting thoughts happened and tried to get the whole picture of what the elephant looks like.Through all the predecessors’ diligence, endeavors, and articulation, I gradually find the image of the elephant. Thank to all of them.

Now coming back to the topic, I understand where Richard Clark and Robert Kozma are coming from- their academic background, and scholarly endeavors. In addition to the surfaced debate, there are ideological and intellectual struggle, territorial concerns, emotional charge, politics, as well as, if not the worse, the ambiguity of the buzzwords (just look at the journals referring to IT, ET, ID, IST, IDT, and IS used in our field) that subconsciously and unconsciously play out behind the academic screen. I respect both of them, in particular Clark’s constantly sharpening issues and problems in the field of education. The fast changing faces of information technology is reshaping many aspects of human life which makes Clark stance in this debate standing out. Nevertheless, Clark's emphasis on the importance of instruction and instructional strategies in contributing to the learning outcomes is significant.

As a matter of fact, the powerful modern media capacity and affordances (just think about the 400 gbs speed in network grids and web 2.0 as well as all the successful endeavors of GoNorth, Jason Project, BlueZone, 2nd Life interreality… and so on) are obvious achievements that have tremendous impact on business, industry, military, education and other important social institutions.

I hold the eclectic view on this issue similar to scholars such as Jonassen et al, Ross, and Reiser who claimed that instructional methods need to employ “powerful vehicles” to enhance the “nutrition of the groceries”. Media with its potent capacities and affordance as carriers can transform human learning capacity to reach the human improvement performance (HIP). Both “are adding two wings” for a tiger to run through the educational technology landscape.

2. As to the second debate between the LS and IS, it was much about the concerns of philosophy, ontology, and epistemology regarding the nature of knowledge and understanding that lay out the foundations of beliefs, values, assumptions, and practices of education and research in our field. Instructional sciences (as Merrill defined), has its long and old history in developing instructional strategies and educational artifacts through our early 20 century (Museum movement, audio-visual movement, programmed learning movement by the artifices of filmstrips, Lantern projectors, radio, records, television, video to 1991 the invention of Internet, and to current NGI-next generation Internet with the power of 400 Gbs speed of transistors on network grid).

LS emerged when multimedia was sweeping the educational technology landscape and the constructivism was on the rise. Under the constructivism as an epistemology, various pedagogical models prevail, such as discovery learning, situated learning, problem solving learning, inquiry learning, experiential learning, adventure learning, teaching community, community of practices gained much momentum. Both fields are all concerned the best ways to apply media’s affordances to yield quality learning. However, due to historical trajectory, epistemological emphasis, and research focus, these two fields seldom contact each other.

There are commonality and differences, described as follows:
In 2004, Educational technology journal presented a series of dialogue from both camps: Carr-Chellmem, Hoadley, B. Smith, Kolonder, Duffy and Merrill participated in this dialogue/debate. The commonality as well differences were articulated, the future of more dialogues and working together was expected. Brent Wilson points out (2006) his observations from the LS camp to Merrill (two both had a dialogue in Reiser and Dempsey’s 2006 book).

The emphasis of the LS camp are:
a. more focus on cognitive science;
b. pay attention to basis theory and research; and
c. more focus on developing prototype tools and on online environment.

Whereas, IDT tends to focus on
a. principles and practices;
b. research on non-psychological domain theory; and
c. focus more on practitioner, utilitarian, functional and product, goal driven research.

My position in this debate is that I realized both sides of the disciplines having their own historical and situational forces that shaped the ways they believe and practice . They share the common goals to enrich the learning environment to enhance human learning capacities via rich media technology. They both are based on cognitive science, though LS is more socio-cultural cognitively emphasized. The comments from Chris, Hoadley, Tom Duffy, Kolonder, Brian Smith, Sasha Barab and David Merrill are valid who pointed out that LS is more interdisciplinary by nature. It is more explorative, emphasizing mind in context, paying attention to big ideas (Kolonder)- theory construction and hypothesis generation and testing yet messier and scruffy motifs (Smith), as well as more in tune with computer science based artifacts developing. LS is more constructivistically oriented, and the research methods tend to be more qualitative; while IS more goal driven, prescriptive and confirmative by nature (cleaner, or “neats” by Smith). It focuses more on the utility and implementation, practices derived from theory.

There are several scholars cross the both fields, such as Jonassen, Hannifin and Hannifin, Duffy, and Land to relate and reshape the relationship between constructivism with instructivism. Some feel that each one of them add more tools to their toolbox (such as Winn), while other feel they are based on different core values about the nature of knowledge and understanding. Some scholars challenge the legitimacy of LS’s research and practice in the Instructional design field (such as Merrill).

I agree with several scholars such as Smith, Barab, Hoadley, that design-based research has the potential to bridge these two fields. From the Pasteur’s Quadrant perspective, I do feel these two disciplines could be complementary to each other for “applied and research’ sake" to enhance human improvement performance.

But I fully understand that it takes a huge academic pride, territorial issues, ideological and intellectual understanding, as welll as compromise to make it possible in the compartmentalized academia world.

3. To the third debate-
The effects of Constructivism vs. Instructivism issues relating to since Kuhn’s the Structure of Scientific Revolution, the paradigm shift, which has a great impact on many aspects of human world to rethink and reframe the taken for granted theories and practices.

Constructivism as a philosophy challenges people’s understanding of the nature of knowledge, belief and assumptions. Knowledge is contextualized, is situated, is negotiated, is experienced, and is understood via consensus or agreement. Mainly there is no absolute of truth existing, but constructed by human being’s engagements and interacting with their environments.

Compared to the aged Instructivism, Constructivism is still "young", yet has gained great momentum in the educational enterprise. Kischner, Sweller and Clark posited that the “intuitive” appealing of minimal guidance instructions was not efficient and effective. On one side of scholars who support the minimal guidance instruction are Bruner and Anthony from discovery learning model; Jonessan, Steffe, and Gale from the constructivism approach; Barrows and Tamblyn, Schimdt from the PBL model; Bout, Keogh, Kolb and Fry from the experiential learning theory; and Papert and Rutherford from the Inquiry learning. They proclaim that learners should be left to learn and construct their own understanding within the socio-cultural contexts that they were in.

Scholars from the direct guidance Instruction are Cronbach, Snow, Mayer, Lee Schulman, Klahr and Nigam who posited that direct guidance instruction prove to be more effective and efficiency evidenced from last half century’ s research and practices. In their recent studies Kirscher et al. explained why the minimal guidance instructions failed to enhance the learning effectiveness and efficiency. The failures tended to come from the problem-based, discovery learning, inquiry learning, and experiential learning under the constructivism banner. They argued that last half century research showed the direct guidance instruction proved to be superior in terms of effectiveness and efficiency to the minimal guidance learning. They critiqued the minimal guidance instruction ignoring the human knowledge of cognitive architectures, novice versus expert difference issues, and cognitive load theories.

Kirschner at al. (2006) also referred to Lee Schulman’s content expert, pedagogical expert and curriculum expert provided well grounded theories in curriculum and instruction development that guided many generational of practitioners, educators, researchers and many stakeholders in their respective fields of endeavors. They also pointed out the direct guidance instruction recede only when learners acquired sufficient prior knowledge to engage “internal” learning.

My position on this issue:
I appreciate “change is on the way”. Constructivism is sort of humanitarianism, which champions individual learner’s self efficacy and the potential of self-actualization when the appropriate learning environments ( such as theories based instructional methods and design/pedagogy, rich media technology, learning community and larger learning organization and institution, as well as other relevant contexts are in right time and right place). Individual learners as active participants can construct their own knowledge in an authentic context or community via available constructivist pedagogical models and practices.

I identify myself as an educator who is involving in learning, teaching, research and services to explore the possible media technology that enhances students’ learning in a holistic, effective and efficient ways. I also perceive myself as a potential change agent who can analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate the teaching and learning enterprise from the systematic/ecological and systemic perspectives.

From my last several year’s experiences as an educator, I prefer instructivism to echo Gagne’s statement. Gagne believed in human activities, as he said that some people did not need instructions to accomplish learning some activities, and some learning could be done with self-instructions. But with most purposeful and significant activities, such as vocational and technical learning that were accomplished under the thoughtful instructional setting.

Reflecting on Gagne’s theory and practice, contrasting with Jonassen et al’s propounding the constructivsm, my life long learning experiences as a student illuminate me to have the preference in the constructivism. Learning is intentional activities with intense endeavors interweaving mind, body, interaction in the socio-cultural contexts for thinking, feeling and behaving changes or potential changes.

Duffy and Ullmer once critiqued on research and researchers focusing on manageable projects tend to be insignificant (as Duffy said “Who cares” or the “boutique” projects for vita – Kolonder). Ullmer’s commented on that it was the messy, ambiguity big ideas that challenge the practitioner and researchers’ endeavors in the educational technological knowledge claims. There are wide spectrums for teaching, learning and research. The either-or motifs (such as will or will not; do or do not in the Clark vs. Kozam debate) as well the both-and (risky fee) subjects have been providing insight to our educational technology understanding. Design-research approach has the potential to differentiate and integrate various types of methods to generate grounded theory, testing hypothesis, and refine the learning environment from micro, meso, macro, exo and chrono systematic perspectives (Brenfennbrenner). For example, in Clark and Kozam’s debate from today’s research methodology capacities (quan vs. qual: various types of experiments, ethnography, authethnography, virtual ethnography, ethnomethodology, hermeneutic phenomenology, and other types of mixed methods) and technology affordances, it has the potential to identify myriad variables interact with the environment to combine the individual factors within the social context for better understanding how teaching and learning occur.

As to why I said that I prefer the instructivism as an educator and constructivism as a student, I explained as follows.

