Tickling my fancy; assessment matters in higher ed

On an interview recently i was asked about how I invisaged assessment for an entry uni course for 1200 studnets and an anticipated 2.8 staff. I have read assessment matters by the Shre people (not that i mentioned this though it was full of clever ideas regarding peer teaching/learning/assessing. And i fully agree with the premise that if you really want learning to happen, teach it...and then i found this on Alan Levine's site (cogdogblog) and i so wish i had been this creative:

A SYDNEY girls’ school (Presbytarian Girl's College)is redefining the concept of cheating by allowing students to “phone a friend” and use the internet and i-Pods during exams.

Being a survivor of a Presbytarian upbringing this really tickled my fancy.
In my response I had claimed knowledge is not individually created and for form to follow function, so should not be individually assessed; that web2.0 supports group process and makes this visible also. I really enjoy the ingenious approach this Presbytarian Girl's College bring to education. It works for me. When i get stuck I talk to a friend, phone a friend, text a friend or treat google as my friend, but i guess its also about discernment, who might know and who might be a valid source of info. Being able to access and to discern rather than being a repository of fact. I like this.

sustaining change in the hinterland

I have been (re)reading John Law(2004) After method; Mess in social science research.
He argues for a reconstruction/deconstruction of current research methods. In doing this he also identifies how in science

"statements do not idly freewheel in mid-air, or drop from heaven. They come from somewhere....but without support from other statements or inscriptions of an appropriate provenance they do not go very far. So we might put it this way; if a statement is to last it needs to draw on- and perhaps contribute to- an appropriate hinterland. "

He then elaborates further describing elements in this hinterland:
A part of the hinterland of a statement is other related statements. Is it consistent with these? Do they tend to support it? If the answer is yes' then they tend to add to its authority...or toare there inscriptions that endorse or support such as might be emboddied in figures etc to which such statements might be compared and where such a relationship between ideas or inscriptions tend to reinforce one another. When this is the case the authority of a statement increases. Where this is not the case the statement is likely to enter the limbo of the might have beens.

I was thinking he could have been explaining the acceptance or not of ideas more widely.
He might have extended this to change generally.
It got me thinking of Freud (Ok, maybe i need to get out more...and I am pretty sure Law would be surprised by such an outcome for his work also). However, Freud initially accepted the stories of his clients of sexual abuse and it was only after the disparaging reception in a hinterland of disbelief and impossibility that his views changed and he developed theory relating to 'hysterical women'.

Maybe it takes a readiness in the hinterland for an idea to take hold and grow, its very difficult to sustain when there is no support for it. Similarly sustaining a new practice needs scaffolding of support...

There's the moment in the youtube video of web 2.0 where a nest is being built and it seems any sustained change is like this, it requires attachment and stability provided by other like minded or ready minded.
As Leadbetter says in his video, ideas take life when they are shared (what he doesnt say is that only when the sharing occurs in a ready hinterland where it can get a purchase on others- or on other things).
"Its like building a birdsnest where everyone leaves their piece" 'cept the material semiotics of what the bird, the birds partner, the twigs, trees, technologies, wind, rain, storm or sunshine, airplanes, food sources, local industry... are doing also need to be included. Hence an argument for taking an ANT approach to get a better understanding and a possibility for deliberately effecting change.

indefinite obects; elusive objects; or studying candyfloss in the rain

Law talks of how a 'committment to visible singularity' is a limitation on (orthodox) research. When what is observed shapeshifts, the singular entity metaphor becomes visible because it does not fit the data seen. And instead of blaming sloppy research or researchers or research methods, they argue for seeing practice as multiple rather than definite and accepting that in these realities, the object of study too may be multiple. Whats visible, definite vs whats invisible or multiple, or fractional with partial overlaps might then be studied.
That this is not a shoddy piece of research nor a failure to get to grips with something definite, nor an inconsistent or incoherent description from research participants, but is instead the nature of what is the object of study.
While this does remind me of Lewis Carrol and the hunting of the snark, it is also my experience of trying to be definite about counselling in my study of how it is altered by use of different mediums. (small aaarghh here, what on earth am i doing trying to get a handle on an indefinite object and then what do i think I am doing when said indefinite object is altered in different mediums, by multiple different players. The AAARGHH just got bigger or the snarks are closing in on me and I'm on the wrong side the a counselling relationship).
I am a little more settled with Mol's and de Laat's story of the bushpump, where its very success is dependent on it being a fluid object. But at least they had something tangible to point to, a concrete object with ongoing alterations. The indefinite communication skill set called counselling is considerably less definite.
I feel like I'm studying candyfloss, I can point to it, taste it, but i wouldnt want to study it outside on a wet day. New Zealanders, esp from the Westcoast, know greywackey, a stone that crumbles if handled too much and dissolves down to a silt like mud when left in water.
Standard research method does not seem to do justice to a nebulous entity. Certain kinds of reality are imposed. Politics of what is/isnt accepted, investigated, valued, othered.
Certain realities are reconfigured when forced into the written text.

