Cyborg is growing on me

My dearest has threatened to weld me to my cell phone. Not to extend me, its to extend him. "Why isn't your cell phone on; i tried to ring you."
Does he really not see the subtext here?
I want you at my beck and call.

Its just as well he hasn't seen this one.
Cyborg; i might be happy to explore as a fantasy, maybe even a reality when i consider my serious deep seated psychological attachment to apple, my laptop. She and me have a pleasant symbiotic relationship.

But i am not ready for this, yet.
Seriously. Attached to one's cell phone.

How do i <3 thee?
Let me no.the ways
No
No way
Not eva

I've been punked; Harajuku babe bites back

Punk'd education; the alternate, raw and angry side, a bit black, seedy, downright dirty, with a sharp edge.

"It was then that it hit these people. Blackboard was never a learning tool."

The controlling influences of education may smooth a means to commodifying fodder fit for an unquestioning workplace; may make the bureaucracy of education run with or without the presence of learners; but i like to think there is something about learning's purpose being greater not less, freedom.
So its effing annoying when the platform is mistaken for the performance.
20th century punk meets 21stcentury harajuku.
A lot of attention to the manifestation but the substance is unsettling, a bit like the harajuku form of loligoth; a semblance/ assembling Victoriana meets goth meets punk meets paedophile dream.
There is edginess and it's disturbing, seductive, and beautiful:

They hang out to be seen, do their make-up, talk to friends, and get photographed. Any Sunday visit to the famous Harajuku “bridge” (it’s not an actual bridge) will show you more tourists snapping shots than actual GothLoli.
Performance on many levels.

Deeply disturbing, just like learning should be.
Really.
Thanks to Stephen Downes for todays provocation.

Consultation: a weasel word. Sucking up education.

weasel word
n.
An equivocal word used to deprive a statement of its force or to evade a direct commitment.
[From the weasel's habit of sucking the contents out of an egg without breaking the shell.]

On feeling somewhat sucked.

Consultation
con·sul·ta·tion (knsl-tshn)
n.
1. The act or process of consulting.
2.
a. A conference at which advice is given or views are exchanged.
b. A meeting between physicians to discuss the diagnosis or treatment of a case.

I have found myself being consulted with recently. (Note to self: add consultant to cv, PBRF audits, promotion package...)


There is an awful lot of obfuscation and obscurification going on, how about just getting back to the capacity to teach students, or not? Skip the weasel words and focus on what counts for education.

Its called consultation yet its substantively a one way delivery of information on what is to be 'delivered' with a timeframe prohibitive of alternatives. Consultation limited to tweaking. In developing communities of practice, I suggest such actions would create a climate of distrust and apathy.

And I find myself thinking blogging may be unsafe.
Only in a liberal centre of education might one really expect that asking questions, challenging rationale, and critically thinking about what happens would be honored. If you work in such a place, please let me know.
Meantime, NZ does recognize weasels as noxious pests and its a Government given mandate to help eradicate their impact.

Turn and face the strain

I've chosen to turn and face the strain even though I'm not clear on what Bowie means on tracing time.
In rereading Aramis; the love of technology the tracing of what is the murder of a good idea/project could be deemed a 'learning opportunity'.
From a counselling perspective it may even be cathartic.

To this end I explore: What does it take to kill a good thing?
Seems timely to look at changes; so I'll turn and face the strain.

According to John law, it's simple: work holding it together stops.
Doing one's own thing quietly could be blamed, not making a fuss could be blamed.
Staying below the radar contributes.

Retrospectively its possible to recognize that a lack of resourcing comes from a lack of actors. As they peel away, the project dies. Its not economics. Its not politics.
Latour points to these excuses as just that, excuses. Excuses for not doing depth sociology, where naming forces becomes shorthand to not probing deeper. The big explanations are used precisely because there is disinterest; because responsibility is being avoided.
I can paraphrase this: Where there is not a will, there is not a way.

People make decisions. People with names. Not politics or fiscal constraints, not context, positions or offices, but people who no longer work collectively to make the thing work. The chain that binds, breaks.

Confessions to a murder are rarely forthcoming.
In the area of technologies Latour suggests there is nothing very solid, just the accumulation of little solidities, little durabilities, little resistances and a project ends up becoming gradually more solid. the converse also happens. The erosion's of actors; people leave, jump ship, those who argue for more of this without realizing the impact is less of that...and so projects become more, and less, real. Reality is polymorphus, shape shifting, changing. Actors come and go. Progressive slippage of interest is traced (retrospectively).

Latour playfully suggests looking for the mice and fairies that turn a pumpkin into a coach. I extend this; who are they that turn a coach into a pumpkin? When the disinterest starts what's done to hold on? Whats allowed, required, or given away, what's not done, undone, neglected, abandoned, what alliances have been prevented, constrained. When does love lost turn to murder, dismembering, annihilation?

A technological project is never realistic or unrealistic; it takes on reality, or loses it, by degrees.
What becomes more or less real depends on the chains...the continued generation of interest, of seduction.

In Aramis, Latour manages the convincing love story that was Mary Shelly's Frankenstein: By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you. Hear my tale....you reject me? Have I not been good?...Did not all the fairies hover over my cradle...If you did not want me, why keep me alive?...If badly conceived why not conceive me again? ....why turn away...

A lack of love kills things, kills projects, is soul destroying; by degrees.
I'm left feeling that

"love lies bleeding in my hand" (Elton John, funeral for a friend)

invisible, inaudible, or in the office

'Children should be seen and not heard'
So long as you don't irritate the grownups of the world you have a right to exist.
Cute your allowed to be, attention seeking, not.
An existence subject to terms.

Seems the little beasty is a different little beasty to different people, or maybe even is a different little beasty dependent on place.

When it's my own, it's a necessary piece of what not to leave home without: keys, wallet, cell phone. An object that extends me, I can travail time and distance to communicate with others.

When it's someone else's and its ringing in a lecture theatre, movie, restaurant its an unwelcome intruder.
Even when its my own and it does this at such times, its still an unwanted intruder. I now owe a packet of biscuits to the group I run for Youthline since the little beasty made its presence known tonight.
When contacted with demands of do this, do that, where are you... it's more like a leash than an object that extends my powers.

In an article by Chris Bigum, (1998). Schools in search of educational problems: Speaking for computers in schools. Educational policy, 12(5), 586-601.
Chris talks of how the computer within schools is experienced as being a very different animal by different people. I would argue that the same can be said of cell phones.
Hijazi-Omari, H., & Ribak, R. (2007) in 'Playing with fire: On the domestication of the mobile phone among Palestinian teenage girls in Israel' also talk of how the cellphone can be an emancipatory object or a leash. Their description focuses on the love interest experience of young women and girls. The cell phone assumes symbolic representation as a ring might have in another culture.
But with added risk and benefits. The title 'Playing with fire' isnt elaborated on, but one sumizes that the risk of having the cellphone found by brothers, fathers, others may be extreme. There is also the tethering of having the sim card read to ensure that the purpose of the gift was not extended. This included one example where the 'girl' was not informed of the number of 'her' cell phone so as to maintain an inscribed use.
The emancipatory quality appeared subsumed by the high level risk involved. But many of the issues are the same ones talked of by Carolyn Marvin (1988), in her book titled "When old technologies were new: Thinking about electric communication in the late nineteenth century."

New Zealand Broadcasting Authority release research on the 6th May indicating 42% of children 6-13 years use a cell phone.
I suspect they also use landlines but thats not news worthy.

PhD distractions.

