Random Thoughts

I love the topic of visual imagery and how it impacts communication. It brings me back to my very first Psychology class my sophomore year in high school discussing subliminal messages. I can recall being fascinated and appalled all at the same time. I remember thinking to myself ‘does this really work?’ And the more I studied it, the more I realized it did.

I have for years spent a good chunk of time focusing on communication skills with my students. A large portion of our time is spent on a lot of nonverbal stuff. We even talk about how the clothes you wear and how you do your hair tells people something about you…all visual imagery.

One of the neatest things I’ve seen in some time is International School Brussel’s idea of having a “brochure without words.” There is some powerful visual imagery. What I found important, though, was that the pictures were full of impact in and of themselves-but without the carefully chosen words added, I think the essence of what was trying to be communicated would have been diluted. I felt the combination of some very careful word choice, keeping it minimal, and then some excellent pictures worked together to create a powerfully moving package. So much so that when my friend and I looked at it we were ready to pack up and move to that school!

We have for a long time manipulated visual imagery to enhance our communication-or to convince others of a point of view or belief. Now we are in an age where this can be done faster, easier, and even more powerfully. Whereas before the lay person was not able to readily create imagery for a variety of reasons, now anyone with access to technology and some simple programs can find ways to manipulate imagery to serve her purpose. Done correctly, absolutely this can enhance communication…but it can also detract from it if done poorly!

The idea of visual literacy is one that’s been around for quite some time. In this new era of being inundated with visual media at each and every turn, teaching skills of visual literacy suddenly become of paramount importance.

In reading Erin Riesland’s Visual Literacy in the Classroom, some things that she wrote jumped out at me:

Although the definition of literacy remains a hotly contested topic among educators and researchers, it is hard to deny that technology is driving the debate. While reading and writing will most likely remain at the heart of standard literacy education, educators should reconsider what it means to be literate in the technological age.

Additionally, she goes on to say:

Advertisers understand how to reach youngsters (and really, just about anyone) far better than educators. Professional visual communicators hold the power when communicating in the modern media image-centric environment.

This is something that educators have been talking about for quite a while. What does literacy mean now, in this digital age? How do we teach our kids about literacy when we are still trying to understand what it means ourselves?

Just defining visual literacy can prove to be a daunting task. I found this site that offered up a myriad of quotes and definitions about visual literacy. This quote summed up my feelings about visual literacy fairly well:

“Each of us reacts to the picture on the basis of our own sensitivity, culture, intelligence, mood and passion. What is more, the interpretation of one and the same photograph will be different at different times. A photograph produced today will offer a different impact tomorrow. Even the place where the photograph is seen can dictate our reactions. A photograph published in a gossip weekly cannot have, a priori, the same impact as a photograph on display in a museum or of another printed in a sophisticated book. The environment where the photograph appears may determine our reading of it.” (Source:
Grazia Neri from “Ethics and Photography”)

This is an important component when looking at visual literacy. Using this explanation of visual literacy, do we teach this to our students and make sure they understand it?

Frank Baker, a well-known media educator, writes about students and media literacy:

Many of our students believe everything they see–including digitally altered images sent to them online.

These are all ideas that we need to be aware of as we take on the task of educating our students to be prepared for this new age of literacy. We also need to begin to understand how we ‘see’ visual media ourselves.

I came across this quote from Larry Smarr, a physicist and leader in scientific computing, supercomputer applications, and Internet infrastructure. This quote struck me, especially in light of the recent events involving swine flu around the world.

“Having a wiki world, and having an ability to instantaneously set up mass collaboration, you can solve problems on a time scale that’s going to matter. So if we start having a bird flu pandemic, or if global warming continues to accelerate, we may not have the luxury of what I think of today as the slow speed of coming to answers for the challenges confronting the human race. And so the idea of being able to apply all the brains on the planet to a time urgent situation is something that we are going to look back on and be really glad that we figured out how to do because otherwise it’s going to be too late.”

Sometimes when I stop and think about what all this means, I start to feel overwhelmed with it all. The idea of what mass collaboration means today can leave me feeling utterly exhausted with the sheer immensity of what it would, and could, look like. Then add in the idea of preparing students for a world of mass collaboration…and it’s almost more than one person can think about. I guess it’s a good thing then we have the ability to think about it collaboratively on a massive scale!