Watch this space; a doc thess preprd 2 test boundrz usin txt

reality is multiple

There is a tension between multiplicity and singularity.
In my research this singular:multiple tension is evident in considering the practice of counselling. It's called counselling when its face2face, f2multiple faces, verbal but not f2f, nonverbal and not f2f, synchronised or non-synchronised.
In order for counselling to occur, at least two people are required. The practice occurs in relationship.
One initiates the conversation, and one makes themselves available to hear the story of the other. If counselling is to be enacted, it is crafted from the story of the one and the communication skill embedded with the other.
In this agency, responses from those who 'do counselling' suggest a singular entity, a set of skills or processes that fit together. The skill set of listening, affirming, being client-centred, a strengths based approach. A single reality. Definite and singular.

What then of differences? Obviously not every story is the same, nor every skill set. How is listening shown when the conversation is non verbal? What is meant by being client-centred, does this extend to intervening when the counsellor identifies saftey trumps autonomy? There are hen examples of contradictions. Differences in counselling when the story differs, when the actors differ, when the actors might include non-human actors such as mobile phones, computer screens...

The inconsistency with what is counselling is altered. How then is difference contained?

Mol suggests the need to work with multiple possible truths. What counts as best depends on circumstance. And points to Wittgenstein on how rules do not make their own applications. Rather than an actual inconsistency, the scenario is described in terms of apparent inconsistency. In respecting autonomy but acting on a person's safety expressing concern by contacting emergency services despite the client asking you not to, gets described as "if they were in their right mind, less tunnel visioned, less distressed, less drunk, less depressed, they would appreciate it ... they are telling us for a reason...at least they will know that we take their safety seriously..."
The implication is that what is best, desirable, advised as best practice, depends on the circumstances. Thus inconsistency gets explained away. Such storytelling of practice help to sustain the singular version of a cohesive practice. Such an analysis would suggest that concern for inconsistencies is one of perspective. However this does not do enough to explain how the same actor tells of their own practice.

When the counsellor says:
"no difference, phone, text, health.
then 15 minutes later says
"I am aware of doing it differently, role of psychodrama. Everyone does it differently, brings different backgrounds.
I am the triage(insert name), phone counsellor (insert name), text/email (insert name )counsellor.
Such an example supports what Law describes as poorly coordinated realities. Or what Mol points to in distributed practice. Contradictions evolve in enactment, working out what to do. In shifting between medium there's a sense that some things change and some stay the same, and even described as the same and different. Law picks up on the implications brought about by this same and different discourse.
He identifies how the contradiction provides opportunity to work out best options where there are contradictions, in the less than perfect world of health practice the work involved requires adaptation. In addition, this requires an ability to make judgments. The craft of counselling growing out of past experience, conversations and reading.

At the site of this study, the past experience in counselling was predominantly to use the medium of choice of the target group, telephone counselling. With a shift to the target group using mobile phones, an attempt to provide a portal to counselling by text was also initiated. The standard for counselling comparisons is frequently made. A need for judgments being contingent led to policy development. A guide for judgments when the situations were contingent on the type of 'call' or on the medium being used. The decisions required are even more complex. As expressed by one counsellor:
"I worry of how young the caller might be, could be 10-11 not teens, and I might be affirming sexual activity and stuff and assuming [they're] old enough and sending a mesage that might be colluding with activity that might not be appropriate for the age....on verbal if they sounded young we would probably find a way of asking that. Definitely makes [me] text cautious. If i have a 10 yr old saying my boyfriend wants to have sex with me, that's very different than an 18 yr old."
The type of response is contingent, shaped by the realities experienced in the moment. In texting a cautious response is then given based on how little is known, this counsellor describes herself as not being able to work with instinct or intuition on a txt platform. Nor having enough knowledge to do more than affirm that the situation sounds difficult and inviting the person to phone up.

What this reflects is that difference is produced with difference assemblages, there is an overlap but it is not the same, there are some things that stay the same, such as affirming, but there is also difference, call us. A move away from being client centred, or a reinterpretation of what it means to be client-centred.