I taught at 4-year polytech university for 4 years, and now is going through my 6th years' teaching at a 2-year tech college. My teaching experiences remind me the powerful observations of Gagne (mentioned above). My current teaching setting is so called the pure non-elite schools. I taught an elite high school before and understand the concepts of prior knowledge, learning motivations scaffolded by the social class and the life chances supported by the cultural, social, and psychological capitals to comprise an academic success.

Just to tap the tip of the iceverg- my current learners’ profiles, 85-90% of our students are from low income households (the diverse student backgrouds ranging from university tranfers, high school drop-outs, first generation attending colleges, some having criminal records, displaced workers, single parents, returned grandparents seeking 2nd or 3rd careers, tot the disability students….etc) with Perkins or Pell financial aids. Life has been much harsher for them, and hopefully academic life could ease some of them. If comparing Kischner et al.’s medical school students’ minimal guidance instructions with my current students’ characteristics (motivation, gender, social class, past experiences which comprised their prior knowledge), I have to say the direct guided instruction not just only necessary, but in many cases, is a must. Mainly, Laissez Faire approach (as people called it) won’t “guarantee effective learning outcomes".

Poster Presentation-Beauty vs. Artistic Beauty

huangxena@yahoo.com — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:22:00 +0000

Click the arrow key to view the presentation.

#18 Learning Science vs. Learning Technology

huangxena@yahoo.com — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:19:00 +0000

“Learning Science(s)” vs. “Learning Technolog(ies)” (the latter replaced Instructional Systems and Technologies in 2005)

When I reviewed Dabbagh et al’s Online Learning-Concepts, Strategies, and Application, the concept of “Learning Technologies” in the book reminds me a curiosity that has been lingering in my mind for a while.

As we understand, to define a term in the era of a burgeon science or a differentiation of knowledge is a challenging if not a daunting endeavor. In the book, they refer "learning technologies" as the various types of interactive technologies, such as hypertext, hypermedia, asynchronous and synchronous communication tools (email, listservs, desktop conferencing, virtual chat, groupware, digital and streaming audio-video/rich media, FTP, web developmental tools and LMS, CMA…and so on. Seemingly, in their “operational” definition, “learning” is designated as an adjective and “technologies” is a noun (instead of treating the phrase as a unit -like a discipline), which refer the physically applicable objects and devices ("pedagogical tools") run on a LAN or a WAN?Generally speaking, they propound via these "learning technologies", open or flexible learning, distributed learning, learning communities, communities practice, and knowledge-building communities that are all becoming possible.

One of my questions is -"Is there potential nuance differentiating “learning technolog(ies)” vs. “Learning Technolog(ies)” where the latter might broaden and enrich the educational technologies beyond the confinements of the “systematic and instructional” concepts and embrace the constructivist epistemology, learning theories and pedagogy/andragogy?"

Then the idea of “Learning Science(s)” in Reiser and Dempsey’s book popping into my mind that might answer part of my aforementioned perplex. From D. Jonasson at als' ideas -“Over the last decade of the 20th century, constructivist epistemologies ushered in the learning science as an alternative to the instructional sciences. The learning sciences examine from a substantively different set of assumptions and scientific perspectives than do instructional sciences, such as instructional design. Learning from a learning sciences perspective, is activity or practice based, rather than communicative. Learning sciences are the convergence of design of activity systems, cognition, and socio-cultural context. The learning sciences apply theories to design of technology-enriched learning environments that engage and support learners in accomplishing more complex, authentic (contextual mediated), and meaningful learning activities with the goal of meaningful learning and conceptual change.”

“From the perspective of learning sciences, the learner is an intentional, active, and reflective agent who is responsible for construction personal mental models, the Learning sciences also rely heavily on social theories of learning and meaning making, such as social cognition, activity theory, motivation, and case-based reasoning that examine the social, organizational, and cultural dynamics of learning processes. The learning sciences also ascribe agency to groups who collaboratively con-construct group mental models. Finally, the learning sciences draw from computer sciences, especially computational modeling an artificial intelligence, as a means for designing technology-enhanced learning environments. Because of different theoretical emphases, learning outcomes from a learning sciences perspective are often of a different nature than the type of learning outcomes often specified in the instructional sciences. The instructional sciences usually emphasize the acquisition of behaviors and discrete skills. In contrast, learning outcome in the learning sciences tend to focus on knowledge building, conceptual change, reflection, self-regulation, and socially co-constructed meaning making.”

In short, there are distinctive themes reflecting the term “Learning Science” which is less ambiguous yet broad (enough for many debates to come) than the term “Learning Technologies” – just from my personal narrow point of view:

1. The learning sciences are theoretically and pragmatically based and research oriented.
2. Reify the basic constructivist epistemology (as long as people or learning cummunities embrace or endorse it!) via its derivative learning theories, pedagogies/andragogies, instructional design theories and practices.Saying this, the “Learning Sciences” versus “Learning Technologies” does remind me the critiques between Merrill and Wilson’s vision (straight vs. broad – on the road wildly vs. less travelled??) on the identity and future development of ID (IDT) at the end of the book.

#17 Reflection on “Factors Affecting Technology Uses in Schools:

huangxena@yahoo.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:13:00 +0000

#17 Reflection on “Factors Affecting Technology Uses in Schools:
An Ecological Perspective” published in American Educational Research Journal
Winter 2003, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 807–840 by Yong Zhao and Kenneth A. Frank

Here are the summary and my reflection

Summary:

The interesting idea in this paper came from the understanding Zebra Mussels that rapidly invaded the Great Lakes ecosystem. Simulating themselves as ecologists, the authors adopted the concepts of the interaction of ecological conditions, including characteristics of the invading species, characteristics of the existing species, temperatures, and other geographical characteristics. They then applied their understanding into computer uses in schools. In short, they intended to correct the traditional ways of studying discrete factors in isolation.

The authors used the ecosystem as a metaphor to construct an interconnected framework and tested their model by selecting schools that had made significant investments in technology between 1996 and 2001.
Their criteria for selecting districts for participation in the study included (a) recent passage (between 1996 and 2001) of a bond referendum or receipt of a community foundation grant for implementation of technology;(b) willingness on the part of the superintendent of schools to participate in the study; and (c) a district size that would allow us to include all of the elementary schools in the district.

Metaphors they created are: (a) Schools are ecosystems; (b) computer uses are living species; (c) teachers are members of a keystone species; and (d) external educational innovations are invasions of exotic species. These metaphorical bridges are intended to help them apply what they learn from ecological examples to their current task of understanding technology uses in schools (p.811).

As we know that an ecosystem has the tendency or ability to maintain internal equilibrium. The introduction of new species, whether intentional or unintentional, affects the equilibrium to varying degrees. When a new species, such as the zebra mussel, enters an existing ecosystem, it essentially is an invader from outside. The invading species may interact with one or more existing species.

Depending on the properties of the invader and of the existing species, as well as on the types of interactions, several consequences may result: (a) The invader wins and wipes out the existing species; (b) both win and survive, in which case some other species may perish or the ecosystem may eventually become dysfunctional because of its limited capacity; (c) the invader loses and perishes; and (d) both the invader and the existing species go through a process of variation and selection and acquire new properties.

In this case, the techno-enthusiasts are viewed as invading species. Whether they are successfully adopted and become permanently established depends on their compatibility with the teaching environment.

The variables they constructed and employed were (1) the ecosystem, (2) the teacher’s niche in the ecosystem, (3) teacher–ecosystem interaction, (4) teacher–computer predisposition for compatibility, and (5) opportunities for mutual adaptation.
For the implications for policy and practice the authors provided the following suggestions: teacher-level change; recruitment/selection; training/socialization; providing opportunities to explore and learn; leveraging change through the social context and programmatic possibilities (p.831)

In part of their research, they used real life example to illustrate 3 phrases of interaction between a focal teacher and the new technology. Initially, the technology has certain capabilities, represented by its shape as depicted. The teacher’s perception of the value of the technology may reflect his or her history, pedagogical practices, and so forth, and may include an assessment of the costs associated with use.
In the second phase, the teacher and the technology change shapes as they co-evolve. Note that the teacher’s modifications are influenced by the help received and by perceived pressure from others (shown by the dotted lines).The other teachers may, themselves, be reacting to institutions or other forces exogenous to the school. This process is analogous to the settlement process of an invading species as it interacts with native species, which in relation to the invader may become food sources, competitors, or predators. The compatibility between the invading species and the native species influences their ability to survive. When new computer uses “invade” a school, the forces of the larger ecosystem are conveyed by relationships within the subsystem of the school.
In the last phase, the technology begins to conform to the teacher, as teachers develop the capacity to modify software and hard-ware to suit their needs. At the same time, the teacher can also change her ways of interacting with the computer, which may demand different teaching practices. This is the stage of co-evolution, in which the invading species and the native species adapt to each other by changing themselves. In other words, the teacher may change her role to become more of a facilitator than an instructor, while the computer becomes a tool to support that. Or the teacher may find the intended uses of the computer completely incompatible and stop using it. In a very unlikely scenario, the computer uses could become so pervasive that the teacher’s role in the school is transformed and her old role becomes extinct.

The authors identified the factors influencing on computer use in schools are: location of exposure; teacher–computer predisposition to compatibility; playfulness, perceived complexity; perceived relative advantage; opportunities for mutual adaptation (Teacher Professional Development) and others.

They concluded that their ecological model took them beyond simply identifying and correlating factors and focused our attention on interactions, activities, processes, and practices. They suggested that by accepting ecological metaphor make the concept of innovations more clear by taking a holistic view. That is innovation cannot be implemented without regard to both internal structures of schools and/or external social forces that challenges the schools. Finally they concluded that an evolutionary rather than revolutionary approach to change in school computer use would be more appropriate.

