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Final thoughts

“How have your ideas about technology in education changed since the first class in September?”

“What do you envision technology in education will look like in 5 or 10-years from now?” 

“What advice would you give to novice teachers who are faced with making technology integration decisions in their classes?”

“What are your concluding thoughts?”

To be frank, I did not have high expectations for this class. I do not consider myself a techy by any stretch of the imagination, and anticipated a term of steeplechase-style hurtling over higher and higher tech jumps. How pleasantly surprised I am to be wrong! And at the risk of sounding gushy, I credit our professor Gretchen with making this class (forgive pun) so ‘user-friendly’. Each method of technology, and its possible application, was presented in a low-key, knowledgeable fashion and in that delivery, I could see myself using said technology. The rhythm of the class and the marvelous class dynamic that was present made this course ‘easy to learn from’. Given my slightly Luddite-like bias about technology, this was a good thing for me, because when one is biased against something, it makes it that much harder to learn about it. Due to this, I can say that my ideas about technology have shifted more towards a positive register, and also due to the constraints of Covid. If it wasn’t for technology, we would be nowhere in terms of education, work, countless ways... specifically for education, this is the prime time for technology to make education accessible in myriad ways  - for distance learners, differently-abled learners, busy learners, itinerant learners, homeless learners.

Technology in the next 5-10 years: no computers required. Somehow all the tech will be collapsed into a different type of delivery system. I have no idea HOW, but that is my guess.

I am in no position to give advice to novice teachers, since I am not one myself, but I would stress that technology is a supportive tool, not a stand-alone entity. The pedagogy comes first.

My concluding thoughts are : I am thankful for this opportunity to learn more about educational technology because the person who taught me is an expert in the field, is a thoughtful and empathetic teacher, and who was able to teach in a way that I could comprehend. Thank you, Gretchen!

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Reflection for Week 10

  “The activity in which knowledge is developed and deployed, it is now argued, is not separable from or ancillary to learning and cognition. Nor is it neutral. Rather, it is an integral part of what is learned. Situations might be said to co-produce knowledge through activity. Learning and cognition, it is now possible to argue, are fundamentally situated” (Brown et al.,1989, p. 32). Technology has the capacity to bring together learners from all walks of life, all ages and time zones. However, special care and attention must be given to ensure that learning activities are prepared for situated cognition. The challenge is in how to reproduce the activity virtually in a manner that engages learners authentically. This enculturation is a key ingredient for situated learning, and explains the success of the ages-long tradition of apprenticeship. Apprentices learn the culture along with the skill by observing and interacting with their masters and fellow apprentices: “Just as carpenters and cabinet makers use chisels differently, so physicists and engineers use mathematical formulae differently. Activity, concept, and culture are interdependent. No one can be totally understood without the other two. Learning must involve all three [...] To learn to use tools as practitioners use them, a student, like an apprentice, must enter that community and its culture. Thus, in a significant way, learning is, we believe, a process of enculturation”(Brown et al.,1989, p. 33). 

My experience with this has been in the art community. Whether it was in school, through studio groups, gallery affiliations or group projects, artists speak a common language, no matter how varied their techniques or art forms might be. The bond of enculturation supports and sustains the artist community, which makes it resilient and innovative. Brown et al (1989) summarizes the “salient features of group learning: Collective problem solving, displaying multiple roles, confronting ineffective strategies and misconceptions, and providing collaborative work skills” (Brown et al.,1989, p. 40) When I moved from Connecticut to Maine, I was pleased to find that the Maine Arts Commission had established a robust online presence uniting artists from all over the state, despite its size, large rural areas, and diverse socioeconomic statuses. This is a good example of how technology can bring together a large networking community of practice, keeping them informed of upcoming exhibitions, providing free publicity for artists, and posting grant opportunities. Virtual art classes and exhibitions are an excellent method for artists and galleries to expand their reach. In a classroom atmosphere, the same energy could be generated with the right combination of technology. In this way, “technology can best support situated cognition and communities of practice to foster educational growth and change and prepare learners to exist in a world that requires creative, informed, and innovative problem-solvers”.

