Final thoughts

Thank you very much for participating and contributing! I very much enjoyed reading your thoughts. Being one of my hopes and expectations I learned a lot, not only about the content related aspects, but also about myself. I have gone through your thoughts about the course and what you have gained from this. I have also collected all your recommendations, interesting ideas, thoughts and critics regarding the course, its structure and content. I appreciate a lot the feedback you have provided and your honesty. It is a valuable material for me to reflect on and think about.

You all know that one can’t make everybody happy and satisified. People are different. Some like digging into literature, some prefer hands-on activities, some expect clear deadlines, others would appreciate if the schedule is flexible, etc. Such a variety can be seen also in your final thougths. Sounds like an impossible task to make everybody happy .

However, not denying there is always room for improvements I would like to use an opportunity here to respond to some of the comments and critics.

“New interactive environments” can be understood in very different ways. In this course we chose a slightly different perspective in comparison to what one may think and imagine in the first place. Looking at the curriculum of IMKE, there are many courses, which deal with interactions from TV, art, audio-video etc. point of view. So, the attempt of this course was to go more on a meta-level, to look around ourselves and explore, how we can analyse and describe our activities and (inter)actions, how we can create our own interactions and new environments with the available technology.

First of all, human development is a complicated matter and can’t be entirely defined and prestructured. As we don’t believe in traditional rigid instructional design, our starting point was very much different. The idea was to go through some literature together, think about some concepts, analyse and reflect on them, but also learn from each other. This is the point of having Weblogs and diffuse the roles of a teacher and learners in order to work as peers. A facilitator doesn’t have to be the only one who provides feedback. Having so many participants in the course makes it even impossible and also unneccessary to comment every single post by the facilitators. Perhaps, as it was recommended by some of you, it might make more sense to have less, but bigger tasks, however, this would kill the nature of this course, i.e. to create a constant flow of thinking and contributions.

Providing only a very general framework allowed us to focus on concepts, questions and aspects derived from your thoughts. The idea was to let the participants address the progress and direction of the course, to create a student-driven content. However, I was quite surprised to see how tied the participants were with the typical patterns of actions and schedules. It seems that students are so much used to have a clear structure and framework in learning situations, which is created and put on a table by someone else. I have to admit that the attempt to bring in changes, restructure some of the traditional behaviors and take a bit of different approach pretty much failed. A good lesson for the facilitators!

I agree that this course lacked of online synchronous discussions and forums. As we were asked to keep it as an online course, face-to-face meetings should have been replaced with audio-video meetings and online chats. I have experienced that finding a common time for this is an extremely challenging task, especially if people are working and can’t spend their time on learning tasks every day.

I was unpleasantly surprised to see that some of you still referred to the old course description, in which it was promised to talk about GPS, TV, etc. and I totally understand your disappointment if we didn’t even mention them. According to my knoweldge a new course description was available on the IMKE website and in the TLU course repository.

Regarding the comment of being too much into educational technology and learning new trends in e-education refers to a flawed understanding of this term. This course had very little to do with educational technology. However, I have to admit that Centre for Educational Technology plays a huge role in IMKE as most of the courses are facilitated by the researchers from this centre or by their colleagues from abroad. And the role of the Centre for Eduational Technology is to bring in innovations in education, not only in terms of technology, but also pedagogical models and approaches.

Finally I would like to mention that I was not and I am not going to be concerned about students’ motivation. We as adult learners decide ourselves what we want, how much we want to gain and take away from our experiences. As a facilitator I expect that adult learners should control and be able to take responsibilities for their studies…

Saying all this, it was an interesting and valuable experience, which would have not been possible without your contributions . Thank you!

Good luck with your studies and defending your master thesis!

Merry Christmas!

Terje

NB! I am going to send a separate e-mail to all of you regarding the pass/fail information.

Reflection on task 13

I had an enjoyable Sunday evening with your ideas of how to re-organise and re-instrumentalise a collection of activities. Seriously, a bunch of great ideas! Thus, I am going to make a list here of what was proposed with the links to the actual posts and you can read yourself about the most interesting one’s from your perspective (in case you haven’t done that yet).

