Tag Archives: knowledge

The 4 Freedoms – Richard Stallman

by

I’ve written quite a bit here about copyright and control of knowledge through larger entities. One place to start is my “Captive Mind” series.  My attempt to publish my own previously published work and to stop institutions from having for perpetuity, control over knowledge.

Finally, some good news on this front. Princeton University has brought down a ruling that forbids their professors to give away copyright of their research to publishers. HORRAH! They are stopping to feed these beasts that cage away knowledge for big money. This is just a sliver of the door opening but it is a start. A start at keeping knowledge accessible and more open.  Academic journals, with their monopoly over published academic work, have created a huge wall around information – valuable information. I call it “the captive mind” and we should encourage all professors to demand to keep control over their work and to be able to freely publish and share on the web.

Richard Stallman is one of my heroes. He’s not the most likeable guy but he’s really been a warrior on the issue of free use and copyright.  His 4 freedoms apply not just to software (his field, he’s the guy who created GNU and transformed operating systems with an alternative to the proprietary force that is Microsoft). They apply to all forms of knowledge and the way we can be “free” to share and adapt it.

Here, I’ve adapted his 4 freedoms for forms of knowledge: essays, research and print/video lectures.

1. The freedom to read the work or watch that work, for any purpose (freedom 0).
2. The freedom to see and study how the knowledge was assembled, and change it’s form so it becomes what
you “know”. (freedom 1). Access to the work is a precondition for this.
3. The freedom to share so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
4. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified works to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can
give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the original work is a
precondition for this.

Here he is at his best. He talks about how the freedoms apply to knowledge. A very valuable use of anyone’s time, to listen to his story and ideas….

Paying To “Learn to Run”

by

Yesterday, went out for a nice bike ride. Beautiful weather, wind at my back and then baam! a flat. So I had to walk my bike home.

The benefit of this was that I could slow down, think, become more aware of my surroundings. One thing I noticed was a poster tacked to a telephone pole. It read: Trail Running Clinic: Come Learn to Run Trails. blablabla $40.00.

I almost fell over laughing. What people will pay for these days! $40 and it wasn’t even on a trail. Rather, meeting in a shop! Yes, pay money, sit down and listen to someone make this very simple thing into something very intricate, difficult and only for the “knowledgeable”. Oh, me. Oh my!

Why learn to trail run? Why not just get out on the trails and let experience do the talking. Why not “just do it”? It’s cheaper. Why pay for something that you can do of your own accord? Experience is after all, the best teacher. Why pay for something natural and “god given” (running, learning)?

In teaching and learning (education), we should pay for the possibility to learn. That means we pay for internet access, we pay (through taxes) for libraries, we pay services that enrich content for learning or for access to places (online and off) that allow us to “experience” and learn. We don’t pay for knowledge itself – no matter how sugarcoated or presented in the form of an expert. No matter how broken down and butchered into technical terms, language and lingo. We are fooling ourselves into thinking we are learning when we allow the responsibility to learn, to be placed into the bucket of “just being there with it (an expert)” and not “experiencing it (the learning itself)”.

Enjoy your summer day. I just thought it worth sharing this metaphor – one to ponder. Would you pay to attend an in store clinic on trail running? Would you pay to listen to an “expert” speak about learning English?

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy reading: The Spirit of Education.

The #1 …. (myth in education)

by

Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

Learning = School = Education

mark_twain_educationLearning is not 9 to 3, Mon. to Friday. Learning is not with a teacher and sitting at a desk. Learning is not a diploma or certificate. Learning is 24/7, learning is in our own hands, learning is possible without school.

Slowly the myth that learning only takes place in school, is being eroded through the pervasiveness of new technologies allowing people to connect and access knowledge. The library is much more powerful than it once was. People are waking up to the concept of self-directed learning, independent study……. Soon we won’t be asking, “So, what college did you go to?” but rather, “So, where did you learn about “x”?”.

It isn’t anything new, as Twain suggested long ago. Many of the men we herald as “geniuses” didn’t get much from school. The list would be too long to mention here.

Right now, we are experiencing a tipping point I believe. Things are going the way of allowing for more informal learning to be “accredited” and given credence. As the formal side (schools, government, institutions) begins to recognize informal learning and learning outside “4 walls” and a school, we will see a flourishing of human potential and creativity. I truly believe this. Let’s keep going forward!

A couple of reads on this topic.

1. John Taylor Gatto.
2. OECD report on informal learning + country practices.
—————–

If you liked this post, you might like: Self directed learning or Teachers. Who needs them?

A Teacher’s Invisible Knowledge and Skill

by

wondergirls
Let me start with a question. Which of the girls above speaks the most fluent English? Can you put them in order from best to worst fluency?