Reflection:

One thing that echoed my thought from this paper is the issue concerning the nature of school teachers. Dan Lorti has detailed dissection on this issue in his classic Schoolteachers- A Sociological Study. Where do these teachers come from, why they want to be teachers, what are the criteria to recruit the teachers, how are they idiosyncratically and conservatively socializied, what does the school ecology and policy foster their development and so on, all were scrutinized in his book.

In this article, the authors also mentioned researchers who pointed out the root of the above concerns from various angles such as from case studies (Cuban, 2001; Schofield, 1995; Zhao et al., 2002), to historical analysis (Cuban, 1986), to large surveys (Becker,2000a, 2001). They offer various accounts of why teachers do not frequently use technology to its full potential or in revolutionary ways that could truly lead to qualitatively different teaching and learning experiences (p.808).

Some researchers believe that education is one of the most conservative social institutions that are directly at odds with new technologies. The authors quoted that the goal of schools as organizations, according to Hodas (1993), is “not to solve a defined problem but to relieve stress on the organization caused by pressure operating outside of or overwhelming the capacity of normal channels” (p. 2). In other words, schools naturally and necessarily resist changes that will put pressure on existing practices (Cohen, 1987; Cuban, 1986).
Look at the reality, it is the business world, or industrial-military complex that spearheads the revolutionary phenomena. It was astonishing to me when the first time encountering this statement “Those who can – do; those who cannot-----teach---- and “please teach well”!
Hopefully, this is a finger pointing moment. If we want both quantity and quality, democratization and capitalization, believing in everyone can teach and learn, as well as teach and learn well, then more and more research like this will continuously reminds of the fundamental uniqueness of the structure and functions embedded in the education systems

The other minor observation from this paper can be a bias of mine- I notice some research or disciplines inherited from European tradition or certain regions in Asia have a tendency to employ holistic or eclectic approaches in the studies. Both micro and macro views are important to gain insight into human complexity. Multi-level analysis and bio-ecological/system approach point out the interconnectedness of human conditions, while discrete ( isolated conditions) approach provides certain degree of causal or relational explanation.

#16 A conceptual framework for the development of theories-in-action with open-ended learning environments (OELEs)

huangxena@yahoo.com — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:03:00 +0000

A conceptual framework for the development of theories-in-action with open-ended learning environments (OELEs) -by Susan M. Land and Michael J. Hannafin ERT&D. Vol.44, No.3, 1996, p.37-53 ISSN 1042-1629

Land et al’s “ conceptual framework for the development of theories-in-action with open-ended learning environment (OELE)” (1996), though written 12 years ago, is still an important framework added to currently available learning environments. This paper provided unique perspective for pondering. The following are my reading summary and reflection/questions.

Summary:

The authors proposed five elements of OELEs to represent the theory-in-action development process. They are:
1. Learner and system context
2. System affordance
3. Intention-action cycle
4. System response/feedback; and
5. Learning processing.

They also detailed the conceptual framework with a real life example -ErgoMotion to illustrate the processes of theory-building via their model.
The authors concluded that open-ended learning involves learning process that was mediated by the “unique” intentions and purposes of individuals.

Reflection:

The word “unique” in the article caught my attention. These groups of individuals with unique intentions and purposes of individuals, from my observation of learners that I have encountered with, tend to be at the high end of individual characteristic spectrum. For example, they tend to possess non-normality of motivations, endeavors, preferred learning styles, specific interests, self-efficacy, problem solving strategies and skills, prior experience and knowledge, goal-orientation and so on personal characteristics. These non-mediocrities are what Cervone & Wood refer to – the background context that influences the choices learners make in the environment, and the extent to which they persevere on a task and the types of goals they set (1995).
This is what I meant – Land and Hannafin’s framework is a unique one.

Observations/questions:

Contemporary theoretical constructs such as constructivism (Jonassen, 1991), situated cognition (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989), and cognitive flexibility (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson, & Coulson, 1991) emphasize learners’ active learning processes. The ideas of microworlds (Papert, 1993a; 1993b; Rieber, 1992), anchored instruction (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1992) were linked to contemporary pedagogical approaches initiated by Vygotsky and Piaget. In their views, the learner is perceived as AN ACTIVE CONSTRUCTOR of KNOWLEDGE. Thus, the whole tout of self-directed learning, experiential learning, situated/anchored learning comprise a range of empowering learning theories and frameworks to provide learners with the optimal learning environments.

I did not pose an inquiry on such a theory or assumption relating to constructivism or OELEs model that whether all the learners, majority of learners, some of the learners, or just a small group of learners are viewed as active constructors of knowledge (sounds like an anti-democratic -elitism obscurant?!) Furthermore, to what extent of activeness and constructiveness the knowledge is generated or claimed is my another question. For in the era of Piaget and Vygotsky, the elements of systematic contexts , system affordance, intention-action cycle , and system response/feedback might not have been added into the scenario. Not until Bronfenbrenner did bio-ecological system approach appear in the larger picture of human processing learning.

Personally, I see the merits of constructivism, particularly in the cyber knowledge explosive era. Constructivism and its sister theoretical pedagogies open the venues for the cyber knowledge aggregation (such as networking and learning communities) and knowledge generating. In our Joomla assignments, we adopted much of adult learning theories into our project reflecting such a preferred approach. Nevertheless, even within our mini higher education learning community, the ideals of collaborative and self-directed learning essence is still facing many challenges in terms of different levels of prior knowledge (or individual experience), self-regulations and endeavors, and different perception, interpretation, evaluation, and extrapolation in the intention-action cycle (i.e., levels of process in theory-in-action).

I understand and appreciate OELEs model’s richness and uniqueness. Diversity or variability, like collaboration, cooperation, group work, even as well as team work, is a double edged sword. It brings up kaleidoscopic points of views and challenges the homogenous monotony, as well as stimulates deeper understanding and problem solving capacity, but it also accompanies with some cumbersome or undesirable effects that tolls time and energy.

Comparing our mini Joomla collaborative adult learning group to my experiencing in engaging with my much diverse student body, ranging from having reading and writing challenges to the mature, authentically self-directed learners; from the young high school drop-out to the silvery 60+ grandparents; from the once wearing jump suit guys to the single mom/dad all gathering in the same online or f2f classrooms , the OELEs model indeed, is a unique one if it is applied into my teaching and learning environment with great caution and endeavors.

#15 Reflection and question on experiential learnign with working adults

huangxena@yahoo.com — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:11:00 +0000

Continuous, Interactive, and Online: A Framework for Experiential Learning with Working Adults by Eric Riedel, Leilani Endicott, Anna Wasescha, and Brandy Goldston published Volume 3 issue 6, August/Septermber/2007

When I was studying some quality assurance issues on adult learning, this article showed up during my browsing. It is like a case report. I gleaned over it and picked some good points for reference.

Summary:
The article started with retrospection on the response to the criticism that universities were either dangerously aloof from the practicalities of the workplace or aligned with the military-industry complex. Later the higher education picked their new roles in facilitating students’ internships, field experiences, and service-learning to demonstrate some functionalities in preparing citizens for meaningful work and participation in the larger society.

The central theme of this article focuses on Walden University’s practice as a showcase. Walden is a distance learning alternative to traditional graduate schools, enrolling over 22,000 masters and doctoral students seeking several of degrees. The programs at Walden are administered through online courses, faculty-guided independent study projects called Knowledge Area Modules (KAMs), or a mix of the two approaches:

A. Lead faculty develop courses and are administered by full and part-time faculty who guide discussion, provide feedback on assignments, and supplement standard course materials.
B. Faculty mentors guide student work on KAMs through e-mail, telephone, and an online forum providing continuous support to all of a mentor's students. Doctoral students are also required to attend 20 days of in-person residencies with faculty and other students held at temporary meeting spaces each year.

The school applies the intersection between experiential and online learning relies on those professional and social experience the students bring to the learning environment from their lives beyond the classroom. This scholar-practitioner approach contrasts with the traditional university model whereby a young adult with little work experience withdraws from the wider society to focus primarily on learning. The opportunity costs for older adults already engaged in professional, community, and family life often preclude such a withdrawal.

Reflection:

A significant point in Walden’s practice is that their admissions policy requires doctoral students having 3 years of practice within the field in which they seek a degree. Master's students are not required to have experience in their field at the time of admission, although these students typically do have such experience above and beyond the requirements they otherwise must meet. The average age of the Walden student is 37.6 years old, and nearly all of them are employed full-time during the period in which they are enrolled.

I can see the functions of the admission standards that obtain a certain degree of homogeneity in terms of age, educational level and occupational elements among those online students. From my observation, they comprise several aspects of adult learning theory: self-directed, transformative, experiential and contextualized learning within and beyond their learning communities. And like most of the busy adult life style, they juggle against time constraints in engaging in the multitasks among family, career, or communities.

Questions:

One of my puzzles in engaging in online teaching and learning is that there are population under various circumstances, seemingly having or seeking the possibility to do more with less resources (both the quantifiable and unquantifiable resources, in particular, time and money, and others, such as the emotions and relations etc.- the cost and effectiveness consideration). Time constraint is a typical factor in many people’s teaching and learning experiences. In Bransford et al’s (1999) “How people learn: mind, brain, experience and school”, pointing out an important component for learning to be transferred to new problems and situations is the time element. The same point was also presented in Lindsey Godwin and Soren Kaplan’s “Designing ee-Learning Environment” as posted in my previous reflection. They honestly addressed an important challenge that confronted the ee-learning: the time commitment from both participants and facilitators. Time spending is a measurable factor. Some research and experienced on liners claim that online teaching and learning are time consuming. According to this line of understanding, then it presents a contradictory scenario that people seek to save time and other resources by selecting a time consuming mechanism to fulfill that goal. I am not referring to the issue of short change of the educational quality. My question is about under what kind of conditions that people can do more with less, in particular, in term of the time constraints – the quantifiable equalizer – because we all have the same 24 hours a day!

