Opportunities and risks - reading part 2

As I sit down to type this blog, I am constrained by the nature of the medium to "make it short." Is this just me? I cannot, will not read long pieces of writing on a computer. Therefore I will attempt to make my response short, or would concise be the better word. Does this lead to better writing or to curtailed writing (and thinking?) Maybe it's OK for me to not write a long response, because it is after all just part of the participatory community.

And I told myself that this week I would be more positive.

I can't really get hold of the idea of distributed cognition, intelligence distributed across "brain, body and world." When I read that "intelligence is accomplished rather than possessed", I am taken back to the nature versus nurture debates of educational psychology classes. This is a huge debate and it seems to me that these authors have chosen the nurture side since it fits well with their idea of the community of participation.

I do, I do see the benefits of group activities and participation in endeavor, but I cannot let go of the idea that we humans also need time to "remix", to be within our own minds and use our individual capabilities. Just as the author seems to be (and I may be wrong) arguing for a future of interaction, I would argue for the need for our schools to teach students the joy of silence and peace. In fact, I read an article recently about the positive effects that had been shown in schools in Australia who had taught students meditation techniques. It worries me that students feel the constant need to be "out there" and seem scared of that place called "myself" when it is not mediated by external forces.

However, I wax philosophical.

On a more positive note, I made note as I read of quite a few sites to which I will return for further exploration. I use some of these sites on a regular basis myself (though I have never felt myself particularly as part of a community in doing so, so perhaps my problem is with the term community.) I really do see the value of the technologies we have and I do see that they will change the world for our students.

But is change always an absolute positive? The authors of this paper cite UK Children Go On-Line on page 60: "Opportunities and risks go hand in hand. The more children experience one, the more they also experience the other." They continue that the British report advocated "doing a better job helping youth master the skills they need to exploit opportunites and avoid pitfalls." I thought of the students I teach, a truly vulnerable group - below grade level middle school students. Many of my students are both economically and culturally on the wrong side of the digital divide. The most vulnerable just want to "belong" somewhere. I see the community of the web as being emotionally appealing to these students, far more emotionally appealing than any intellectualizing I might do about the pitfalls. In that sense the participatory community has far more power than I do as a teacher.

Of course, my attitude might be quite different if I were dealing on a daily basis with a different group of students. I was struck as I read by the number of times the authors referred to groups out of MIT (particularly) and Stanford. I would have loved to have read about work being done with middle and lower class students in regular public school.

And, after all my quibbling, I come to the end of the article, where the authors seem to have once more returned to Planet English, and find myself wondering along with them, how do we make sure that "all students benefit from learning in ways that allow them to participate in public, community, and economic life." and knowing that I will be looking more in depth at ways to use computer technology to expand the horizons of my teaching and the horizons of my students.