Course:Recurring Questions of Technology/Keywords/O P
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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One-to-one
An adjective describing an equal correspondence between two things. Earliest uses of were as an adjective to describe the direct contact between two individuals (“Their chargings oft, their cruel fight, their meetings one to one,..made for hir loue alone.”, A. Hall’s translation of Homer’ Iliad, 1581). As an adjective, the earliest recorded written use H.S. Osborne “For the sake of brevity, the one-to-one proportion is called the one-oxide, or protoxide, and the other the one-and-a-half oxide.” (Metallurgy of Iron and Steel, 1869). More recently in within the realm of educational technology, one-to-one is used to describe the correspondence between students and digital technologies. Often, these technologies are laptops, tablet devices or smart devices which are to be accessible by each student. It is thought that providing such access to computers, as a consequence, internet access that student achievement will ultimately increase (Zucker, 2005, Weston & Bain, 2010). Locally, several school districts in the province have implemented limited one-to-one initiatives, including School District #42 and #43. With this technological infrastructure in place, the dynamic between students and teacher can change, where students are empowered to pursue interests in a more expansive informational milieu than books would afford and teachers become guides to learning as opposed to primary sources of information. While the potential for deep learning is arguably greater with these devices, it is worth noting that this potential may not be realized unless teachers are properly trained on how to leverage the technology for learning (Stansbury, 2010). (John Cunnian)
Online Learning
Often interchanged with the term ‘e-learning’, online learning refers to learning through the Internet, either solely online or as part of a blended (a mix or face-to-face and online) model. According to the Ministry of Education in British Columbia, in their 2012/2013 Transformation + Technology Update, not all teaching methods work for all learners, and therefore online education has a place to support diverse learning needs. It reports that, “a third of all students now graduate with at least one online course; in fact, some districts require this, to prepare students for lifelong learning after graduation,” (p. 14). While online learning is not for everyone, it is a good option for those in remote areas or who cannot participate in classroom settings due to other reasons. A search for online learning on Wikipedia yields a definition for e-learning. “E-learning is the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual education opportunities and digital collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM. It can be self-paced or instructor-led and includes media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming video and audio,” (Wikipedia). In the BC Education Plan, online learning is highlighted in the context of the section on ‘flexibility and choice’, providing the statistic that “enrollment in online courses has grown by more than 500% in the last five years.” Linda Harasim is known for the OCL (Online Collaborative Learning Theory) and has said in an interview, “the online learning environment offers an unprecedented opportunity for students to participate in group discussions or group work, at a time and place that is most convenient to them and appropriate to the task. Asynchronous e-learning is open 24/7! All students can, and with good instructional design, do participate actively and contribute to advancing group knowledge.” (Eva Ziemsen)
Open Access
Open Access is a term that came into use at the end of the 19th century to refer to the theory or policy of being accessible to all. The cost of well researched articles and restrictions on permission to use the information has been a barrier for libraries in the past and present. The need for “direct and unrestricted access for readers to the shelves on which publications are kept” (1894). Prior to this the term was used as early as 1602 in English literature in reference to “accepting or permitting sexual advances.“ OED. In our current digital age, Open-access (OA) is in reference to the open society movement that also includes open educational resources and open source software. The Budapest Open Access Initative is one group that began to establish guidelines for how the work of our great scholars and scientists can be shared using the technolgy of the internet. (2002) Open-access literature is “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.”( Peter Suber 2012) ”In every field, open access journals are making research available to a much wider range of readers than print and subscription models have been able to achieve. ” (J Willinsky 2003) This open-access of information including medical and science journals is “aimed at solving one of the most glaring problems of poverty and poor human development in the global information economy“ (Benkler, 2005). (Holly Paris)
Open educational resources