Here is a vivid example to illustrate my question- some of my students – such as parents or single parent with young kids, dealing with many other family affairs (sick child, old relatives, personal illness and so on physical and emotional issues), juggling a couple of paid jobs, taking full time loads, busy with other communities issues, and expect to be an “A” student! Sometimes, I am thinking that most of them are supermen and superwomen!! In my case, as a slow bloomer, I have to sacrifice so many things and time in order to get one thing to be done a time!

#14 on AI+ee learning

huangxena@yahoo.com — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:44:00 +0000

Via our XtremeJoomla discussion, I decided to make a synopsis on Lendsey Godwin and Soren Kaplan’s Designing ee-Learning Environment-Lessons from an Online Workshop, published on Innovate Online Journal (http://innovateonline.info/?view=issue) Volume 4, Issue 4, April/May 2008. I suggested to our team to well document the processes and maybe it can end up into a potentially publishable work.

Here is my summary and reflection:

The whole concept of ee-learning came from some program offered in the field of organizational development . The program innovated a term-the appreciative inquiry which is an approach in the OD learning. Cocreated by David Cooperrider, appreciative inquiry is a strength-based management philosophy and whole-system change methodology (Cooperrider and Whitney 2005) that is said to be "revolutionizing the field of organizational development” (Quinn 2000, 220) through its application of guiding principles that focus an organization's energy on success and possibility.

Before going to next section, I quoted the definition of appreciative inquiry (AI) from this paper as follows:“Appreciative Inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential. It centrally involves the mobilization of inquiry through the crafting of the “unconditional positive question” often-involving hundreds or sometimes thousands of people. In AI the arduous task of intervention gives way to the speed of imagination and innovation; instead of negation, criticism, and spiraling diagnosis, there is discovery, dream, and design. AI seeks, fundamentally, to build a constructive union between a whole people and the massive entirety of what people talk about as past and present capacities: achievements, assets, unexplored potentials, innovations, strengths, elevated thoughts, opportunities, benchmarks, high point moments, lived values, traditions, strategic competencies, stories, expressions of wisdom, insights into the deeper corporate spirit or soul-- and visions of valued and possible futures. Taking all of these together as a gestalt, AI deliberately, in everything it does, seeks to work from accounts of this “positive change core”—and it assumes that every living system has many untapped and rich and inspiring accounts of the positive. Link the energy of this core directly to any change agenda and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.” (Excerpted from - A Positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry by David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney).

The AI ee-learning, in this article connects to several theories, such as Klob’s experientical learning (as we read in the early of this semester) and Gardner’s multiple intelligent learners as well as a little bit from Tapscott (1998) and Dede’s (2005) technology impact on the current generations. The following section provides the details of the main theme.

The concept of ee-Learning is defined by Steve Eskow (Trevitte and Eskow 2007), describing a hybrid approach to pedagogy that combines online learning with experiential, offline, hands-on learning. The electronic component was influenced by the learning platform provided by iCohere (see the note at the end of this section), the overarching design of the learning was informed by the experiential learning theory outlined by David Kolb, and a colleague of Cooperrider. Kolb's experiential learning theory proposes that "knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Kolb 1984, 41). While many discussions on experiential learning focus only on the experience portion of the theory, Kolb's model suggests that learning actually takes place through a four-step process called the experiential learning cycle in creating an experiential learning in online environment. I transferred it to our current on-going project- Xtremejoomla.(Note: iCohere, it is an organization that provides web collaboration software tools for association, governmental organizations, and communities.)

The steps in the experiential learning cycle include
1. having a concrete experience- such as we are going through the Joomla learning process with real minds on and hands on concrete experience.
2. reflecting on that experience- we reflect on our blogging on the way through each step in our Joomla learning
3. conceptualizing abstractly about the experience- during the Joomla journey, we meta-cognitively construct concepts and the hands-on experience about our learning, such as reifying each step according to the 7 AL learning principles by adding theoretical foundation, pedagogical practice aligning with curriculum design with outlined lesson plans, using Internet, and media enhancement in the pedagogy and curriculum via collaborative processes in synched manner and so on.
4. actively experimenting with a new behavior- we are actively playing out various collaborative roles and learning different kinds of behavior in our learning process.

This workshop provides the following weekly learning agenda, some of which relate to our project:
1. A weekly "live meeting". We did a couple of times. But we did not set up a weekly agenda.
2. Learning activities. These offline activities required students to apply the concepts of AI to their organizational experiences and gain hands-on learning of AI as a philosophy and a methodology, either with other students or on their own. We do have our learning activities, but are in a semi-structured way – I think
3. Readings. Articles on the theory and application of appreciative inquiry, in conjunction with case studies and tools created by OD practitioners, illustrated how AI has been applied in various organizational contexts. We are focusing on AL principles. But AI is appropriate to blend into our current project. We could add a reading list for all of us to engage with.
4. Learning presentations. Prerecorded lectures from Cooperrider, along with video case studies from organizations, were available on demand to help students gain a deeper understanding of the concepts and applications of AI. In this case, we all can make a mini breeze presentation to showcase what and how we understand AL+AI in the XtremeJoomla project
5. Reflective prompts. These questions encouraged students to make links between the theory and their own experiences and invited them to share their reflections. I think our blog supposed to function in this way.

Blending Technology and Content to Support ee-Learning
In their designing the workshop, they realized that technology and content needed to work together to facilitate the range of learning experiences in the experiential learning cycle. The online iCohere environment, which includes discussion boards, live-chat tools, file-sharing options, and an expandable reference library, was designed specifically to support ee-learning. Participants began the workshop by reviewing a narrated presentation that introduced the workshop site's various features, including specific screenshots of the environment.

Bridging Online and Offline Environments
In addition to creating a virtual environment that supported a range of experiential activities, they also wanted to complement participants' online learning with offline applications. Each week students were required to engage in an offline, job-specific application project based on the weekly topic. In our case, we did it in a more less structured way of when online and when offline.

The Learning Cycle Transcends Virtual Boundaries
The question of how people learn in online environments has prompted energetic debate. Like Kolb's experiential learning theory, Gardner's (1993) multiple intelligences theory suggests that individuals have different preferences and aptitudes for different types of learning. Further, Tapscott (1998) and Dede (2005) have outlined the impact of increasingly ubiquitous technology on the current generation's learning styles and abilities. They have seen that age, cultural background, and geography (since some of our participants come from regions of the world where Internet connections are still rare or inconsistent) can all impact a student's confidence level with online tools and thus the learning experience itself.

It's Not Really About the Technology - as they proclaimed it!
They have found that successful ee-learning does not necessarily require the most sophisticated technologies available. Rather, the key factor in designing ee-learning environments is intention. Trainers and educators who use online pedagogies must create curricula purposely designed to include the various elements of experiential learning: reflection opportunities, active projects, and conceptual resources. Without such intention, technology features—rather than educational outcomes—can begin to drive content.

Virtual Connections are Real Connections
To help students make meaningful connections with each other, they began each workshop with a paired interview activity. This is similar to our peers to peers collaborative genre in our project.

Conclusion
Their workshop translated appreciative inquiry, an experiential approach to organizational change, into an online workshop, they see the potential for other theories and approaches that are typically delivered in a traditional face-to-face setting to be delivered effectively online. As long as theories and concepts are applied to specific real-life issues, there is potential for creating a vibrant ee-learning environment where participants engage in applied work offline and share their reflections online.

This article also concluded an important challenging confronting the ee-learning: the time commitment from both participants and facilitators. That is very true in our case too. Like in our XtremeJoomla project, we all have various roles to play and works to be done which sometimes make a gathering either synchronously or asynchronously both online and F2F very challenging, not to mention a group of 94 participants across 17 countries in their workshop!!!

Reflection:

The ee+AI learning as I call it, is another innovation added to the online learning environment. I appreciate the creative and pragmatic idea of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) searching for the best in people, organizations, and the relevant world around our daily lives. It involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential. In this sense, I consider that AI tend to facilitate the high end of population and condition, because I have a tendency to look at an innovation that has the potential to narrow the disparity among human being's developmental possibility.

The AI concept also reminds of my reading through Reiser and Dempsey’s “Trends and Issues in Instructional design and Technology, 2nd ed.). One of the chapter details the framework of HPI/HPT tying to Shultz and Becker’s (the Nobel Economics winners) concept of Human Capitals. They proclaim that it is human or non-instructional factors that need to be well addressed, investigated as well improved in the performance. They explicate that knowledge and performance capabilities of population (more than the natural resources) correlate to the economic success of a country. I perceive the relevant idea in Cooperrider et al’s AI.

The Al and AL do focus on the zone of optimal performance of human capacity, but AI seems gearing toward one end of the spectrum.

I also observe some similarity to what we learned in class across AI and AL, such as learner-centered (i.e., based on Gardner’s multiple intelligence and learning style/preference in AI), collaborative and interactive learning, experiential leraning (Kolb), online synched environment (more in AL's GoNorth), pedagogy aligned with constructed curriculum with detailed outline lessen plan, media enhancement, which are also more articulated in the AL. AI also has adventure ingredient with online and offline features, depending on the aspect of adventuring. The other minor difference is that AI tends to focus on adult learning experience, for the reflective and inquiry components are more emphasized in the meta-cognitive or abstract/conceptual level.

#13 on design-based/experiment research readings

huangxena@yahoo.com — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:04:00 +0000

Summary

Design-based research (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992) has been emerging for the studying of learning in context through the systematic design and study of instructional strategies and tools. This research paradigm shifting brought in many vision, revision and arguments.
My current reading includes a series of monographs and papers surrounding around this theme- call it experiment design research, design-based research, or teaching experiment - in the CI8395 list. These eight articles provide an array of advocate and critique of its structures, functions, limitations as well as potential solutions.

