La Gurú speaks

Blogged with Flock

Its been about 27 years since our local radio show was re-instated after the community took over the University's administration building in protest for it being taken off the air. Twenty seven years have passed and again the administration eliminated the program about two weeks ago.

This time we met in the administration building with the university's and radio station management and requested that their mistake be corrected. They returned half the time slot to the program. Tomorrow is the first shortened radio show. And we will be meeting again to follow through with our request for the administration to correct their mistakes.

Stay tuned... I think there is an internet link to the live stream.

INSTRUCTIONS TO LISTEN TO THE TERTULIA PROGRAM THROUGH THE INTERNET (WEBSTREAMING)

1. On Sundays, at 8:00 pm (EST), go to http://www.wfcr.org.

2. Next to the right to the white box with the 88.5 fm, is the box titled NOW ON WFCR. Hit the bubble "LISTEN NOW".

3. Click on links that apply to the program through which you will download the program to your computer:

• WFCR 88.5 FM: Launch MP3 Stream (.pls) [iTunes, QuickTime, Real Audio, WinAmp]
• Launch MP3 Stream (.m3u) [Windows Media, )

Thanks Noemi for the information.

Blogged with Flock

García, K. and Suzuki, R. (October, 2006). Blogs as Teaching Ethnographies: Blogging Out. The Learning Technology, 6 (4), Available at http://lttf.ieee.org/learn_tech/issues.html

"i have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. that the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect … and of course i am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger … we can learn to speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to speak when we are tired. for we have been socialized to respect fear more than our needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence of that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us. the fact that we are here and that i speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not differences which immobilizes us, but silence. and there are so many silences to be broken. "

Audre Lorde, 1980

"(t)here is no reason why working people should be deprived of those opportunities today, and it has nothing to do with whether they should be also given the kind of training which will allow them to enter the economic system. You can do both."*

Unfortunately education does not directly lead to entry into the economic system, and access to knowledge as a "high culture" is unavailable for survival.

The Men’s Resource Center for Change (MRC) will be holding its Tenth Annual Challenge & Change Celebration on Sunday, May 7th. The dinner provides an opportunity for Pioneer Valley community members to come together to recognize a man, woman and young man who are making significant contributions to strengthen the social fabric of our community and society. The dinner also serves as a celebration of the work being done by the Men’s Resource Center itself.

This year, the MRC is honoring Luis-Orlando Isaza of Holyoke Community College for his leadership as a social change educator and activist; Felice Yeskel of Class Action for her commitment to breaking down class barriers; and Raul Matta of the American Friends Service Committee for his efforts as a peace builder and peer educator.

Dear IIEP-OER participants,

The discussion about research questions related to OER is quite comprehensive and a wide research agenda has been identified. As a freelance online practitioner not institutionally embedded, the questions of transferability and adaptation of offline resources to virtual environments is most pressing. Not only would I question basic assumptions about whether educational resources are transferable but which are the fundamental elements best suited for such activity. Learning environments of any kind (virtual or not) require customization according to persons and places and the dentification of best practices facilitate all educational activities.

Rubrics would be useful for the creation, categorizing and retrieval of content. Likewise, transferable resources in the form of basic schemes to be further developed by each practitioner might result in the most applicable approach. The popularity of p2p environments for distributed knowledge is evidence of the current trend towards spontaneous and self directed use and production of content. It seems that taking "the least common denominator approach" would allow for the largest relevance and applicability of efforts. Then, as these "outlines" are filled by users we could enjoy the wide diversity in each unique experience. That constructivist approach would allow for the mix and match of chunks of knowledge which is different from the offering of complete courses (derived from offline use) which are currently available.

I got the following response:

Hi Karen
Are you suggesting that individual learner needs should be taken into account? :)

I agree by the way, but I'm not sure how that would play out (at the front end) in regards to OERs - if learning objects are created for a particular course (for example) then they are relevant (hopefully) to the intended recipients. If opened to the world, it's not clear that they would be relevant generally. It would be up to whomever is accessing and assessing them to make that determination. Or ... maybe I've misunderstood you??

In regards to your second paragraph (I've left it in its entirety for reference) can you explain further? I'm particularly curious about your reference to peer-to-peer networking environments and about your "least common denominator" approach. I interpret that paragraph to mean that you are espousing the creation and dissemination of small chunks (objects) of info that are contextualized by the "seeker" (i.e. build your own sandwich approach), rather than the dissemination of the objects in their original context (i.e. the "vending machine sandwich" approach) - sorry for the really bad analogies - it's late! :)

To continue this train of thought - the person who builds their own sandwich will find that the eating is more meaningful/enjoyable (or will at least know what not to do next time).

Am I again mis-understanding you?
thanks

Greetings Claudius, and everyone else.

Of course, educational activities means learner based activities in which learners are active participants in the design of curricula, syllabus and creation of knowledge. That process of course must benefit from the current knowledge base. We each experience a different reality and know different things in different amounts. So the challenge is always there to benefit from that diversity for everyone's learning. In the field of education we all are learners, albeit with different philosophical and political experiences. In my case, I look for participatory approaches much like the one presented to this forum with its directive of building a research agenda. We could be given a survey to answer, or we can be asked what questions to include in the survey as a means to answer the research question.

Ideally, OER would be developed by the users. But that is not generally the case. The closest to that participatory and interactive feature online is what is now called web2 and the prevalence of p2p environments. You can freely access a plethora of video, audio and images. So if I may follow your analogy about the options in creating a sandwich, it can already be packaged, or self made, but in addition choosing the options from which to choose is the fundamental-lower denominator that I am referring to. Of course, I might want to eat something else! And also, there is the need to take advantage from experience and aim at the "best sandwich", and in midst of the creative impulse be clear about what is and is not a sandwich.

There is so much available online that everyone's appetite can be satiated. And it is for us to ensure that the options are of highest quality. My aim is to look for universal basic tenets of knowledge that could be applied into the infinity of options. And by keeping the framework fundamentally basic it will hopefully be ansferable across the board.

That is why I find rubrics helpful. But then again, the construction of rubrics also must involve the learner. That is the ideological part. Pragmatically, the question is how software allows for such participation and interaction. And in addition, who would certify experiences to be credible. Then again, we might fall in the usual trap of valuing the same experiences differently according to people and place.

I think you understood very well the point about transferability and I hope the issue of identifying a "common denominator" is clearer now.

Yes, there is food for everyone in this world...