Now that you’ve done that – note that these are the “Wondergirls”, a Korean girlband phenom. They are being interviewed in America. Watch the first 50 seconds and pause the video (below). Then, check the order again.

Now, watch the rest of the interview (or if not interested, at least some of it) and check your answer. How did you do?

I started with this exercise because it is an excellent example of “teaching skill”. Experienced teachers have a vast amount of “tacit” knowledge that they apply in the classroom. What you see is not all that there is. Experienced teachers can read the body language, the facial expressions, the eyes of their students and assess understanding. For the most part.

This talent of discerning the invisible (which much of language is), is like the sailor looking at the sea and sensing a hidden reef in the distance. Teachers do this all the time and it is something that really can’t be taught, it just comes in time, with time – more so, less so depending on the individual. I swear sometimes I got so good at it – I didn’t even need to give a student a placement test! I’d just say a few sentences, look in their eyes and say – Class 1 or Class 2 or Class 3. Have you ever experienced this.

So when you see a skilled teacher – don’t judge her/him by their cover. There is a lot to it and it is wonderful!

Interested in Korean cultural content for teaching languages? Check out my youtube channel, this post or this post on music.

Focal vs Tacit knowledge

by

tweet technology

Technology. Everyone wants to learn it and everyone wants the “key” that might open up the door to these skills.

Truth is, there is no easy way! I’ve been mucking about and learning as I go – for a long time. And that’s what I love about technology and education. I can learn by riding my waves of motivation – surfing toward possibility. There is so much damn possibility!  However, how best can you learn to get up on the surfboard and feel the power and freedom of that wave? How?

Well, most teachers learn by doing and trying and struggling.  I do think there is an easier way – you can benefit from a course. However, IMHO and from my own experience being wrong – most technology courses are given in the wrong manner.

I was prompted to think about this after commenting on Jeremy Harmer’s blog post about technology and by default, his own efforts to learn an audio recording program. I commented that I thought despite how most training programs work – that an embedded approach is the best way to “teach” technology.

What do I mean? Well, as the above tweet so nicely relates, it is about making technology the servant, the means and not the king or product. Technology should be taught in the process of teaching other things – it should not be the focus. Programs are ill effective when they take the, “Let’s learn how to do subtitles” approach.

I’ve been there, I’ve done it and it effects little change in teachers. They get a nice little diploma, maybe a pay raise, maybe a confidence boost but that’s mostly it (except for those spark plugs and you don’t ever teach them – they’d learn even if exiled on the moon).  Why do I think this direct,  technology course approach is ineffective? Because we learn by doing but even more so with technology through “purposeful” doing.

One thinker extraordinaire is Michael Polyani (the lesser known of a family of thinkers and of many amazing Hungarian intellectuals of his era). I read him extensively while in university, especially his “Personal Knowledge“.  To me, he is brilliant in his explanation and support of “tacit knowledge” over explicit or what he called, “focal knowledge”.  As he famously said, “We can know more than we can tell.” This speaks volumes for both language trainers and teachers.

Focal or explicit knowledge (or Polyani would say, “knowing” for knowledge is never a static phenomena) is something we are directly attending to. We can count it and define it and share it. Tacit knowledge is an ability or skill to solve a problem based on one’s own problems and concerns. It is very difficult to show another person or “transfer”. Both have a place but some things (like skills, like technology) are not very well transferred by way of explicit knowing. You must learn it indirectly.  [and please note, I'm massacring Polyani's subtle thought - he'd never so brutally divide these two ways of knowing...]

To explain by way of a good metaphor, let’s think of an apprentice. An apprentice might go to school but more often than not, he/she observes, tries, imitates, practices. They don’t follow strict steps or listen to someone tell them how to lathe a 3/8 inch pipe. They do it but most importantly, they do it as an actual, real and personal thing. Not just for the sake of learning….. They don’t think, “Wow, I’m learning how to lathe a pipe!”  What they are thinking is, “this will work well and fit perfectly”.

It is kind of like looped feedback. You model the technology in use and teachers learn by seeing it in use as it should be and then using it not in and of its own sake but for an outcome that is non technology related. You see, we never use technology in order to use technology (or few of us do, maybe those unfortunates showing off their latest ipad while doing squat). We learn technology by using it as a means to something else.

Let me give a practical example. Take the usual course on “Moodle” . You go there and learn and practice tutorials on how everything works. Then maybe you do a final project to show how brilliantly you can “do” moodle. My way is completely different. You don’t take a course in moodle. You’d say take a course in curriculum development and learn moodle as you learn about curriculum development and develop your online syllabus. Two different animals.  You learn tacitly. You make it personal.