A term first used by UNESCO in 2002 and defined as “digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research” (OECD). With a focus on increasing equitable access to knowledge, “open educational resources (OERs) is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good” (Smith and Casserly, 2006). Characterized by ‘open,’ meaning, “in public; for all to see or hear” (OED), in reference to the open movement involving open source and open access, the term OERs emerged from the concept of online and distance learning and the term learning objects which focused on the design of “educational content (…) stored in small chunks that are reusable in many different learning environments” (Wiley, 2001). According to Benkler, OERs are produced in a networked economy by individuals motivated by a “self-expression to love of knowledge, from participating in a community of teachers to frustration with the outputs of the tightly controlled textbook markets and a wish to have better materials to work with” (Benkler, 2005), or alternatively they are freely accessible resources intended at closing the gap between demand and supply in the education market (Geith, 2008). However, the desire to use and share open educational resources within institutionalized learning contexts, requires, as Stephen Downes argues, that OERs include sustainability in the funding and technical domains in addition to being designed as 'sustainable' content (such as being culturally versatile or without identifiable branding) (Downes, 2006). For example, the use of OERs requires consideration for the need of sustainable or open design in which the content is created with shareability in mind, such as integration standards with learning management systems, as well as with the ability of being able to render using a variety of software. The example of OER University indicates a need to further define approaches for OERs that combine the value of sharing public knowledge within the realities of market economies that value credit-based education, such as by creating hybrid open education models with institutionalized assessment and degree granting frameworks. (Marcelina Piotrowski)
Open Source
In computing, used to designate software for which the original program files used to compile the applications are available to users to be modified and redistributed as they wish (OED). While free sharing of technical and production information had existed long before, the term open source came into prominence with the Internet and the push for software to be free and open. The first published use of the term is attributed to Raymond; his work, entitled 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar', describes the creation of one of the first open source projects, the Linux operating system, as similar to a ‘great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches…out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles' (Raymond, 1998). As this suggests, the term open source is not just used to describe a product that can be freely changed and distributed, but instead has come to encapsulate a process of design and production in which consumers of the project are able to contribute to an ever evolving final product. The open source model is frequently used in software development. Linus Torvalds, who is widely credited with creating the Linux operating system, often held as a model open source project, suggests that ‘open source is the only right way to do software’. (Torvalds, 2007) While software development may be the genesis of the open source movement (Linux, Android, Mozilla, Apache, OpenOffice and Gimp are all examples of such), it has been appropriated by other areas, including various scientific projects, pharmaceutical research, and even for crafting beer. Steven Weber (2004) explores the larger societal changes coming out of the open source movement, suggesting that the model of production seen in most open source projects is changing the meaning of property ownership and social organisation, with loosely connected groups of people working in parallel with no overarching direction to create an ever evolving final project owned by no one. (Ashley Shaw)
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Paradox
The term paradox has a long history from Middle French (paradoxe in 1495 as noun), the plural paradoxes was the title of a work by Cicero in 1395, in 1550 as an adjective (now obsolete), has Latin roots as paradoxum (noun), and in post-classical Latin was a figure of speech (OED). It means "a statement or tenet contrary to received opinion or belief, especially one that is difficult to believe." Its first published usage was by Thomas Moore (1533), "To proue vs thys wonderfull straunge paradox, thys opynyon inopinable" (love that old English). The most famous usage was from Shakespeare's Hamlet (1603), "This was sometimes a Paradox, But now the time giues it scope." In the article by Stuart Poyntz and Michael Hoechsmann (2011), Children's Media Culture in a Digital Age, a paradox is described. Youth is being extended for longer periods, "children seem to be staying younger longer, living in a time of ‘extended youth,’" however, while youth is extended, children also seem to get older faster, "The age of sexual knowledge and consent for young people has declined over the past two decades, for instance, as has the age at which kids learn about drugs and alcohol, not to mention the range of lifestyle choices available to them." The authors use the phrase "participatory paradox" to describe how while the Internet allows opportunities for greater participation, multinational corporations are using this to profit from young people. " In a paper by Koh and Lim (2012), on Initial Participation Paradox in Technology-Mediated Learning, a review of the literature discovers an initial participation paradox, "More intense IP, in terms of amount and equality, could decrease outcomes, namely, task performance, team learning, and outcome satisfaction." Strangely this suggests that initial participation rather than improving results has a negative outcome. Another example of paradox can be found in voter participation. Levine and Palfrey (2005) find in The Paradox of Voter Participation, the "underprediction of turnout rates in mass election has been called the paradox of voter turnout." Here the paradox exists between rational choice theory of turnout and the actual turnout rates which are higher. In each example, a paradox is something that goes against the popular notion. In the digital age this is evident as the beliefs and claims about technology have not been borne out. In education the popular belief was that technology would solve many of the problems and yet the problems get worse. It is a paradox. (Andrew Taylor)
