Learning, teaching and living in a digital world (Topic 1)

 

 

This Monday I met one of the chemistry teachers on our university. She told me that she was supposed to make a marketing movie about her educational curriculum.

Well anyone can hold a camera, but there is more to film making then holding a camera. I know because I have been trying to learn on most of my spare time for about two years, and I am still trying to learn. Professional film making is divided into a whole lot of trades with very different skill sets.

Let’s take that as lens into our new digital world.

Young people know?

I never liked the dichotomy Natives – Immigrants for describing people’s relations to the digital world. I’m an “immigrant” myself. I was about 25 when I took my first course in computer science and got access to a computer, but I have spent much time teaching and helping so called “natives” using computers, networks and computer programs. They may kill me in the latest game or have more followers on Instagram, but most of them have to learn how to use Word or Excel in a proper way.

I much prefer the model Visitor – Resident presented by David White (1) or maybe Consumer – Producer is even better.

The y-axis

During the first webinar we tried to map Visitor – Resident against Institutional – Private.

 

My map

 

I’m not that satisfied with the two layers on the y-axis. My life is more layered then that. I suggest a four layered structure.

In the top you get Private, your love and sex-life, your family, your health and your economy. I seldom let something out of that on social media unless it’s thoroughly staged and photo shopped.

Next layer is Personal, our hobbies, cooking, garden, pets, car, boat, travelling etc. That’s pretty normal stuff for Facebook and Instagram. I at least try to be generous with the personal but rather restricted with sharing private information.

Then I think there is a third layer that I call Civil. I’m not sure that is the best word. It’ is pretty official but not your payed job. That’s what you do together in the village, in your environmental group, in your church or sports club and about visiting or arranging cultural events, festivals, exhibitions, concerts, movies and theatre. Face book groups, forums and other communities about your hobbies goes there too. Most of what I do on social media falls into that category.

Then you got the Institutional part, about your job, subject, and research. We have got special channels, an intranet and Kaltura (similar to YouTube) and other system for that but on special occasions I use Facebook or Instagram to reach out better.

 

I suggest a four layered view on social media life

“Content creator” anno 1977-ish

Maybe we also overestimate the differences between analog or digital practices. One of my first jobs was as a district leader for a youth organization. One of my tasks was making a newsletter for leaders in the local clubs. You know, it came in an envelop with stamps on! Among the tools was a very old typewriter I had to hammer the keyboard to make an impression on the paper (I still hammer on keyboards). There was also ink, Letraset letters, glue and a mimeograph and an electrostencil machine, a sort of scanner that read the paper original and with an high voltage flash burned holes in the printing stencil.

But seen as “content” it was about the same stuff that goes into a modern digital newsletter or a blog: Text, illustrations, photos held together with a graphic design.

In some ways the change of tools is superficial, many of the basic skills are about the same.

 

A keyboard is a keyboard is a keyboard.

 

“But it’s so much simpler today”

I’m not sure I agree. I’ve got an old Nikon F2 - top of the line in the seventies. You can measure light, set time and aperture take a picture and not so much more. The manual is 48 pages and then they had room to expand a lot on how the settings affected the result. My digital Nikon D750 has lots of menus with different settings. The manual is more than ten times as thick.

Hacker jargon for that is creeping featurism. In software it is easy to add features and lots of features sells. (3)

Digital is faster and cheaper, but not necessarily simpler.

Some trends

When I first got in contact with the Internet it was mostly a text medium. You could mail (no attachments), chat, download files with text and take part of discussion on USENET and remote-control computers with telnet and later ssh with text commands. (2)  With world wide web we soon got photos and drawings. With services like YouTube you also got video. I think this is an important trend.

Text → Pictures → Video.

Back to film making

Have a look at the very last minutes on a random Hollywood blockbuster. You know all that text with people with different trades, roles and titles that get their credits. Making a film is a great teamwork with lots of specialists (5)

A youtuber or an academic teacher recording her lectures typically does more or less all of that. Both in front of and behind the camera. Planning, creating a scenography, directing, lighting, recording sound, starting the camera, acting, shooting B-roll, editing, color grading … Of course, without the specialized skills, without tons of equipment and with only two hands you have to simplify a lot. (6)

 

Basic film-making.

The basic steps in making a movie are almost the same with analog or digital but digitalization has lowered the threshold for low budget productions and made possibilities for distribution almost unlimited. 

Journalism

Journalists meet a similar reality. Traditionally a writing journalist teamed up with a photographer on a job. Today she makes the interview, takes some photos, maybe makes some TV and writes the text. Here the competition from digital media has put a pressure on traditional newspaper so the “multi journalist” is a result of economic pressure.

This could be a trend. Team → Individual

Software development

In parallel there is a trend in the opposite direction in software development where the open source movement has driven it from a one-man job or something done in strictly hierarchical workgroups to a more network oriented community job as described by Eric S Raymond. In The Cathedral and the Bazaar. (7)

Individual → Hierarcical group → Community 

What is then digital literacy?

It may be connected in some way with information?

Information is not knowledge
Knowledge is not wisdom
Wisdom is not truth
Truth is not beauty
Beauty is not love
Love is not music
Music is THE BEST...

Frank Zappa (4)

 

In part digital literacy is analog. Talking, reading, writing, transferring ideas to pictures, drawings, still photos or movies. Telling stories and making people interested isn’t inherently digital but may be even more important in a digital word. 

Then of course there are some computer-oriented skills and knowledge that is desirable or necessary. From my daily practice I list some

•  Storing files in a secure place, finding them again and keeping a backup
• Transfer files from one medium to another (e.g. put an image from a SD-card to a shared folder in Box)
• Using a secure password
• Not clicking on everything that appears in the mailbox or as a pop-up window from the web browser
• Keeping your devices and applications updated
• In a relevant and fluent way using at least a word processor and a spreadsheet program.
• Reading a manual or using video instructions
• Using Google to solve problems
• Knowing and following plain old netiquette.
• Using programs for chat and video-meetings.

 To accommodate the “analog” skills above I add

• Producing vector-based drawings (PowerPoint or Keynote are okay)
•  Using a photo editor (Gimp and Darktable are good free alternatives)
• Using a program to edit sound
• By some means shoot video with decent sound and lighting
• Using a video editing program

One thing that is important is pointed out by professor Martin Vermeer (8)

The task of education is to instill generalist abilities and not the skill of "operating" one product.

He also points out  that the important things to learn in a formal setting are the "hard" things that you cannot learn by just clicking around.

I think a way to do that is doing similar tasks with very different tools. Introducing free software lowers the economic threshold for the students to continue with developing and using their skills outside the university.

Resources

1. Topic 1 webinar with David White – 28/9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jwvNStTcAs&feature=emb_logo
2.      Stephensson, N, In the beginning was, the command line http://people.cs.georgetown.edu/~clay/classes/spring2010/os/inthebeginning.pdf
3. Raymond E, S. The jargon file http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/creeping-featurism.html
4. Zappa, F. Packard Goose in Joes Garage Act III https://open.spotify.com/track/76Gr42u95qinkkdqd3pnZA?si=3JWAA-3rSs2bngf8HYec1A
5. Wikipedia, Film crew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_crew
6. Anjar U., The meta movie – film making in a corona context https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPlAX3h9nT4
7. Raymond E, S., http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/
8. Vermeer, M., Unix as an element of literacy in Linux today. https://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/1998122400305op