The Uncanny Valley and Higher Ed

Read this today and can’t say I’m that surprised. It’s an article that’s pretty much circulated and discussed on an annual basis for the past few years.

For me, I am reminded, when reading this, of the Uncanny Valley – the concept that robots repulse us the closer they get to approximating human attributes (think Tom Hanks in Polar Express or Jeff Bridges in the new Tron). Though there is a larger argument about the capitalist underpinnings of the academy, I find it interesting how there is a building mass of individuals approaching professorship, despite the steep drop-off in terms of job opportunities. The analogy falls apart under scrutiny, but in general, it feels like becoming a professor–like being human­–is the pinnacle to which grad students are reaching. However, the closer they get to finishing, the more repulsive the environment actually becomes: few jobs and underpaid temporary positions.

I Want to Tell You Something

So I picked this up a bit ago and I’m ready to put it to use. I’m not entirely sure for how long, but I’d like to try to eek out a postcard a day to kick off 2011. I think part of this process will be a game. I’m working it out as I go along. I’m going to call it “I Want to Tell You Somethng” and I want you to play along:

If you would like to get a postcard in the mail at some point next year, please email your address to anterobot asperand gmail dot com.

How I learned to stop worrying and just drop $40 to become a more efficient writer

Just over a week ago, I defended my dissertation proposal for my Ph.D. Though I intend to more fully describe the proposal, my plans for implementation, and how you can be involved, I wanted to here describe the writing tool that I relied on. To be as blunt as possible, Scrivener is perhaps the best forty dollars I’ve spent in my professional career.

Through breaking down a larger document into smaller files, folders, and subfolders, Scrivener fits the ad hoc nature of my writing style. Frequently, I would find myself jumping from amending the proposal’s rationale to tweaking a few lines in the lit review to jotting out a section of the appendix. I started writing my proposal importing a handful of useful articles and a few paragraphs and papers I’d previously written that helped guide my writing. Scrivener allowed me to morph these scraps as needed throughout the months I spent writing the 80+ page proposal I ended up with.  For instance, I started the bulky literature review chapter with notes on the areas I intended to review. These were in a single text section. However, as these areas grew, I broke them into the five sections you can see in the image above. These too, in turn, were expanded to allow me to more closely focus on various nuances within the areas I was reviewing and collapsed later for fluidity.

Scrivener allowed me to expand and collapse text and folder as needed, move sections around, and keep many of my needed PDFs, images, and notes within an eye’s view. Being able to edit with two text windows open within Scrivener meant compiling my bibliography while writing, or looking at various drafts simultaneously.

Oh yeah, and it’s really, really easy to use. Pretty much everything I do with Scrivener is covered in this single video.

I also want to note that I don’t feel like I come anywhere near to utilizing the many features that come included in Scrivener. However, it significantly frees up my time between drafts and allows me to work quickly through larger documents (I’ve used it for most papers and articles I’ve written in grad school). It would be nice to see something Scrivener-like that becomes more collaborative (I really enjoy working with Google Docs with others, and can see Scrivener working well in this context). I definitely don’t get compensated for raving about Scrivener, and I paid for it (their ease with which they allow me to put it on the multiple computers I use is also appreciated). I get questions, occasionally, about the software I use when writing. I begrudgingly stuck with Endnote because I’ve already invested in learning its interface. Scrivener is intuitive and has become an essential component to my productivity.

[Note: A significant update to Scrivener recently came out. I have not yet looked into the additional features.]

NCTE Bound

So much to blog, but actual posts will resume in early December after some substantial deadlines are met.

In the meantime, if any readers are going to be at the NCTE Conference in Orlando this week, I will be presenting on mobile literacies on Saturday:

“NEW MEDIA, POPULAR CULTURE, PEDAGOGY, AND PRODUCTION IN URBAN CLASSROOMS”

2:45-4:00 p.m. Yacht & Beach Club/Asbury Room A

Also, I will be at the U.S. Department of Education exhibit booth (#209) for much of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Please stop by and say hello. I’ll be co-facilitating a few roundtables with teachers as part of my duties as a Classroom Ambassador; if you are in Orlando and would like to participate, please let me know.

Sorry for the delay. More updates to come soon: Kanye’s lessons for educators, Peter’s magical school desk, further negotiations of space, and spiders, Spiders, SPIDERS!