This is my mum, she doesnt live by herself, she has an 11" toy poodle.
She knows the current PM (it has been the same one for 9 years) and so is deemed capable of making rational choices.
Mum was admitted yesterday after having had two falls this week. On each occasion she spent a night on the floor. With the second fall (yesterday) she sustained a fracture to her radius, left wrist. This is now in a plaster cast. Today their intent was to discharge her home alone, despite knowing she can only get around with difficulty and using a walker.
Seems I was the only person who thought this was irrational.
My mum, a Dr and two nurses couldnt see the problem.
A request to have my view that this was irrational be documented in her notes was resisted by the RN, so I suggested that under the Privacy Act and with my mothers permission I could see the notes and write in it myself. We were then seen by the Duty manager.
A smart person this RN: one look and she could see that a plaster cast and a walker and an elderly woman already identified as prone to falls home alone was not a good idea.
Might have something to do with a junior doctors strike due next week in conjunction with nurse's having totally given away their 'voice'. If i had thought she just needed doctoring we would have gone to a private a&e clinic. It was because I knew she needed nursing care that we went to a hospital.

omg tisnf

oh my gosh/God, this is so not fair/not funny
But it is, ROFL
While I pick myself up from rolling on the floor and b4 i wet my pants (ROFLWP)
Have a look at the not so funny need for a mobile plan thats less costly.

I have actually known people who couldn't afford to pay their rent because their cell phone plans, yes plans, were costing too much.
Tgfpp= thank God for prepay.
While I'm on this topic, I also note that ok isn't short enough, k?
I get the need to be economical with a text maybe costing 20cents a message,
160 characters max for a single message, so why use 1 when you could have used 2?

Animoto: digital narrative made easy

A great audiovisual piece of freeware called animoto and I spent most of this wet bleak day fooling around.
Courtesy of Ewan MacIntosh i found animoto, its a bit of an instant digital narrative type of thing.
I found it easiest using photos and pictures uploaded onto flikr first and then onto their upload board.
(Expand the use of pics if needed by doing the Flikr advanced search for creative commons photos, attribution required).
The site then provides an option of music they provide (some free, some on payment) or advice re creative commons music or authors own mp3 file... to accompany.

The 30 sec short clip that can be produced is free, downloadable to youtube and then to one's own blog...
I'm thinking I could use these as a week by week intro to a lecture, or as a reminder of what was covered in the previous lecture...

There are some annoying aspects such as the random actions on slides, but i guess this is made up for with the 'creativity for dummies' ease of use.

Here Ive used graphics from the early part of the course I teach on communication skills (content included getting out of one's comfort zone, developing self awareness, invoking a moral curiosity, the need for communications in a health team to be by design, non-verbal communications, empathy and the work of John Heron, which included a look at unskilled, degenerative and misguided counselling). I suspect this little snippet tries to do too much and i still have to work on the headless one but still...it is my first ever youtube upload :)
The stand alone video wouldnt make sense if you hadn't attended the lecture, but the potential is for grounding aspects of the learning invoked by the visuals ...

Next step, injecting some creativity in the course;
maybe extra course credit for submitting work that exemplifies empathy....

suckered in a textually mediated reality

I am murderously inclined having been suckered by trolling scum soliciting in outsourced thinking. Buying or selling; I'd rather deal to their body parts.

Thanks to Qmass for the reference: Frank, A. (2004). After methods, the story: From incongruity to truth in qualitative research. Qualitative health research, 14(3), 430-440.

Arthur Frank writes of the need to convince the reader of the body on the floor.
For the reader to recognize the problems faced as their own problems, such recognition makes the story compelling. The reader has to feel that his or her fate is somehow affected by the fate of those reported on. Generating a sense of entwined fates is the prerequisite - not simply a prerequisite- of good storytelling. The audience has to care what happens to the characters.
Offering an articulate imagination: Seeking not to explain but to deepen complexity, giving complexity an articulate form and making ordinary people vivid.

The textually mediated reality Frank describes is one I am familiar with, reality is that which is written of, audited; where artefact is mistaken for substance. Today I was suckered by a blog troll.

7 memes to writing a thesis proposal

1. Decide to do it and keep doing it
2. Develop alliances between self, topic, research, supervisor. Then there's the negotiation with friends/family. And the coherence between self, research question, research methodology. This is the work, pulling this together and keeping these together.
3. Learn to juggle; some might call this the first exercise in time management.
4. Establish a means to take control of the reading and the writing. Read about the topic, the research method possibilities, the writings of your supervisor, the writing suggested by your supervisor...as well as how to write, including how to structure a proposal especially for your institution. I have found endnote to be the second most useful piece of software on the planet (after word). My use of it means as i read articles, texts, newspaper items etc... these are entered into my library , and written about in the notes section, and a copy of the article is attached as an image in the image section.
5. Chicken and egg / Ideas and writing. I suspect its only other people who have ideas then write them up. I write into my ideas.
6. Establish the trajectory. If you have an inkling that what you want to study is too big, it probably is. What is the question, argument (or thesis), being studied, how are you going to get there, why's it so important, and so what? Convince the reader that your study going to make a difference. My institution required this in 400 words or less. Wisdom from cj was, "so where's the cure for cancer?" Barbara Grant said "learn to kill your darlings". David Seedhouse's advice was "say it once and say it well". Get it peer reviewed- other students, friends, family ... their asking questions means it could be clearer.
7. Write it and rewrite it and know it will still change. There is no perfect research proposal. Latour says a good thesis is a finished one. This is equally true of a thesis proposal. Invisible work is not wasted, it is the substance on which a finished product lies; a symphony is only good once the learning, the practices and the coming together, have occurred.
   Thesis proposals only look easy afterwards. In academia most of our earlier work was about handing in finished product, now's the time to get used to handing over work in progress. A thesis proposal is still only a work in progress. Feel free to polish it , wordsmith it, but know that it's not the end. It's a map, it's not the world. Even if it feels like the world at the time.

7 memes for (successful) PhD / thesis writing

Borrowing heavily on the writing of Irene Goodman (author of 7 steps for highly successful authors) as well as ideas from thesis authors I have known and have read...rather than from any personal experience of completion :)
and therefore with very limited credibility but with a lot of interest in completion and therefore reading about such things...

1. Dont give up.
Bruno Latour in Aramis also identifies this critical factor in the making of a project, to hold it together, one must not stop holding it together.
2. Write.
Got nothing to write about?...Put readings (which you write about in the notes section) into the endnote library, blog about writing it, rearrange the data collected- might be construed as data analysis if the words aren't too scary... make writing enjoyable, an hour of journal reading and entering same into endnote while at a cafe is one of my strategies for making writing pleasurable,
I also practice the writing style of authors I enjoy or who have the profound ideas... seems to help new understandings flow. However, this is the opposite to Irene Goodman's advice, hers is to find your authentic voice and stick with it. I'm not there, yet.
3. Schedule the thesis into your life. Mine takes up a lot of my life. Apparently highly effective authors are disciplined writers and will treat the writing as their work. Enjoyable or not, they will write. They will also have a life.
For some it works same time every day.
For others its the reading when the kids are awake (as its easier to pick up and put down) and writing when they are asleep.
I settle for what feels like all the time outside of the day job and sometimes inside of the day job. It actually isnt this. But its an omnipresence that I am happy with. If I didnt like it, this would be a serious problem.
4. Plan.
I have a few.
There is what I tell myself is pure fabrication that I write for the annual review.
Then there's the one that I am comfortable with, based in what Sherry Turkle calls a triumph of tinkering. Citing Claude Levi-Strauss on bricolage, she describes an arranging and rearranging "Bricoleurs approach problem solving by entering into a relationship with their work materials that has far more the flavor of a conversation than a monologue".
Where the writing of a composition comes first and then the plan; a softer style of bottom up rather than top down.
I do plan to finish, i have semi inflexible dates in my head, this years for data collecting, but its also got some writing, and some rewriting. Next year is for writing also, but its an analysis focus, in the absence of funding the year after is the end point as it will be the writing and the rewiriting. Tinkering and polishing. There is still an end insight I have heard stories of those who might polish and edit down to the blank page. I do not intend to be one of the,m. I am aware that I can get lost in wordsmithing and I take heart from Latour, "a good thesis is a finished one".
5. Want it.
Other factors in your life may have to move around this one, which comes first? The thesis or the job? The personal fitness or the thesis? The social life or the thesis? What do you still want at the end of the thesis? My family. I know my bottom line.
6. Stay with, and work, what works for you.
Supervisor, methodology, friends, subject and even the technology. Having the advantage of actor network theory is a convoluted double take, I can look out there with it, and i can also look in here with it; this is a retake on the first suggested strategy; it takes work to make it coalesce.
7. Here to there
Write to your audience. Terry Evans (co-author with Carey Denholm of Doctorates Downunder : keys to successful doctoral study in Australia and New Zealand. Camberwell, Victoria, ACER Press, 2006.) told me its an incredibly selfish undertaking writing for oneself, one's supervisor and one's markers. 3 readers guaranteed. They want to know that you can take it (and them) from here to there. New knowledge. coherently.

