Walls - Research Schedule

After spending a few class periods doing some seriously creative brainstorming, our big group project for Digital Ethnography has really started taking shape.  Collectively, we're embarking on a critique of the modern education system, with special emphasis (among other things) on how students are mediated and how this mediation affects their educational experience.  Each person in the class will be working on a certain section of the research "narrative" and eventually create his/her own mini-sode.  We've set the narrative up in a way that will allow each minisode to naturally flow into the next, leaving us with what will hopefully turn out to be a compelling and insightful whole.

The section I'll be working on deals with "walls" in the education system, and it will come right after a segment about "College Unbound," which generally refers to an alternative form of education that breaks from the "standard" educational experience (see Haley's post for a much better explanation).  The nature of my section, however, will be like a critique of the critique--in essence, a dialectical response to the main concept of the project overall.  While I wouldn't think of denying that there are serious issues with the system as it is, I want to explore the idea that there's a great deal of good in the traditional system--that its "walls" can be a boon instead of a bane and that they are worth saving.  The centerpiece of my minisode will be a story about a Topeka high school's unsuccessful experiment as a "school without walls," followed by my attempt to understand why altering the structure didn't work in this specific case.  Here's a more detailed breakdown of what I envision my research process/schedule to look like:

Week 1 (2/20/11-2/26/11)

• Read Dewey's "Education and Experience" (have completed by 2/23)
• Try to find recordings, video of Dewey speaking (?)
• Do a quick lit review of "radical" education reform (library catalog search; online databases)
• Contact Seaman High School alumnus (Caitlin's mom) and set up interview
• Use Evernote, note cards, Onenote (for now, the trial version) to document and organize thoughts, sources, material

Week 2 (2/27/11-3/5)

• Continue to research examples of "free school" and "school without walls" experiments (like the Free School in Albany, NY, the School Without Walls in Washington D.C., etc.) (hopefully have much of the research wrapped up by 3/3/11)
• Research Seaman High School experiment with education in the 1970s
• Contact SHS; attempt to find newspaper clippings about the story

Week 3 (3/6/11-3/12/11)

• Hopefully have interview with Caitlin's mom completed by 3/7/11; try to get old year books, contact information of other alumni
• Interview and/or tape record interviews
• Visit current SHS and get footage of school; try to find pictures of of SHS "without walls" (3/12/11 - tentative)
• Try to find solid and cooperative KSU professor who thrives on--and whose students enjoy--the traditional style (but of course slightly reformed)

Week 4 (3/13/11-3/19/11)

• Interview other SHS alumni (?)
• Interview KSU professor (possibly Dr. Wesch?) on benefits of traditional style education, complete with walls
• Return to literature; find information about benefits of traditional education, inquiry method (Postman), sacred "third" space

With a substantial amount of work--paired with a bit of luck--I'll hopefully have the research stage completed before Spring break, leaving time to compile all my materials into a video format during or immediately after break.  Any and all suggestions for improvements are welcome and would be greatly appreciated!

An Ode to Tradition

It's hard for me to believe that I've already managed to make another video!  It just goes to show that with a little hard work, some long hours in the media center (when it's open O_o), and a lot of support from my fellow Diggies, even tech novices can do some cool stuff =)

Anyway, this is the second video I've created for Dr. Wesch's Digital Ethnography course at Kansas State University.  Going in a different direction than I originally planned, I found my inspiration for the concept of this video after experiencing an especially heavy bout of academic apathy and overall laziness, and then reacting back against that.  Admittedly some viewers might find the message of this video a bit reactionary or old-fashioned.  Consider it a (hopefully) reasonable critique of the recent push toward educational reform, an "antithesis" to the thesis of the overwhelming majority of ideas being compiled by all the other incredible VOST2011 contributors.  (Speaking of which, look for the clip from liman1989's video "affect my learning"--I hope she will pardon my critique.)  You may not agree (I'm not entirely sure about my own agreement yet), but hopefully it will bring forth a strong ideological synthesis =)

This is a video "trailer" created for Dr. Michael Wesch's "Digital Ethnography" course at Kansas State University.  We're studying how we are mediated in our everyday lives and the impact that has on our education system.  Credits for the music belong to Strange Zero for the song "Mirteaux," on the album "Newborn Butterflies."  This video is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.  I'd be happy to let anyone remix it -- just drop me a message =)

Purpose

Hello =)