Brown, J.S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X018001032

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Reflection, wk 9, Continued

without having to burn the candle at both ends. 

 It is good to have one’s learning style changed up every now and then. For both teachers and students, the break-out rooms and flipped classrooms are a refreshing shift from “the industrial model of instructional design”. Perhaps this gives professors an opportunity to observe their class instead of doing straight content delivery the whole time. The break-out rooms offer students a chance to listen to their peers and exchange ideas, a key part of learning for me. I am constantly impressed with how insightful and learning-curious my fellow students are during these sessions as well as during class. A bigger shock to the system will be the reconfiguration of physical campuses, what Bates (2019) quoting Valenti, refers to as the “end of the lecture hall” (p. 555). The sudden move to online learning during Covid, and the decrease in tuition income in some cases, will force universities to rethink their educational model and how it needs to be reflected in their physical space. 

 Change has come and will continue to alter education as we have known it. Technology has a valuable role to play, but it should still come second to pedagogy, and we need to keep in perspective that it is a tool to support learning.  Reference: Bates, A.W. (2019). Teaching in a digital age, second edition. Vancouver: Tony Bates Associates, Ltd. 

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Reflection, Week 9

Can technology improve on the learning by doing models or should we be thinking in a completely different direction? When I was in American high school in the 1970s, shop and home education (home ec) were part of the curriculum. There were also vocational schools, going by the handles of ‘vo-ag’ (agriculture) and ‘vo-tech’ (technical skills in a variety of fields). Students who found it difficult to learn by listening were naturally drawn to opportunities to learn by doing, especially when it could potentially lead to a well-paying job. I did not take either shop or home ec, but I remember the aura of camaraderie emanating from the shop classroom when I happened to pass by. The students were in there making things, engaging first-hand with their projects, kind of like chemistry but (in my opinion) a lot more fun. I wasn’t interested in the shop projects for myself, but vicariously, I liked the atmosphere. (Home ec didn’t interest me in the least :). Can technology improve on this model? Bates (2019) notes a criticism: “Some advocates of experiential learning are highly critical of online learning, because, they argue, it is impossible to embed learning in real world examples” (p. 132). The tactile experience of working with your hands - learning through your body - cannot be replicated by technology exactly, but there are important exceptions when considering students with special needs. Simulation models have much to offer students who have physical limitations; so important for giving students a sense of agency and autonomy. I feel the best method is a combination of hands-on learning coupled with technology-aided learning. Bates (2019) details Kolb’s experiential learning model’s four stages: active experimentation, concrete experience, reflective observation, and abstract conceptualization (p. 126). These stages can be explored in a tandem method: for example, one portion of the class would be conducting these stages in a physical space while being recorded. The other portion of the class would be conducting the same stages, but virtually - and also observing their classmates’ recording of the same stages. The following assignment, they would exchange. It may be that the class reconfigures this idea, depending on the results of the project. Perhaps the physical workshop could take place in a retreat-like atmosphere, with active experimentation and concrete experience happening there, and reflective observation and abstract conceptualization happening virtually. Students with special needs could have project sections adapted to their skill sets. Can technology improve on the industrial model of instructional design that is still heavily used for teaching and learning today? Draw from your own experience this semester (where classes have been almost exclusively online) Bates (2019) asks: what are the unique characteristics of face-to-face teaching that make it pedagogically different from online learning? (p. 532). It’s a complicated question. Meeting one’s professors and fellow students ‘in the flesh’ has value: being in a dynamic classroom atmosphere, getting a fuller picture of what the professor is like, their pedagogical interests and biases, their body language, if they create a harmonious environment for learning in their classroom, and observing how the students respond to them - this information is different when experienced in ‘real time’. Content received in this atmosphere is coloured by these other factors. One could argue that much of this information is available via online classes, but it is not the same for me. I am fortunate in my Bishop’s experience, because I had one year on the physical campus, and therefore had the opportunity to connect with my professors and classmates, and form bonds with them. For a university, Bishop’s is blessedly small, which makes for a more intimate classroom setting. However, going online this year has been great for me, because all the time I had spent driving to and from campus can now be spent working on assignments instead, without having to burn the candle at

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Making Technology Accessible

“Accessible technology is something that is often not considered until we need it! For example, when a screen resolution is very high, the text on that screen can be tiny making it difficult for some people to read. In cases like that, having the ability to zoom in and magnify the size of the text is essential and something we take for granted that we can do. But, what if there are other needs such as general difficulty in seeing the screen, watching and listening to a video, clicking a mouse, or navigating a complex website? How can we use technology to address these learner needs?