If you are/were writing a thesis what would be your 7 memes?

memes (a virus for the www?)
Memes; the word rhymes with dreams and is short for mimemes, from the word mimetic. Infectious ideas; a micropersuasion, spread from person to person.

9 big class learnings (2008)

To give some context: I teach students communication skills, this runs for 12 weeks and involves 772 students in a Health faculty. This group is split into 4 lecture groups, each receiving one 2 hour lecture per week, and a one hour tutorial (in group sixe of approx 30)

1. Some things take no longer in a big class than a small one;
the lesson learned is be selective.
Favourite task for checking everyone's 'on the same page' regarding concepts crucial to the course and taught within the first couple of weeks. This one came from a MOE literacy cluster. On a word doc make 3 columns, in the first column put the title 'words' , in the second column put a title 'definitions', in the 3rd column again title it 'words'. Then put about 5 words crucial to your topic in the first column, leaving a few lines between. In class give out one of these between 2, have the pairs select to be a or b. Then instruct the a's to define these words, writing their understandings in the 2nd column. Then fold the paper vertically so the partner b cannot see the first column. Their task is to discern what concept was being defined. Provides an opportunity for peer teaching, 2 way, understanding as well as clarity of meanings...

2. Solicited written feedback is richer; I used Stephen Brookfields 5 questions critical incident questionaire. My experience is students like shaping courses.

3. Do the big delivery stuff, but also do the talk with the people next to you.
Tasks in pairs help engage people with the content. My experience is that trust is made on the smaller scale. Speaking out seems easier when the classes engender speaking...

4. Use the big impact of the big venue. I recommend in your face imagery, loud noise dramatics, use of voice; not as gimmicks but integral to content. Helps to use photos over clip art.
My favourites this year include:
The use of strong graphics, red white black...stats that were damning, use of visual images supporting these. (Lessons learned online from death by ppt by Alexei Kapterev, presentation zen, Seth Godin, youtube- how not to make a ppt presentation by Don McMillan...) I have had to rethink my ppts but they are so much better. The medium carries the message, the power of strong visuals wins over lines of writing on a screen.
Use of graphs; my favourite was on how empathy commonly decreases with each year of education that appeared to be drawn insitu. (Inspired from TEDtalks Hans Rosling)
The use of loud noise during a creative visualisation demonstrated the application of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) as a prompt to consider what goes on in thinking, emotions, behaviours and physiology. And therefore led into a discussion of what might be changed.
The mexican wave affirmed that big classes are better at some things :)
a demonstration piece of verbal and non verbal communications ( I really do need visual imagery of classes, some creative editing and a promotion panel... )

5. Make learning an easy choice. A lesson learned in health promotion. I am not suggesting all learning should be easy or fun, but it helps. The ppts are online, as is a podcast. Talk the content. I think students come because its about engagement.
(the online ppts have fewer graphics to keep the file size down)

6. I tell stories. Transforming knowledge by demonstrating application, and modeling the critique of these, engaging students with questions of the good the bad and the ugly.

7. Plan but also stay flexible. What you want and what you get resource wise will always be less than promised and less than ideal.

8. Stay idealistic. I invest in seeing what's possible and adapt to what's possible.
Stephen Downes site Oldaily is great for updates.

9. Post the great ideas, either blog them under big class teaching or post to del.icio.us that way others share too :)

Here be dragons

Such dragons are begat by Wilma White in Kaiaua New Zealand. I have several of this dragons siblings...

In trying to map the invisible, one risks destroying the positive aspects of invisibility – should the map simply be marked, “here be dragons?” Star and Strauss (1999)

In my research interviews I have data that has left me in a conundrum.
What gets told, what gets told in a de-identified way, what will be less important with the passing of time, what might be portrayed to different audiences...
I am reminded by cj that research is an inherently political act.
The article by Susan Leigh Star and Anselm Strauss (1999)titled Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work, provides an excellent synopsis of such dilemma: There is both good and bad invisible work. Positive invisibility requires discretion. Within the the visible-invisible matrix it is impossible to define anything as inherently visible or invisible; similarly, it is impossible a priori to say that either are absolutely good or bad, desirable or undesirable.
These authors are not recommending “more visibility” in any simplistic form, but cite Grudin’s (1988) and Robinson’s (1993b) criteria of equity as an evaluation precept. This discusion of “good invisibility” and “bad invisibility,” is traced to questions of discretion, autonomy, and power over one’s resources. They identify the relation between invisible and visible work as a complex matrix, relational, with an ecology of its own. For every gain in granularity of description, there may be increased risk of surveillance. In the name of legitimacy and achieving public openness, an increased burden of accounting and tracking may be incurred. The phenomenon is one of tradeoffs and balances, not absolutes and clear boundaries.
Some suggestions they make include:
In managing the balance of visible and invisible work, it may be important for
processes to become visible for a time, or remain invisible for a time. It may be of value to consider time release (it may be possible with the passing of time that the issues are deemed less important or a forgivable 'passing phase') 'Stuff' may fade decay over time.
A metaphorical curtain might be drawn. Deidentification of data being one part of this.
Having the analysis consider tradeoffs and balances because increasing the visibility of work processes has pluses and minuses.

I can move forward now.
The dragons can rest easy for the time being.

They meant no harm

They meant no harm
by ah (2007)

There's nothing left
no loopholes,
no gaps.
Sewn up so tight.
Dot the i's, cross the t's.
are you sure there's a comma after an 'and'?
A part of me died;
sacrificed to the ethical lie:
'First do no harm', they said.
'First do no good',
I sigh

In Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell describes her desire to write looking back, distanced by both time and place. I too would like this perspective but am caught in the moment. She writes, looking back "they meant no harm."

Being 'in the moment' I can only hope to enjoy the selective amnesia where one day I may be able to say; 'it was all for the best', or 'i learnt so much from it'...
Being 'in the moment', I want so much more more than this, I want it written "there is goodness here".

I am blessed with two ethical panels having the focus of my doctoral research application.
I do not feel twice blessed.
I feel twice vulnerable.
Powell and Smith (2006) reviewed the literature on ethical guidelines for research with children: a review of current research ethics documentation in New Zealand. Their discussion confirms my misgivings.
In all the rhetoric of concern for the voice of young people, the capacity for consent is denied, though a capacity for assent is identified as desirable.
In being risk aversive, the risk is also that young people are denied the right to shape services that suit them.

They cite "Like many other minority groups, children lack power and have often
been silenced, unheard, unprotected, and viewed as “unpeople” (John, 2003).

The summary of their findings indicate an increase in the consideration of ethical issues, but that existing documentation is inconsistent and inadequate in attending to specific child-related issues. Suggestions are made to enhance children’s participation in research and demonstrate a respect for their participation rights.