My name is Steven Kelly, and if you happen to be reading this--well, thanks!  This is my first blog, so take it easy on me.  I'm currently in my last semester at Kansas State University, having spent the last four-and-a-half years studying anthropology, political science, history, and international studies.  I must admit that the reason I started this blog is because it was an assignment given to me in one of my anthropology classes this semester, Digital Ethnography with Dr. Michael Wesch.  In essence, this class is about learning how to utilize digital technologies in performing ethnographic research--a form of anthropological research that involves studying a particular culture or subculture from that culture's point of view, on its own terms.  More specifically, Dr. Wesch will lead a small group of students and me to better understand how we are "mediated" in our culture (i.e. how the various technological/digital media that permeate virtually every level of our society affect how we live) and how others in other cultures are mediated as well.  It's going to be some adventure, one that will likely push the boundaries of my intellect as well as my (sadly, but not sadly) limited technological skills.  I hope you'll keep up with my blog and share in this adventure with me =)

All this being said, it's perfectly natural if you're a "smidge" curious about the title of my blog and my first post (the selection from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings), since the connection between them and this class is relatively obscure.  To start with, I'm a complete Tolkien nut.  Don't get me wrong--in virtually all other aspects I'm about as normal an almost-23-year-old college guy as you get (including my fondness for cold beer, late-night pepperoni and jalapeno pizza, football games, Ridley Scott films, and so forth).  But when it comes to Tolkien's fantastical realm of Middle-earth, my "nerd factor" is through the roof.  One of my informal life missions is to show that loving LOTR and fantasy fiction/film is not abnormal at all--but my thoughts on that matter is probably best left to another post (or another blog altogether, really).  For now, just take my word for it ;) 

To get back to the original curiosity, the reason I chose to lead off my blog with this particular passage from LOTR is that it is a great example of how people's lives in Middle-earth are/were/would-have-been mediated.  The palantiri, or seeing stones (trans. as "far-seeing" in Quenya Elvish), were about as close to the Internet as the denizens of Middle-earth got.  These dark spheres of crystalline stone, hailing from the ancient days of that fantasy realm, allowed the possesor/viewer to instantly communicate with the other stones and to see people and places far away.  If you're familiar with the story, you'd know that they are very dangerous and powerful tools that were exceptionally rare, exceptionally valuable, and used only by those of exceptional will and skill.  In that way they are very different from most digital technologies today, which are now about as common as table salt.  The principle, however, remains essentially the same.  The palantiri mediated the lives of people in Middle-earth just as many of our technologies mediate our lives in the actual world today.  In both cases there are also benefit and pitfalls of using these technologies--what matters is to determine how to effectively and responsibly use them.  

So, there it is.  I greatly look forward to exploring the methods of digital ethnography and researching how people are mediated in their daily lives.  Don't fret--I won't incorporate applications from Middle-earth in many of my posts from here on out.  It would be a disservice to force the two subjects together when the connection isn't substantially there.  (I would, however, expect to see me relate some of my interests in Middle-earth with a possible individual research project in this class: online fan communities.)  Feel free to comment on my posts and provide constructive criticism if you'd like.  Like I said, I'm new to this kind of thing and would appreciate feedback.  

And with that, I'll sign off and end with one of my favorite quotations that I think is wonderfully applicable here.  "'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door,' [Bilbo] used to say.  'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'"

Inspiration

“‘The palantiri came from beyond Westernesse, from Eldamar.  The Noldor made them.  Feanor himself, maybe, wrought them, in days so long ago that the time cannot be measured in years…

‘What did the men of old use them for?’ asked Pippin, delighted and astonished at getting answers to so many questions, and wondering how long it would last.

‘To see far off, and to converse in thought with one another,’ said Gandalf.  ‘In that way they long guarded and united the realm of Gondor.  They set up Stones at Minas Anor, and at Minas Ithil, and at Orthanc in the ring of Isengard.  The chief and master of these was under the Dome of Stars at Osgiliath before its ruin.  The three others were far away in the North.  In the house of Elrond it is told that they were at Anuminas, and Amon Sul, and Elendil’s Stone was on the Tower Hills that look towards Mithlond in the Gulf of Lune where the grey ships lie.

‘Each palantir replied to each, but all those in Gondor were ever open to the view of Osgiliath.  Now it appears that, as the rock of Orthanc has withstood the storms of time, so there the palantir of that tower has remained.  But alone it could do nothing but see small images of things far off and days remote.  Very useful, no doubt, that was to Saruman; yet it seems that he was not content.  Further and further abroad he gazed, until he cast his gaze upon Barad-dur.  Then he was caught!’”

~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers (2004 [1954]), pp. 597-8.  New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.