Here it comes:
Aali – quick access to information

Argo – mind-blogger

Elise –  e-books; body positions

Ilja –  electronic timetables for public transportation

Jakob – a central electronic environment for university

Katrina – storyboarding

Katri – voice recording

Kersti – news application

Kerstin – workout to create energy in gyms

Kristo - e-learning courses

Maarja – art

Maibritt – TV

Marek – networked school

Mehrnoosh - avoid technology

Norbert – digital bus schedule

Rasa - online supermarkets, smart fridge

Raul – e-learning

Reimo – mobile means for addressing study material

Rene – parking, digital mail box, rolled-up kitchen pan

Taavi – music with google translator

Thea - home devices

Valeria – reading devices

I am sorry if I have accidentaly missed some names or misunderstood your ideas. I strongly recommend to have a look at these ideas and who knows maybe you even get ideas for your master thesis…

Thank you very much for these wonderful ideas! I think every single idea presented above is worth to seriously consider further and actually develop and implement them.

Reflection on task 12

Of course reading just one article is not enough to shape a clear understanding of the concept under investigation, but I sincerely hope that this short glimpse made at least some of you ponder about the questions raised in task 12.

First, I noticed that we use terms like “media”, “medium”, “tool”, “instrument” interchangeably and sometimes in a confusing way.

According to my understanding medium and media are the same. Media is just a plural form of medium. The term medium comes from Latin referring literally to “middle” and originally denoting something intermediate in nature or degree. Medium can be understood as an intervening substance or agency, a means by which something is conveyed or accomplished.

In our context we could think of medium as a means or channel by which something is communicated or expressed (newspaper, radio, TV), but also as a particular form of storage for digitized information, such as magnetic tape or discs. For instance digital media refers to electronic media used to store, transmit, and receive digitized information or social media denotes media dissemination through social interaction.

From a language point of view media can be treated as singular or plural. The traditional view is that it should therefore be treated as a plural noun in all its senses in English and be used with a plural rather than a singular verb, however, as it seems in practice it is now acceptable to use it also with a singular verb.

Maarja has nicely described the difference between tool and medium: “It is a tool when we speak of using it as a physical thing or a piece of software in it to fulfill a task or an activity. It is a medium when we speak of mediating an idea or a piece of information through using some program or application for it”. Kersti concludes “communication needs medium; activity on the other hand, tool”, however, one may ask isn’t communication also a type of activity?

According to activity theory a tool can be anything (not only a physical thing or a software), also a concept map and mental model can be used by a subject to work towards objectives. And we can turn these different tools, but also artefacts (anything which is man made) into instruments to support our activities.

Going through your thoughts the main message as Kristo has put it was that digital technology is considered to be both a tool (means to create) and medium (means to carry or store). Katri adds “it is clear that the tool itself carries also the message and influences it”. Ilja has explained “If we start looking at computer technology from the media perspective then we quickly realize that it is of universal nature, integrating every existing media into itself”. Kairi has a similar understanding and adds that “I think it is unquestionable that digital computer technology represents a fundamentally outstanding technical revolution which changes our living and working completely, and revolutionizes our societal practice as a whole. It is also true that information and communication technology has involved us in technology so intimately that our activities have begun to shape its development”.

On the other hand Norbert has noted that “For digital technology to be a medium itself, I would expect it to introduce a new way of communication to the human mind (like television did) – however today digital technology simply ties all the old mediums together”.

Technologies are necessary in the production, reproduction, storing, and distribution of texts, images and sounds forming the constituent elements of culture. McLuhan has said that “…the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology”.

To conclude, Ilja has a point here if he says that “… it seems that we just have not got enough time to reflect and analyze on the true nature of technology”. Thus, we will see in the next coming years whether we are able to adapt technology to our needs or whether we are the ones who must adapt…

A small note

Dear all,

I am in the middle of reading your last thoughts and I’ll come back to you latest in the beginning of next week with the final thoughts and pass/fail information.

