This year, I was asked to attend as a Canadian Teacher Representative, along with Ontario Ministry Officer, Colette Ruduck and our Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, George Zegarac.
the theme of “Trust and Regulation”
my Canadian values of equality, diversity, safety and choice
high degree of trust for teachers, administrators and district decision makers
Our regulations are meant to encourage equality and diversity, choice, opportunity, innovation – fundamental values in our society.
In contrast to many of the other countries represented, our Canadian context was unique in that the regulations (organizations, federations, policies, curriculum) imposed actually tie in Trust and Relationship building and partnerships as key factors to increase capacity building with a wide range of stakeholders.
We need our profession to be respected, which includes paying us well, treating us fairly, supporting us with resources, nurturing our learning and leadership opportunities
systems of education can achieve and can be highly ranked without the use of formalized testing
We need to feel safe to make mistakes because we too are learners, especially in a profession that is changing so drastically in the 21st Century
We need to feel trusted and with that, we want our skills, our education, our talents and our passions to be respected so we -together – can become the creators of our own pedagogies
these passionate and experienced leaders agreed that such tests don’t work when used to rate, or punish teachers
can even sometimes do more harm then good
such tests are not always authentic
First and foremost, teacher voice needs to be heard and respected
As principals, we need to empower our teachers and community
the importance of the teacher/principal relationship came up over and over and over
Trust – allows me to teach in my style, developing my own curriculum
I wonder if there is a correlation between that supportive, trusting principal and the fact that we have incredibly dynamic teachers here, at Van Leer from all over the globe
We too need to think different because change can start with us
We need to make our voices heard by be socially active
By sharing and reflecting our learning openly and even by sometimes being vulnerable and asking for help and challenging the status quo
we need to recognize that our learning environments are changing and are very different from how we were once trained and educated
We need to remind our leaders that we are not just teachers of academics but we teach the whole person
Many of us struggle, without supports – to help impoverished families, students with mental health disabilities, learning disabilities, students that speak a different language, large class sizes, violence, inequalities
The conference in Jerusalem, Israel that Van Leer hosts each year is intended to encourage professional dialogue among educators, academics, representatives of the Third Sector, and policymakers from diverse areas and places in Israel and abroad. This year, I was asked to attend as a Canadian Teacher Representative, along with Ontario Ministry Officer, Colette Ruduck and our Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, George Zegarac.
With the theme of "Trust and Regulation" at the center of our discussions, it did not take long to realize that my context, as a Canadian Educator, a parent, and a student - was one of privilege and opportunity.
Interesting. I agree. I wish that we didn't have to grade student writing and could just give written or oral feedback. I love the "facade of coherence" comment.
Done right, she said, eliminating grades promotes rigor.
the elimination of grades — if they are replaced with narrative evaluations, rubrics, and clear learning goals — results in more accountability and better ways for a colleges to measure the success not only of students but of its academic programs.
Absolutely. My own institution, Dickinson College, sends ~70% of its students abroad for at least a semester, and most often a year. I have experience in education in different national contexts, and grading conventions simply do not translate.
ending grades can mean much more work for both students and faculty members.
Aye, there's the rub. Those of us who are serious about learning - students and faculty - have to recognize that better learning is more work. On the other hand, it's more fun, too.
When faculty members are providing written, detailed analyses of multiple course objectives and are also — for majors — relating performance to larger goals for the major, so much more is taking place she said, than in a letter grade.
the training that colleges provide to professors before they start producing narrative evaluations, and officials of the no-grades colleges all said that training was extensive, and that faculty members needed mentors as they started out.
According to Putnam, time spent with relatively passive and disengaging media has come at the expense of time spent on vital community-building activities.
The evidence to date is mixed
A core problem on both sides of the debate is an underlying assumption that all Internet use is more or less equivalent
It would be more plausible and empirically rigorous, then, to consider how specific forms of Internet activity impact civic and social engagement as a result of their particular underlying social architectures
combining conclusions from two different lines of MMO research conducted from two different perspectives—one from a media effects approach, the other from a sociocultural perspective on cognition and learning.
By providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new "third place" for informal sociability much like the pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts of old.
loosely structured by open-ended narratives
They are known for their peculiar combination of designed "escapist fantasy" and emergent "social realism"
from two research projects: one an examination of the media effects of MMOs, the other an ethnographic study of cognition and culture in such contexts.
the conclusions of both studies were remarkably aligned.
the assumption that the most fruitful advances are sometimes made when congruent findings are discovered through disparate means
demonstrate the "effects" of game play vs. no game play.
first project was a traditional effects study
second project, a qualitative study of cognition and learning in MMOs (
ethnography
sociocultural perspective
as a way to tease out what happens in the virtual setting of the game and how the people involved consider their own activities, the activities of others, and the contexts in which those activities takes place
a reasonable level of generalizability (random assignment to condition in the first study) and contextualization (ethnographic description of existing in-game social networks and practices in the second)
but I wonder why he chose these games -- this is not specified. Only their success in US and abroad?
brick-and-mortar "third places" in America where individuals can gather to socialize informally beyond the workplace and home
the exaggerated self-consciousness of individuals.
In what ways might MMOs function as new third places for informal sociability?
virtual environments have the potential to function as new (albeit digitally mediated) third places similar to pubs, coffee shops, and other hangouts.
in this section we analyze the structural form of MMOs that warrants this "third place" assertion.
eight defining characteristics of third places
there is no default obligation
To oblige any one person to play requires that explicit agreements be entered into by parties
the default assumption is that no one person is compelled to participate legally, financially, or otherwise.