Enacting is not then a matter of perspective, and includes more than a crafting by the people involved. The non-human actors too have influence. A combination of people, technique or skill, and text and technology evolves. The realities of practice are produced in relationship and these relationships extends beyond the people directly involved to include the technological actors. It also includes unseen actors, invisible actors and invisible work (and power differentials...all of which point to a new posting opportunity).

beware, your imagination leaves digital traces

Artefacts tell a story.
Texting leaves digital traces inside of which imagination, thoughts, preferences can be located.
Artefacts, such as policies, documents, purchasing orders, emails, letters, texts...provide traces. Such tracings don't just substantiate or refute whats said by research participants.
They also provide a way of accessing voice. Whether that voice wants to be heard, or not. In this there are also multiple ethical concerns in making visible what might have appeared invisible.

This then begins a story told using the 'voices' of txt artefacts evidenced in txt counselling.

15% of texters to the Youthline service are requesting/demanding a text option for counselling.
Examples of texts (based on, but not actual) are reflected in the following type of comments:
"Il neva b abl 2 tlk bwt it. S0ri 4 bthrn u"
"k but na thankz.i cant.g0ta h0use fill n same1 c0uld easly hear me..."
"I cant fukn ring ny1 0k !!"
The pressure to provide a text service is clearly evident.

However, as pointed to by Bruno Latour, beware.
The cost of digital tracing needs consideration.
There are costs of privacy, confidentiality and trust evident here.
What's digitally texted stays.
In my own performance of pointing to this here, there is risk.
Does a community get damaged or empowered by having it pointed out that a trace stays?
In the past, counselling was a private affair.
Current costs are not recognised.
Such traces as are left in txting became evident in the Kahui twins murder trial; where you are, the calls connected, the messages texted...remain in the digital trace.
And as expressed by Latour "the inner workings of private spaces are prised open".
Those most likely to use this service, aimed as it is at a young audience, may not know of digital posterity.
For me as a social science researcher, my use of such tracing remains cautious.

Further potential stories from this 'silent' actor of txt artefacts include the trace of a service that changes over time and the variation that occurs in counselling
across a range of actors, and by the same actor distributed across a range of media.

Nonetheless, I am disconcerted. In the trace there is potential for a panoptican surveillance of Foucaudian proportions.

The bottom line

Flores's: "The soft issues are the hard issues. Your problems don't come because you don't know how to calculate entropies or to design plates. They come because you don't know about people. Our best comes out when we have honest discussions. Our worst comes out when we behave like robots or professionals. You all have the delusion that it's your business to sell hardware. But every company of the future is going to be in the business of exquisite care -- which means quick turnaround time and convenience. To deliver exquisite care, you need an organization that coordinates well and listens well. Right now, you are in an organization that has poor quality and slow delivery. You have one big mythology in your favor: Everyone believes that you Europeans are impeccable. But I know you are jerks."

The temperature in the room is rising. The air-conditioning is on arctic blast, but the men are beginning to sweat. "When you get into a situation like this, nothing seems to work," Flores says. "That's when you don't need solutions -- you need transformation. You've already tried everything to stop your losses."

Thanks Arti and cj; I can substitute in education for hardware.
Transformation seems a rational way out.
In my paid job problems are not (just) fiscal, they are also pedagogical; who controls learning and to whose benefit?
In my studies similarly, who controls the means of communications and to whose benefit?
Basically a Latourian or ANT question: whats shaped and how?

A whole lot more listening and working with good intent and with trust and with cooperation, and 'we' might get there together.
At the very least 'we' learn to work together.
Not a bad learning if that was to be the bottom line.

thesis writing for dummies

"The footnote is the poorman's hypertext. it is not fancy...You dont need any software at all. All it takes is a little number, a little asterisk, and smaller type. it's great. You can choose. Do you want to go into the subroutine of the footnote and follow it out and move back, or do you want to skip it?... I was very proud of one of my footnotes that went on for four pages with only three lines at the top."

so cites Tara Brabazon of Nicholson Baker.She takes this further:
"This fickleness is very attractive in our era of tepid textbooks and predictable prose."
Wonder how she would respond to a thesis student who finds theses prose vapid...must go hunting for what she has supervised t see if the playfulness extends to this domain :)

useless technology, new and improved...