Waiting for Dialogue

There’s a lot of talk about Waiting for Superman: what it gets wrong, what it portrays incorrectly, what needs to be done. Having finally seen it, I actually can’t say I’m all that disappointed with the film. If anything, I see it as a tremendous opportunity.

Sure, I take issue with the ways that charters are lionized, unions are vilified, and lottery-losing parents are victimized in Waiting for Superman. However, as an educator, I can say I’m still genuinely glad this film is making headlines. I realize this idea may upset many of my colleagues, but I hope more people will see it. I hope they’ll walk out of the theater angry.

Scanning the credits, I noted that Waiting for Superman utilized a data set and resources I am not only familiar with but know and trust the researchers that created it. As such, it’s not that the film is menacing propaganda but more a gripping reminder of the ways that data can be framed to tell specific narratives. Of course, when such tales deal with the opportunities and lived experiences of young people across the country, the stories matter much much less than actual results.

I appreciate efforts like Not Waiting for Superman and I hope more people will be able to look at some of the more level headed responses coming out of the film. And frankly, the amount of funding that can go directly into classrooms as a result of the Donors Choose promotion with the film is fantastic. If anything, I feel like a lot of individuals are going to walk out of the theater and many will be compelled to visit the film’s web site, maybe click the Take Action tab, maybe even buy the more problematic companion text. And critical educators are going to stomp their feet and make this a debate when it should be a dialogue.

Here is a film that is helping create vitriol for the atrocities that are happening – historically – within classrooms. This is an opportunity to build coalitions around anger – not see the film as an attack but as an entry point for more dialogue and for action regardless of if you are pro-Waiting or pro-Not Waiting. Frankly, it would be great if a site like Waiting for Superman and a site like Not Waiting for Superman simply linked individuals to the exact same forum – everyone will be going to these sites for the same purposes: students.

Listening to Zaireeka: Participation, Learning, and Community Engagement

Sep 16, 2010

I was munching on a sandwich at one of my favorite local eateries reflecting on the random small accomplishments we often make during our off-track or vacation time. For some finishing recording an album, an early start on lesson planning, perhaps housecleaning long postponed. For me, I’m basically entrenched in pages of dissertation proposal writing. However, that hadn’t stopped me from setting goals regarding trying new cooking recipes, sketching out more time for creative writing, and making a dent in the to-read book heap (that continues, to this day, to grow like the weeds and wildflowers that pester the hedges and front garden of my apartment – perhaps another domestic area that should be added to the list of goals for the remaining month and change). In any case I realized there is something else I want do: I want to listen to an album.

No, not any album mind you – I mean I’ve got plenty to choose from (too many, depending on whom you ask). Specifically, I realized I wanted to listen to Zaireeka.

Released in 1997 by the Flaming Lips, Zaireeka is a four CD album – no, it’s not some epic prog-rock behemoth that goes on for hours. Instead of playing the four discs consecutively, Zaireeka requires – at least to be heard “properly” –  for all of the disks to be played concurrently. This, for several obvious reasons poses a considerable challenge. For starters, I don’t actually own four separate CD players (fine, with a couple of laptops, I suppose I do, but who wants to listen to the album through paltry computer speakers?). Secondly, the act of trying to sync and play four CDs simultaneously isn’t the easiest skill to muster.

To be clear, I think these challenges are my favorite part about the album. Since first purchasing my copy around a decade ago, I’ve only listened to the album twice. Yes, there are mixed-down versions pirated and readily available for download, but that defeats the experience – defeats the very idea – of Zaireeka.

Listening to the album becomes an event. Like today’s remix culture in which the lines of consumption and production are reversed, flipped, thrown out the window, Zaireeka predicts the relationship between artist and fan years before the (problematic) phrase “Web 2.0” ever traipsed out of Tim O’Reilly’s lips. At the same time, the conveniences of new media that make remixing and social interaction so easy for most today are utterly beyond the unwieldy challenge of playing four CDs together. You can’t listen to Zaireeka easily by yourself – you can’t slip on headphones and add it to your favorite playlist as you drive to work, shuffle around the grocery store, or walk the dog. It is a community event, one that is to be experienced as a group, even more so than a concert.