Cheers,

Terje

Reflection on task 11

Thank you for making an attempt to compare our created list of components with the components that the activity theory framework offers. Some of you have provided very thorough comparsions which reflect your serious effort to think about the ways how activity systems can be described.

As most of you stated our extensive list of components covers all the components of activity theory framework. I agree with you. All of you acknowledged the fact that our list is too long with too many synonyms and it should be reduced, however, as noted by some of you, most of them can be used as an additional explanation for the umbrella term of the specific component. The common approach was to divide the components created by us between the components of activity theory framework. No big differences in this regard. They all can be placed somewhere.

I agree with a remark made by Kersti and Kairi that “we thought of it [our list of components] more like a project rather than an interactive system” (Kairi). “There are words that characterize both “activity” and “interactive environments”, but some apply only for one” (Kersti). So our list of components does not show the actual relationships between them, their interrelatedness, but also interactions contrary to the activity theory framework. We were focusing on a linear process…Jakob continues that “you might find a load of elements that you can attribute to the different levels of an activity system, but does that really tell you much about nature of the interactions between them?” He also raises the question “whether there are any clear normatives provided by Activity Theory with regard to how a system should be like?” I see the activity theory framework as an analytical tool, which does not aim at providing normatives, but rather helps us to understand how the system functions and where the weaknesses or strengths of a particular system are; and this analysis may point us toward the ways how a system should be like from the observer’s point of view.

However, some of you also mentioned a few components, which were missing, but could play an important role of the activity theory framework: “it is possible to think about feedback as new activity or process, but in interactivity, it is one main features that creates interactivity” (Raul) or “assessment of outcome would be also one possible way to expand idea behind activity theory” (Argo) or “constant changing in the sense of interactive environments have to “go with the flow” and the conditions are changing according to what the users need and want” (Kersti). Dynamic nature, starting and ending point of any activity system, but also previously mentioned possible extensions of the activity theory framework are fair components to consider while thinking about constantly changing interactive environments…

Btw! For whose who doesn’t know that while using your study buddy’s sentences, it is the common practice and unwritten rule to put references, especially if the sentence is a copy-paste from someone’s else Weblog .

Task 14: Final reflections

Finally I would like you to reflect back on the entire course and think of what you have learned during these weeks. What is it you are going to take with you from this course, be it negative or positive experience, content-related or organisational aspects and so on?

Write down your experiences, observations, reflections on your Weblog.

The deadline for task 14 is: Thursday, December 16th, 24:00 (Estonian time).

NB! This is the last task in this course. Counting points for the last task follows the same framework we have had during the entire course. Every 24 hours passed the deadline 2 points are deducted. Five days passed the deadline you are down to 0 points.

Task 13: Redesigning and re-instrumentalising activities

“Computer mediation of human interaction will transform by radically altering – in fact, dissolving – many familiar contexts in which we act. A wider range of technologies support human interaction by increasing awareness of actions, possibilities of action, tools for and products of action, and context of activity” (Grudin, 2000). Now in the era of the ongoing digital development we as users can engage in designing and re-organising our own activities and interactions. The locus of control is moving from absolute control of a designer to the user. The meaning of the use of technology is repurposed and worked out again and again in each new setting.

And here comes the task. Think of one activity. It can be anything, from different fields, from your every day life, etc. How is it carried out now? Is it possible to redesign this activity to make its outcome more efficient, more reasonable? Is it possible to re-instrumentalise and re-organise it with the help of emerging digital technology?

Describe your activity and explain how would you redesign it, re-instrumentalise it and re-organised it to be more efficient, enjoyable, etc.

This task can be done in groups of 3 participants if preferred, but is not required. Individual contributions are welcomed as well.

References:

Grudin, J. (2000). Digitally Mediated Interaction: Technology and the Urge System.
In G. Hatano, N. Okada & H. Tanabe (Eds.), Affective Minds, 159-167, 2000.

