Inexcusable Froth from BBC Scotland’s Newsdrive

Posted on | November 26, 2009 | 7 Comments

The BBC Newsdrive programme on Radio Scotland decided to run a piece yesterday (25th November) on Ollie Bray’s perfectly sensible suggestion that young learners should be encouraged to make use of Wikipedia in their school research. The BBC Scotland news team hauled in Oliver Kamm on the basis of his Times Online piece about Wikipedia – it’s “….an anti-intellectual venture to its core” apparently, according to Kamm. It is, of course, nothing of the kind – there is nothing in the Wikipedia model that makes it anti-intellectual in any way to anyone other than an intellectual elitist. Interestingly, however, as we shall see, it is Kamm himself who, in the interview above, offers the strongest rationale for using Wikipedia in the classroom!

The 4-minute piece above is simply dreadful. We get a couple of utterly banal questions from Mhairi Stuart:

….isn’t it quite nice though as a different approach? That’s what’s fresh about it….

and

….however in this day and age, I mean, what people do is, if they don’t use Wikipedia they simply Google it, don’t they, and they’ll believe anything on the internet – that’s part of the problem of the World Wide Web….

“…they’ll believe anything on the internet…” – no problems of balance there, then?

Bill Whiteford, for once, actually asks a fairly sensible question towards the end, even if it does pander somewhat to the intellectual snobbery and prejudice of Kamm.

As for Kamm, he did say this:

….ephemera and froth are what many wikipedia editors know but in the case of real knowledge there are some articles clearly that are well researched and thorough and done by experts and some that are total rubbish. My point is not the balance between the two, it is that you don’t actually need credentials and authority and expertise to join in….

‘Real knowledge’ indeed. An interesting concept.

What strange nether world would we have to inhabit before we could choose to operate an education system in which only sources that can demonstrably prove their “…credentials and authority and expertise…” would be deemed acceptable for use in conducting any kind of research, at whatever level? Even if Kamm were correct in his very partial assumptions, it would be an incredibly irresponsible teacher, school or curriculum that would choose to ignore a tool that is being used by millions, and to indisputably good effect by a proportion of those millions on a daily basis.

Is it not, after all, a teacher’s responsibility to teach young people how to use information sources – any and all sources – with due care and diligence? And what better tool, even in Kamm’s highly overplayed terms, to deploy with young learners – helping them to learn how to differentiate between useful and questionable sources, how to check the credentials of sources, how to carry out all the functions of a sensible researcher, how to seek out as many different sources as possible to verify your information – than Wikipedia? I doubt very much that Ollie Bray is suggesting that only Wikipedia should be used in this context – that would be absurd. The notion that Wikipedia should be ignored is equally absurd. Ollie knows that. I know that. Many more sensible (and authoritative and expert) teachers and educationists across Scotland and elsewhere know that. But BBC Scotland News knows better, as the precise and knowledgeable questions from Mhairi Stuart quoted above demonstrate.

Kamm betrays his own arrogance and elitism by acknowledging that Wikipedia is a mixed bag. He, it seems, can be trusted to differentiate the bad from the good, but we must not expose mere schoolchildren to the apparent shambles that is Wikipedia. How on earth will they cope? They might even read some tosh about vacuous celebrities, the poor dears.

This all-too-typical piece (lately) of froth and ephemera from BBC Scotland News inflicted a huge disservice on an authoritative and expert educator who makes a valid point about the use in school of a key source of information today. For the BBC to treat Ollie Bray, and the subject, in such a trivial way is inexcusable. It would seem that the ‘authority and expertise’ of a London journo carries more weight with BBC Scotland News than a highly experienced and thoughtful educator working in our very own education system. Where is the journalist in BBC Scotland who is able to treat Ollie’s question, along with so many other perfectly sound and rational questions around education, with the respect and the intellectual rigour they deserve. He or she does not work on Newsdrive, it would seem.

Technorati Tags: bbc scotland, newsdrive, wikipedia, education, ollie bray, journalism, oliver kamm, knowledge

Category: authority, education, elitism, internet, journalism, knowledge, learning, literacy, teaching, technology

Dilbert does Twitter

Posted on | November 24, 2009 | 2 Comments

Technorati Tags: dilbert, scott adams, twitter

Category: humour, microblogging

Maverick? Nope!

Posted on | November 22, 2009 | No Comments

Something to keep in mind:

If you ever have to tell us you are a maverick…..you ain’t.