Most of these articles either champion or espouse the new possibilities and contribution to improve and innovate the educational theories and practice. One of them, Shavelson et al’s “On the Science of Education Design Studies”, on the other hand, argues that design studies must comport with guiding scientific principles and provide adequate warrants for their knowledge claims. They acknowledge the nature of the messiness of the educational ecology study. For design studies are complex, multivariate, multilevel, and interventionist, making warrants particularly difficult to establish. They critique on the typically heavy usage of design studies on narrative accounts to communicate and justify the findings. They argue that narratives often purport to be true, but there is nothing in narrative form that guaranteed veracity. The solution they propose is to provide a framework that links design-study research questions as they evolve over time with corresponding research methods. In this way, integration can be seen of research methods focused on discovery with methods focused on validation of claims. That is what I agree upon- the tough task that a well designed design-based research needs to envision and to employ the fittest methods and documentations from an array of available research methods and methodologies into the ongoing research processes. It, by nature, also tests the heuristics and wisdom of researchers and teams to deploy appropriate multiple methods and triangulation to provide warrants and knowledge claims.

The above article is the major critique from the eight on design-based/experiment research. The rest of papers are mainly supporting or implementing (such as model building or framework constructing based on the tenet of design-based research) this methodology. In the article, “Design-based Research: An Emerging Paradigm for Educational Inquiry”, the Baumgartner et al remark that design-based research blends empirical educational research with the theory-driven design of learning environment, is an important methodology of understanding how , when, and why educational innovations work in practice. Design based researchers’ innovations embody specific theoretical claims about teaching and learning, and help us understand the relationships among educational theories, designed artifact, and practice. Design is central in efforts to foster learning, create usable knowledge, and advance theories of learning and teaching in complex settings. Design-based research also many contribute o the growth of human capacity for subsequent education reform.

I think I might have an opportunity to carry out a small scale of design research in my coming semester if I choose to teach the brand new LiveMeeting with Sociology. The following sections are my study notes to reinforce such a temptation from these articles:

Prospects for design-based research in education: the promise the design-based research can provide: a exploring possibilities for creating novel learning and teaching environment b. developing theories of learning and instruction that are contextually based c. advancing and consolidating design knowledge, and d. increasing or capacity for educational innovation.

Be careful! Challenges faced by design-based research methods: the issues of reliability and validity of data collection and interpretation are different from the controlled experiment. Design based research relies on techniques used in other paradigms which I am familiar with are case study, ethnography, hermeneutic phenomenology, historiography, ethnomethodology, which depend on thick description datasets, systematic analysis of date with carefully defined measures and consensus in building within the field around interpretation of the data. When trying to promote the objectivity, while attempting to facilitating the interpretation, design-based researchers regularly find themselves in t he dual roles of advocate and critic. It is possible to employ specific research methods to question the designer-researcher’s tacitly held assumptions. The methods of documenting process of enactment with triangulation of multiple sources to provide critical evidence to establish warrants for claimed outcomes.

In “Design Experiments in Educational Research” , Cobb et al Cobb et al (2003) propound that design-based research can help create and extend knowledge about developing, enacting, and sustaining innovative environments.
A good design-based research has the following characteristics, according to Cobb et al’s suggestions:
1.The central goals of designing learning environments and developing theories or “prototheories” of learning are intertwined.
2. Development and research take place through continuous cycles of design, enactment, analysis and redesign (Cobb, 2001; Collins 1992).
3. Research on designs must lead to sharable theories that help communicate relevant implications to practitioners and other educational designers (cf. Brophy, 2002).
4. Research must account for how design function in authentic settings. It must not just document success or failure but also focus on interactions that refine our understanding of the learning issues involved. The development of such accounts relies on methods that can document and connect processes of enactment to outcomes of interests.
5. Design experiments are pragmatic as well as theoretical in orientation – both of the design and of the resulting ecology of learning- is at the heart of this methodology.

The range and settings vary in both research type and scope:
1. One on one (teacher-experimenter and student)design experiments in which a research team conducts a series of teaching sessions with a small number of students. The aim is to create a small scale version of a learning ecology so that it can be studied in depth and detail (Cobb & Steffe, 1983; Steffe & Thompson, 2000). I think I might try this one if things come together for me to do it!
2. Classroom experiments in which a research team collaborates with a teacher (who might be a research team in which a research team collaborates with a teacher (who might be a research team member) to assume responsibility for instruction (Cobb, 2000; Confrey & Lachance, 2000; Gravemeijer, 1994).
3. Preservice teacher development experiments in which a research team helps organize and study the education of prospective teachers (Simon, 2000).
In-service teacher development studies in which researchers collaborate with teachers to support the development of a professional community (Lehrer & Schaulble, 2000; Stein, Silver, & Smith, 1998).
4. School and school district restructuring experiments in which a research team collaborates with teachers, school administrators, and other stakeholders to support organizational change (Confrey, Bell, & Carrejo, 2001).

They also identified 5 crosscutting features of design study:
1. The purposes of design experimentation is to develop a class of theories about both the process of learning and the means that are designed to support that learning. It can be the learning of individual students, a classroom community, a professional teaching community, a school or school district as an organization. The means for supporting learning encompass the affordances and constraints of material artifacts, teaching and learning practices, and policy levers etc.

2. It is necessary to document learning ecologies at multiple levels (Kelly & Lesh, 2000). Example: A research team focuses on the norms and practices of a professional teaching community, the participating teachers’ pedagogical reasoning and instructional practices, and their students’ reasoning in a particular content domain.

3. The highly interventionist nature of the methodology- design studies are typically test-beds for innovation. The design developed while preparing for an experiment draws on prior research and attempts to cash in the empirical and theoretical results of that research. The process of engineering the forms of leaning being studies provided the research team with a measure of control when compared with purely naturalistic investigation. Design experiments have two faces: prospective and reflective. On the prospective side, designs are implemented with a hypothesized learning process and the means of supporting it in mind in order to expose the details of the process to scrutiny. On the reflective side, design experiments re conjecture-driven tests, often at several levels of analysis.

4. The above two aspects result in the iterative design.

5. The pragmatic nature-theories developed during t he process of experiment are humble in terms of domain specific learning processes, and also are accountable to the activity of design. The theories do real work. General philosophical orientations to educational matters- such as constructivism – are important to educational practice, but they tend to fail to provide detailed guidance in organizing instruction. The question is Does theory informs prospective design and in what way? Design experiment also tend to emphasize and intermediate theoretical scope (diSessa, 1991) that is located between a narrow account of a specific system.

Preparing for design experiment, according to Cobb et al’s perspective:
1. Clarifying the theoretical intent: What is the point of the study? Example: the relationship between classroom norms of a discipline and student learning, or diversity of students’ prior experiences can be capitalized upon as a resource to ensure that all student have access to significant disciplinary ideas.
2. Specify the significant disciplinary ideas and forms of reasoning that constitute the prospective goals or endpoints for student learning. This usually involves drawing on the synthesizing the prior research literature to identify central organizing ideas for s domain.
3. Specifies the assumptions about the intellectual and social starting points of the envisioned forms of learning. These works include current student capabilities, practices, their initial interpretation and understanding as part of the pilot work.
4. Formulate a design that embodies testable conjectures about both significant shifts in student reasoning and the specific means of supporting these shifts.

Conducting a Design experiment
A primary goal for the study is to improve the initial design by testing and revising conjectures as informed by ongoing analysis of both the students’ reasoning and the learning environment. There are 4 functions they require ongoing direct engagement in the research setting and the associated planning and interpretive activates:

1. A clear view of the anticipated learning pathways and the potential of support must be maintained and communicated within the research team,
2. Cultivation of ongoing relationships with practitioners
3. Seek to develop a deep understanding of the ecology of learning – a theoretical target for the research
4. Regular debriefing.

One of the characteristics of the design experiment methodology is that the research team deepens its understanding of the phenomenon under investigation while the experiment is in progress. It is standard procedure in most engineering disciplines to keep records to support the retrospective analysis of the experiment (Edelson, 2002). Accordingly, the research team may employ audio record f meeting and logs to document the evolving conjectures, together with the observations that re views as either supporting or questioning a conjecture.

This is an interesting article! For research across disciplines and across methods and methodologies, McCandliss et al’s article propose that design-experiments might be productively combined with methods of inquiry common in more traditional elaborative science and considers the potential benefits of such a dialectic. The authors hope to promote a constructive dialogue to help formulate an infrastructure for the science of education that synthesized theoretical insights supported by a wide array of investigational methodologies (Posner & McCandliss, 1993).

The article retrospected to the recent Congressional and U.S. Department of Education policy statements mark a radical shift in the shaping of future educational research methodology, calling for randomized controlled trials as the primary source of “scientific evidence” relevant to improve practice (Shavelson, Phillips, Towne, & Feuer, 2003). There is a basic tension between the types of methods and frameworks advanced in these recent calls for evidence-based practice and those that have proven to be useful in the leading models for design experiments. Ann Brown’s (1992) research provided vision to this tension.She envisioned dynamic relationships between classroom-based and elaborative-based research. Her work provided specific examples of observations, conjectures, and artifacts that might be transported across these two research contexts. She perceived such exchange as bi-directional supporting a mutually beneficial cross-fertilization of tow very different research contexts. Unfortunately many of the dominant design experiment approaches have provide little or no provision for intellectual exchange with laboratory science methods.

After perusing these articles, the potentiality, functionalities, limitations and challenges of the design-based/experiments research come alive in front of me.