The deadline for task 13 is: Tuesday, December 14th, 24:00 (Estonian time).

Task 12: tool or medium?

Before we really bring this course to an end, let’s try to focus once more on some philosophical questions digital technology and digitalisation poses.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I would like to come back to the following questions: is digital technology a tool or medium in our activity systems? Or both? Are we talking about just instruments or a specific form of societal activity? Is digital technology neutral, autonomous or far more than mere tools and instruments? An interesting example of instrumentalist view on technology is given by Andrew Feenberg, which is: “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. He explains that “supplying people with guns creates a social world quite different from world in which people are disarmed”. Can we apply similar thinking to the digital world? Information and communication technology has involved us in technology so intimately that our activities have begun to shape its development (Feenberg, 2003).

This “dilemma” has been mentioned rather explicitly or implicitly by many of you in different times and I think this is one of the important aspects we should spend some time on thinking about, especially if we talk about new media, interactive media, digitalisation, etc. and the influence of “leading medium” on society and the ways we perform our activities.

I encourage you to look at the following article, which raises the question in the light of activity theory whether we should talk about tools or medium.

Rückriem, G. (2003). Tool or medium? The meaning of information and telecommunication technology to human practice. A quest for systemic understanding of activity theory.

Think about the aforementioned questions, think about Rückriem’s analysis and share your thoughts about this on your Weblog.

The deadline for task 12 is: Thursday, December 9th, 24:00 (Estonian time).

 

The end is not far…

…and soon we have to draw a line for the whole course. Of course there are numerous aspects and interesting questions to focus on and discuss about. There are still three tasks (in addition to task 11) waiting for you.  I am going to post all of them here soon (during this week), so you can plan your pre-Christmas weeks accordingly. The deadline for the last task is scheduled for December 16th. Just in case I remind you of the passing criteria. 70% of the maximum points should be collected in order to pass the course. So, if we do some math here, 14 tasks means maximum 140 points and 70  % of it is 98 points, correct? Although, most of you have been very precise with the deadlines and have put a lot of effort in the tasks, hopefully this doesn’t give you a message to ignore the last tasks .

Task 11: our components versus components of activity theory

As we didn’t define the clear perspective and the specific aspects we want to focus on in our previous task, it patently produced different interpretations and levels of analysis. Nevertheless, most of the descriptions reflect the same perspective – students as a subject. However, depending on a research question in mind the activity theory framework also allows to take different perspectives: facilitators, administrators, etc. For instance, a facilitator can be interpreted as a subject and a student as an object (a drive for the activity) with an outcome to “produce” a better learner. Furthermore, as already mentioned in the previous post the scope of the system depends on an observer and many of you mentioned that actually the problematic area is to determine the actual boundaries of the system. Is the community only IMKE, TLU or the whole blogosphere? Obviously everything depends on a problem one wants to address while implementing the activity theory framework, which also defines the  depth of the analysis. I think the power of the activity theory actually lies in its flexibility and freedom to interpret it according to one needs. It provides vocabulary for talking about human activity systems, it provides components of the activity to focus on and determines connections between them. It provides one of the ways to look at what humans do and how.

Next, I would like you to look back at the components we created (http://piratepad.net/apsWT6vudX a yellow list in the end of the document) in the beginning of this course. Taking the perspective of interactive environments (as one of the human activity systems) the way we have described them here (“users” perception of seeing opportunities to create their own human to human interactions with personal media) think of the following questions:

- did we come up with all the necessary components for analyzing and describing interactive systems?

- what components seem irrelevant? Why?

- currently we have a long list of components, which can be definitely shorten. How would you do that?

- do what degree the list of components is concurrent with the components of the activity theory framework?

- are there components which are not covered by the activity theory framework, but the activity theory framework could benefit from?

Put out a Weblog post with a short summary addressing the aforementioned questions.

The deadline for task 11 is: Sunday, December 5th, 24:00 (Estonian time).