Having dinner with a friend recently, she mentioned the sense of feeling alone in a concert. Zaireeka is the frame for establishing and creating a non-digital social network; it is a network where participation and interaction is key. We laugh, nod along, and giggle at the odd noises and melodies that Wayne Coyne and co. enact with us.

I also like the notion that the process of participating with the album can utterly and beautifully fail. I remember on the two occasions I’ve tried listening to the album the numerous false starts and failed attempts to get the discs to correctly sync. It was a learning process and one that was bolstered by the shared interest in making the album “work.” The Flaming Lips were counting on us, after all.

Shortly after setting my sites on setting up a listening party for the near future, I found out that the 33 1/3 book series published a small tome on the landmark album. The book is a fun description and contextualization of the book. Like this post’s musings on the album, little groundbreaking revelation is offered about the album, but for fans of the Lips, it’s a text I found entertaining. The author, Mark Richardson, points out that recording for Zaireeka coincided with production for the critically lauded Soft Bulletin. Opening with the sweeping orchestrations describing “Two scientists […] racing for the good of all mankind,” the album’s hopeful exuberance captures best the delicate and boisterous act of becoming a co-creator and acting out another performance of Zaireeka.

Because I’m Teaching L.A.’s Kids: Thoughts on Today’s Front Page Article

I can’t say I’m all that surprised by today’s LA Times article addressing teacher effectiveness; it said nothing surprising about the importance of effective teachers; LAUSD sent out a phone blast to its employees on Friday essentially warning us of the impending article; a union-related listserv I subscribe to hotly debated the level of vitriol with which to respond to the Times both before and subsequently after the article was published; value-added analysis has been something of a hot topic in education reform discussions of late.

All that being said, I’m worried about the implications the article – not the findings – have on the continuing hunt for the “bad” teachers (now publicly searchable) working with America’s youth. I’m reading this from a bunch of perspectives – as a union member participating in committee work around teacher effectiveness, researcher within an urban school, and Department of Education employee: I have many concerns as I read the article. However, my opinion here comes solely as a frustrated and still hopefully optimistic teacher. And as a teacher, I’m worried that I’m now going to be judged on my natural talents and not those that are being fostered through development from the district or other support networks. The article focuses on the importance of individual teachers without looking at how teachers become effective or suggesting anything other than the notion that effectiveness is a permanent, immutable status. Why is there less focus on how teachers improve? On the impotent “professional development” that does little than caterwaul about problems within instruction practice? On how resources can be used to triage teachers like John Smith?

I say all this also frustrated that the LA Times paints a false picture when stating that “the most effective teachers often go unrecognized, the keys to their success rarely studied.” Lately, I’ve been wading through significant heaps of research around teacher effectiveness. I’ve been discussing with WestEd’s Ken Futernick the way school turnaround emphasizes the importance of teachers as leaders and empowered individuals; we’ve discussed recent work by Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullen. I’ve been reading research about how three effective teachers in a row essentially close the achievement gap. I’ve been a part of a Freshman Academy that specifically recruited perceived effective teachers within Manual Arts to best address the needs of the most at-risk grade at the school. There is plenty of research about teacher effectiveness (these links being solely the stuff I’ve been reading on effectiveness over the past two weeks) and still the LA Times has chosen to frame the debate about education reform around individual teachers.

Of the many points also made, I don’t agree with the way the article seems to negate class as a factor in looking at student performance. Though “other studies of the district have found that students’ race, wealth, English proficiency or previous achievement level played little role in whether their teacher was effective” and “contrary to popular belief, the best teachers were not concentrated in schools in the most affluent neighborhoods, nor were the weakest instructors bunched in poor areas,” a distribution of resources, the culture within schools based on SES and the role of stringent imposed mandates all weigh heavily not only on teacher effectiveness, but consistent student outcomes.

Lastly, I feel concern for the way that teachers and my union will respond to this. While I feel disappointment at the missed opportunity that this article has in shedding light on needed steps of reform, I’m surprised by the way some UTLA members chose to respond to the article by complaining about parents, students, and communities. Though this is not at all exemplary of all teacher points of view it is yet another way blame is being shifted for the problems highlighted.

With this acting as the introductory piece in an ongoing series of articles highlighting education within Los Angeles, I’m skeptical of positive change arising from the work the LA Times has published. We’ll see how the opportunity for public commenting from teachers within the study pans out over the next few weeks.