Share something that you have learned about technology and accessibility.  What are your thoughts on how technology can benefit everyone?”

  Five years ago, my parents and I began living together again. Bringing technology to their lives has made a tremendous difference in many positive ways, such as bill paying and instant communication with loved ones. The challenge lies in the fact that I am not a digital native, and my skill sets were forced to develop when I returned to school in 2013. While this is not an optimum way to learn, it certainly hurried me up as my homework depended on it. I had plans to educate my parents in basic computer skills, but that rosy idea quickly went by the wayside as I was not adept (or patient) at sharing my rudimentary knowledge with my parents, whose tech skills were limited to working the tv and the landline. 

  The reflection topic brings back these memories. My elder parents do not hear or see as well as they used to, and in my mother’s case, there is a cognitive delay that requires her to hear something many times before she can process it. Assistive technologies can help users with these types of deficiencies with tools such as:  “captioning, dictation software, text-to-speech, electronic magnifiers, large-print keyboards, smart pens, and software that converts musical scores into braille” (Baker, 2019, para. 4). Bates (2019) adds: 

The traditional generic interface of computers – a keyboard, mouse, and graphic user interface of windows and pull-down menus and pop-up instructions – is still extremely crude, and not isomorphic with most people’s preferences for processing information. It places very heavy emphasis on literacy skills and a preference for visual learning. This can cause major difficulties for students with certain disabilities, such as dyslexia or poor eyesight. However, in recent years, interfaces have started to become more user friendly, with touch screen and voice activated interfaces (p. 471). 

  Now we are in the time of Covid, and everything has changed. Zoom, which I hadn’t even heard of a year ago, is now the go-to place for families, organizations, and schools. My parents are not deprived of seeing family members, of whom almost all live in the U.S., because of the magic of zoom meetings. If I was not here, it would still be possible for a person-in-their-bubble to come to the house and open the meeting for them. They don’t have to touch or do anything, just talk and see the beloved faces again.

 This kind of accessibility for elders is vital for maintaining their spirits and to keep them connected to the things they care about. Hospitals provide ipads or tablets for patients to help them stay in touch with the outside world during their hospitalization. Accessibility for students is also crucial, especially for those in lower socio-economic status and those with physical differences such as the University of Pennsylvania students aided by the Office of Student Disabilities Services (Baker, 2019). Specialist Amrou Ibrahim assists students in accessing learning content using a variety of tech tools such as MathML and “CCTV (closed-circuit television), an electronic magnifier—a type of zooming tablet—equipped with a camera that magnifies text on a piece of paper” (Baker, 2019, p. 10). This is the type of tool that I wish was widely available to elders. Both my aunt and uncle have macular degeneration. My aunt is a well-respected poet and it would be so great if she could see well enough to write poetry. My uncle, a retired heart specialist, still receives the New England Journal of Medicine but I am not sure he is able to read the print version anymore. The technology exists, but as Bates (2019) points out: “No matter how powerful in educational terms a particular medium or technology may be, if students cannot access it in a convenient and affordable manner they cannot learn from it” (p. 462). The same holds true of elders living alone or without the support they need to use the technology effectively. 

  Bandwidth is also an issue. Here in Georgeville, the bandwidth can vary greatly, making reliable connection dubious. My brother in rural New Brunswick and my sister in rural Maine have periodic difficulty maintaining a consistent signal during our family zoom meetings. It helps when the tech you are using is user-friendly, even telling you when your bandwidth is low so that you are prepared for possible disengagement. The cost of having internet access is something my household can afford, but for many this is another stumbling block. It would be a wonderful thing if bandwidth could be expanded in a cost-effective way so that more people could access the internet,  a key piece in making technology accessible for all. 