Participation
Derived from French (participacion) and Latin (participare) (Online Etymology Dictionary), participation is strongly linked to ideas of social action, engagement, markets and politics. In Middle English, participation connoted the coming together of multiple parties to share an action (see Chaucer). Today, it is also framed in the context of digital and social media. Citizens have the expectation they can contribute to media. According to Stuart Poyntz, this is perceives as a good thing, but complications arise because participation is an essential part of the economy and provides brand value (Recurring Questions of Technology Lecture: Technology as Youth Culture Rhetorics of Communication and Participation). While we are participating, we are also helping the economy flourish through immaterial labour (Lassarato, M). What consumers may view as participatory media is really a unilateral investment in a commercial brand; as Poyntz says, "The more we participate, the more we thread brands into our lives and build their value" (Recurring Questions of Technology Lecture: Technology as Youth Culture Rhetorics of Communication and Participation). In terms of economy and politics, Barney (2010, Excuse us if we don’t give a fuck: The (anti-)political career of participation)), suggests participation’s crucial role in the economy and politics means it is now “compulsory” (142); if people don’t participate it could negatively impact these institutions. "Nothing," Barney states, "could be more politically volatile, more fatal to the stability of an established regime, than a refusal by its youth to participate" (145). With reference to the Invisible Committee, Barney demonstrates how the idea of participation in our culture has become problematized and associated with complicity in oppressive capitalist culture, imbuing this terms with politics and counter-culture sentiments. This may be a danger to traditional democracy. Fenton (2010) points out traditional democracy is founded on a “delegation of representation” whereas social movements are founded on “participation and direct engagement” (24). As politics moves into the realm of social media movements and power is decentralized, democracy will need to change. This idea is rejected by some, such as Habermas (as referenced in Fenton’s article), who believes democratic pluralism due to the Internet will lead to fragmentation and extreme polarization of groups. A well functioning democracy requires people to be exposed to new ideas they would not search out on their own and have a range of common experiences, and the Internet allows too much individualized negotiation. As Internet and social movements take hold in our society, the definition of participation will inevitably evolve. It will be interesting to see if Internet participation is the democratizing force many have promised it to be or a veiled consumer system. (Robin Ryan and Christie Robertson)
Personalized Learning
The idea of personalized learning is not new to education. Beginning at the turn the Twentieth Century with educators like Helen Parkhurst, it continues through the 20th Century with Bloom and Gardner, who recognized that students learn better when they are allowed appropriate leaning conditions and choice. More recently, Ainscow suggests that all learning is personalized as learning itself is a personal process of meaning-making where the learner can construct and further build their account of events and thus, naturally versions will differ from the other learners in the group (Ainscow 2006 "Responding to the challenge of learner diversity: A briefing paper for the Teaching and Learning in 2020"). Carol Robinson cautions against the tendency to conflate personalized learning with individualized learning. For Robinson, individualized learning happens in solitude, whereas personalized learning engages the learner by providing opportunities for students and allowing teachers to shape those opportunities around the way different students learn [1]. Additionally, learners bring their prior knowledge and experience to the learning and contribute to not only their learning, but also to the learning of others. Thus, learning can be both individual and communal. For Chih-Ming Chen, personalized learning is closely tied to web-based learning or personal e-learning. Chen cautions that often this form of learning assumes that learning ability and the online course materials are matched http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131507000978. School districts have also taken an interest in this form of learning. For the British Columbia Ministry of Education, personalized leaning means shifting the delivery of education from a uniform model into that which is student-driven, self-directed and interdisciplinary [2]. Their hope is that the personalized learning model will result in life-long learners . (Lisa MacDougall)
Personalization