#12 Reading Reflection

huangxena@yahoo.com — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:02:00 +0000

Warschauer et al’s Technology and Equity in Schooling: Deconstructing the Digital Divide (in the CI 8395 Reading list) presented a qualitative study compared the availability of, access to, and use of new technologies in a group of low and high SES California high schools. In their study, the student-computer ratios in the schools were similar, the social contexts of computer use differed.

They identified 3 main patterns of technology access and use: perfromativity, workability, and complexity. They suggested a three-pronged approach to the above mentioned conditions. The first one is to ensure the low and high SES schools have higher numbers of well-trained and experienced teachers, staff, and administrators, and provide sufficient funding to the schools where large English language learners have. Second, they suggested that teachers turn their attention away from mastery of software program to use technology for scholarship, research and inquiry. And third, schools need a better approach for addressing unequal access to home computers. They also suggested that narrowing the gap in numbers of computers in high and low SES schools, both in their sample and in the nation at large, is an important first step toward helping overcome a digital divide in education.

Reflection:
The main theme of the above mentioned article-digital divide- based on SES in the education setting relating to one of my research interests- gender inquality in intersectional dimension (such as minority-race/ethnicity women-gender in rural low SES/class contexts). I conducted several literature reviews, and some of them was tied to information technology. In this review, a couple of concepts (such as investigating on rural women's predicments) were inspired by my particiapting in a Rural Families Talk research project with Dr. Walker. The following one was one of my study notes. There are two parts of this review: One was from the global perspective and the other one focused on the U.S. domain.

Part one- Global perspective on the relationship between rural low income women/populations and information technology

Information technology has changed dramatically over the last few years. In particular, Internet, has provided a medium for instantaneous exchange of information. And while many societies are facing the sea change via the unleashed electronic transformation, there are growing concerns regarding whose who are left out or behind. Generally speaking, the poor and the poorest tend to live in the far remote rural areas. It is a global pattern; no matter they are in the underdeveloped countries, such as Bangladesh, or in the post-modern societies, such as America.
Statistics shows an enormous gap in the rural-urban-suburban areas where socio-economic status, gender, and racial background distinguish the digital divide.There is now comprehensive evidence demonstrating gender differences in access to opportunities, resources and participation across the range of civic services and social and economic life chances. In particular, rural low-income women are the weakest link represented in decisionmaking. They are disproprortionately burdened with task loads, have least mobility with which to access resources and services such as heath care, child care facilities, social supports, education, and job opportunities, just to name a few.

Among the poor, gender inequality in particular, deepens the poverty. Women are socially excluded from their proportionate share of the health and wealth of their societies: including women in decisions about rural infrastructure services is a precondition to ensure scarce public resources positively affect the livelihood. (June, 2002, Final report of the World Bank, retrieved from http://www.geocities.com/transport_and_society/ruralinclusion.html ).

In short, it is necessary to identify and rectify the rural low income women’s gender disparities which have negative socio-economic effects on individuals, communities and society as a whole. The social inclusion and rural infrastructure services entail government intervention and policy making to provide effective practices via projects, programs and incentives. Such discourse has developed in Europe, and has been widely incorporated in rural and resource planning in the international communities.

The following section briefly introduces the above mentioned discourse in Europe.

Europe
The rural areas of the European Union are varied in terms of social and economic structure, geography and culture. Rural women too are not a homogeneous group. They have different roles and occupations, on farms and in family businesses, in employment and in community activities. Their needs and interests differ too, particularly from one age group to another, and depending on the size and composition of their family and age of their children. The economic and social changes that rural areas are undergoing do not affect all women in the same way: offering opportunities to some, to others they bring difficult challenges.

Rural economies, particularly those dependent on agriculture, have been affected by the processes of globalization, leading to the restructuring and decline of the agricultural sector, the growth of the service sector and increased emphasis on technology. In many areas, this
has created unprecedented work and employment opportunities, as well as bringing changes in the role and status of women. These changes have also contributed to further shifts in
population, with some rural areas close to towns and cities coming under pressure, while many
remote areas continue to suffer a decline in population.

In some regions of Europe, economic recession and cutbacks in public services have led to further rural decline, remoteness and poor infrastructure. Young people, and above all young women, migrate to the towns and cities in increasing numbers. ( This section is excerpted from Assuring the future of rural Europe, 2000, http://europa.eu.int )

Some practices from the International OrganizationsInternational Labor Organization (ILO) In this section, the focal point of the ILO is to discuss why a basic-needs of technology-related framework is necessary for the low income women/populations.
Most poor people live in the rural areas. Even with an antipoverty slant in development programs, underdeveloped countries have yet to make any significant dent in poverty. It is not surprising to observe the level and growth of incomes which are not correlated with basic-needs' achievements in Africa.

Paucity of jobs, limited purchasing power, and socioeconomic inequalities contribute to the inability of poor countries, poor families, and poor individuals to fulfill their basic needs. For these reasons, the Technology Programme of the International Labour Organization has had a clear antipoverty thrust that relies on employment generation as a major instrument for improving the poor's access, particularly in rural areas, to basic goods and services. ( refer to http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-28596-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html)

The International Women's Tribune Centre (IWTC)
This organization works in partnership with the International Development Research/Eastern and Southern Africa Office (IDRC/Nairobi). This organization has developed a new information tool that offers direct access to information for women who are among the most marginalized in development --poor women with little or no reading ability. The starting place for this initiative is Africa and the starting point is a CD-ROM Rural Women in Africa: Ideas for Earning Money. ( refer to http://www.wougnet.org/News/cdupdate.html).

WIGSAT
This is another international non-profit organization. Its goal is to promote the development and dissemination of science and technology (including ICTs) which enable women, especially those living in developing countries, to contribute to and benefit from growth and development in the global knowledge society. Its range of activities include the facilitation of e-networking (including web sites and listservs); policy analysis and research; lobbying and development and management of projects. (refer to http://www.wigsat.org/gstpmap.html).

In Africa
One of the example from the research was Patrica Liths’s “Uganda: ITCs, empowerment and Women in rural Uganda” , which investigated the African women’s social, technological and information contexts. By identifying the barriers to women's full use of ICTs, and then developed strategies for overcoming those barriers.
The central inquiry concerns African women's use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This includes issues of access, the benefits African women experience and can expect to experience from ICTs, and the role they can and do play in the production and dissemination of information. It emphasizes that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can result to socio-cultural, economic and political change. It has resulted to a shift in development discourse (The World Bank 2004, OECD 2004, CIDA 2004, Hafkin and Wild 2002, G0U 2002, Sorensen 2002, Hafkin and Taggart 2001, Preston 2001, Adeya 2000, ECA 1999). It is now common to hear about Summits, meetings and conferences on ‘ICTs for development’, ‘cyberspace’, ‘digital economy’, ‘information superhighways’, ‘the information society and ‘networked society’ (Preston 2001) among others. A number of bilateral and multilateral donor organisations have now mainstreamed ICTs in their development programmes in order to more effectively meet the millennium development goals (OECD 2003). (refer to ICTs, empowerment and Women in rural Uganda: A SCOT Perspective, A paper presented at the “to think is to experiment”; SSMAC, Centre for Narrative Research, UEL, 22nd April 2005 by Patricia. K. Litho, retrieved from http://www.uel.ac.uk/cnr/ICTs.htm).

Australia
In Australia, the community networking and interactive communication technology (ICT) projects was based on feminist or social justice principles usually aiming to include a broad diversity of community members. Groups often targeted include women, indigenous people, people of non-English speaking backgrounds or with low incomes, and people living in rural and remote areas. The inclusion and empowerment of rural people has become increasingly important in Australia as governments and community development practitioners seek new community-based solutions to the sustainability of rural and remote communities (Harrison, 1998).
Many of these communities have experienced severe economic decline and a loss of services over the past decade or more. A further factor is the likelihood of a growing ‘digital divide’ between various social groups as access to ICTs such as the Internet and email becomes more important to work, education, citizenship, community development, and social activities.
(Paper published in the proceedings of the Electronic Networks - Building Community: 5th Community Networking Conference, 3-5 July 2002, Monash University, Melbourne, http://www.ccnr.net/?q=taxonomy/term/15).

Asia
Asia is a leader in providing cutting-edge expertise to drive the global information technology industry. Yet, with the exception of a few countries, it also is the home of unmitigated poverty, overpopulation and a persistent gender gap in education and literacy. The Asia-Pacific region shows great diversity in gender-related indicators and differential gains in the advancement of women and girls. But a consistent concern shared among all the countries is one of stark urban-rural disparity in development gains, particularly in education. The rural female children face greater disadvantages than rural male children do. While prevailing social attitudes and cultural norms could explain the disparity prevalent in the communities and within the household, it is necessary to acknowledge the issue of imbalances in the allocation of national resources to serve the rural sector.

South Asia- Gender aspects of conventional technologies
In the mid-1980s, several studies looked for areas where improved technology could both reduce the workload of and generate income for rural women in South Asia. These studies found that production linkages may or may not always be beneficial for women. Some examples are the following:
The mechanization of the fishing industry in Kerala, India, has resulted in a large increase in the volume of the fish catch and increased women's employment in net making, coir and prawn processing, marketing, and trade.
An alternative technology for milk preservation introduced in the Punjab, Pakistan, has strengthened the backward production linkage with villages near a sterilization plant, but the tendency in the rural family has been for men to pocket the earnings generated by women's additional work. Field-based ILO technical-cooperation projects for women from three developing subregions (South Asia and West and South Africa) indicate that it is feasible to widen and diversify women's income-earning opportunities by introducing improved technologies. Applying improved technologies could generate women's employment in nontraditional areas, and upgrading the technologies in women's traditional occupations could simultaneously raise their productivity and reduce the drudgery of their work. Channeling improved technologies through rural women's participatory organizations contributes significantly to women's empowerment. Fostering of linkages with commercial suppliers of technology, training institutes, and marketing channels has been a key element in the strategy for women's empowerment.
The emerging experience of developing countries suggests that the kinds of jobs women will be able to get will continue to be associated with women's comparative advantage, that is, with gender traits that are not recognized, or paid for, as professional skills. When industries adopt improved technologies, the women are relegated to the industrial periphery, stressing, therefore, the core - periphery segmentation of the labor force. In traditional industries, such as textiles, footwear, and rattan furniture, the technological improvement of the production process seems to exacerbate the existing gender division of labor, where the better paid jobs with higher skills content are undertaken by men and the lower paid jobs with lower skills content are undertaken by women. (refer tohttp://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac788e/AC788E03.htm).

