2: Postmodern Epistemic Foundations

For posting to your personal website. Having read both articles, attempt the following for each: 1. pull out key concepts; 2. for each key concept write 2-3 sentence summary in your OWN WORDS (no quotes); 3. select a quote to support each key concept/summary; 4. having completed the summaries, now make the two articles talk to one another --- create a conceptual bridge and explain how one might relate to the other.

Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Progress.

Key Concepts:

1. Knowledge's understanding and value does not stay the same:

• Knowledge is something that is in flux (that is, a society's understanding of "knowledge" changes depending on a number of factors, especially what stage of development the society is currently in (industrial, post industrial, post modern, post post modern, etc).
• Recent developments in science surrounding linguistics, informatics, and cybernetics have helped shape our most recent understanding of knowledge, especially when coupled with recent developments in technology (and technologically mediated communication, and technologically assisted learning), etc.
• Advances in technology have allowed us to physically move, but also to send communications across the globe almost instantly -- this has forever changed the way knowledge will be understood and used by all, not just Western society.
• "It is reasonable to suppose that the proliferation of information-processing machines is having, and will continue to have, as much of an effect on the circulation of learning as did advancements in human circulation (transportation systems) and later, in the circulation of sounds and visual images (the media)." or more simply, "The nature of knowledge cannot survive unchanged within this context of general transformation."

2. We live in a knowledge economy

• Rather than knowledge creation for knowledge's sake, knowledge is now a commodity. That is, it has (economic) value and can be traded, knowledge is no longer ideas, it is now a "thing".
• The workforce has changed in developed countries to accommodate the shift from producing "goods" to producing "knowledge"; this is something that developing countries are constantly needing to play catch-up, yet the gap between developed and developing is constantly widening.
• "Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its "use-value".

3. The one who has the knowledge, has the power (*cough* not the state *cough*)

• Just as in the past nation states competed for natural resources and cheap labour, so too do nation states compete for (and strive to protect their own) knowledge by both industrial/commercial means, as well as political/military means.
• While knowledge has previously been the responsibility of the state (i.e. public education), ideological shifts towards transparency and competitiveness (i.e. capitalist free market economy values) which sees the state as 'bloated', 'useless', or 'opaque', will see knowledge production increasingly shift into the hands of those of the private sector (which is viewed as where innovation happens).
• With technological advancements being made by the private sector (and outside the hands of government), there are pressing concerns about who controls knowledge and whether they hold society's or their stockholders interests as primary (as these two stakeholders are seen as being mutually exclusive).
• "Suppose, for example, that a firm such as IBM is authorized to occupy a belt in the earth's orbital field and launch communication satellites or satellites housing data banks. Who will have access to them? Who will determine which channels or data are forbidden? The state? Or will the State simply be one user among others? New legal issues will be raised, and with them the question: "Who will know?""

4. Multinational corporations undermine the State

• The state's authority has become undermined by multi-national corporations, that is, mega corporations that transcend State boundaries and are driven by economic (rather than humanitarian) goals.
• A lack of any real alternatives to American capitalism has all of us headed down a path with (seemingly) no turning back, and technology is helping this take place at a rapid pace. Now is the time to reflect on this -- is this what we really want?
• "Already in the last few decades, economic powers have reached the point of imperiling the stability of the state through new forms of the circulation of capital that go by the generic name of multi-national corporations. These new forms of circulation imply that investment decisions have, at least in part, passed beyond the control of nation-states."

5. Knowledge requires someone with power in order to be legitimized

• The political and shifting nature of knowledge is concealed in myths surrounding the idea that knowledge is cumulative, that each discovery builds upon the last and we are constantly adding to the existing body of knowledge in regular increments (perhaps ever marching forward towards the goal of knowing everything about everything).
• The difference between "new scientific breakthrough" and "yet another crackpot" is whether it has been legitimized by someone in power. This is nothing new -- since Plato's time the idea of the person infused with the power to decide what is law, has also been the one infused with the authority to decide what is "fact" or "true".
• "The question of the legitimacy of science has been indissociably linked to that of the legitimation of the legislator since the time of Plato."

6. Language games

• The meaning behind (and infused within) a phrase can be multiple. Much like a game of chess (which has multiple moves that one can make) the rules may be simple, but this can still lead to complex outcomes (and are highly dependent on the initial conditions).
• "...to speak is to fight, in the sense of playing, and speech acts fall within the domain of a general agonistics. This does not necessarily mean that one plays in order to win. A move can be made for the sheer pleasure of its invention."

de Castell, S. & Jenson, J. (2004). "Paying attention to attention: New economies for learning". Educational Theory. 54(4)

1. "Attentional economy"

• The increasing proliferation of technology amongst all aspects of our lives means that attention has become a commodity of value. Education now finds itself in competition with advertisers, toys, gadgets, and finds itself having to integrate new forms of literacy (especially digital literacy) with more "traditional" approaches to learning.
• Attention as having a "value" is not something new to education -- we can easily read student-teacher interactions through the lens of exchange as students have previously exchanged their attention for grades. However perhaps now the table are turned: rather than students needing to prove that they deserve the teacher's positive attention (or are not the ones who deserve their negative attentions, i.e punishment) it is teachers who now must "justify" why they "deserve" the attention of their students.
• "Education, which has always been in the business of capturing and holding attention, has sustained serious blows to its capabilities as core values, along with traditional tools, means, and purposes, have been progressively troubled, destabilized and finally unseated by new literacies and digital epistemologies."