Sounds good. However, practice is that ethics tends to be considered as a one off event rather than a sustained process. Frightening is that the use of ethics committees for the big tick (or not) further feeds into this one off event where thoughtfulness can then be abdicated. Furthermore, the interest shown by ethics committee deliberations may be less about risk to participants, less again about risks to participants before or after the study, and more about the risk aversion or minimisation, to the institution through which the study is conducted.


Judith Bessant (2007) published in the Australian Journal of Political Science, 39(2), 387-404 takes off the kid gloves on this; there are mixed messages about youth participation and democratic practices. Lots of rhetoric about rights and consultation, but little about shifting the power base.
My glass only feels half full today.

Hymn to her, God save us from people who have our best interests at heart

Its an opinion piece.

Internet addiction appears to be a common disorder that merits inclusion in DSM-V.
J. J. Block writes in the American Journal of Psychiatry (March, 2008): Conceptually, the diagnosis is a compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder that involves online and/or offline computer usage (1, 2) and consists of at least three subtypes: ex-cessive gaming, sexual preoccupations, and e-mail/text messaging (3). All of the var-iants share the following four components: 1) excessive use, often associated with a loss of sense of time or a neglect of basic drives, 2) withdrawal, including feelings of anger, tension, and/or depression when the computer is inaccessible, 3) tolerance, including the need for better computer equipment, more software, or more hours of use, and 4) negative repercussions, including arguments, lying, poor achievement, social isolation,
and fatigue.

The contributers to DSM are just people too (seems often a conservative group with past inclusions including sexual orientation as a mental illness.)
What surprizes me though is the ignorance brought to these deliberations.
In a comparative analysis of landlines with mobiles, the literature reviewed by Amparo Lasen shows "... civilisation advances new kinds of diseases produced by novel agencies brought to bear on man’s body and mind” as reported by the British Medical Journal in 1889. The fear of health risks derived from telephone use also arose in the
early days of its development. Even “strong-minded and able-bodied men” were considered to be susceptible because of the “almost constant strain of the auditory apparatus” in people who uses the telephone very often. The symptoms were nervous excitability, buzzing in the ear, giddiness and neuralgic pains. A certain amount of "moral panic" often follows the introduction of many new technologies. Some of the risks considered are the same in both landline and mobile phones; others are different, following the more feared diseases of each period."
Seems phones have been contributing to our madness ever since their inception.
The fears of inconsiderate behaviour, neglect of 'actual relationships' and social hysteria are not new.
Somethings change, some stay the same.
What truly surprizes me is that it gets published and reported.
Again.

AND SHE WILL ALWAYS CARRY ON
SOMETHING IS LOST
BUT SOMETHING IS FOUND
THEY WILL KEEP ON SPEAKING HER NAME
SOME THINGS CHANGE
SOME STAY THE SAME

Hymn To Her

building a brick mother

The material semiotic of existence for this organisation (Youthline) involves deliberate and significant work.

The metaphor of building the brick mother was how this was shared with me while data collecting. The entity being one that young people know is always there, unconditionally, and with which they associate positively outside of times of crisis.
She is described as a taonga (precious vessel) spanning generations, and being carried through changing mediums.
She is actively nurtured, maintained, shaped, constructed. Her presence supported through 'guerilla marketing' and carried by word of mouth into schools, events, media. Her presence as a Youth oriented organisation aims to be and is, the most well recognised youth support service as identified by young people. Youthline has a name amongst young people for being relevant, purposeful, and involving them.
2005 stats: 19 schools, 447 students; Youthline was most recognised at 79% as support for young people.
Assembling, maintaining, reassembling, all take work. (ref earlier blog on reassembling the social)

Semiotic relational logic/s

A little bit of writing in the style of John Law helps me to explore the language of ANT and to see similarities as well as differences between theorists. If nothing else, it makes my reading of the works of these giants a little more palatable :)

This study displays the ingredients of actor-network theory. There is semiotic relationality (it’s a network whose elements define and shape one another.)
There are artefacts of philosophy and policy, influence of juggernaughts in telecommunications, there is also goodwill of a charitable nature which makes the potential possible, by donating cash and hardware and time. There are actors in the form of mobile phones, a palm pilot, counsellors and counsellees. The heterogeneity can be pointed to (there are different kinds of actors, human and otherwise), and materiality (stuff there is a-plenty, not just 'the social' but contracts, money, technical equipment, text artefacts...)
There is an insistence on process and its precariousness (all elements need to play their part moment by moment or it all comes unstuck; without ongoing funding, without ongoing commitment, without ongoing advertising, without ongoing development of skills, without sunshine...)
There is attention to power as an effect (it is a function of network configuration and in particular the creation of immutable mobiles) (In another article Law cites Bruno Latour - the immutable mobile is a network of elements that holds its shape as it moves), to space and to scale (how it is that networks extend themselves and translate distant actors). Law attests that it is new to actor-network theory to acknowledge an interest in large scale political history. Here I see ontological politics: for without a commitment to voice, this cannot be sustained. Without ongoing goodwill from a major sponsor and such activities as Coca cola in the park the financial costs to Youthline would be too burdensome, without goodwill there is political precariousness.... There is the deliberate making and shaping of 'the brick mother' (tangible knowledge of support services for young people, making Youthline a known entity that's 'always there'.)
(I am glad that my friend Sue pointed me back to Law on material semiotics for I find Latour all to easily denies the political.)
And, crucially, it is a study of how the network works; how it holds together; how it is shaped and shaping; how it configures that which is central and peripheral; in short: how newness and differences in old practices are generated in semiotic relational logic/s. (The 's' is important to me; a logic may presume a singular entity, while I suspect there are many logics occurring simultaneously in the form of concurrent performances as per Annmare Mol's the body multiple.)

If I see at all, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants...

where do you go to my lovely

Or the secret life of cell phones.
Consumerism related to cell phone acquisition involves many of us having more cell phones than people in our families. The spare, or two, in the drawer for just in case...leads me to discussing some of the invisible work involved as change happens. There is strategic invisibility in not acknowledging built in obsolescence. Manufacturers do not want their product to last forever or they wouldn't stay in business. The mobile phone becomes a fashion accessory with a life expectancy of approx 1.5 years but what happens to the old one?

Star and Strauss (1999) in Layers of silence, arena of voice: The ecology of visible and invisible work talk of the complex matrix that develops between visible and invisible, a relational ecology where illuminating one corner throws shadow on another. A phenomenon of tradeoffs and balances.
That a cell phone can now do this... hides the discard mountains of landfills.
(As well as other practices which in hindsight may be deemed quaint, when you call someone do you tell them who is calling or assume the technology has filled the gap?)
In an ANT exploration of networks it is possible for work that is visible to be shown as well as providing space where tensions can also be acknowledged.
With reference to John Laws pinboard approach to an ANT analysis I must go add to my whats invisible, where the known world ends, and
'here be dragons'...

The ontological politics of voice

Reading for a PhD is an iterative process (the big words come thick and fast, my earlier reading let them slide past while I hoped that familiarity would one day lead to enlightenment. And repeated revisiting, rereading and reading the readings others have made of books i have read, does make understanding easier). Helen Verran pulls on the writing of Annemarie Mol, reminding me of Mol's intent of exploring the ontological politics of medicine.
And I am back to wondering: what am I doing?
I suspect half way through data collect is not the time for doubt, but it feels to me that there is no better time than this. My research does not follow a straight tangent regardless of the texts or the ethics application that suggest that this is so.
While exploring the actor network of a voluntary youth telephone counselling agency undergoing change with use of text, internet and message boards, I begin to appreciate that I am involved in a study that explores the ontological politics of voice.

Ever had txt with a kiwi?