In my own teacher training classes, I have got trainees using technology to produce learning outcomes that aren’t technology related. That’s the way to go. And of course, I got many teachers saying, I can’t do that! However, they always managed – LOL! And that’s how we learn, we struggle and we try but not in the name of technological competence but in the attempt to do something else, communicate something else.  Technology is a means, not an end.

Let me list a few more examples of how this would work (and will work in my new TESOL certificate course).

I’d love to know what you others think about learning technology through a course which isn’t “about” technology? Also, shouldn’t we be hiring teacher trainers that are good with technology – that can model it in every day class instruction, so teachers can learn it indirectly, tacitly?

embedded training

The Captive Mind …..

by

brainI grew up on a farm, always outside, always with dirt under my finger nails and a pulse that mistrusted intellectuals. Pencil pushers we called them. This despite the fact I always had my head in a book when time would be so kind, this despite my own “airs” and pseudo intellectual pretensions.

As I grew older, I realized a lot about the power of knowledge. Libraries were like my second home and I knew they were a portal to somewhere better, some place “more”. Gyorgy Faludy, one of my “book” mentors called libraries, “the headquarters of civilization”. He was right, they allowed any and all, free access to information and knowledge. They were the headlights of the enlightenment.

Civilization is a thin film. The heart of darkness is always encroaching. Progress, advancement, development, economic growth depends on greater and greater access to information, a wider dispersal of information. The cars we drive, the rockets we shoot into space – all this is because of the free and to a minimum, unfettered access to information and knowledge. Access to knowledge is so important for the health of this planet. It really is, I’m not over exaggerating.

Today, the internet holds the  potential to unleash a torrent of access to information. Free (or low cost) access to information for any and all.  However, we have a problem, some problems actually. Copyright, rising internet costs, declining standards of knowledge…..

The one I’d like to talk about however is access to higher knowledge. As a professor, I can go online and get any and all the  information I want. All the papers, references, reports I need. But what happens when I am no longer a professor (in a month this will be the case)? What happens is that the water hole dries up and I begin to die. Even some universities too are cutting back on access to academic journals because of cost. Talk about a train without any diesel!

Online academic libraries, Highbeam, Sage and the like, are like fortresses where academics hide and knowledge/light never seeps out.

Academics are captive minds. Servile, they sit in an old system of publishing while the  publishers make money off their “academic work”.  Charging heavy fees for access so that unless you are in “the boy’s club”, you won’t get this/that knowledge. You’ll be outside, looking in.  Even the authors who publish get ripped off – very few can afford to read their work. The only option is to go “trash time” and publish something sensational and non-academic.  The door is even tighter – once you publish, the publishers retain the rights and you can’t even put it online if you wanted to (or face the wrath of the “dream police”.).

Here’s what happened to Dana Boyd;

On one hand, I’m excited to announce that my article “Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence” has been published in Convergence 14(1) (special issue edited by Henry Jenkins and Mark Deuze). On the other hand, I’m deeply depressed because I know that most of you will never read it. It is not because you aren’t interested (although many of you might not be), but because Sage is one of those archaic academic publishers who had decided to lock down its authors and their content behind heavy iron walls. Even if you read an early draft of my article in essay form, you’ll probably never get to read the cleaned up version. Nor will you get to see the cool articles on alternate reality gaming, crowd-sourcing, convergent mobile media, and video game modding that are also in this issue. That’s super depressing. I agreed to publish my piece at Sage for complicated reasons, but…

I vow that this is the last article that I will publish to which the public cannot get access. I am boycotting locked-down journals and I’d like to ask other academics to do the same.  Continue and read her thoughts about this issue.

Here’s a nice practical description of the academic journal racket and the havoc it wreaks on the dispersion of knowledge/information.

This is not healthy, that’s not what makes for economic or social progress. The internet potentially allows for everyone to be able to access information and they should have that access. You might call that “entitlement” but I call it a human right. I want the most possible to read the most thoughts possible. It is this democratic demographics of discourse which we must aim for…. But it is hard to even talk about this sanely — people are making money off of this.

Google books has made some headway but in the area of academic research, it remains a wasteland and desert.

I’ve published and been read and then forgotten by 30 – 40 people.  Why bother anymore when I can post my research and papers online and have them read by thousands, even tens of thousands? So that’s what I’m going to do. No more sleepy book stuff. I’ll put it up and let everyone advance, not just the guys in the boy’s club or those who can pay Highbeam or whoever “x” dollars / article.  Let’s stop publishing and letting ourselves become “captive minds”.

I believe in a free mind, not that captive mind, the servile intellectual, as first described by Czeslaw Milos. Let’s all start having the courage to “walk the talk”. Go here to see the first of many articles I’ll be putting up for “public” and “profitable” reading….  Ecrasez l’infame was Voltaire’s battle cry for the enlightenment. Mine too.