 The connecting potential of accessible technology is an exciting horizon towards which we should be aiming. Us humans need that connection to make sense of our community and our world. As assistive technology specialist Amrou Ibrahim reflects: “the best part of his job, he says, is getting so much one-on-one time with students. ‘I love all my students,’ he says. ‘I love working with all of them, and I love formatting and making things accessible, too. But it’s only great because I get to meet with the students’” (Baker, 2019, paras. 18-19).

References

Baker, B. (2019, Feb. 25). How technology is making education more accessible. Penn Today.

 https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/how-technology-making-education-more-accessible

Bates, A.W. (2019). Teaching in a Digital Age – Second Edition. Vancouver, B.C.: Tony Bates

 Associates Ltd. Retrieved from https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/

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“Emphasizing cause-&-effect”

Activity 4:2

“The goals for this week are to gain a deeper understanding of objectivist (instructivist) epistemology and critically evaluate the direct instruction approach. For this reflection, I would like you to think about the implications of emphasizing a cause-and-effect, i.e., stimulus-response-consequence, relationship in learning with technology. Consider the ideas of classical and operant conditioning.” 

While Facebook is touted as an overt example of stimulus-response consequence, I find that almost all internet technologies have some aspect of this. For example, I now have a twitter account, something I would not have if I wasn’t asked to get an account for a previous class. I am now well-trained to go to my twitter feed and see if anyone has ‘noticed’ me that day. I look for things that I am interested in to follow, because the more people and places I follow, the more information- receiving and reciprocity can happen. 

 It reminds me somewhat of shopping for clothes. The more I become sensitized to certain styles, the more likely I am to consume, especially if looking a certain way is part of my identity (which it almost always is!) If I wear a hat that gets lots of admiring glances, you can bet I will wear that hat a lot, or get more like it. Or shoes, or whatever. If I tweet something that gets lots of attention, I am likely to write similar tweets to get that attention again.

So how does this relate to the direct instruction approach? Direct instruction is a simplistic formula, which at some level, we all love. It’s like adding a little flour to butter to make a roux for thickening a sauce, to quote the late author and filmmaker, Nora Ephron - it always works. Direct instruction (which I have heard referred to as ‘drill & kill’) will get the job done - eventually. I go from one tech account to another, like a pollinating bee: twitter, Facebook, tumblr (which is where you’ll go to read this) and a bunch of others like flipgrid which I’ve been asked to sign up for. Classic and operant conditioning is all there -  when I see I’ve got mail from desired sources in my inbox (my sister and I used to refer to those from guys as ‘he-male’) - I get a nice boost to my vanity. It’s a simplistic formula: build the site, tout its attractiveness, and they will come. 

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Reflections on Week 3 

Think about the two main epistemological beliefs in education: instructivist versus constructivist, and your experience completing Activity 3-1: Locating a research article. How would differing epistemological beliefs influence our interpretation of what and how technology can (or cannot) benefit learning?

Instructivist learning has been useful for me in the past, in that it taught me that I am capable of sheer rote learning. An early example of this is learning the multiplication tables in third grade. You must learn this, I was told, and the consequence of not learning it was being shamed in class by the teacher for not learning it. Very well, I’ll show you, I thought, and so I memorized the tables, and how to do long division after that. Learning algebra veered a little towards the constructivist model (word problems solved as a group), so I enjoyed it more, but the primary delivery system remained instructivist.

The instructivist method of teaching formed the bulk of my early education, and is one of the reasons I disliked school. I knew I loved learning, but the way in which I was being taught was stultifying. Even subjects I enjoyed, such as Art, Language Arts, and History, could be dull in the hands of a purely instructivist teacher. Creating art was a constructivist experience, because I stubbornly refused to engage in an instructivist approach to making art. This attitude moderated somewhat as I grew up, but to this day I prefer learning about art by making art and by observing those around me doing the same thing - more of an existentialist approach.

My computer literacy skills were developed when I was an adult. My nieces and nephews grew up with computers, and it was fascinating watching how quickly their skills increased, especially compared to mine. Their brains were formed at the onset by exposure to and use of computers.