The Global Challenges Ahead
The centrality of gender equality and women's empowerment goals is also recognized in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. The plan stresses the importance of enhancing “the role of women at all levels and in all aspects of rural development, agriculture and food security”. Similarly it recognizes that to effect needed changes, “women should be able to participate fully and equally in policy formulation and decision-making”.
The reiteration of international commitments to gender equality and to the empowerment of women contrasts sharply with the inadequate progress that has been made in reducing gender gaps. Undoubtedly, persisting gender gaps are one of the reasons that poverty-reduction targets for the year 2000 were not met. If the new targets are to be reached, efforts and resources must be significantly scaled up and better coordinated in the future. Past experience shows that doing more of the same will not be enough. Nor will economic growth be sufficient if women continue to be denied opportunities. There is in fact a mounting body of evidence pointing to the need to expand women’s rights and representation, and to bring about cultural changes in order to reap the full benefits of economic growth.
Globalization undoubtedly presents enormous opportunities in terms of increased access to knowledge (made possible by new information technologies) and to new markets and employment possibilities. However, it also poses special challenges for the more marginal groups. (Indeed, in an increasingly globalized world, income and gender inequalities are reported to be growing in many countries.) The poor, and especially women, often lack the bargaining power and organizational capacity to grapple with new markets and risks. In such a highly volatile and uneven global environment, there is a need for close monitoring of the impacts of global processes on the poorest and on women in particular. Furthermore, economic and social unrest, and conflict, can lead to the restructuring of societies and the curtailing of women's freedoms. Capacity-building of poor women and men and their institutions, enabling them to advocate for their rights, will be essential in countering the risks of increased vulnerability.(Source: Women as Agents of Change, IFAD (2003).

Part two- The rural low income populations and information technology and Information Technology in the U.S. (There are not sufficient data differentiating gender and IT in the rural contexts. So my reading mainly was focusing on the general population in rural-urban-suburban spectrum instead of specific gender dichotomy). So this part of review did not extract sufficient gender component from the data collected.

After a brief glance of the main relationships between low-income women (gender inequality) and technology in developed, developing and underdeveloped counties, the following section will come back to focus on what the scenario the U.S. looks like.

As of September 30, 2007, 1.244 billion people use the Internet according to Internet World Stats. Writing in the Harvard International Review, philosopher N.J. Slabbert, a writer on policy issues for the Washington DC-based Urban Land Institute, has asserted that the Internet is fast becoming a basic feature of global civilization, so that what has traditionally been called “civil society” is now becoming identical with information technology society as defined by Internet use. (refer to Slabbert, N. J. The Technologies of Peace, Harvard International Review, June 2006). Based on such understanding, the following data that I collected were focused on issues relating Internet.

As the proverbial saying, information technology is a double edged-sword. But without accessing to advancing telecommunications technology, rural areas will be left even far more behind. As in one of the emails sent to you a couple weeks ago, Rowley points out one of the major issues tied to rural disadvantaged status is the rural communications infrastructure. He also identified major obstacles to the above issues identified by the author are market obstacle,regulatory obstacles , physical/technical obstacles and end-user obstacles. To overcome these obstacles, he suggests the following strategies:
a. Doing nothing and hoping that the market provides the necessary services
b. Using regulatory and property management procedures to improve access to advanced telecommunications
c. Using government purchasing power to create a buyer's market.
d. Developing publicly owned infrastructure
e. Using Rural Area Networks (RANs)
f. Interconnecting to urban networks.
g. Using wireless technologies.
h.Working with alternative providers.

In short, all the nifty technology in the world won't improve the lives of rural people, if they can't or won't use it. The predicament lies in that women of the low income rural areas tend to be less benefited from the IT, thus are less likely to demand it. And the less demand from the advanced IT services, they tend not to utilize and benefit from it. So it can end up a viciously cyclical condition.

To understand the above conditions, some researchers and organizations conducted various types of surveys on issues tied to rural low income communities to give stakeholders a better outlook of such a landscape across the U.S.

There are approximately 59-65 million adults living in rural communities, or 21% of the
U.S. adult population. Researchers in this field point out that Internet penetration has grown in rural communities, but the gap between them and suburban and urban communities has remained constant over time, and the rural residents are less likely to be Internet users than those who live in suburbs or cities. According to the Pew Internet & American Life
Project survey in 2003, rural Internet penetration has remained roughly 10 percentage points
behind the national average in each of the last four years ( 67% of urban residents use the Internet; 66% of suburban residents use the Internet, and 52% of rural residents use the Internet).

Internet penetration by percentage

2000 2001 2002 2003
Rural 41 50 49 52
Suburban 55 62 63 66
Urban 51 62 58 67
National 50 59 58 63

Community types as percentages of online population

2000 2001 2002 2003
Rural 19 20 21 20
Suburban 51 53 52 52
Urban 29 27 26 29

(Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys. 2003: March-August 2003 N=3112, Margin of error is ±2%. 2002: March-May 2002 N= 4263, Margin of error is ±2%. 2001: Aug-Sept 2001, N= 4482 Margin of error is ±2%. 2000: N= 21789, Margin of error is ±1%. )

In 2002, the Pew Internet Project gauged the impact of the Internet by asking to what extent users incorporate the Internet into “major life moments” – big decisions and occasions such as making large purchases, changing jobs, or dealing with an illness – that respondents had experienced in the two previous years. Revisiting that data reveals that the Internet is less likely to be a part of major occasions in rural users’ lives than in urban and suburban users’ lives., but in terms of employment, 72% of rural users say the Internet played no role in a job change. By comparison, 55% of urban users and 61% of suburban users said the Internet played no part in their job change.

Rural residents also report a lower instance of high-speed availability to their homes than do urban and suburban residents. In October 2002, the Pew Internet Project asked, Do you currently live in an area where you can subscribe to high-speed Internet service if you want to? Responses to this question do not measure actual physical facilities in each community type, but they indicate how many residents are aware of whether they have the option of broadband access. Rural residents are more likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to say that they don’t know if high-speed connection is available. Dial-up is in decline, but a large percentage of rural users continue to use dial-up connections.

Satellite and wireless connections hold the promise to serve more remote areas, and in 2003 the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Communications Commission launched a joint initiative to stimulate wireless broadband adoption in rural communities. However, the number of wireless users is presently too small to assess the growth of wireless connections.

The cost of deployment remains a barrier to rural residents’ access, and according to Pew Internet Project numbers, access remains an issue. Nevertheless, according to the NTCA, many local telephone companies and cooperatives are already offering broadband connections. In sum, there is at times a lack of demand for high-speed services in rural areas, even when connections are available. (National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. “NTCA 2003 Internet/Broadband Availability Survey Report.” May 2003. Available at: http://www.ntca.org/content_documents/2003broadband.pdf.)

Rural Internet Demographics: Who’s Online?

Rural communities differ significantly from urban and suburban areas in terms of demographics such as age, income and educational attainment. These variables, among others, are strong predictors for Internet use. Statistical analysis that examines the principal drivers for differences in Internet penetration by geographical type suggests that some of the differences are driven by Internet adoption patterns among low-income rural individuals. Living in a rural area in itself has little or no influence as to whether one goes online. However, low-income people in rural areas are less likely to be online than low-income people living in urban or suburban areas; Internet adoption among middle and upper income people is similar across community type. In each community type, Internet users are evenly split in terms of sex. Rural residents are older than suburban and urban residents, and this probably affects Internet penetration rates.

Regression analysis shows that, in some (but not all) model specifications, living in a rural area is a modestly negative and significant predictor of Internet adoption at the 10% level of significance. The interaction of income and being a rural resident is, however, significant; this means that the significance on Net adoption of living in a rural area varies by income level. This is the basis for the finding that low-income residents of rural areas are less likely to be online than low-income residents of urban or suburban locations. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys, March-August 2003. General population: N = 20437, Margin of
error is ±1%. Online population: N=3061, Margin of error is ±2%. Internet penetration: N=4848, Margin of error is ±2%.)

Educational attainment is associated with Internet use in rural communities as elsewhere. Significant increases in Internet penetration accompany increasing levels of educational attainment until leveling off after completion of a four-year degree.

The Activities Rural Internet Users Pursue

Rural users also participate in a number of other online activities, including online transactions. But in most cases, rural users are less likely than urban and suburban users to perform them. This is very likely connected to the fact that a relatively large number of
rural Internet users are relative newcomers to the online world. As a general rule, newcomers are less likely than veterans to have performed transactions online.

Rural users are the least likely to bank online (28%), to make a travel reservation online (49%), or to buy a product online (57%). A lower proportion of rural users go online to do job-related research, and urban and suburban users are also more likely than rural users to conduct information searches for health, housing and employment. (Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Surveys. See Appendix C for sample sizes, margins of error, and survey periods
for each activity.)

There are a few activities that rural users are more likely than urban or suburban users to have done online. Searching for religious or spiritual information is more popular among rural users (35%) than among suburban (29%) and urban (24%) users. In fact, among rural users, gathering religious or spiritual information is more popular than banking online (29%), looking for a place to live (26%), and downloading music (26%, June 2003). Compared to suburban users, rural users are more likely to send or receive instant messages. Even relatively experienced rural Internet users are less likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to engage online transactions.