A 19th century edition to the English language, personalization was originally used to reflect a particular quality in a person, and not until the 20th century did its meaning shift to reflect the action of emphasizing personal details. In terms of technology and youth, Osgerby, in his 2004 book Youth Media, uses the related term personalising to describe how youth can create identity through personalization of cell phones' "ringtones, graphics, games and other content related to their tastes and interests." (p.210) In the marketing of consumer goods to children the term is used to describe how children and youth are able to choose features of products. Even in the consumption of non-product goods, such as social networking sites, online games and virtual toys, children and youth are presented with a range of choices for personalizing the online content. The software of many online environments is specifically designed for personalization of that particular internet experience through data mining, the collection of information about the user, as shown in Mobasher, Cooley and Shrivastava, Automatic Personalization Based on Web Usage Mining. The software company hunch.com provides a graphic of how they collect personal information from everyone using the internet everywhere in order to provide personalization services to clients. Lectures are given on the topic of Personalization of the Social Web such as one by Aroyo at the University of Amsterdam, which show how the web experiences can be more to suited the user. As expressed in Stuart Poyntz's lecture July 10, 2012 RQT Institute, UBC, personalization in this way presents some concerns regarding the collection and use of personal information. It can be used to give back to the user only 'more of the same' - results similar or related to what was already done, rather than extending experience to include the new or the unknown. The culture of personalization also presents concerns for the development of youth identity. If participatory or collective actions are important aspects of identity formation, then the emphasis on personalization may hinder collective action. (Pauline Veto)
Play
The etymology of the verb play is uncertain, although the term may have derived from the Dutch (pleyen), meaning to dance, leap for joy and rejoice. Historically it has been understood as exercise, as physical action, and light-hearted engagement and enjoyment. It was first understood in this context in the English language in the 14th century, as evidenced in Subtyl Historyes & Fables Esope, “Now shalle we see who shalle playe best for to preserue and saue hym self.” Play’s significant role in a child’s development has been recognized in modern psychology as a scape for experimentation and identity formation, distinct from serious political activity with the world; however, our ubiquitous mediated landscapes have propelled a critical genesis of this act, to the extent that it’s very definition is blurred, less able to categorize and contain. The documentary Consuming Kids highlights that childhood and play has changed dramatically as a result of technology's entrenchment in our lives and the lives of our children. Marketing strategies are more intense, invasive, and "wrap around" that ingrain themselves into such platforms as games (G_H). Therefore, the play many children are engaging in is consumption. Through such consumer technologies as "Adver Games," play is engagement and enjoyment, but it is in an environment of consuming the product placement threaded through the highly and intensely targeted mechanism. As play is more prominently becoming an act of consumption, so too is the act of play as work. Zxick, Bonsu & Darmody (2008) define much of individuals' play through online experiences (for example "Build-A-Bear")and social media (such as Facebook and YouTube) as the "immaterial labour of consumers" ("Putting Consumers to Work," 175). In play as production individuals experience a sense of experimentation, pleasure, and creation of the self, but it is also a "freedom that follows a prescribed program" (184) contained within companies' established boundaries, and however enjoyed, it is still unpaid and exploited labour. Further, play is now not only an act of consumption and work, it may also act as a vehicle for opening individuals' political subjectivities. In the game Second Life, a highly popularized game for people of all ages, a global digital protest was organized within the game against Second Life's IBM. This protest, or union of Avatar-based workers," "[was] not just fanciful exuberances but turbulences at the edge of virtual worlds embedded in wartime capitalism" (Games of Empire, xiv). Thus, in our daily media-knitted existence play is not a simple activity, it is a complex act that thwarts the distinctions between engagement and consumption, enjoyment and work, escape and political experimentation.(Michelle Bertrand)
Plurality
Derived from 13th century Anglo-Norman French pluralité, pluralitee, pluralitie to mean a great number or multitude and refers to being more than one or plural; being many or much; of numerousness or plentifulness (OED) --Lewis (1986) in his book On the Plurality of Worlds speaks of plurality as multitudinous as "our world is but one world among many". In referring to plurality in his lecture (UBC RQT Vancouver July 12 2012 and Critical Citizenship and Media Literacy Futures)Stuart Poyntz spoke of plurality as a neccessity of having strangers in young peoples lives as they signify plurality and a 'rebalancing' of strangers in our midst as an enriching rather than fearful phenomenon; of provoking deeper thinking by looking at the world and its issues through the eyes of another; this is what is meant by fostering a sense of hospitality towards strangers and to prevent the growth of 'thoughtlessness'- those who may hold views, attitudes, and beliefs different from ones own. This reflects similar usages by Hannah Arendt(Between Past and Future: Eight Excercises in Political Thought, 1968). Within Canada the term has frequently come to be associated with different groupings whether through culture or values living proximally and in relative harmony and this being regarded as beneficial within the society. http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/m9 (Yvette)