Seems Kiwis are well connected.
Not only is the 'bird' variety reputed to be highly promiscuous at 20.4 partners;
as a species we kiwis are sending 640 million texts a month.
In a country estimated as having 4,262,361, people.
as at Thursday, 20 March 2008 at 7:50:06 p.m.
that sounds like a lot of txt going on.
Vodafone has announced it has stopped archiving texts and Telecom says it will follow suit. My guess is those having txt didn't even know they were watched.
2006 census stats:
Almost 2.6 million NZers had personal use of a mobile phone. In the 15–24 year age group, 90.6 percent had personal use of a mobile phone. (data doesnt indicate txt capable).

If the technology works, it will be used .... for porn, activism and cute cats

Of porn, cute cats and activism,; the measures of successful web 2.0 at Ethan Zuckerman writes of successful digital media.

I’d offer the hypothesis that any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism.

Text messaging by this premise is working.

As far as the Porn goes, "its a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work.

I was naive when it came to the stories of txt counsellors, no they don't do the smiley face thing, and definitely no winking. The people who make calls just to get a sexual gratification find such inducements too enticing. So no-one gets the softening touch. And so txt counselling is shaped. Whats possible vs what could be misconstrued albeit by (thankfully) a very few. The work that goes into shaping a txt could be conceived as the missing the work, whats taken out.

Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable.

Its the method of choice when the young person has no voice, or is scared of their own voice- hearing yourself saying your not coping can be a trauma in itself. Txting seems to make the personal aspect less threatening. I hear young people who text saying, there's stuff i say in txt that i wouldnt dream of saying outloud or 'to the person' (!). There is some sort of a cognitive dissonance thing going on here.
And then there is the cute cat syndrome.
As stated:
Web 1.0 was invented to allow physicists to share research papers.
Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats.
They are a little harder to fit into the 160characters of the txt SMS, but so far I have received cute bears, so i am pretty sure it is ony because i dont have enough friends that i have yet to experience a cat in this realm...

I SIM therefore I AM

John Law explores the potential of the pinboard to hold artefacts, AND to hold points of tension. This is discussed as a method user friendly for ANT research as it allows the bits and pieces partialy connected, juxtaposed and partial in their disconnection as well. Not a view from nowhere, but allowing for the exploration of difference, ontological difference, as well as of similarities. (One day this might begin to occur as i move objects in or out or trace links through the network, at present the juxtapositioning is enough. But i find myself even finding points of tension as i virtually engage...

John Law describes his own pinboard of data collected where a cartoon sits above the board, this one by Leunig would be mine :)
The view of the Sistine chapel will never be quite the same now i know that it depicts Adam receiving his SIM card from God....
Or that my haunting fears of forgetfulness are less about dementia than my repressed memories stored on my sim...I SIM therefore I am
My memory is almost full; was the jacket cover for a Paul McCartney recent release and is the message my cell phone often provides me with, in my mind such bits of memory deleted randomly and haphazardly ...They are wanted bits as I struggle to find what i have done with the written artefact of students who want to text...
There would be the artefact of txt counselling policy guidelines.
There are the data collect field notes, of the interviews, of some who counsel, some who support the staff who counsel, some who support the technologies of computers .... and the interview fo the CEO and his stories of txting and of change, of policy development...
There would be artefacts of txting: sent and received by the counselling agency, the links internal and external, the ongoing inks to police involvements...
And then there would be censorship.
The less seemly might find space on a blog but not in the normal/formal academic circles as mum mistakes the vibrator for a cell phone ....

There's the actual transcripts of counselling, whats in, or out, as the ethics of anonymity and of confidentiality are negotiated, and of not harming the community or agency, and of participatory research...
Then there's what can/cant be physically pinned: the wmv clip, the links to my itune library for audiofiles made on ipod of interviews of staff.

He describes how practices are written historically with a unidirectional arrow,
that processes look shiny gleaming and streamlined, but that we can be sure we arent understanding them very well if this is what we see. I am reassured. My thinking is a mess, I must be in the right place...or places :)

titillating classes in highered

I have been meditating on my teaching having read really bad powerpoint, death by powerpoint and presenting me!
I come to the conclusion through all my summer navel gazing that at least in part my goal is to titillate: to excite pleasantly.
I am not suggesting a voyeuristic approach as I do not believe that education is a spectator sport.
I have erred in trying to make education more palatable, more pleasurable. Titivation (to smarten up, make pretty) is not enough, it needs to be meaningful.
I am back to 'what is it that they need to know/want to know...and whats the best way of our getting there.'
And given its about teaching and learning communication skills, communicating as a two way occurrence seems necessary, form and function should align.
I have reread Parker-Palmer's the courage to teach: and do not want to be the person with the ballooon bubble that gets in the way of engaging; air bags are better in car crashes, than for cushioning out engagement.
However, student numbers in excess of 700 and staffing at something over 2.3 fulltime staffing equivalents creates a 'challenge'. Compounding this further is that the course be accessible to distance students.
So, Monday brings a new vamped course; titillation with podcast supported through a blackboard medium. Lectures with 200+ students attending and with 'small group' (n=30) tutorials.
Maybe the courage to teach isnt enough.

Taking wisdom from an unlikely source: the wizard of oz

(Cowardly Lion)
Yeah, it's sad, believe me Missy
When you're born to be a sissy
Without the vim and verve
But I could show my prowess
Be a lion, not a mowess
If I only had the nerve

I'm afraid there's no denyin'
I'm just a dandylion
A fate I don't deserve
I'd be brave as a blizzard

(Tin Man)
I'd be gentle as a lizard

(Scarecrow)
I'd be clever as a gizzard

(Dorothy)
If the Wizard is a wizard who will serve

(Scarecrow)
Then I'm sure to get a brain

(Tin Man)
A heart

(Dorothy)
A home

(Cowardly Lion)
The nerve

Maybe the emerald city needs fixing....

teaching virtual hell

I dutifully signed up for a wimba training session, checked the hour conversion from the States to NZ twice, signed in to my distant classroom and waited, ticking past one o'clock i discovered my capacity to travel time and space was faulty and came to the realisation that there also was a dateline to accommodate. I missed wimba 101, celebrating Waitangi day.
A week later I scheduled in for wimba 102.
A time lord in training, this time with success.
However, traversing time and relevant dimensions in space (tardis) isn't all there is. I wanted to know about teaching with voice tools accessible through the net, through blackboard, since thats what my institution utilizes.

This was the session where all the other teachers/lecturers present could smile politely in their unseen spaces and think "there but for the grace of God"...
We had, i think, all been there.
At least in our nightmares.
I am left feeling cautious re experiencing the same in a virtual reality.
Significant time was spent in ensuring audio links worked, phone in connections established for the people whose computer negated audio.
The visuals seemed 'sticky'. My experience of a screen of changes being portrayed on a
whiteboard looked more like a screen of words mashed reminiscent of scrambled eggs.
Having my posting comments text box spontaneously decide to work halfway through i could make a comment that another student gave me a workaround for.
In an hour I learned that the technology takes an hour to sort.
In the last 5 mins I managed to screw up just like any dutiful student could.
Sooo embarrassing on a world stage. While playing with the buttons mimicking the instructions for being a presenter given to another participant I spontaneously took control of the class, and inflicted a cute little wmv the facilitator had in a browser list for mad cats. The class enjoyed it. Being on a mac, I didnt get it; till i opened what downloaded for me....
A great facilitator modelling cool, calm, collected, in the face of adversity. She could have been a time lord.

video courtesy of chris, username ptftulsa.
Closing thought: Future time lords have to get with the times, a telephone box???
Maybe a portaloo....

What dances am i invited into?

" Effective therapy often seems magical."
So begins Kenneth Gergen in unpacking the therapeutic relationship in an article on therapeutic relationships reconsidered. In 'quiet recesses' far removed from the site of turmoil with questions, answers, silences, stories, possibly tears... and then, as if by miraculous intervention, there is change. But what configuration of events brought about change? The problem brought to therapy is transformed, seen as less severe, or dissolved. He then focuses on the relationship generated; that there is something about the nature of the communicative interchange and asks what then might occur that facilitates or blocks or enhances such relationships. How might we be (more, or less) effective?