Technorati Tags: maverick, self-delusion

Category: personal

Twitter .v. the Agnostic Web

Posted on | November 22, 2009 | No Comments

….this kind of behaviour runs directly counter to the spirit of the Internet — which is a technology that is entirely agnostic about the uses to which it is put. That’s a feature of the system, not a bug: it’s what was designed into the architecture of the network. It’s part of its DNA.

John Naughton, commenting on a post by Dave Winer about Twitter’s suspension of one of his accounts, “….because our specialists found that your tweets were primarily links to other sites and not personal updates, a violation of Twitter Rules.” The relevant rule can be found here apparently.

As John notes, if we cannot use Twitter as ‘a kind of selective RSS feed’, which many do as a matter or course now, “…then we’ll just move on.”

Quite right too.

Technorati Tags: twitter, john naughton, dave winer, web

Category: censorship, internet, microblogging, social technology

Pat Kane on the Power of Play, Semiosis and Socio-Technical Networks

Posted on | November 20, 2009 | No Comments

The Internet as Playground and Factory – Pat Kane from Voices from The Internet as Play on Vimeo.

….we underestimate the power of play, the intrinsic, constitutive power of play to shape the way that the internet is developing….

….[I want to] negotiate my schizophrenia between being a lover of critical theory, left theory, and a music businessman whose business has been de-commodified by the internet, but I’m still trying to make a living out of it….

Just some of Pat Kane’s thoughts on his contribution to the Internet as Playground and Factory conference held in New York last week. I had the pleasure of chatting to Pat for a while just a few weeks ago – what a delight it is to come across someone who combines lucidity, erudition and intelligence while managing to retain a sense of fun (and to keep his feet on the ground).

But then, he did write The Play Ethic, which for me is one of that relatively small number of books that I like to keep always close at hand because I know it will throw me le mot juste or a useful reference or an idea for further exploration just when I need it.

Technorati Tags: pat kane, power of play, semiosis , networks

Twitter Liberals?

Posted on | November 20, 2009 | 3 Comments

This month’s Prospect Magazine (still the most intelligent of the monthlies by a long way) offers the results of an interesting poll conducted on its behalf by YouGov in which, it seems, Twitter users across the UK do pretty well (a personal take, of course) on a relative continuum that goes from Authoritarian to Liberal – the more liberal-minded are to the left (makes sense) and the more authoritarian are to the right. Recent interventions by Twitterers in the Trafigura, Jan Moir/Stephen Gately, AA Gill baboon-shooting controversies have revealed our liberal inclinations.

The poll also shows that Twitter image as a ‘tool for a youthful metropolitan elite’ is accurate, apparently, with 46% of users of the service being under 35 compared to 29% across the whole population.

I’m not concerned with the elitist bit, but can you be youthful and metropolitan at 52? Just asking….

Technorati Tags: prospect magazine, yougov, twitter, liberal, authoritarian

Category: elitism, identity, media, microblogging, personal, research, social networking, social technology, society

Education Breaks a Vicious Cycle

Posted on | November 18, 2009 | 2 Comments

Kathy Lette has penned a sharp and pertinent piece for the Guardian on the education of girls across the developing world. In School wasn’t for me. But how lucky I was to have a choice, she writes of:

….the Herculean obstacles that girls face in the developing world as they struggle to get even a basic education. Altogether, more than 43 million of them are currently out of school. Girls are at the back of the queue when it comes to schooling; and as a result they are forced to endure a lifetime of missed opportunities and lost potential.

Educating girls is a critical investment in determining the future prosperity of any country. Whether or not a country educates its girls will have profound effects across a broad range of basic measures: nutrition, family planning, children’s health and, of course, women’s rights. For example, “….just a one per cent rise in the number of girls attending secondary school boosts a country’s annual per capita income growth by 0.3 per cent….” (quoted from Kathy Lette’s own site). And it has been accepted for many years now that the strongest measure a developing country can take to improve children’s health generally is to educate mothers!

Of course, internationally it is right that we should be seeking to tackle the worst problems, the most obdurate examples of inequality, wherever they exist. But it’s worth pondering the conclusion of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, in their recent superb and closely argued book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, that:

….the evidence strongly suggests that narrowing income differences within rich countries will make them more responsive to the needs of poor countries….

So, perhaps we all need to look to the continuing, even growing, inequalities in the developed world if we really want to help make inroads in the longer term into the glaring disparities that exist across the world.

Kathy Lette has been working with the Plan-UK organization on tackling the issues she raises in the Guardian piece.