Philosophy
Derived from French (philosophie) and Greek (philosophia: love of wisdom), philosophy refers to the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline (OED). If philosophy is the attempt “to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term”, as Sellars (1962) put it, it should not ignore technology. It is largely by technology that contemporary society hangs together. It is hugely important not only as an economic force but also as a cultural force (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Also, philosophy of technology has been concerned with the impact of technology in education. With the empowerment from technology, the different decisions on curriculum development can be made, whether in a specific subject area, or more broadly as the whole range of offerings in an educational institution or in a system. (Jennifer Jing Zhao)
Politics
Derived from the Greek (pɑlətɪks), meaning affairs of the state or relating to citizens (OED). While traditionally referring to the freedom of participation in the public realm of [[3]], such as through party affiliation or voting, politics was argued to be most effective when diassociated from any particular values but rather focused on justice as fairness (Rawls, 1971). Identity politics have refocused politics from one concerned with material redistribution, to one focused on the politics of recognition as a key domain of social justice (Fraser, 1996). When discussed in the context of contemporary participatory online culture, politics refers not to the “bureaucracies founded upon delegation and representation” but rather to “the act of participation itself” (Fenon, 2010, p. 24), based on direct engagement, particularly when it encourages plurality and recognition of difference. In this model, politics are supported by structures that permit decentralized, non-membership-based participation, such as those afforded by the Internet. This type of politics is based on a self-actualizing (Bennett) participation where people, and youth in particular, engage in networked activism that reflects their values. It could be called subactivism, or the “politics that unfolds at the level of subjective experience and is submerged in the flow of everyday life” (Bakardjieva, 2009, p. 92). Such ‘micropolitical politics’ (Fenon 2010, p. 29) are contested by Barney (Barney 2010) who suggests that politics requires active contestation of the status quo, and that the rhetoric of ‘citizenship-as-participation’ “is our best security against the possibility of politics” (p. 139). Barney’s approach is aimed at deconstructing frames of citizenship that are founded on political participation afforded within neoliberal contexts; those based on the participatory culture of affective labour. Politics within this context require acts of dissensus (Rancière, 2010) that disrupt the consensual nature of hegemonic participation by questioning any intention to subdue conflict, difference, and categorization. Such critical political citizenship can be fostered through media education that can help cultivate youth’s sense of worldliness based on a “sense of hospitality towards strangers.” (Poyntz, 2011, p. 6). (Marcelina Piotrowski)
Popular Culture
Popular culture, or "pop culture" as it is often called, is an expression of mainstream cultural values and has been used to describe the many facets of a modern, media-driven life. The term usually refers to mainstream literature, art, music and other media that become a vital part of the common knowledge base of most citizens. One of the most famous examples of recent popular culture is the TV show The Simpsons because of its references to current news, events, celebrities and other mainstream media. Pop culture is part of the mass media and according to the Oxford English Dictionary the term was first used in 1854 by a newspaper, Defiance Democrat, to claim that "The Newspaper press is destined to be the chief instrument of popular culture." While there is some debate about what exactly makes up pop culture, there is no denying that it is part of our media rich society along with the likes of other cultures such as media culture and youth culture. The academic world has been part of the reason that this term continues to be used since many universities have Cultural Studies programs. For example, the University of British Columbia's Cultural Studies program has courses dedicated to studying popular culture, including courses called "Topics in Popular Culture" and "Media and Popular Culture". Additionally, scholars critique and study popular TV programs in their work and host conferences that revolve around different elements of popular culture, such as the Slayage conference which focuses on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In his book, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, Peter Burke supports the argument that "the term 'popular culture' gives a false impression of homogeneity and that it would be better to replace it with an expression such as 'the culture of the popular classes'" (7). Despite the problems associated with this word it still prevails thanks to a lack of a more suitable replacement term. (Ashley Bayles)
Presentism