This background serves to illustrate my answer to the question: How would differing epistemological beliefs influence our interpretation of what and how technology can (or cannot) benefit learning? I have indicated my preference for a constructivist epistemology. My belief is that a constructivist pedagogy allows for more ‘oxygen’ in learning, more methods for understanding, because the learner is also a teacher and the teacher a learner.

Technology can and should be one of many tools that teachers use for education. I used the computer to search for a research article for the assignment  - a valuable tool. As I searched, I noticed that there is a wealth of information for many education themes (for example, cultural studies) and it would be easy to become immersed in all the choices - a learned discipline for me to ‘stay-to-task’ during the search. A quick read of the abstracts gave me a feel for the article’s understanding of the subject and I found I gravitated towards articles that have that sense of ‘give’ in them, not an attitude of I-am-right-and-you-know-nothing-about-this-so-listen-to-me.

How this ties in with how technology can benefit learning: Although I did not grow up with much technology as a teaching aid, I feel strongly that the right tech tools, used appropriately by capable teachers, have great potential for learning. Personally, I do not make a connection between my epistemological belief (constructivism) and the benefits or non-benefits of edtech. Instructivist education can use technology for a tool. The point is, the tech tool should be used to expand the learning range for students so that more students can benefit.

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Reflection on Edtech

  The Clark-Kozma debate has not changed my thinking about technology in education so much as it has informed my understanding of the effective tool it can be for learning.  McCabe (2020), quoting Katrin Becker, illustrates this well: “Nothing works better than a good teacher, unless it’s a good teacher with good tools.”

  My high school in the 1970s had driver’s education. We had our classes in a simulator that resembled a cross between a trailer and an airplane passenger section. Each “seat” had a mock-up of a car dashboard with a shift stick on the column that could change from standard to automatic transmission. There was a screen at the front that showed different road scenes and driving scenarios. If you accidently ran over a pedestrian or road worker, you saw it on your computer printout after the film finished (in the film, no one got run over.) These driving simulations, while hilarious at the time, were quite useful in introducing us new drivers to potential road conditions. Our driver’s ed. teacher, who had nerves of steel, next took us out driving on the highway, where we could test our knowledge of lessons learned in the simulator. Although the teacher possessed an admirable sangfroid, I am sure that he was more willing to take students out on the road who had logged the prerequisite number of hours in the simulator first.

  For me, this was an applicable and engaging use of technology to teach an important skill - how to drive safely. Without this, I would have learned how to drive the way many people do, by having a family member, friend, or (God forbid) spouse teach me how to drive. I learned how to drive a stick shift this way, and after a few stressful tutorials (including from my then-husband), learned through practice. At the time, I don’t know how much I reflected on my high school driving class, but in light of this reflection exercise, I think I would have benefited from another visit to the simulator. Alas, driver’s ed. in high school has gone the way of the dodo, unless one is willing to pay a considerable amount of money for it, at least in U.S. high schools.

  References

McCue, R. (2020). The Clarke & Kozma EdTech, Multimedia Learning Debate—Part 2 [Mp4].

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFItcr9mEg8

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Reflective Journal addition

  Carl Leggo writes with a poet’s sensibility and gives free rein to his creativity in his “Poetry in the Academy” paper.

 Leggo, like Martha Nussbaum, states the importance of creativity in education. His non-formulaic paper would delight Janet Giltrow, in that it is a clear departure from the deliberate obfuscation in academic writing which she abhors. It is refreshing to hear this point of view – I couldn’t agree more – but it is an ongoing challenge to find the meeting ground between (and I simplify) the ‘artist approach’ and the ‘practical approach’ to teaching.

 Leggo referencing bell hooks: “we are all struggling to raise our consciousness and figure out the best action to take.” I argue, no, ‘we’ are not all interested in ‘raising our consciousness.’ Many people have no interest in being reflective and actually run away from it. I can think of several who would dismiss this paper one-eighth of the way through as poetic claptrap. It was nice to see the James Hillman reference to “aesthetic imagination” (Hillman a favourite at home, Kinds of Power a good read) – but the non-reflective type I just mentioned wouldn’t recognize aesthetic imagination if it bit them in the backside.