"Teachers currently feel as if we are trapped in a Monty Python sketch, We are living the opening scene of The Meaning of Life where, through the 'miracle of birth', the medical administrator remains most impressed by the machine that goes ping rather than the arrival, before his eyes, of new life. Far too many administrators gravitate towards the ping, missing the magic being woven by teachers".Tara Brabazon

In looking at the technological changes that have "changed people's lives" a survey by UK website which.co.uk puts mobile phones top the list. (Nearly a quarter of those surveyed placed it at the top, and 42% of 16-24 year age group.)
2nd place was the laptop, and 3rd place the mp3 player.
Foot spas were named the most useless gadget, I guess they dont ping enough.
I also understand that they are the least appreciated gifts left for the citymission at christmas time.
Bread-maker a close second. Do the maths, how many do you need to make to pay for itself.
Heated hair-straighteners or curlers rated higher than TVs. curious.
And for one person their salad spinner was the gadget that changed their life.
hmm, am tempted to think they needed more ping in their life.

when the proverbial stuff hits the fan, it's mobile and flexible too

There is no inherent goodness in being mobile and flexible.
Avian flu meets such criteria, anywhere, anytime.
Surely the substance of what occurs anywhere anytime has to be considered.

To this end, Digital hemlock by Tara Brabazon, is a provocative read.

In higher ed, a major point of tension is directed use of online teaching platforms.
I love them, there is potentially greater freedom; learning doesnt have to be at a predetermined time or place. But my love is not unconditional, and the conditions are rarely addressed.I take this moment to quickly affirm the conditions I believe and which are legislated imperatives: According to the Universities Act (1961) the purpose of a University is teaching, research and to be the social conscience of society. I take this to mean service, not profit ; and that things of serious importance to society will be attended to, such as social justice and equity.

However, what happens if this plot is lost?
Tara Brabazon notes, Socrates was not sentenced to die by his students, but by the Gods.
Attending to students is not enough.

...And I have just been invited to put in my cv and a vision statement to be able to keep doing what i have been doing for 2 decades;teaching and lecturing in higher ed.
Is this an example of what Brabazon points to with tenured staff fighting for their jobs rather than for social justice and social responsibility?
There seems too much truth in the preface for me to ignore this book.

In an analysis informed by actor-network theory one could consider a technosocial story of change in university life and consider the things that are needed to make an assemblage stable. In this instance, attending to students and to the content or purpose of learning is not enough, the management layer un-peels itself as well as the resources at their discretion, and enroll such actors as they can including online platforms such as blackboard, fewer people, more students...as well as distracting academic staff in having them reapply for their positions... I feel that i am kept running to even be able to stand still.
No conspiracy theories here. Just a technosocial story that helps to account for how things are shaped as well as shaping, and a consideration for knowing that things might also be different.

I live in an uploading country; there's an incredible amount of blogging going on

Godzone (New Zealand) tops a Californian run initiative that tracks how people around the world use the internet. (Reported NZ Herald 29 July 08)
1 in 10 internet users have a blog (thats 3/3 in this household)
1 in 13 New Zealanders have a blog.

Of the 78% of New Zealanders internet who use the internet:
66% have broadband (so why does it cost so much???)
77% of us check our email daily
28% use social networking sites (I note the Herald doesnt break this down but gives the examples of Myspace and facebook; all my friends, family are on Bebo)
13% maintain their own website (this is not rocket science).

The caption with a photo reads "anonymity allows internet users to say things they might not say in person." While this is not discussed in the story, its a really interesting take on what it means to be anonymous. The IPS makes identification more, rather than less likely. The 1:1 relationship with the screen seems to be experienced as an intimate one and seems to lead to indiscretions being revealed as evidenced by anecdotal reports as well as by media headlines of people sacked.
Might be time a new word was coined for this perceived sense of anonymity which is far from actual. A nony mouse?

An education paradigm shift; shift happens

The bullets have slowed somewhat.
Michael Weschs' video (a portal to media literacy) on youtube is a good antidote to despondency (thanks Arti). I have moved out of despondency, and into a parallel universe where resource issues don't matter, and where everyone plays nicely, and where what's taught matters, and who is taught matters, and where learning is not filling the empty vessels with content, and assessment is not checking on the volume of what's put in.
Now I just need to be able to shift between realities at the speed of light, because both realities exist and i seem stuck between the two.
And no one really wants to watch wonderwoman undress when she twirls.
Except the others, people in another space again, who like seeing it all come unstuck...

Growing a PhD; resilience is futile

My resilience has plummetted, and then i found this, and it helps explain how come.
And the resemblance to the koru is remarkable.

I guess its just the spin on things that makes it seem a never decreasing circle of despair or potential for new growth. Maybe meditating a few affirmations will help :)
My cup of spirulina is not slime and is half full, not half used.

not engaged, not enrolled; how not to make change happen if you want your actors on board.