In an article titled Mass collaboration: Harnessing the power of global ideas, the author writes:

The trend of you continues.
You were the person of the year in 2006, chosen for Time magazine’s annual honour.
You are also the focus of a new book by Toronto’s own Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams about mass collaboration: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

My initial reaction to this was maybe it’s time for the ‘person’ of the year to be “us” instead of “you.” If we’re talking about mass collaboration, maybe we need to start thinking about the idea of we instead of me. Dana wrote something similar on her blog post about the idea of mass collaboration and how she could see individual egos being problematic in some situations. I, too, wonder how all of this will pan out in the long run. Will it be easier for students who grow up with the idea of mass collaboration to put aside individual egos? A bunch of us were just discussing the other day that we felt our generation (raised mostly in the eighties) was very much a ‘me’ generation, all about getting what ‘I’ want and need. Will these next generations see things differently because that’s just the way it has always been for them?

Not that I don’t think those of us raised in different generations can’t embrace this new way of being. Dana wrote on her blog:

I have recently worked on an amazing new project called the Connected World with three colleagues. We have never worked better together, and when you combine the skill set of the four of us, you have one powerhouse of a teacher. Together we have created a curriculum that is so engaging to teach. I love going to work and learning as much as my students every day.

This is what it is all about. This is collaboration at its finest. Let’s take this idea, and expand upon it even further. What if these four amazing teachers shared their ideas with four more amazing teachers? And those new teachers did the same? And so on and so forth and pretty soon, massive amounts of teachers feel the way Dana feels. And these super happy and excited teachers are impacting hundreds and thousands of kids.

My hope is that we will all come to embrace and appreciate this age of collaboration. I know my fingers are crossed that we will be able to prepare kids properly for the world of mass collaboration. I have a sneaking suspicion that they are already well on their way to understanding it all by themselves anyway!

The other day Jeff and I were streaming the radio, listening to the “Top 40 Countdown” from the USA. The host is none other than American Idol’s Ryan Seacrest; having been out of the states for so long, we hadn’t known that was one of his ‘other jobs’! As we’re streaming the show, Ryan asks a question of his listeners and tells them to ‘Twitter your response back’. Jeff and I both stopped what we were doing (painting the living room) and looked at each other in surprise. When did Twittering become a routine part of radio shows?

I was catching up on my news stories a few days ago and came across an article about people who were charged astronomical amounts on their cell phone bills. In each incident, the person being charged the exorbitant amount was being ‘connected’ in some way. One gentleman was downloading a movie while on holiday, another man was streaming a football game while on a cruise. A young girl was secretly sending 100s of text messages a day to her friends, and yet another gentleman was stationed in a remote area in Canada and decided to use his cell phone as a modem…$83,000 USD later he realized it wasn’t such a great idea!

On Sunday we decided to order pizza for delivery (too hot to cook!). We now don’t pick up the phone, we pop open the laptop. We input our order (including what toppings we want added and removed) and hit submit. Approximately 30 minutes later our pizza is delivered to our door.

I discovered the other day that my very good friend was fighting off a bad case of pneumonia. I also read that her mom, who lives in Arizona, had fallen and needed to get staples in a gash on her head. I learned of this all through Twitter. My friend learned about her mom’s accident via twitter as well.

Last week I called my mom in Washington State on her cell phone via Skype from Bangkok. While I was talking to my mom on the phone, I was chatting on Skype with my best friend who works in Shanghai. At the same time, I was sending text messages to my sister’s cell phone in the states via my email account.

This brings me to the question ‘what makes the web so powerful?’…I believe it is connections: whenever, wherever, with whomever. We have the ability to connect to anyone and everyone all of the time. I’ve only been routinely using the Internet for about the last ten years or so, but even I feel a sense of ‘emptiness’ when the Internet is down (don’t tell Jeff!). When I’m unable to get a signal on my cell phone, I suddenly feel cut off from the world, yet I can remember a time when hardly anyone had cell phones. I’m not sure when this switch happened, but it did happen. We’ve entered this digitally connected world and I don’t think there is any turning back. Whether we like this ability to ‘constantly connect’ or not, it is a part of this world we are now living in. I have to admit, rather reluctantly, that I am one of those people who likes the ability to be connected…often. But I still am holding out against getting an iPhone, one per family is enough I think!

In an earlier blog post (Back in the saddle again) I wrote about International School Bangkok’s MS Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). We had looked at the policies by division and picked out parts of them that we found interesting or significant. There were two parts of the MS AUP that struck me. The AUP states:

Online safety is a personal responsibility. It is important that students are aware of the implications of their actions online, both to themselves and to others. The actions students take in social networking areas like MySpace, Facebook, or others, can impact their university applications, job searches, and overall reputation. It can also provide sensitive information to online predators.