Presentism comes from the Anglo-Norman root present which first appeared in the late 12th century referring to occurring now. The term presentism first appeared in 1916 in the American Journal of Sociology which urged equal respect for conservatism, presentism and futurism in sociology (OED). In The Culture of Narcissism Christopher Lash wrote that “we are fast loosing the sense of historical continuity” (1978. p. 5) a condition which seems to have swept the popular imagination, whereas living in the present was something traditionally associated with the ‘poor’ (1978, p. 64). George Grant argued that technology leads to a preoccupation with the present because it is focused on continual change, and through the use of images it suggests an intensification of current events and weakens the activity of recollection (1965). In Time as History, Grant argued that when we come together, it is focused on the “intricacies of the present so that we can calculate what we must resolute in doing to bring about the future we desire” (Grant 1969/1995, p. 16). William Pinar suggests presentism is a type of narcissism or concern for the present context without the acknowledgement of a larger social and historical conversation. In this context the present is “an interminable present in which we become preoccupied with the next sensation, a next “hit” of communication or information, focused on the expectation that in the next moment “something” will happen, something will stimulate (June 13, 2012). In What is Curriculum Theory? Pinar writes that the project of overcoming presentism involves “self-consciously cultivating the temporality of subjectivity, insisting on the simultaneity of the past, present and future” (Pinar, 2004, p. 240). Such a project involves the cultivation of attention to injustice and marginalization. (Marcelina Piotrowski)
Private
Private has a number of meanings. Deriving from the classical Latin prīvātus, the earliest definition means restricted to, or to the use of, an individual person. More recently, the meaning from 12th century British origins it means intimate and confidential. Private often is connected to property, indicating ownership, thus perhaps the concomitant meanings of confidential and intimate as these are the types of relationships experienced in privately owned space. Private has also come to mean anything owned by not only an individual, but also a corporation (as corporations are treated as people in North American law). The meaning is becoming more complex in the age of the internet. Private internet space is rarely such. Usually it is rented space, so not privately owned as most people's space is saved on a server in some unknown location, owned by a corporation; the space is used sometimes free, sometimes for a fee. But perhaps the space is private in the sense of intimate or confidential. Curiously, the space should be privately owned if we used Locke's definition of ownership being extended with labour adding value to the object. But, as Negri and Hardt have explained, immaterial labour, labour which receives no payment, is extensive online, adding value to such commodities as facebook, but not to the creator of the work. Private ownership is different online, and so too is confidentiality. Privacy cannot be taken for granted. Data mining, taking private information provided by customers for commercial or other purposes has been begun to be regulated as it offends our traditional understanding of privacy. Finally, the online environment has made surveillance ubiquitous, a modern panopticon (see Stuart Poyntz powerpoint). (Carol Hawkes)
Production
Production comes from the rood word product. Product is derived from late Middle English and Latin (productum: thing). "Production" is derived from Latin (production: a lengthening). In economics, production is defined as the creation of value (OED). A tangible or intangible construct of benefit to an individual or collective would qualify as a creation of value. The word production has been used by Benkler (2006) to demonstrate the creation of information and knowledge within the technological world and by various groups of people. Through the avenues of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, a “new mode of production is emerging in the middle of the most advanced economies in the world” (Benkler, 2006, p.4) where people from around the globe can work together to co-author, edit and create the “production of information, knowledge, and culture” (Benkler, 2006, p.4). The keyword production has been used frequently throughout Benkler’s (2006) work to not only include “information production” but also “cultural production”, “peer production” and “non-market production.” Working together through the networked information economy to create, share and produce knowledge has greatly reduced the costs associated with production as they are more equally shared and distributed throughout society. Therefore, the creation of information through non market production is sustainable and effective. Knowledge production has become more accessible throughout the world and is “open for all others to build on, extend, and make their own” (Benkler, 2006, p. 5). Similarly, in "The New Production of Knowledge", Gibbon states that “a new production of knowledge is emerging alongside the traditional, familiar one” (1994, p. vii) where the work of many through interdisciplinary research is being shared to contribute to the wealth of information within the sciences. (Katie Carr)
Progress