Technorati Tags: kathy lette, plan uk, education, women, girls, gender

Category: children, development, economics, education, emerging regions, government, health, literacy

Authority and Ideology

Posted on | November 17, 2009 | 3 Comments

The issue with wikipedia isn’t credibility or merit, it’s how to effectively use an open source like this. For example, going directly to the “external links” and “notes” sections at the bottom of every wikipedia page, habits of traditional scholarly critique (i.e., checking citations, sources and the end notes – which allows you to discern the bias, depth or quality of research). This way, you, the reader, can go directly to the “legitimate” sources and verify their value or merit for yourself.

Melanie McBride has written a thoughtful post on “Authority” v. wikipedia (why teachers are picking the wrong fight) in which she tugs at the political / ideological nature of ‘authority’. She compares traditional, peer-reviewed processes with open models. She also quotes Howard Rheingold on the need for the skills of ‘crap detection’ (a phrase borrowed from Hemingway). I’m not sure that this is a ‘new literacy’ since the capacity to check sources and detect misinformation, disinformation and sheer hogwash has always been an important skill. However, the context in which it is used is undoubtedly changing.

Technorati Tags: melanie mcbride, authority, ideology, howard rheingold, crap detection

Category: authority, knowledge, literacy, politics

Keith Vaz: Trident Replacement Acceptable; Computer Game Unacceptable

Posted on | November 14, 2009 | No Comments

According to theyworkforyou.com, Keith Vaz MP, a man who has never knowingly passed up a chance to jump on a bandwagon:

Voted very strongly for the Iraq war: [votes - speeches]
Voted strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war: [votes - speeches]
Voted very strongly for replacing Trident: [votes - speeches]

Of the recently launched Call to Duty: Modern Warfare 2, he said, “I am absolutely shocked by the level of violence in this game and am particularly concerned about how realistic the game itself looks.”

And I am absolutely shocked at the moral vacuum at the core of a logic that would allow support for:

an illegal war that killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians
the continued possession by the UK of weapons that can kill millions;

and yet which can generate froth and bubble and Daily Mail moralizing because of a game, one that has rightly been classified for use only by those over the age of 18.

Tom Watson MP deserves every support we can give him for pointing up the absurdity and the hypocrisy of this particular bandwagon – we can start by joining his Gamers’ Voice group on Facebook, and following him on Twitter.

Technorati Tags: keith vaz mp, tom watson mp, computer games, activision, activision

Category: censorship, entertainment, ethics, politics

Education as Social Engineering

Posted on | November 12, 2009 | 3 Comments

I teach
You educate
He engages in social engineering

Those who complain that Government education policy over the past few years amounts to social engineering should remember that the school is itself a complex instrument of social engineering. Like war, formal education is a continuation of politics by other means – less direct, less controlled, less controllable, but no less powerful in its long term effects.

The problem is not the fact that schools are being used to advance policy aims that go far beyond the merely educational, but that both the present Labour Government and the previous Tory Government have been so cack-handed over three long decades in the creation and delivery of their policies on schools in England.

It is with a kind of dread fascination that I have found myself over the years gaping, open-jawed, at the experiment that has become the English education system. I write this with not a hint of condescension. I have shared the company, over the years, of far too many highly committed and thoughtful professionals from all levels of English education to permit any conceit to taint my fascination with their situation. Nonetheless, thirty years of systemic and systematic upheaval have rendered English schooling, especially in the cities, a foreign country to anyone from my particular vantage point.

The pass was sold by Thatcher when she introduced the cold winds of the marketplace into schools. And both Blair and Brown have been happy to accelerate the process with their mantra of choice built on a crude credo of consumerism and, latterly, policies built more on ephemeral measures and outward appearances than real educational achievement. The result has been, to my eyes at least, a quite extraordinary divergence between schools policy north and south of the border.

A cross-border study in 2002 by Alexiadou and Ozga – Modernising Education Governance in England and Scotland – concluded that the modernising agenda with its economic imperative had become the underlying policy rationale in England to an extent that has been avoided in Scotland. Indeed, the researchers were able to discern a divergence in assumptions between the two countries. This has led to the appearance of a ‘policy elite’ in England, in contrast to Scotland’s preference for ‘older models of public service’ and the reappearance of a consensual ‘policy community’. The seven years since this conclusion was reached have seen yet further divergence between the two ‘assumptive worlds’.

Of course, skilled and professional teachers in both systems will continue to teach to the best of their abilities, but it is interesting nonetheless to ponder the real differences they face in terms of the policy environments and the effects those differences might have (are already having) on the education of our young people.

Technorati Tags: Alexiadou , Ozga , social engineering, educational policy, politics, divergence