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California State University, Dominguez Hills
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Created: March 13, 2004
Latest Update: March 13, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

e-learning and the Western Canon

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, March 2004.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This piece was prompted by a white paper by Frank L. Greenagel, who says "the e-learning experience is far too often puerile, boring, and of unknown or doubtful effectiveness." I agree, and I am concerned about what I consider to be a general lack of concern about this in the academy. The Illusion of e-Learning: Why We Are Missing Out on the Promise of Technology Frank L. Greenagel, Ph.D. Backup

Technology offers possbilities of innovation and answerability as yet unexplored. Though answerability and illocutionary discourse are not the concerns focussed on by Prof. Greenagel, I would like you to read his concerns in preparation for our own exploration of this issue in the Spring Naked Space Exhbition.

Although not specifically defining Naked Space projects is an important precedent we don't wish to violate, we do want to offer prompts and pre-project explorative suggestions. DO NOT mistake these for examples of normative expectations. Questions are asked to stimulate thinking, not to seek out preconceived "right" answers. In that spirit, consider:

Discussion Questions

1. What can we imagine as the possibilities for e-learning technology to improve our present learning environment?

   Consider:

   1. Geographic constraints - the need for us all to be in one place to learn - To date we've uploaded material like notes and drawings on what happened at the ACJS meetings, to the site and used e-technology to communicate with each other, whether we are present in one place or not. This makes dealing with traffic possible.

   2. Time constraints

      1. The discussion time constraint need for us all to be together at one time for discussions - To date we've uploaded notes like this that summarize what happened wherever two or three of us happened to be together at one time, like the ACJS national meetings in Las Vegas in 2004, or last Thursday in jeanne's and Pat's office. Meetings become virtual, so that those who are not physically present can learn what happened. Decisions are made with e-technology, and await input of those not present.

      2. The lecture time constraint need for us to be together for information dissemination. To date we've uploaded lectures so that if we miss one, we can catch up on what was said when time permits. This also makes the lecture physically available to all for comment and discussion. Collaboration becomes possible.

      3. The study time constraint need for each to spend adequate time on our reading to stay "on the same page" for our discussions.and summaries of readings. To date we've uploaded summaries and basic concepts we feel are necessary to meaniingful inclusion in our discussions. This makes it possible for reading to be fit into individual schedules, and recognizes the time constraints that are exasperated by testing on reading alone, prior to full discussion in a classroom or throught the use of e-technology.

   3. Writing constraints

      1. One of the major issues in education today is the teaching of writing. Large classes, overtaxed teachers, and a kind of lowered self-esteem in the whole area of education (i.e. why johnny can't read) has led the teaching of writing into a cul de sac of misery. Granted if you have 35 students, you can't effectively "correct" 35 essays every night. Neither can you effectively assign team work without exercising careful restraint so that one or two students don't end up doing the bulk of the work for the others, who receive the same grade without the effort.

      2. Team work needs to be encouraged, though not mandated, and transparent. By transparent here I mean done enough in the open, that others can see what's going on and share in the collaboration in a fairly flexible system. E-technology has a lot to offer here. By updating the list of current projects others can guage their own work, in terms of traditional procrastination, and also see how others are approaching the problem.

      3. In the Fall 2003 Naked Space Exhibit, we discovered the power of modeling behavior in the college classroom. Many students came into the exhibit early on the first day. Took inspiration from what was there, went home, and came back with another exhibit of their own the next day. This may have been the first real chance that students had to study the work of others. And bringing their own work back, to place along side the one that inspired it, invited the transparency of sharing influence and inspiration with all. Competition lessened. Collaboration mushroomed.

      4. Editing needs to be rediscovered. By editing a good writer's work, by being included in that phase of the writing process, other students gain much-needed exposure and practice. When the teacher writes a first draft and uses e-technology to disseminate that draft, all the second drafts will have a much higher quality than as first drafts of their own, and the "correction" process is less discouraging to all.

      In what ways can e-learning encourage transparency and awareness of the possiblities of collaboration?

      Consider that our traditional meaures of learning, tests, essays, term papers have fairly welll-recognized precedents, even up to commodification (though not academically accepatable) of copies on the Internet. That social context, in which one person can prepare a paper for academic presentation without any special connection to the actual course and learning, comes from the ritualization of the curriculum and its presentation. Political science 101 at college A is pretty much like Political Science 101 at College B. The whole process that results in this sameness makes it possible to market general textbooks, and to take essentially "canned" lecture notes from our own old college notes.

      Consider the possility of presenting a few basic concepts, a few basic readings, and then lots of discussion in which new choices and new readings take us in many alternative directions. Hard to buy a canned paper for that kind of course. But then, how could we guarantee that students would have covered the sacred canon in preparation for graduate study? Put the basic canon up on the Internet where we can all refer to it. Use the basic canon in introducing and/or following up the alternative paths we take in our courses. Cover more paths than anyone could get through in a semester. Leave the choice in depth and breadth of coverage to the individual learner in his/her own context and constraints.) This makes the canon transparent. It's there on the Internet. This makes it possible for us all to add pieces we would also like to see covered. This would make collaboration and the sharing of sources functional.

      Students will still read the texts that deserve it. They may not all read the same text, but at least they will have seen the myriad choices. If it's really a canon, then it should be there, accessible to all, as the bare minimum of banked education we want our educated populace to have encountered. Not as a commodity to which you can't gain access unless you're economically well off.

      This could make transparent the works on which we are judging whether you are successfully educated or not. Not just the works alone, but discourse on the works, samples of their applications across many disciplines, forums in which those who care and are willing to could take part in discussiions about the big issues of their disciplines. E-technology makes all this possible.

      E-technology makes it possible to put up for the world the canvas of learning on which we want to build, allowing each one who so wishes to work with that canvas to discover new permutations, to erase and smudge out bits, substitute new ones, to explore ways in which to turn his/her own canvas into a new vision of the world, which we could then all share, and build on in our turn. The canon contains our normative expectations of the structuration of knowledge. E-technology permits us to guard that canon, while exploring every new avenue that presents itself as a possible component of the structuration that is to come.

      Normative expectations tie into the structuration of the social context and constrain answerability. E-technology offers a tool to free us from that constraint, to recognize answerability through multiple perspectives that can be transparently preseerved and projects right along with the canon.