Classical Latin prōgressus forward movement, advance, development, in post-classical Latin also official tour by a monarch (1447, 1547 in British sources) < prōgress- , past participial stem of prōgredī to go forward, proceed, to advance, develop, progress. Compare Anglo-Norman progres advance (14th cent., with reference to movement through enemy territory), Middle French progres , French progrès development of an action (1546), increase by degrees, improvement (1564), gradual improvement (1588), movement forward in space (1611) (OED) In Time as History, George Grant reflects on Nietzche’s philosophy that “the modern age is preoccupied with the future and technological progress”, but that in the process we are forgetting to look to the scholars and realities of the past. In aiming to “move forward” through “capitalism, science, and the conquest of nature” (values in contrast with that of Ancient Greece, for example) we are holding our society as suspended and separated from other eras. In the July 13th, 2012 morning lecture by William Pinar, he referenced George Grant’s belief that “the central force of the North American Dream is progress through technological advance”. This obsession with building our technology and looking only forward instead of towards the past, present, and future collectively, is in contrast to what Grant sees as imperative to our existence. To that end, “progress” can not be measured in the number of gadgets or communication devices we invent, but the ways in which we situate ourselves in terms of learning. If we are only looking forward, the question must be asked “does technology portend the extension of life or the extinguishing of the species” (William Pinar, July 13th, 2012 afternoon lecture: Recurring Questions in Technology). (Katherine Spence)
Prosthetics
Prosthetics (noun) referring to an artificial body part. The word is derived from the latin word prostithenai, the compound of pros meaning 'in addition' and tithenai meaning 'to place.' A prosthetic then is a human-made artifact to be added to the capacities of the human body, whether that part replaces one that is missing or not functioning (such as a cochlear implant), or is "in addition" to the current functioning of the human body. Prosthetic literacies add to our ability to read (see Teresa Dobson's work) enabling the reader to visualize text, prosthetic mobilities add to our ability to virtually move in/around/to communities which might otherwise be closed off to us (see Mary Bryson's work) for whatever reason, be it disability, discrimination or poverty. These prosthetics, as Locke would say, increase the common stock of mankind. William Pinar warns, however, of the human prosthetic, that is the human becoming the prosthetic of an ascendant technology. (Carol Hawkes)
Public
The term “public” originates from the Old Latin poplicus, meaning “pertaining to the people”, and altered by, pubes, indicating particularly the adult male population. The first recorded use, in the 13th century, was in reference to that “which relates to the people as a whole”. An interesting early use which points to its usage as unifying that which was once divided is from a 1447 letter from Queen Margaret to the King, “These accustumed of plain lecture and exposicion..parformyd daily twyes..to the publique audience of alle men frely, bothe seculiers and religieus.” (OED) In the realm of technology and its implications for education, the term was being used in Britain in the sense of public schooling in the late 1500s meaning access to education for previously ineligible, underprivileged boys through private endowment. This democratizing movement in education is recently being echoed in the increase in accessibility to information and communication technologies. For example, John Willinsky (2006) challenges the distinction between private property and the public with questions about new publishing technologies, etc. through the work of John Locke’s idea of the “great common of the world”. There is something to consider in the “increasingly public written word”, as " Chris Kennedy" (2012) proposes in his push for the digitalization of schools in the West Vancouver school district. Further to this, "Stuart Poyntz" suggests that the example of the ostensibly private cellphone conversation held on the busy bus proposes “New conditions of visibility, which alter the ratios shaping the connections between public and private life” (Maxx Lapthorne)
Punctuated Equilibrium
Punctuated Equilibrium: Punctuated (root is punctuate) and equilibrium are both derived from Latin (“punctuat- “ and “aequilibrium”, respectively). The term was originally coined by Niles Eldredge, Stephen Jay Gould in “Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism.” in Thomas Schopf’s Models in Paleobiology (“We have.. named our alternative picture.. punctuated equilibria, 1972) to describe periods of rapid adaptation by species due to changing environmental conditions. Though punctuated equilibrium is typically applied in biological contexts, Yochai Benkler (Wealth of Networks, 2006) uses the term to describe the temporary disequilibrium that can happen in society as a result of economic events (i.e. the Great Depression), war, political upheaval and, more pertinently, the introduction of new technology. Used in this way, Benkler describes how new technologies can destabilize societies for a time before a new equilibrium is established. The disturbance that a new technology can cause the transformation of the existing relationships in a society or the creation of new relationships amongst members of a community, which is akin to the filling of new niches in ecological terms. He goes on to argue that society is, by and large, in the midst of a period of punctuated equilibrium and that policy decisions need to be made as to how to reorganize in light of this disturbance to traditional power structures. While Benkler uses punctuated equilibrium to describe the upheaval that new technologies can cause, Christoph Loch and Bernardo Huberman (“A Punctuated-Equilibrium Model of Technology Diffusion”, 1999) use the term in a different way to describe how technologies diffuse into society. Though the authors apply this term to technology as well, their use is intended to describe how technology adoption, which is often an incremental process, can go through bursts under certain conditions. In this use of the term, the impact on society itself is not focused upon but rather how the technology is distributed over time within a society. (John Cunnian)