He then argues the relational character of communication.
In communicating, utterances acquire meaning when others coordinate themselves to the utterance. Talking without a listener, writing without a reader; the potential for meaning is realized through supplementary action. Utterance's of themselves have no meaning, a morpheme only has meaning when others coordinate themselves around the offering. We bring to any exchange, a preparedness to make meaning of the interaction based on prior exchanges. As stated by Gergen,
"In effect, meaningful communication in any given exchange ultimately depends on a protracted array of relationships, not only "right here, right now," but how is it that that you and I are related to a variety of others, and they still to others- and ultimately, one may say, to the, to the relational conditions of society as a whole."

In accepting such a proposition, he argues that there is profound implication: language is constitutive of relationships. While we frequently treat language as if it were describing reality, such a treatment is of itself a relational performance. His focus is on the interchange and its use of words, phrases, language used. He then asks, "What follows in a relationship when self or world is framed in just this way; what dances am I invited into when you use these phrases as opposed to others?"

I intend to take this relational stance on therapeutic communications further within my own study. With the use of computer and communication technologies in the form of text, email and Internet message board posting for counselling purposes, how is the 'dance' performed?

Dont be polite, bite it.

Prelude: this blog is impolite, at least in academia.
I practice my writing style as if i were another.
I fully acknowledge that I lean heavily on the writing of Anne Marie Mol for providing ideas and structure as i explore the use of her writing as if it were to apply to text, email, or the Internet for counselling.
All errors of understanding are my own.

Section title: Telling it like it is.
This is a social science exploration of a network, one involved in youth oriented counselling. However before proceeding too far, the use of the word network needs to be clarified. the meaning called on here is less about "the net" or the links between people. The emphasis is instead on the network . That is, the work entailed in how counselling is shaped, what work goes into configuring counselling when the medium shifts: when it involves text, email and Internet for counselling. this is a story less about connecting wires or even wireless connections, it is instead a story about work practices. And one might not even want to call it a story for there is no smooth narrative, there is no one tangent of beginning to end, instead I present a juxtaposition of many stories, snapshots on a theme showing contrasts and performances of counselling.


Who is at work also needs unbundling. For counselling does not happen in a vacuum. 'Counsellor and counsellee' coexist in relationship and the 'work' is a dynamic that occurs in relationship. Contributing to this work are the participants, but also computer and communication technologies. In the use of such technologies, participants engage differently. Whether talking and listening, or by hand and type, reading and sight. The heterogeneous factors involved are further unbundled, the work involves more than the obvious players of counselor and counsellee, there is also the work involved in making the media available for using for counselling, the cellphones, the PCs. It is this unbundling of the work involved in supporting the counselling moment that the fuller picture of what it is to provide counselling using new media is able to be discerned. This matters because how counselling occurs is changing. And the changes are not always anticipated or known.

Discerning the heterogenous factors allows me to tell about counselling. The stories told will not be about social causes resulting in social needs, or about pathology, diseases or disabilities as requiring healthcare. Nor about any specific form of counselling having precedence over another. There are those who have gone to a lot of trouble in arguing the supremacy of one over another. This thesis will not contribute to such debate of domains conquered or of forms of counselling deemed to be holding supermacy. Instead i will talk of practice. Practice as it is experienced.

This shift to praxiology is not a naive abandonment of epistemology but is an appreciation of reality; "telling it like it is". Telling it like it is, is situated. I do not talk of what counselling is by nature, nor what form it could or should take. I will not bracket what is counselling from what is not, nor focus on the counselling skills. For in practice what is counselling shifts. In practice 'what is' is altered. The ontological genre of 'what is' shape shifts. In part this is altered in response to the media utilized. It is this shapeshifting that is therefore explored.

The praxiographic 'is' is not universal, it is situated, it is local, and it requires spatial specification. What is empathy when it is experienced face to face is different to when conveyed audibly by phone and different again when conveyed by text. How do I experience being heard or listened to when the conversation is inaudible, when the conversation only occurs in text? the trouble taken by counselling texts and authors is not wasted but is absorbed into enactments. The enactment of counselling practice via phone, text and Internet is then explored as situated relationships. What the is the art of the spoken or written form, the act of counselling when it is shaped by the media used and the actors involved? This is the substance explored in this thesis.

The gift relationship

If I give you something are you better or worse for it?
In part this is decided by what the gift entails, is it wanted, needed, adventitious ... but another aspect is that in giving and receiving the process brings its own costs.

Rather than debating the goodness or badness of such cost, arguably the most wicked problem of left vs right politics, I intend to stay within an actor-network approach in describing the relationship. I will use the language of actor-network theory in describing what occurs, hence participants will be referred to as actors. This is not to imply any pretence or staged performance, simply put actors refer to participants with agency. This discussion is also informed by my reading of Titmuss' 'The gift relationship'.

The gift takes place with no ongoing relationship between the actors.
The norm in this voluntary telephone counselling relationship is that the actors have no prior and no ongoing relationship. The actors do not personally know each other and have never, and will never, meet. The policy of the organisation is to to maintain the confidential nature of the service and not establish dependent ongoing relationships.
However, exceptions might occur; by chance a caller and a counsellor may know each other; by chance a repeat call is made when the same counsellor is on; or if the caller is a longtime caller there may be a limited prior relationship where conversations have occurred previously or there have been notes made of the call. With email, txt and Internet postings there may be artefacts, transcripts, of prior conversations.

There is no reciprocity; there is no certainty of a gift in return, present or in the future. The counsellor neither requires or wishes for a gift in return. There is no obligation on the recipient to provide a gift in return. It may be that there is some expectation of the time spent having been worthwhile, but this is not a requirement for the gift given. And, remains unknown unless a caller expresses thanks.

The nature of the gift, whether beneficial to the recipient actor, is unknown. The presumption on the part of the counselling actor is that being heard and listened to has value. There may be information, even advice suggested. Whether this is of benefit or harm is unclear and may be considered a contested notion; counselling forms are themselves subject to being contested. Inside of a Rogerian counselling approach, giving advice that fosters dependency may be considered unhelpful. However, raising awareness of options, and assisting in clarifying are seen as useful strategies.
At its best, to the receiver the gift could be life itself. There are some experiences disclosed by recipients of telephone counselling that support this. However, the feedback for those for whom the service has been unhelpful, harmful, fatal even, remains unknown.

In analysing some of the roles gifts play in society Titmuss looks at aspects to do with the social psychology of gift giving. He discusses the gift relationship as a generator of identity, gifts being one of the ways an image of self can be generated in both one's own mind and in that of others. Gifts are also tools of aspiration for and protection of status and control. For example, gifts as 'conspicuous waste shaming recipients'. The gift may also create a gratitude imperative in compelling recipricosity or controlling the behaviour of the recipient. The gift exchange being a technique for the regulation of shared guilt.

However, in the gift of time evident in voluntary counselling such issues have limited relevance. Anonymity in the counselling relationship, created by conditions which do not support ongoing relationship or knowledge of counselling having been given or recieved by any person external to the event destroys the arguments regarding shared guilt, control, shame or imperatives. What may still hold relevance is that gift giving by the counsellor actor may in that person's mind support a sense of self as generous and or helpful to others. It is also possible that listing such community volunteerism in one's cv may also create a favourable impression and imagined advantage.