From the Hunting of the Snark:

What I tell you three times is true.

I think i just got snarked.
I am apparently scared of innovation.
This is untrue.
What i am afraid of is daleks, deception and snarks.
All for very good reason.
Daleks could be construed as innovative its true, but so are tardis' and these do not scare me.
Innovation is not scarey of itself, IT does not have its own trajectory nor its inherent application of good or evil.
It's a 'depends' type statement.

The different branches of Arithmetic -- Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

Some of my very best learning happened when i was 7, the first chapter book I ever read; Alice in Wonderland.
Questioning resource allocation of 2.8 staffing for an entry paper into 3 degrees involving 1400 students makes me
a) scared of innovation
b) a staff member in a liberal centre of education
c) bad at maths
d) subject to derision
This one is almost as good:
Using fewer staff to teach more students over more days in a week is working smarter.

Engaging actor-networks

‘an experience by which both the body and what affects it produces each other. Each of the events (wine, thoughts, vessels, jests) creates an occasion for the others: should we say that the wine made us happy or that we made the wine joyous?'
(Despret 2004, p. 127)

A material semiotic; the wine is not joyous until it enrolls an actor, and on being consumed inscribes practice (at least in as much as there is an inscription effect of disinhibition).
When actors are not presupposed or credited with agency there are some curiousities that can be explored and explained differently, even in jest :)
I am indebted to Nana for this gem.

2b or not 2b; blogging a PhD

I was explaining (my) phd behaviours of picking it up and putting it down and my need to manage this ... there are similarities and differences with earlier study. I worked out that at this (non existent) rate i guesstimated i needed 6 weeks for each chapter, say 10 chapters... and then enlightenment hit me. 60 weeks for completion.
Time to get real.

And last time I skyped with peers undertaking a similar process, Nana named it - a thesis involves enrolling the actors, the theory that supports, the lit review that gets enrolled to provide the scene... the methodology that needs to be shown to be congruent. The politics of whats in whats out; an ontological choreography.
And some very pragmatic enrolling occurs; my own.

Latour talks of how things get made less or more real, it involves work, active engagement.
How does an innovation arise in the mind of inventors. The answer is always to be found in chains of translation,.. always comes from a blending or redistribution of properties previously dispersed.... I was interested in this, and that, and it coalesced here... and in this way. Experienced locally, personally.

The mix i bring, the assemblages i work at, managing my artefacts (literature reviewed ... data collected), managing the technology (always make back ups, never leave the laptop in the car, check the ipod battery...persevere with endnote word interface issues...database searches....skype for international chats with supervisor....other students...enter into web 2 blogging...always check the file attached before hitting send etc etc)

Interest people and things at the same time; recruit actors, human as well as nonhuman. Latour's words here: seduce, modify,transform, develop...

Enroll a supervisor.
That turns academia on its head :)
Keeping them enrolled also takes work :) and chardonnay maybe
They too may allow or forbid alliances...require, constrain, provide....

As Latour says: we have to negotiate.
What kills a project? Everyone and no one; a lack of negotiating.

A story then told of this and this and this and...i am compatable!

so...
10 chapters = a chapter every 6 weeks.
Time to get real.
Enact it, perform it into being.
Enrolling and negotiating the whole way; this and this and this...
Watch this space :)
A chapter by this time in August.

Another Zen moment;
before enlightenment there is chopping wood and peeling potatoes, and after enlightenment...
...there is chopping wood and peeling potatoes

2b or not 2b; further ontologies of practicing being a PhD student

An ontological performance includes the writer as well as what is written.
This is a creative performance.
Not just of the thesis, where what is studied is made more real by the very act of being researched and written into the world.
What is studies cant help but be altered by the act of study.
Who is undertaking the performance is similarly altered.

An actor-network theory (ant) approach is humble.
I have a lot to learn about this.
In my past life as a critical social theorist i expressed judgements.
My big learning in this life as an ant type of being, is dont.
Belatedly, I remember Latour: Always assume people are right...put yourself at the peak of enthusiasm, the apex, the point where things were/are irrestible. (from Aramis)


7 things not to do as a PhD student, and in no particular order:)
Do not hit send on emails late at night.
Do not attach files to said emails without checking them.
Do not say that there is no writing in an area before you google the background of the person you talk to.
Do not neglect family and friends, you will need them when the phd stuff isnt going so well.
Do not have so many windows open on the screen that when your computer asks you if you want to save changes you say no by mistake.
Do not take your studies so seriously that you cannot laugh at your mistakes.
Do not blog yourself into a bog.