 Leggo: always interesting to “attend to how we tell stories.” My opinion is that it tells you more about the person than the story itself. Stories are almost always self-serving and the story-telling method holds the key to the teller.

William Deresiewicz’ Excellent Sheep quote about “manufactured students with little intellectual curiosity, meekly headed in the same direction” reminded me of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” – “20 years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift” – interesting to note that Mr. Deresiewicz bailed out of academia to write poetry (wonder if he worked long enough to make tenure?!) He was free, however, to write about academia in heartfelt honesty without fear of reprisal. His reference to “violent aversion to risk” reveals the fear that underlies the academic structure that prepares its students for the Real world. Can’t afford any artsy-fartsy type attitudes when you gotta work for a living. And all this talk about Love in teaching – perhaps the biggest risk aversion source – this kind of agape Love requires educators who are willing to risk at the most vulnerable level.

 On this reality, Leggo pours the balm and the “trickster-ness” of poetry. In Native American cultures, the trickster holds a special place (as an educator of sorts) whose role is to keep one off-balance in order to teach a lesson. The several poems he includes in his paper are a lovely mix of playfulness and thoughtfulness. “Knowing what a poem means” is a dynamic encounter. It will mean something different every time you read it.

Anything one creates becomes its own little boat, sailing away – people seeing it will project their interpretations onto it and derive their meaning-making from that. It is not the possession of the creator, who acts as a conduit for the creative energy that is the art spirit. This is my point of view, based on a lifetime of art-making.

 Poem: “even after 25 years/I am still a stranger/trying to fit in where/I don’t can’t won’t” – if this is autobiographical, it must mean that Carl Leggo didn’t love his teaching job as much as he claimed. Again, the difficulty bridging the “profound and profane” – trying to live a holistic creative life within an institution. Perhaps this is what an “institutional autobiography” addresses.

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Giltrow musings

  Reading p. 285 in Giltrow’s “Scholarly styles, limits of knowledge” chapter: Giltrow is saying that in discourse communities, knowledge is a joint community product and also “an index to the standing of individual members of the community. As is true of most social situations deeply cultivated with politeness expressions, power and the competition it inspires operates at these moments [when one researcher offers his/her ‘superior’ knowledge in the place of current knowledge he/she considers inferior].” 

  This section is about modalities and, to paraphrase Giltrow, the form of politeness she calls epistemic modalities. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that this kind of fencing with words is exactly like what attorneys do in court. Polite on the surface but sharp and effective nonetheless, what Garrison Keillor called “poison politeness” in referring to disagreeing clergy (reference from memory, Lake Wobegon Days). The fencing with words I am referring to is the ‘etiquette’ of researchers writing about other researchers’ work, especially when a fault or flaw is perceived. They might use modality to pay lip service to ‘respecting their elders’ but the nakedness of their ambition is underneath. 

  Knowledge may be a joint community product, but I think the politeness can be window dressing. Or maybe it’s because I recently watched (again) “The Devil Wears Prada.”

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 Reading Giltrow’s chapter on “Scholarly styles, limits of knowledge.” This is about how to do archaeology on academic writing, what Giltrow calls “unpacking.” The more I read of Giltrow, the more I appreciate the way she explains her approach to academic writing. It can seem so incomprehensible otherwise. Having just written a way too long paper about bullshit (my apologies to the professor and my fellow peer reviewer for the length - did the word count after the fact and was appalled), I have been thinking about how we come across in our writing. 

 Academic writing can certainly seem like bs. Giltrow’s chapter addresses this directly, with headings such as “is scholarly style unnecessarily complicated/exclusionary, elitist/hard to read?” She explains what nominal style is, and its function. These dense word phrases, “high-level terms,” act as anchors throughout a paper: “Scholarly writers seem to need a concentrated expression they can reinstate to bind together parts of the discussion and to control extensive stretches of lower-level information.” Giltrow’s own study showed as many as 12 repetitions in two paragraphs from one paper - my thought is, does this act as a form of branding for a writer, a way to coin an expression?

