For my second blog posting I'd like to elaborate on the class discussion from July 5th, 2011 where we prepared a mission statement on distributed learning (DL). For my mission statement I began by reading a poem entitled, “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” by Richard Brautigan (1967) to highlight the idea of an ecosystem metaphor for DL. My DL mission state was as follows, “I see DL as expanding and elaborating relationships between people and information for the benefit of the community and the individual”. Here is a link to the the poem on Richard Brautigan's website (the poem is ¾ way down the page)
Link to website: http://www.brautigan.net/machines.html#28
(Richard Brautigan website) Retrieved July 10th, 2011 from http://www.brautigan.net/machines.html#28
In coming to this mission statement I had done quite a bit of extensive research over the past couple of months in an attempt to rework a section of my Social Studies 30 course. Part of the Social Studies 30 course examines challenges to Liberal thought in the second half of the 20th century. The curriculum point this relates to is 2.12 “examine the extent to which modern liberalism is challenged by alternative thought” (Alberta Education, 2007, p. 33). This point gives a few potential examples; but also allows teachers to supplement with their own relevant content. What to supplement this curriculum point with occurred to in a later unit of the course which I covered at the start of June. In this section we examine terrorism and I include several examples of domestic North American terrorist acts such as the FLQ crisis, Oklahoma City bombings, World trade Centre attacks (1993 & 2001), Toronto 18, Wiebo Ludwig (poignant case for my class, as these events occurred near Grande Prairie) and the Unabomber. This last example is the one that sparked my attention through a class discussion with my Social 30 students. We were examining the following Wordle based on the Unabomber's manifesto which was infamously published by both the Washington Post and New York Times in 1995.
(Unabomber manifesto Wordle screen shot) Material Retrieved July 10th, 2011 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm
When I show Wordles I ask student to come up with a catch-phrase; this I find stimulates critical thinking and generates some pretty god brevity at times. One of the students came up with the following (which has stuck with me) “Technology is a system of power for modern people”. This statement struck home as we discussed the motives behind the Unabomber's attacks (which we do for each case study of domestic terrorism in this unit) and I posed the inquiry question to the class, “will the machines set us free?”. In my classes after we have a great discussion I generally pose a reflective/inquiry question to stimulate students to digger deeper on the issue. I then give the students the option of presenting their findings to the class for a small bonus or keep their responses over the semester in a journal and I give a small bonus mark at the end of the semester.
After giving the question, I looked over my desk viewing my Apple devices- iPhone, iPad and Macbook. The Macbook was connected to the Smart Board, iPhone was running the “hotspot” feature so students could do brief internet searches; as our school wireless network went offline and my iPad was connected to the second projector in the room running another aspect of the presentation (I plan on demonstrating this app for tech-time on Tuesday). Then a line from an Apple commercial hit my brain about the “Apple Ecosystem”. This made me think of the question I posed to the students and what was lying on my desk; are we creating an ecosystem of machines and what impact does that have on humanity? Upon further investigation I was lead to of all things a recently release 3-part documentary series by Adam Curtis from BBC2 entitled “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” (Karma, I guess!). Here is the link to the BBC2 website where I watched all three parts of the documentary. I just checked and the documentary is no longer available to view online, but the site has links to additional information and discussion boards.
Link to website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011lvb9.
What I learnt from the documentaries was the idea of machines as ecosystems was developed through cybernetic research in the 1950's and 60's based on a systems' approach to biology termed “ecosystems” championed by Arthur Tansley in the 1930's. These cybernetic pioneers included Norbert Wiener, Jay Forrester, Howard T. Odum and Eugene Odum, Buckminister Fuller and Stewart Brand. To keep this blog post from expanding too much, I'll provide a brief overview of the machine-ecosystem idea and its impact on my teaching practice. These cybernetic pioneers envisioned a future of machine-ecosystems that would acted as self-regulating environments. This view of machine ecosystems was based on the prevailing biological ecosystem theory of the day that held a natural balance was favoured by nature and organism would adapt to maintain this state thus achieving a steady state of equilibrium. Unfortunately for cyberneticists this view of ecosystems in biology was disproved by the late 1960's and replaced by a view of ecosystems where dynamic change was the norm.
The view of a perfect self-regulating machine ecosystem came to influence the development of the entire computer industry lead by the Silicon Valley region of California and perhaps a bit more curiously the followers of Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism. In the BBC2 documentary, this machine ecosystem belief is termed the “Californian” ideology. Rand's philosophy in brief held that reality was outside consciousness and through inductive and deductive logic one comes to the moral conclusion that pursuit of one's rational self-interest is the highest goal (Ayn Rand Institute, 2011). The self-regulating machine ecosystem ideology was a perfect fit for Rand's followers who held contempt for traditional political systems that were founded on control of the individual for the benefit of the collective.
For the purposes of my Social Studies 30 link, I plan to tie in the Californian ideology as a reaction against Liberalism through the role of Alan Greenspan whom was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank from 1987-2006 (essentially the head banker in the United States). Greenspan was a follower of Rand's ideology and presided over deregulation of the American economy guided by belief that computers would keep track of and account for the market transactions conducted by individuals' guided by their rational self-interest (BBC2, 2011). With this new information I'm planning on approaching the topic from the perspective of a potential challenge to Liberalism through the Californian ideology as well. I'd like conclude the Social Studies 30 link by providing what Greenspan himself said about his ideological belief over the past 40 years, the video is the “Oct. 23, 2008 Now He Tells Us!”.
(Now He Tells Us!) Retrieved 10, 2011 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/cron/
Link to video: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/cron/
This has been an overview of the genesis of how I developed my mission statement on DL for our July 5th, class. In developing my DL mission statement and researching further into machine ecosystems I've come to see that as a species we are creating a ecosystem of machines. However I believe one not borne from fantasy, but one to further connect us as social beings. This is why in my mission statement I expressed the key point being an expanding and elaborating of relationships between people.
Thanks, Lee
References
Alberta Education (2007). Programs of Study, Social Studies 30-1 and 30-2. Retrieved from http://education.alberta.ca/media/774377/soc30.pdf
Ayn Rand Institute (2011). Introducing Objectivism. Retrieved from http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro
Brautigan, Richard (1967). All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. Retrieved from
http://www.brautigan.net/machines.html#28
Curtis, Adam (2011). All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. [video file] Retrieved from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011vb9
Frontline.org (2011). Now He Tells Us! Oct 23, 2008 [video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/cron/
(Richard Brautigan website) Retrieved July 10, 2011 from http://www.brautigan.net/machines.html#28
(Unabomber manifesto Wordle screen shot) Material Retrieved July 10th, 2011 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm
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