I asked in my original post, whose job is it to teach kids this ‘responsibility? Where do they learn what that responsible behavior is supposed to look like? The AUP also goes on to make a statement about cyberbullying:

Cyber-bullying is not tolerated at ISB. ISB becomes involved when student’s online activities impact at-school life and community. In other words, if the actions of students outside of school have an effect on students feeling unsafe or uncomfortable at school, then ISB administration will act and remedy this. Additionally, if members of ISB staff or its community are targeted, then the school administration will get involved.

This is a strong, and I think necessary statement. I think being an International School we have a bit more flexibility when it comes to laws around liabilities and such. I’m not sure how this would look in other countries. I do think, however, that with anything, there is some subjectivity involved. In reading a recent article about a student who was penalized for publishing derogatory statements about school administration on her personal blog from home, I found myself concerned with where our lines are drawn. Another article shared how a school in California responded to a group of students who started a ‘hate group’ on Facebook about another student. Laws are changing as people become aware of the potential effects of irresponsible Internet use.

In this day and age, I think as a school we are doing students a serious disservice if we are not teaching them about online safety, responsibility online, and ethical Internet use. Ideally, kids would be getting these digital literacy skills from home (and many are I’m sure). However, with the rate of change and the speed at which information is evolving, I believe educational institutions need to shoulder much of the burden for helping students to understand their digital world. Realistically, many parents are ill equipped to support and guide their children because they themselves lack the skills and information. Maybe helping parents to learn and understand digital literacy is also something that schools should be considering.

Within an educational institution, whose job is it to make sure this information is being taught to students? I don’t know if I have the answer to that…my hope is that it’s everyone’s responsibility to be teaching these skills. Yet my worry is that if it’s everyone’s job, then who is held accountable to ensure it is happening? Where are the standards and benchmarks in our curriculum for these digital literacy skills? As a counselor, I know I feel responsible for ensuring my students are gaining the skills required to be successful in life. In this life, they need to be equipped to navigate the digital world. So, I guess it’s my job too.

In reading different articles and blog posts surrounding copyright laws, I’ve noticed a couple of reoccurring themes. Primarily “I am not a lawyer” appears often when well known bloggers are offering up opinions/advice about copyright. Additionally, answers about copyright are ambiguous and vague…it seems that there are no fast and hard answers when it comes to this issue. Often people trying to ‘do the right thing’ are frustrated and left without a clear answer of what that ‘right thing’ is when it comes to using copyrighted material.

Doug Johnson wrote about this in his post Copyright Counseling. I love this title…I think it fits with the idea (as in counseling) that having a black and white answer to problems/questions isn’t how it works! His idea of taking in all the information and then making a judgment “based on your own interpretation of fair use” works for me.

As a global society, do we need to rethink copyright laws? Absolutely. An article about a high school athlete who was inadvertently catapulted into the limelight because of a routine photo taken at a track meet is a perfect illustration. How can we control copyright in a world that is hyper connected and linked? This girl legally has no avenue to put an end to the unwanted attention she’s received. Even if she did, it is unrealistic to think that she could even begin to find and retrieve all of the photos that have been posted and copied over and over again. How do we deal with these issues? My heart goes out to this girl and her family; they’ve had their lives turned upside down through no fault of their own. But how do we protect ourselves and our loved ones?

Protecting ourselves and determining ownership is one aspect of copyright. The other side of copyright is acknowledging the creators of material and ‘compensating’ people for their work. Shouldn’t artists be credited with their work and be able to receive compensation for what they have created? Of course they should…but maybe this will look a bit different in this digitally connected world we live in. Attempting to control the illegal downloads of songs and videos, for example, hasn’t seemed to work. The recent court case against Pirate Bay is a good example-last time I checked (this morning) the Pirate Bay website was still up and running!

I don’t have any answers, but I definitely think that our antiquated ideas of copyright need updating! Creative Commons seems to be a progressive way of looking at copyright…

The concept of privacy is something that I have found myself thinking about quite a bit lately. Interestingly, Jeff and I were having a discussion about this idea more than a month ago (long before it became an essential question in our course!).  I had just finished reading the book Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. Initially, I found the book very disturbing…it was pretty graphic with the violence and raw human aggression.  However, it did make me think long after I had finished reading it. That’s when I classify it as a ‘good book’. Though I would clarify the recommendation with a caveat about the content of the book!

One part of the book that struck me was how during the middle ages, people lived in one room homes. Often in the book, the family sleeps in the great halls of the manors and castles. Many people and couples and children slept all together in one great room. Acts of lovemaking were done under the cover of a cloak…which afforded very little privacy for sure! This started me thinking about our current idea of privacy. Where did we develop this concept of what privacy means? In other cultures, how is privacy viewed?