 Giltrow goes on to say that the benefit of a writer doing the unpacking of a dense abstraction is the reward (my word) for “exhausted readers” who might just give up trying to slog their way through a difficult-to-digest paper. 

  The exercise of phrasing a thank-you note like an academic paper is hilarious. Makes me want to try it sometime. 

 About the discursive ‘I’: it has been said that using ‘I’ in a business letter is a good idea because it denotes confidence. It should be used sparingly, in my opinion, but certainly not eliminated altogether. It is a little better than the royal ‘we’! About the passive voice: it seems it is frowned upon, but used all the same, as in “enabl[ing] [...] functional thematization.” (In the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brien, ship’s doctor Maturin is helping Capt. Aubrey with his report to the Admiralty describing a bloody fleet action, telling him to write in the passive voice - the more casualties, the more passive the voice...)

 Interesting about not starting sentences with ‘it’ - when I think of older English, with the contraction ‘twas, it seems like a sentence rhythm that would be grandfathered in somehow. I have never heard of the “weight-end principle” - so interesting! I will notice it from now. And the words favoured by different disciplines - fascinating - especially marketing and its “author tentative verbs”, ‘suggest’ being the main choice. Author tentative, hedging your bets.

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Here are some comments about James Baldwin’s advice to writers.

My paraphrase: Mr. Baldwin describes writing as a journey to find out what you don’t know, don’t want to know, don’t want to find out -  but something forces you to anyway. An artist friend of mine likened the creative process to following an umbilical cord to an unknown destination. Mr. Baldwin’s description reminds me of this description because the pull of the need to create must be followed, because you are attached to something profound at its end. But it doesn’t have an end. There is an art to letting go, accepting you will not be 100% satisfied with what you’ve written/painted (and if you are, it doesn’t last!) It is a good exercise to having it taken away from you. The beauty of a deadline. 

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Giltrow

This will be a good discipline for me to enter into - to read in such an analytical way. 

The enthusiasm the author displays in her intro, about the energy of the participants at the Centre for Research in Academic Writing at Simon Fraser, is heartening. It helps me to sense the human face behind the academic language. I enjoy group endeavors, especially creative projects.

Some notes from Ch. 1. The “new” concept of genre as a way to analyze “social and political contexts of knowledge” and the idea that many years hence, scholars might examine the genre of ephemera for its historical context and to learn “vanished systems of association amongst people.” Working in a museum, this student can state that this is so. Reading old letters and documents, and looking at old publications, is an intimate way to really get into the minds of people and societies of long ago.

Outside of home-schooling, school/university learning is a social interaction. As we build a school community with our professors and fellow students, we take on the flavour of our learning atmosphere...”such wording is also the medium in which students must work.” Ultimately - hopefully - the student adapts what she/he learns to develop her/his own approach to expression. 

There is a well-known art school in New England that teaches a classical approach to painting. To use an old horse-training expression, a good trainer  “puts a pattern on a horse.” This school puts such a strong pattern on its students that even years after graduation, it is easy to identify where the artist went to school. Hmm!

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Academic Reading and Writing at Bishop’s University

This is the beginning of my reading and writing journal. 

Our first class began last night. I wrote about it once here but alas, it has gone missing. Although the class is online, us Bishop’s students showed up at school which gave us an opportunity to meet face-to-face. I look forward to our upcoming online interactions as we share our reading experiences from this class.

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Academic Reading and Writing at Bishop’s University

The beginning of a reading and writing journal for museeCF, student in the Master of Education in Leadership, Societies and Language program.

Our first session was off to an interesting start, with a classroom of flesh-and-blood students and a virtual teacher...seems the majority did not get the memo that the class was online, self included. After a concerted tech effort by the students whose day job is teaching, the virtual professor was on the big screen and the little squares around his head showed us our fellow (virtual) students. 

We went through the syllabus. I look forward to the reading but tend to read too fast. Having a low saturation point, this will not be the way to begin this class. Having the peer reviews opportunity will be invaluable because otherwise, one is likely to just stay in one’s own mindset.

To be continued.