A typology of those who donate counselling time at this agency.
1. Paid , counselling time sold for what the market will bear. Counselling not percieved as a gift.
2. Paid professional, who provides counselling time to sustain income on regular basis.
3. Pay induced volunteer, expect payment for volunteering, a form of profit or disturbance money. Individual sponteneity not a dominant characteristic eg employer requiring time that the employer pays for time be donated to a voluntary organisation of the actors choosing. This seems to meet a collective target of such an employer ; a "greening" of the company".
4. Responsibility donor (recipient pays before or after having received counselling by 'giving in kind' out of a sense of obligation).
5. Significant other credit donor (can be viewed as an insurance scheme of donating in advance or after the effect for significant others one wished had access to such a service).
6. Captive volunteer; compelled via social group but would not otherwise have volunteered. eg student for course credit, eg community service requirement of a court order or on the advice of a lawyer.
7. Fringe benefit voluntary donor; tangible reward though non monetary eg recieving minimal reward such as a certificate in counselling accredited by the organization may have external validity, eg on cv.
8. Voluntary community donor; this type being the closest approximation in social reality to the abstract concept of giving freely. The primary characteristics of such donations being:
the absence of tangible immediate rewards in monetary or non monetary forms,
the absence of penalties, financial or otherwise, (so no reward and no punishment)
and the knowledge among donors that their donations are for unnamed strangers without distinction of age, sex, medical condition, income, class, religion or ethnic group.

With regard to the voluntary community donor, Titmuss states that no donor type can be said to be characterised by complete disinterested altruism. There must be some sense of obligation, approval, and interest; some awareness of need and purpose of the blood gift; perhaps some organised rivalry in generosity; some knowledge of need- of others unable to donate, and some expectation that a return gift may be needed and received at some future time.
Nevertheless, in this gift relationship (giving of oneself voluntarily for telephone counselling there is no formal contract between giver and receiver of counselling, no legal bond, no overt power over, no domination, constraint or compulsion, no sense of shame or guilt, no gratitude imperative, no need for penitence, no money, and no explicit guarantee of or wish for a reward or a return gift. The giving of time is an act of free will; an exercise of choice; of conscience.

Virtually all of this organisation's telephone counselors fall into this category. Tangible rewards can be said to be minimal,or negative: a certificate in personal development and in counselling. This comes with substantive personal cost of money, time, and personal involvement.

While the typology shows that there is variation in the in the concept of volunteer, gradations of motives, and behaviour show extremes.
In comparing this study of a gift relationship, especially where there is deep emotive field as with blood donating, the giving of time in telephone counselling characterised by the involvement with the welfare of others is also seen to be inextricably moulded by cultural and moral values. (Now Latour isnt going to accept this, from whence do these agents come exerting pressure....however, I can look at how my own thinking was developed, I can consider the influence of my parents, my grandparents, my friends and identify that those I respect value volunteerism, altruism, community service. I might also discern the shaping of such values by discussing the influences on actors that I have the privilige of interviewing.)

The gift of time

I'm going to take a small detour and consider what motivates people to give.

Richard Titmuss wrote a seminal piece on the gift relationship in 1970. His focus was blood donating; sometimes referred to as the gift of life. The following series of blogs relates to voluntary counsellors in a youth oriented telephone counselling agency and will be informed by his account as well as by my own experiences, and those experiences shared with me thus far in my data collecting (please note, this is a work in progress).

I am calling this the gift of time, because the time gifted is substantial. But I also want to make it clear the gift involves more than this. It's a commitment to the interests of others; to being available, to listen, and to (hopefully) making a difference.

I say hopefully in part because outcomes are hardly ever known and the style of counselling approach taught (based on the training manual, and on the philosophy of the organisation): is substantively non- directive and client-centred, a Rogerian approach.

The gift of time begins with a personal development programme, this involves 10 sessions; a committment of one evening a week and a weekend day. This is then followed by a basic counselling course, again 10 sessions; an evening a week and a weekend day. A further weekend is then dedicated to coming into the organisation via a Marae based weekend. That's a total of 50 hours minimum before taking any calls for the organisation. And as already intimated, its not just time, its what fills that time; a very personal journey sharing life events, understanding oneself and valuing of others undertaking a similar learning experience. This involves significant amounts of self disclosure as well as practice in counselling through role plays; through triads (where one person takes the role of a caller, one the telephone counselor and one as observer) and 'fishbowls' (where peers as well as the group facilitators provide ideas as well as feedback. The gift involves time as well as personal involvement and disclosures; there is an additional requirement to authorize a police check by the organization. In addition there is financial cost. A sliding scale is used with a cost between $50.00 and $105.00 for the personal development course and again for the basic counselling training course. That's a total cost to the volunteer of $110 - $210 and an additional cost of the Marae weekend.

In addition, young people who enter into this are required to be over/ state that they are at least, 17 years of age. There is no upper age limit. There is also a requirement that the volunteer consider themselves to be emotionally well and ready to undertake training; to have sufficient physical, mental and emotional health to withstand personal challenge and to receive personal feedback. If the applicant has hearing, language or mobility issues or if they are a 'consumer of' mental health services, the applicant is asked to contact the programme coordinator for a interview. The application pack also requires signing a declaration committing to staying a year after training (this involves ongoing annual membership fees plus attending a group supervision weekly and being rostered for two 4 hour phone duties a month.)

To quote Kermit the frog, "it's not easy being green".

There is decision point at the end of the personal development course where feedback from the volunteer and the group of peers involved and the course facilitators regarding whether the next step of training is to occur. Again, at the end of the basic training there is a further feedback step where there is self selection as well as peer feedback and group facilitator feedback (with right of veto) as to whether the person can then go 'on the phones' as a counsellor, or listen in with a buddy, or undertake a 'transition training group' where they will be further assessed as ready or not to take calls. Becoming a telephone counsellor for this agency, one who is able to 'go solo' takes time, committment, money and skill. In return the volunteer receives a certificate in personal development and basic telephone counsellling skills. These have no definite external value outside of this organisation.

To misquote Kermit the frog, "it's not easy being keen".

Its an exceptionally unusual gift.
Titmuss believed that the voluntary donation of blood represented the relationship of giving between humans in its purest form, because people give without the expectation that they will necessarily be given to in return....
There is no reciprocation.
As with Titmuss' description of the gift relationship involving blood donating, in this expose on voluntary counselling, the tangible rewards can be described as minimal; a certificate with no or very little external validity. They might also be considered 'negative' when the costs involve far outweigh tangible benefit.
So what motivates the voluntary counsellor? What do we know of the expressed motives for giving or not giving? Very little.

While my research looks at change involving the use of computer and communication technologies in a youth telephone counselling agency, some of the underlying issues also need to be explored. This will be continued in further blogging.
Please feel free to let me know what you think about what makes people 'give'. If you know of further reading I could be doing here, point me to it. Feedback is invited.

Having my cake and eating it

I am in the process of taking two steps forward and one step back.
I am revisiting 'technology'.
This is harder than it should be.
I think back, or try to: but the past is a forgotten country and they/i do/did things differently there.
When i was about 12 or so, I think I had some glimmers of some personalised understanding of what technology was. Technology involved being able to do stuff in new ways with things that were new: A calculator involved technology, a radio didn't, a car didnt. A clock did when it involved flashy lights in digital form like the calculator. Seems i have this recovered memory where digital displays symbolised technology for me.
The automatic washing machine, the automatic timer for my oven. My cell phone.
A whiteboard that could be printed from- seems passe now- it has been surpassed.
A touchscreen, yes, a media display unit yes.
But I didnt used to think (I dont think) of tv as technology, but now i do???
It was new when i was young, it had tubes, was black and white...and flashed, sort of. But it was entertainment: it wasnt something i felt I could use to make things happen. But nor can a digital watch. There is something else here.
Despite my perceiving newness, maybe i was too young at about 6 or 7yrs to perceive tv as a new way (for me) of doing things.
Possibly the word took on new meaning in the 1960's. Similar to other words that developed a new fashioned meaning, maybe technology took on new understandings when the world moved from analogue to digital. (I do remember asking what analogue was, seems the term was needed to differentiate what was ubiquitous timetelling in the past. (The meaning of words is expanded on by Raymond Williams, maybe like 'community' there are fashionable new meanings or at least new projected meanings based on values, I need to see what he has to say on technology.)