Feel free to add to the list, i could do with a laugh.

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
when you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror
cause I get better looking each day.
To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a (wo)man.
Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
but I'm doing the best that I can.

Davis Mac

2b or not 2b; ontologies of practice

What is at stake when a decision between alternative performances is made? The notion of choice in deciding between alternate performances presupposes an actor who actively choses, while potential actors may be inextricably linked up with how they are enacted (Mol, 1999).
Some actors express more choice than others. Some of these are human actors, some not. This post is a playful exploration of the not human actors exercise of choice.

In considering these actors, preference or choice' is linked inextricably to how performance is enacted.

Hmmmm, well some things are easier than others.
I find it easier for example to know my own mind than to presume the thinking/choice/preferences of a sony ericson k700i. I 'll try 'listening' with more intent to how this actor manages his/her/itelf in relationship.
Preference are expressed: there is ease in connecting across certain platforms and not others, seems some of us speak the same language, use the same channels and ome of us don't. The paths of technology linkups being more direct for users linked to this network than to that.
The technology of the organisation is funded, shaped and paid for by this provider vs that.
Costs are assigned by the service provider, the advertised txt number and counselling voice service is free if the txt or call come from one service provider and not from the other.
This inextricably pervades the linkages made and not made by other actors inline.
A pushed and pulled if not a forced choice for the next actors linked in the line.
As a mobile entity I contain and shape the message, there are rukes 'i' follow. Any one message gets 160 characters, x lines, s characters to a line. Exceed this and as a linked in actor you get to send two messages at twice the cost.
The keyboard also forces choice. My construction of a keyboard does not follow the conventions of a qwerty board. 'S' one of the commonest of letters used in English requires tapping thenumber board / keyboard four times. To access E, the commonest letter, takes a double effort; every vowel except the letter A takes additional effort. All actors, inextricably linked, get shaped. Conform or not. The techy actors develop a workaround, use a qwerty keyboard, feed the response through by computer, do a character number check, send twice and it will cost you twice as much....truncate the message.
The reader and writer make accommodations.
Even where the message is small, the truncations remain stable. K as if ok wasnt short enough.
And then there's the whole area of what is conveyed...counselling shaped by the medium. An agency with a history of counselling in a reflective mode, no longer is reflective. Seeing text distorts counselling practices of reflection and of active listening as if verbatim restating what is patently obvious in the txt medium becomes redundant. Obviously repetitive, there are no nuances, no subtle questioning, no intonation to imply an exploration of meaning or to provide emphasis by nuances of spoken speech. The reflective approach comes though as repition and therefore redundant in a medium where what went before stands self evident irrespective of time passing. Other performances evolve, A choreography of push me pull you.

The ontological choreography produces its own stickiness where particular ongoing performances become less or more likely.

2b or not 2b

I claimed too soon my winning of text poetry.
I have competition it seems.
A utopian analysis suggests txting aids language acquisition skills!
Apparently blogging also increases social skills.
Seems i am so well adjusted, i could just purr.

2b or not 2b?
Saturday July 5, 2008The Guardian:

Despite doom-laden prophecies, texting has not been the disaster for language many feared, argues linguistics professor David Crystal. On the contrary, it improves children's writing and spelling...


...
Texters use deviant spellings - and they know they are deviant!
...
...
the need to save time and energy is by no means the whole story of texting.
... one of the most enjoyable things you can do with language is to play with it ...


To celebrate World Poetry day in 2007, T-Mobile tried to find the UK's first "Txt laureate" in a competition for the best romantic poem in SMS. They had 200 entrants, and as with previous competitions the entries were a mixture of unabbreviated and abbreviated texts.

The winner, Ben Ziman-Bright, wrote conventionally:

The wet rustle of rain
can dampen today. Your text
buoys me above oil-rainbow puddles
like a paper boat, so that even
soaked to the skin
I am grinning.

The runner-up did not:

O hart tht sorz
My luv adorz
He mAks me liv
He mAks me giv
Myslf 2 him
As my luv porz

(The author of the latter was, incidentally, in her late 60s.)

The length constraint in text-poetry fosters economy of expression in much the same way as other tightly constrained forms of poetry do, such as the haiku or the Welsh englyn. To say a poem must be written within 160 characters at first seems just as pointless as to say that a poem must be written in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables. But put such a discipline into the hands of a master, and the result can be poetic magic. Of course, SMS poetry has some way to go before it can match the haiku tradition; but then, haikus have had a head-start of several hundred years.