Unless one transforms the virtual world of the game into a workplace (e.g., by taking on gainful employment as a virtual currency "farmer" for example, Dibbell, 2006; Steinkuehler, 2006a) or enters into such agreement, no one person is obligated to log in
and this is why, in my opinion, you will never see games in school. The game cannot be the Third Place because school is a Second Place.
Yee's (2006) interviews also reveal that individuals who game with romantic partners or family find that such joint engagement in the "other world" of MMOs allows them to redefine the nature and boundaries of their offline relationships, often in more equitable terms than what may be possible in day-to-day offline life
the relationships that play-partners have with one another offline are often "leveled" within the online world
an individual's rank and status in the home, workplace, or society are of no importance
appeal to people in part because they represent meritocracies otherwise unavailable in a world often filled with unfairness
conversation plays an analogous role
"In all such systems, linguistic interactions have been primary: users exchange messages that cement the social bonds between them, messages that reflect shared history and understandings (or misunderstandings) about the always evolving local norms for these interactions" (p. 22).
third places must also be easy to access
such that "one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there"
accessible directly from one's home, making them even more accommodating to individual schedules and preferences
barriers to initial access.
"What attracts a regular visitor to a third place is supplied not by management but by the fellow customer,"
"It is the regulars who give the place its character and who assure that on any given visit some of the gang will be there"
affective sense
As one informant satirically commented in an interview, "You go for the experience [points], you stay for the enlightening conversation.
engendering a sense of reliable mentorship and community stability.
Oldenburg argues that third places are characteristically homely, their d�cor defying tidiness and pretension whenever possible. MMOs do not fit this criterion in any literal sense
In neither of our investigations did the degree of formality exhibited by players within the game bear any relation to the degree of visual ornamentation of the players' immediate vicinity.
Thus, while the visual form of MMO environments does not fit Oldenburg's (1999) criterion of "low profile," the social function of those environments does.
Oldenburg (1999) argues that seriousness is anathema to a vibrant third place; instead, frivolity, verbal word play, and wit are essential.
The playful nature of MMOs is perhaps most apparent in what happens when individuals do bring gravity to the game.
the home-like quality of third places in rooting people
Participation becomes a regular part of daily life for players and, among regular gamemates such as guild members, exceptional absences (i.e., prolonged or unforeseen ones) are queried within the game or outside i
create an atmosphere of mutual caring that, while avoiding entangling obligations per se, creates a sense of rootedness to the extent that regularities exist, irregularities are duly noted, and, when concerning the welfare of any one regular, checked into
Are virtual communities really communities, or is physical proximity necessary?
Anderson (1991), who suggests that geographic proximity itself is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for the emergence and preservation of "community."
Social capital (Coleman, 1988) works analogously to financial capital; it can be acquired and spent, but for social and personal gains rather than financial
operates cyclically within social networks because of their associated norms of reciprocity
bridging social capital is inclusive.
This form of social capital is marked by tentative relationships, yet what they lack in depth, they make up for in breadth.
On the one hand, bridging social capital provides little in the way of emotional support; on the other hand, such relationships can broaden social horizons or worldviews, providing access to information and new resources.
bonding social capital is exclusive.
social superglue.
it can also result in insularity.
shows that bridging and bonding social capital are tied to different social contexts, given the network of relationships they enable.
Virtual worlds appear to function best as bridging mechanisms rather than as bonding ones, although they do not entirely preclude social ties of the latter type.
One could argue that, if the benchmark for bonding social capital is the ability to acquire emotional, practical, or substantive support, then MMOs are not well set up for the task:
While deep affective relationships among players are possible, they are less likely to generate the same range of bonding benefits as real-world relationships because of players' geographic dispersion and the nature of third places themselves.
Despite differences in theoretical grounding and methodologies, our conclusions were remarkably similar across complementary macro- and micro-levels.
It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more "hardcore" (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as "raids" into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as "third places" begins to wane.
It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the "life cycle" for some gamers in a given title.
In such cases, MMOs appear to enable a different kind of sociability, one ostensibly recognizable as a "community" nonetheless.
However, our research findings indicate that this conclusion is uninformed. To argue that MMO game play is isolated and passive media consumption in place of informal social engagement is to ignore the nature of what participants actually do behind the computer screen
Perhaps it is not that contemporary media use has led to a decline in civic and social engagement, but rather that a decline in civic and social engagement has led to retribalization through contemporary media (McLuhan, 1964).
Such a view, however, ignores important nuances of what "community" means by pronouncing a given social group/place as either wholly "good" or "bad" without first specifying which functions the online community ought to fulfill.
Moreover, despite the semantics of the term, "weak" ties have been shown to be vital in communities, relationships, and opportunities.
is to what extent such environments shift the existing balance between bridging and bonding
In light of Putnam's evidence of the decline of crucial civic and social institutions, it may well be that the classification "lacking bridging social capital" best characterizes the everyday American citizen. T
Without bridging relationships, individuals remain sheltered from alternative viewpoints and cultures and largely ignorant of opportunities and information beyond their own closely bound social network.
it seems ironic that, now of all times, we would ignore one possible solution to our increasingly vexed relationship with diversity.