According to Alan Kay "Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born."
How does a goldfish describe water?
What is perceived as technology by some is invisible to others. A generation gap is one quirk where what is perceived as new technology will be perceived by others as a norm.
Ursula Franklin (1999) deepens the meanings of technology for me:
She cites Kenneth Boulding suggesting that one might think of technology as ways of doing something. (p.6)
Looking at technology as practice has interesting consequences.
One is that it links technology directly to culture, because culture is a set of socially accepted practices and values. These practices develop a rut, they are seen as the convention, they are well laid down and accepted if not agreed upon practices.
This begins to define a group of people who have something in common because of the way they are doing things.
"Around here, that's how we do things" becomes a means of self identification.
Technology defined as practice shows the deep cultural links of technology.
As expressed by Franklin, it saves us from thinking that technology is the icing on the cake. Technology is part of the cake itself.
In my early recollections on technology it was the flashy lights, then that simplistic representation was replaced by one only slightly more cognitively developed: understandings based on the presence of a computer chip, the amount of RAM, bytes... but as discussed, this isnt enough.
Its not enough that its quirky or new; its how I am extended, what I do and can do.
A practiced understanding.

For those looking from the outside, technology can appear to be a very odd animal and is noticed particularly in 'odd moments': a teenager using a mobile for saying goodbye to dead friends...a videoconferenced tangi (funeral)... txt counselling... to read a book... or write a book... to do maths .... to learn... to teach...
Its that things are done differently that becomes the marker.
And we are in danger of using new technologies, new ways of doing things because they are new, because they have a semblance of bells, whistles, icing. The appearance of being the (next) real thing rather than being the real thing itself.

As written of by Alan Kay in an article on computers networks and education in Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers and Networks 265(3) (September 1991) with education there is external mandate for a new "literacy", this is demonstrated in the demands that kids 'take computing'demonstrating a confusion between carrier and content. He expanded on how education may hinder learning and argues stronger ideas are needed to replace them before any teaching aid, be it a computer or pencil and paper, will be of more service.
For example the misconception that education is a bitter pill that can be made palatable with sugarcoating. Adding bells whistles, ppts with transitions...
Ouch; get back to what it is that students really need and want to know; use the technology because it takes teacher and learner there, not just because I can.

( Alan Kay is attributed with the invention of the mouse and the portable computer of the future: 'having wireless communications and being easy enough for a child to use'. He built a model in cardboard, filled with weights to check that it would be comfortable to carry around 'as weight is very much part of the user interface'. Seems an ANT savvy researcher: if only Apple in making the macbook pro had taken on board such practice oriented technology they might not have made a laptop too hot to put in your lap!)

Personal insights, goodgrief & the social and psychological effects of SMS and Text messaging

Goodgrief, it took me a few days to decide to reread this series of articles on the psychological effects of txting; after all some rational critique was warranted.
Its based on early research (McKenna et al 2002) that people utilising the Internet and email for social engagement did so to overcome social ineptitude.
Ouch.
OK reader, you are here, and by implication you too could be socially inept.
I'm here, so we are in good company.
I confess i sometimes/often use email instead of a phone call, that i send an email even when i could have walked 50 meters...My reaction to the article confirms my social ineptitude, I am annoyed.
And I start to look at myself and confirm it further:
I prefer to use an ATM when the transaction is simple, I prefer to use my computer to check my balance. I emailed my bank instead of making a phone call. I often send emails to people at my work that are within easy access of a stroll.I reread the findings and see them couched in terms of how for 'some people' it overcomes social difficulties, improves their lives...those who are socially anxious and/or lonely or have marginal identities. And that many others use it too.
I guess, I think, that i am one of many others. I might not be, I'm now perturbed, does this mean I am socially anxious. I did't think i was before I read this, but there we are...
Then on the basis of such wisdom the article by Reid and Reid have a go at texters vs talkers, and they show the same thing.
Ok, maybe i shouldnt go there, but again some reflection on my own practice: I texted back my brother when he described getting dusted by Dads ashes.
(Woops some family members didnt know I had kept them and sent them to Shagpoint (there really is a place called this, bottom of the Sth Island, just north of Dunedin) And its where Dad grew up. Their property included a coalmine extending out under the sea, which i understand was an unwelcome career choice for Dad who left school at 12 years and left home rather than work in the coalmine...
It's now DOC land with a Hoiho (yellow eyed penguin) colony, and I am sure Dad would be pleased with this.

But this may also further prove their point; I must be socially inept because here i am blogging about it....

Compared to Talkers, Texters were found to be more lonely and
socially anxious, and more likely to disclose their ‘real-self’ through text than via face-to- face or voice call exchanges

Goodgrief.
Despite this, and because I am rereading Annemarie Mol, I attempt to relate to parts of this literature.

...there is something special about texting that allows some people to translate their loneliness and/or social anxiety into productive relationships whilst for others the mobile does not afford the same effect

I wish the authors had not pathologised the practices of 'some people', me included? I can now personally identify with Bruno Latour's advice to stay with the actors; assume people are right...put yourself at the peak of enthusiasm, the apex, the point where things were irresistible...there's reason for people doing what they do, it is the best option they have available to them at the time. A very humanistic approach, Carl Rogers could like this.
back to the article. There is something special.

Texting permits visual anonymity and its asynchronous nature allows for editing and self- reflection. Texters may feel at greater ease being their ‘real-self’ through a text message reducing the potential repercussions that may otherwise take place in a traditional face-to-face or telephone encounter. Texting may offer Texters more control over their interactions with others by affording them visual anonymity and asynchronous communication. As such the mobile may become more a matter of identity than a simple communication tool. Further research needs to be carried out to delve into these ideas further.

Ahuh, we have an area of agreement, at least with the last sentence. For the rest I would rather ask the texters themselves, I have serious doubts about the other conclusions reached.
Yet the same type of research gets repeated, and cited. Again and again. Same authors 2003, and again 2004- Text appeal and the psychology of sms texting and its designs for mobile phone interface.... Here at least they ask about the resilience of texting and that it would be unwise to overlook the 'simple user benefits'. The paradox of detachment with intimacy is described.

The spontaneous sociability of the chat room coupled with the artful editability of e-mail – that lends texting a special, but paradoxical, appeal to key user groups. Put simply, text messaging seems to provide an opportunity for intimate personal contact while at the same time offering the detachment necessary to manage self-presentation and involvement.... sufficient time to exchange carefully crafted messages without the expectation of an immediate reply.

And they note that its more of a girl thing.
I'm getting cross now, is it that 'girls' are more socially dependent, need more attachment but in a form where they can scan more, be careful, review, revise...I can feel a Carol Gilligan moment coming on with outrage that what it is to be male is 'normal' and others are dysfunctional, or at least less socially ept.
The articles come across as arrogant.
They presume to speak for the actors. But the voices of these actors is missing.

Today Stephen Downes OLWeekly points to Danah Boyd who identifies that the myths remain despite the evidence.
Using the American Pew stats she notes:
# Email continues to lose its luster among teens as texting, instant messaging, and social networking sites facilitate more frequent contact with friends.
# More older girls than boys create and contribute to websites.
# Girls have fueled the growth of the teen blogosphere.
# Teens from lower-income and single-parent households are more likely to blog.
# Teens who are most active online, including bloggers, are also highly active offline.
# Most teens restrict access to their posted photos - at least some of the time. Girls are more restrictive photo posters.
# Content creators are not devoting their lives exclusively to virtual participation. They are just as likely as other teens to engage in most offline activities and more likely to have jobs.

Just when I was in danger of thinking my eptness quotient was lacking.