There is something about the genre which has no parallel elsewhere. This is nothing to do with the use of texting abbreviations. It is more to do with the way the short lines have an individual force. Reading a text poem, wrote Peter Sansom, who co-judged a Guardian competition in 2002, is "an urgent business ... with a text poem you stay focused as it were in the now of each arriving line." The impact is evident even in one-liners, whose effect relies on the kind of succinctness

Several competitions have focussed on reworking famous lines, titles, or quotations:

txt me ishmael

zen & T @ f m2 cycl mn10nc

The brevity of the SMS genre disallows complex formal patterning - of, say, the kind we might find in a sonnet. It isn't so easy to include more than a couple of images, such as similes, simply because there isn't the space. Writers have nonetheless tried to extend the potential of the medium. The SMS novel, for example, operates on a screen-by-screen basis. ...
In Japan, an author known as Yoshi has had a huge success with his text-messaging novel Deep Love. Readers sent feedback as the story unfolded, and some of their ideas were incorporated into it. He went on to make a film of the novel.
...
Plainly, there are severe limits to the expressive power of the medium, when it is restricted to a screen in this way. So it is not surprising that, very early on, writers dispensed with the 160-character constraint, and engaged in SMS creative writing of any length using hard copy. Immediately there was a problem. By taking the writing away from the mobile phone screen, how could the distinctiveness of the genre be maintained? So the stylistic character of SMS writing changed, and texting abbreviations, previously optional, became obligatory.

...

An extraordinary number of doom-laden prophecies have been made about the supposed linguistic evils unleashed by texting. Sadly, its creative potential has been virtually ignored. But five years of research has at last begun to dispel the myths. The most important finding is that texting does not erode children's ability to read and write. On the contrary, literacy improves. The latest studies (from a team at Coventry University) have found strong positive links between the use of text language and the skills underlying success in standard English in pre-teenage children. The more abbreviations in their messages, the higher they scored on tests of reading and vocabulary. The children who were better at spelling and writing used the most textisms. And the younger they received their first phone, the higher their scores.

Children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed considerable literacy awareness. Before you can write and play with abbreviated forms, you need to have a sense of how the sounds of your language relate to the letters. You need to know that there are such things as alternative spellings. If you are aware that your texting behaviour is different, you must have already intuited that there is such a thing as a standard. If you are using such abbreviations as lol and brb ("be right back"), you must have developed a sensitivity to the communicative needs of your textees.

Some people dislike texting. Some are bemused by it. But it is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adapt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. There is no disaster pending. We will not see a new generation of adults growing up unable to write proper English. The language as a whole will not decline. In texting what we are seeing, in a small way, is language in evolution.

· Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 is published this week by OUP. To order a copy for £9.99 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop

i txt there4 i am > or <

Whose voice is heard in txting?
Seems like the zen question of a tree falling in the woods; If you dont hear it, did it make a sound?
Young people voice they would 'rather text the whole time cos feels whole lot more comfortable.'
And YL says they need to be relevant and where the young people are.
The policy says Counsellors should encourage texters and emailers to call the youth helpline, engage in face to face counselling or seek support from an appropriate referral. Counsellors are not to engage in in-depth conversation via text. After a maximum of five to six texts the counsellor should dis-engage from the text conversation, letting the caller know that they cannot continue to fully discuss the issue via text and that Youthline would be happy to support the caller more fully over the phone.
There are different performance espoused here.
There are also differences in the enactments.

With investigating textual innovations made possible using digital media Teemu Ikonen discusses the manipulation of text as an integral variable separating digital literature from printed literature.
In poetry in motion, Teemu Ikonen (2003) argues that the distinction between digital and print media is indefinite. He points to Brian Kim Stefans' Dreamlife of letters as an example of the non static text mode provoking meaning.
For counselling too, perhaps there are possibilities where the medium reshapes.
A further playful example in being shaped is described in the UK Guardian, Winning text poems:

2001 winner Hetty Hughes:

txtin iz messin,
mi headn'me englis,
try2rite essays,
they all come out txtis.
gran not plsed w/letters shes getn,
swears i wrote better
b4 comin2uni.
&she's african


2002 winner Emma Passmore:

I left my pictur on th ground wher u walk
so that somday if th sun was jst right
& th rain didnt wash me awa
u might c me out of th corner of yr i & pic me up


Cute and quirky. Hmmm. Meaningful? Arguable.
Emotionally provocative, I think so. A subjective appreciation.