Experienced rural users are more likely than others to send and receive instant messages, and to seek health information, and look for religious and spiritual information online. Rural users with three years of experience don’t appear to do things much differently from the rural user population in general, but there are some things they do more often. More experienced users continue to send and receive IM at rates comparable to or greater than urban and suburban users. And among experienced users, searching for spiritual or religious information continues to be more popular among rural users (36%) than their suburban (30%) and urban (24%) counterparts. Among experienced users, those living in rural communities are more likely than others to seek out health information. About 73% of experienced rural users have sought health information online.

Rural users were also less likely than suburban users to have used the Internet to deal with an illness or health condition, but more likely than urban users to have done so. While 37% of suburban users say that the Internet played no part in dealing with their illness, 46% of rural users say so. Meanwhile, 57% of urban users said that the Internet was not a part of coping with their condition. Finally, most rural and suburban users starting new romantic relationships say the Internet had nothing to do with it (75%) while 60% of urban users say so. (Source: January 2002 tracking survey. N=1,415, margin of error is ±3%)

Internet users in all three community types say that the Internet is good for a variety of pursuits. First and foremost, they say it is good for getting daily information such as weather reports, news, and sports scores. Next, the majority of users in each community type – over 80% of them – say that the Internet is a good way to send and receive greetings and invitations, and to communicate with friends and family. Third, it is a place in which to be entertained. These sentiments corroborate findings from 2002, which found that most Internet users expect to find what they are looking for when going online. (Horrigan, John and Lee Rainie. “Counting on the Internet.” Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life Project, December 2002. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=80.)

Rural Attitudes Toward the Internet

One way to measure diffusion of the Internet is the attitudes and beliefs that users and non-users hold toward it. Rural Internet newcomers have mixed feelings about computers and technology, but more experienced users are more positive about them. For less experienced users, computers inspire mixed feelings. In all community types, larger percentages of new users than more experienced users harbor mixed feelings about computers and technology. This is especially the case for newer rural users. In a survey the Pew Internet Project conducted in October 2002, 50% of rural users with fewer than three years online reported “mixed feelings” towards computers and technology, whereas 32% of comparable urban users say this and 27% of suburban users say so. In fact, experienced rural Internet users are more positive about computers and technology than similarly experienced urban and suburban Internet users. While 23% of both urban and suburban users with four or more years experience online report mixed feelings, only 16% of rural users with three or more years experience hold mixed feelings about computers and technology. Most (84%) rural users with three years or more online report that they like computers and technology, whereas 75% of their urban counterparts and 76% of their suburban counterparts say this.

The third part of my review focused on policy domain -the U.S. telecommunication Policy relating to rural low income populations

The U.S. Policy makers have long hoped that the Internet could bring especially powerful benefits to rural areas, many of which have suffered economic problems as residents migrate to cities and suburbs. Many officials in small towns and rural regions hoped that technology that allowed people to communicate easily and cheaply with any modem owner in the world and to access all kinds of information, products and services on the Web would allow people to remain in rural settings while reaping some new social and economic rewards. Rural leaders and technology enthusiasts have dreamed that the Internet’s capacity to render physical location less meaningful would in some ways make rural life more desirable.

Connecting to the international discourse concerning the disadvantaged low income populations who are not benefited from the information technology, the U.S. Telecommunication policy includes virtually everything that an information society uses to convey facts and ideas. The U.S. telecommunication policy began in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 covering telephones, wireless telephony, ham radios, cable TV, computers, the Internet, broadcast radio, broadcast TV, distance learning, telemedicine, satellite communications, interstate trade, public morality over the airwaves, cross-ownership of media, telecommunication equipment manufacturing, and many other communication and information economic activities partially or in their entirety.

Federal policy addresses economic efficiency and equity. The policy intends to facilitate the development and adoption of new communication and information technology while addressing the universal availability of communication services. The primary policy vehicle is the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was the first comprehensive rewrite of the Communications Act of 1934. The Act modified previous legislation, such as the 1934 Communications Act, Cable Act of 1992, and judicial actions, such as the early 1982 consent decree in the breakup of Ma Bell (AT&T). (refer to Rural Telecommunications: Rural Telecommunication Policy http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Telecom/ruraltelecompolicy.htm).

A brief conclusion
If the public policy intends to facilitate the development and adoption of new communication and information technology while addressing the economic efficiency and equity of communication services (USDA, 2007), then rural low income women’s information lag behind would be a major concern for such policy endeavor.

Replace the previous posting (due to the blurry upload

huangxena@yahoo.com — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:41:00 +0000

Here are the two diagrams of DE theorists' perspectives replacing the previous blurry posting.

#11 posting

huangxena@yahoo.com — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:52:00 +0000

Dubin (1978) remarked that theory builders observe a segment of the world around them and search for order in the realm of experience. Due to the complexity, the observation can be bewildering. They presented various kinds of perspectives, each of which attempts to explain an important aspects of the complexity.

Overvewing through various distance learning theorists’ endeavors, I combined them into a chart which includes the theories or models of Urie Bronfenbrenner (psychologist, Ecological Systems Theory), Borje Holmberg, Charles Wedemeyer, Michael G. Moore, Desmond Keegan, Otto Peters, Randy Garrison, and John Anderson (see the above diagram).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The following is an old post appearing in another site. I put them together in one place.

This is an interesting article from the CI8395 reading list. Here are my notes:

Summary:

Aviv et al’s (2003) “Network analysis of knowledge construction in asynchronous learning networks (ALNs)” attempts to make the process of collaboration more transparent. The authors used a transcript of conference messages to assess individual roles and collaborative contribution. There were 3 aspects in assessing the ALNs:

1.The design, the quality of the resulting knowledge construction process and cohesion, role and power network structures. The design is evaluated according to the Social Interdependence Theory of Cooperative Learning;
2.The quality of the knowledge construction process is evaluated through Content Analysis;

3.The network structures are analyzed using Social Network Analysis.

Research design, samples and data:

The analysis in this research is based on recorded data from two ALNs that were part of the Open University of Israel course, Business Ethics. The first ALN (18 participants) ran during the fall 2000 semester. The other ALN (19 participants) ran during the spring 2002 semester. The designs of the ALNs were different. Neither of the ALNs fulfills all of the specifications of Social Interdependence Theory of Cooperative Learning, but the fall 2000 ALN was more structured than the spring 2002 ALN. They referred to these ALNs as the structured ALN and the non-structured ALN, respectively.

The structured ALN was a three-month long, formal online seminar; in signing up for it, students committed themselves to active participation and other requirements. A reward mechanism for fulfilling the requirements (including active participation) was employed. 18 students opted to participate in this ALN.The non-structured ALN was a three-month long online conference, open to all 300 students in the course, with no need to register or commit themselves in advance. No specific cooperative goal was defined for this ALN. Students and the tutor could raise a variety of issues related to the course topic(which were the same as in the fall 2000 course). No structure was designed and no schedule was imposed (though the deadlines for submitting assignments were reflected in the ALN), and no reward mechanism was implemented. 19 students opted to use this ALN.

The interesting item in the research was the Social Network Analysis using Cyram NetMiner —a software tool for exploratory network data analysis and visualization.

Results:
They found that in the structured ALN, the knowledge construction process reached a very high phase of critical thinking and developed cohesive cliques. The students took on bridging and triggering roles, while the tutor had relatively little power. In the non-structured ALN, the knowledge construction process reached a low phase of cognitive activity; few cliques were constructed; most of the students took on the passive role of teacher-followers; and the tutor was at the center of activity.In the discussion, the authors posed several suggesting for further studies which included position analysis, network dynamics, large group information overload, effective construction of network, stochastic modeling of ALNs, and stability of results.

Reflection:
1. This is an empirical research based on students in the course of Business Ethics at the Open University of Israel course. Though the research is comparison by nature (comparing the structured and non-structured ALNs), the methods and tools are sophisticated, in particular, the interesting Cyram NetMiner software to explore the network pathways and can be visualized see the above diagrams.

2. From Cryam NetMiner’s analysis, one can see the patterns of network dynamics among the triggers, celebrities, loners, passive actors and active actors, as well as the roles and functions of the facilitators between the structured and non-structured groups.

3. I can read that the less structured group where facilitator (P 18) has to take more responsibility (teacher-centered) to push the class going. Learners are passively waiting to be led. On the other hand, the facilitator (P1) in the structured group almost can be invisible (or less interacts with the group). At this point, perhaps, some educational stakeholders might question what the true responsibilities- roles and functions of an online facilitator are, according to the above diagrams in the structured group, if a course is well designed by a collaborative team of contents, design, media experts? Where are the show cases or the credits of pedagogies if they are part of the team efforts? Can the facilitator be spared?- James Morrison's - University will be dead, but what about pedagogies if physical universities are gone?

4. The research was conducted in Israel. I am wondering if the students are international by nature, or mainly they were from Israel, since it was an open university. Cultural differences, gender, race/ethnicity, class, personality, learning styles...etc. could play a role in group dynamics. For example, some ethnic groups/gender, tend not to be the triggers or “bridgers” which might not indicate that they were passive learners. So the characteristics of learner need to be taken into account.

5. Some researchers (in Israel?) suggested embedding the Cryam NetMiner tool into ALN support environment to enable the facilitator to monitor group dynamics closely. Cautiously, they did warn the possible contradictories if embedded, from the research perspective. From my point of view, I can also look at it from the personnel and administrative perspectives. Cryam NetMiner not just can be used to monitor learners’ activities; it also can reveal facilitator’s endeavors in an online environment. So, before what the ideal or necessary minimum and maximum of engagement of an online facilitator to partake in the teaching and learning environment, the embedding the Cryam NetMiner (if it happens) can be controversial.