2. New technologies reward children with choice

• The idea of "choice" is something that has remained largely outside of education's vernacular, especially with for example, the banking model of education. However, education has a harder time justifying this lack of choice when students are given the opportunity to decide what/when/how they want to interact with the technologies that are competing for their attention.
• New technologies promise (or illusion) of multi-tasking are more rewarding than education's traditional "unimodal" approach. Students in the classroom are expected to focus on the task at hand, while outside the classroom they can be shifting between multiple things at once. This would be seen as "distraction" or "off task" within the actual classroom.
• "Children quite literally pay their attention to new multimodal tools designed for them. These tools undermine singular modes (such as text) so completely that even technologies like the telephone, once tied to boxes and switches, have broken free both materially and symbolically..."

3. The blurring of entertainment and education

• With two-income families reducing the chances that someone will be at home when the children return from school and the increasing idea that "outside = dangerous and unsafe", kids are left alone more than ever before. Educational video games are one of the things that are being used to fill this void with "useful" entertainment.
• The immersive nature of games is something of interest to education scholars, just as it is at best strange, at worst, threatening, to teachers and parents who might not understand the ways in which these technologies become part of children's lives and social structures.
• "Gaming's ability to mobilize and sustain a culture that immerses and fully absorbs its participants makes it threatening to many parents and teachers. And in many ways, it is. Today, for example, as a direct result of the proliferation of digital technologies in education, in work, and in social life, children live in the same physical spaces as their parents but inhabit different worlds, speak in new languages, write in new forms, and communicate using media in ways and for purposes parents can scarcely comprehend".

4. Play is important for learning

• Play-based learning is something that traditionally, at best, is found in the earliest grades but is something that children are supposed to "grow out of". However, educational research recognizes that the games mentioned above can be valuable in their immersive qualities that can be immensely valuable for education.
• Males (both men and boys) tend to be the primary consumers of video games, which accounts for their interest in and confidence when working with computers. With boys more likely to be playing games in the home, they are at an advantage if and when technology is brought into the classroom.
• With females (both women and girls) continuing to be at the margins of gaming (and computer) culture, their lack of opportunity to play puts them at a great disadvantage for learning.
• "This early gaming experience amounts to a "head start" for boys that accrues incrementally for the duration of schooling and beyond, such that we continue to see a dramatic, and indeed increasing, underrepresentation of women in computer and technology focused subjects and fields."

5. Attention is a "fixed resource" or "zero sum" and multitasking is a way around this

• While the variety of interesting, alluring, and shiny technology continues to grow, human beings only have a fixed amount of attention they can "pay out". Basically, in order to pay attention to one thing, you have to disregard an increasing number of other things.
• However... multitasking calls this into question. Younger generations seem to have a super-human ability to keep their eyes (and attention) on many balls in the air at once. But perhaps they are just keeping themselves occupied, as traditional educational delivery has a lot of downtime and requirements for students to wait for the teacher. With so many things competing for one's attention, it seems like the days of sitting at a desk waiting patiently until the teacher is ready are now gone.
• "How much more absurd it must seem to today's students that they should spend so much time simply waiting on teachers -- it is not at al surprising that they often do not. This attentional restructuring has presented particular difficulty for teachers trying to adapt to instruction in computer lab settings: students at computers do not just "wait until the teacher is ready"; they do their email or surf the Web or chat or draw."

6. Towards a multimodal approach to education

• Ranciere's argument that all people are equally intelligent and capable of learning without a teacher, on their own is seen as "radical". However, the embracing of all sorts of new technologies by young people show that perhaps this isn't so radical after all. Video games can perhaps provide a way into this for educators, where students can take control of their own learning objectives and the pace at which they complete them.
• Students have embraced new technologies, but educators have been much more reluctant to do so. However, no matter as much as one might want to put their head in the sand, students are engaging with new technologies (and new was of forming knowledge) and to ignore this is to render the educational system completely obsolete.
• "In education, pleasure does not figure prominently; neither, we would argue, do relevance or context. Schools and governmental policies still prioritize (in print), and teachers still enforce in practice, an "old fashioned," exclusively text-based literacy, despite well-worn arguments and new theorizations that have taken the term to mean much more than reading and writing text".

Conceptual bridging:

Perhaps it is too simple to say that both articles are talking about economies, but they are. In Lyotard's writing he lays out the argument that knowledge is not only a commodity, it is a commodity that bundles with it a large degree of power, influence, and political cache. For de Castell and Jenson, it is attention that is the commodity in question. Just as nation states are quickly losing power and control (and this power and control is being taken up by multi-national corporations), so too are traditional approaches to education losing the attention of the students they are trying to reach. Both of these papers act as a warning -- pay attention (hah) to what is going on or else traditional seats of power are going to be rendered obsolete.

Both of these papers, in their concerns about economies, are talking about two parts of the information economy. While in the past economies were built on raw materials, or perhaps what sorts of goods could be built with those raw materials, now it is knowledge that is bought, sold, and traded around the globe. However, knowledge being an "economic good" wasn't always the case. Somewhere along the line people had to be convinced that knowledge was something that should be protected, rather than shared. A new generation of workers needs to be trained in this fundamental shift in the understanding of knowledge. Students are told that they must be prepared for this new economy, so technological skill is something that should be a goal. However, just as Lyotard points out that developing countries are being left behind at an ever quickening pace, so too do de Castell and Jenson point out that women (and girls) are being left behind in this technological revolution. By calling attention to these problems with the notions of progress (and tradition) I feel that both these papers act as a warning. However, I fear that the people who most need to hear these warnings are too busy chasing bunny trails to know that this is something actually worth paying attention to.