In texting, I'm shaped; constrained, contained, and constructed.
I proclaim myself ^-^ winner 2008


bcomin
a persn
takes f it
makn meanin
i b thinkin

Julian Bleecker provides an example on who is heard informed by Latour and Haraway. Active, worldly participants that communicate meaning are not limited to people. Referring to Pigeons that Blog, he describes a blog effectively updated accepting info via a flock of birds loaded with GPS and environmental sensors for pollutants. The info is sent to and accepted into a google mashup making info available on request.
Whose voice tells the story? Non human actors to non human actors about info human actors cannot see but might want to...
The person who set up the possibilities, wrote the software, the GPS provider, the internet service provider (IPS)....the pigeons... the list goes on and on.
Some human and non-human beings create data, providing a message that may or may not be useful.
The medium/s continue to shape the message/s, and the messenger.

In blogging, the robotic slime that targets my blog for buying/selling things from theses to viagra etc etc, have resulted in my behavioural changes. I adapt to forestall such advances, I rant then electronically set limits. I too am shaped and shaping. the trolling slime will work around such barriers.
I am annoyed that I seem to trust a little less. I become a little more technologically savvy setting up limitations. And I am a little less accessible.
More and less.

I place my thinking here, chronologically saved so i need not monitor time or dates. Outsourcing my memory. I allow spelling errors to be picked up electronically. Arguably, I have deskilled myself. I hesitate to describe myself as domesticated by the machinery I use; instead I accept myself as a hybrid (ref Latour) and choose cyborg (Haraway). Electronically enhanced.


More or less human?
^-^
Different
k.

breaking stuff: I think therefore iphone

This is the stuff of my research, yet another reminder to start publishing, fast.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4613486a20475.html?source=email

I read the February research from two Canterbury University academics Lee Thompson and Julie Cupples, regarding spatial geography and the use of text messaging by young New Zealanders. They are cited on stuffit as saying:
"They facilitate communication among teenagers rather than destroying it. It doesn't make them avoid people; they use it to meet up"

This too is the dominant approach taken by Youthline, an entry point.
The use of texting on the lifeline lowdown website seems to provide further substance if not authority for a radically new approach. Durability is added in.
In actor-network terms this is about translation of counselling using emergent technologies. The translations I have mapped so far include how counsellors distribute counseling; different performances occur whether its in through a phone or through text or through email. Some things change, some stay the same: the strengths based model of affirming, acknowledging and inviting continue to occur. I am surprised that the skill of demonstrating empathy translates across this medium, and all in 160 characters or less, including gaps. Takes talent, and maybe some optimism. As one interviewee told me, its only 160 characters, so its hard to screw up in such little space. Seems one's glass can be half full or half empty on this. The dystopian and utopian arguments seem to prevail. An actor network approach allows a much wider picture to emerge.

Texting is a preferred medium of this generation and whether it can be more than a doorway is part of my research.
There are multiple aspects sustaining what is/isnt:
It's arguable that texting helps define the generation, a medium of choice with a language demonstrating rejection of authority or a playfulness. The 'thumb' generation.
There has been a pricing war in NZ between two major providers Telecom and Vodafone creating conditions where texting seems the only viable fiancial option for mobile phone use pertaining to young people with limited income.
There's an extension to one's connectivity, a cyborg like addition in becoming extraconnectable. Being available and being able to; an extension of the peer group that's always accessible. The cyborg like quality also adds the dimension of being inaudible, appearing invisible and perhaps, contributing to the sense of invincible.
The 'voices' I have been listening to suggest that texting provides an opening for talking when talking would be hard. An ego protective mechanism. There's also the advantage of responding in one's own time. Without the appearance of awkwardness.
And more recently there's the increasing authenticity, lent substance by more and more applications of texting whether its notification of library pickups, messages about delayed travel plans, or the increasing normalcy for communicating not only the mundane but the worrisome aspects of what it is to be. Lifeline's acceptance contributes acceptability in wider circles.
Meantime significant hidden work occurs to sustain practice. Funding is vulnerable being reliant on goodwill, a generous act of goodwill established the practice with the donated costs of not sending Simpson Grierson seasonal greetings, remarkably sunshine influences text counselling's survival with the intake potential of donations from Christmas in the park being vulnerable, and sustaining minimal costs is depenedant on major marketshare providers being seen as philanthropatic.

Whats your take on this?
While such services are shaped, what's happening to all those involved?
Meantime my infatuation with mobile technology has left me wanting.
I can afford the iphone but sadly not the ongoing costs.
Bit like my car really, still paying for the gas :(



Youthline - Changing Lives
With thanks to Simpson Grierson at Christmas time and beyond.
In lieu of sending Christmas cards Simpson Grierson continue to support Youthline's work with young people and their families across New Zealand.