Living in China, we were witnesses firsthand to the arguments between couples on the streets and in the parks. At first we found this confusing, then we realized that being out in public probably afforded them more privacy than in their tiny, crowded homes! It also made me realize that not so long ago in America, people probably also went outside their homes to have a ‘private’ conversation. So when did we start making that switch, and why? When did we start moving towards this idea of privacy and a right to have our information and business kept to ourselves when historically, it would seem, it was anything but like this?

I find myself wondering if we are entering a new age of privacy and how we will need to define it. Case in point: I am a reluctant (putting it mildly) user of Facebook. Just recently, I visited my homepage and found a picture attached to someone else’s ‘newsfeed’ that was showing up on MY homepage. Now, I’m friends with the user who first started the feed, but am not friends with the people who commented on her note. Yet, their words and pictures were coming up on my page. Some of this content was disturbing and I was uncomfortable with it on my page. I ended up ‘unfriending’ the friend, just to be safe, but still found myself thinking about the incident long after it was over.

I guess this was one of the lessons that drove home this idea of controlling your online profile and protecting your own privacy. This week we read some articles that talked a bit about what online privacy means. The author of Don’t overestimate privacy of online information warns us to:

Knowing what a site’s terms of use are is critical before signing your name to anything, just as posting information about yourself. Before you join the popular world of social networking and post anything, know that someone out there may see it.

I think this is very good advice! The article talks quite a bit about recent developments in Facebook’s user policies and how they can change in a way that could remove any vestiges of privacy we may have thought we had.

Another article we read, Beware: the Internet could own your future, starts off with:

 A friend sent me a bumper sticker on Facebook that read, “Do you ever look at a picture of yourself and see a stranger in the background? It makes you wonder how many people have pictures of you.” While I laughed upon reading the silly message, I also found myself a little disturbed.  

I too find this idea somewhat disturbing…suddenly our idea of privacy is completely turned on its head! Where before, these pictures could end up in a stranger’s album, or at worst maybe posted on bulletin board, now these pictures are posted online to be seen by potentially millions of people. Add to this the prevalence of digital cameras (do they even make cell phones without one anymore?) and you have yourself a recipe for complete obliteration of our privacy.

So, this brings back my question…do we need to rethink what privacy means? How will we define what privacy means in this new, digital world that we are all (some of us reluctantly) existing in today?

In my head I’m singing “back in the saddle again!” Here I go again…I can’t say that I missed writing on my blog during my few weeks of respite between COETAIL courses, but there was a time or two when I found myself thinking “I could write that on my blog!” So maybe I am coming around to blogging after all…or maybe not.

We had our first Face to Face meeting for our course a week ago. I am definitely a fan of classes that combine both an online component, but also still add a F2F component as well. What can I say, maybe it’s the counselor in me!

One of the activities that we did in our F2F meeting was to read and examine the Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) at our respective school levels. It was interesting the format we used, which did not allow for ‘cross-talk’ during the activity. One person picked out a statement or part of the AUP that struck them, the others in the group were allowed to say one or two sentences about it (taking turns) but no one was allowed to comment or interrupt. I’m not sure that this format was my favorite, but I could see times when it might be a useful way to facilitate a discussion in groups.

Reading the AUP for the middle school, there was a part of it that I found very interesting (as did others in my group based on their comments!). The Middle School AUP states:

Online safety is a personal responsibility. It is important that students are aware of the implications of their actions online, both to themselves and to others. The actions students take in social networking areas like MySpace, Facebook, or others, can impact their university applications, job searches, and overall reputation. It can also provide sensitive information to online predators.

What I found myself wondering as I read that is where do kids learn this ‘personal responsibility’ from? Who’s responsibility is it to teach the kids what that means and what it looks like? I wonder if because it’s part of the AUP, does that mean the school/curriculum has a responsiblity to ensure that each student is equipped with the knowledge and skills to keep his/her online profile safe and practice good digital citizenship?

More and more this concern is coming up. There are companies now that can help you ‘clean up’ your image online. More and more employers are searching online for information about prospective employees. For some time now, colleges and universities have begun utilizing online information when examining admission applications. Articles like Protecting Your Digital Footprint and Your Online Reputation Can Hurt Your Job Search are being seen more and more.

Much of this centers around the social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook. These sites bring up the issue and concern of privacy. This concept of privacy and what it means today is something I have been giving a lot of thought lately…but those thoughts will have to wait until my next post!