Subject: Fwd: Re: Ania, Farhad and David Kennedy and Kinshuk's Close
From: David Wiles (rprtcard@aug.com)
Date: Sun 14 Nov 1999 - 00:57:33 MET
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 18:57:33 -0500 From: David Wiles <rprtcard@aug.com> Subject: Fwd: Re: Ania, Farhad and David Kennedy and Kinshuk's Close
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Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
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Kinshuk wrote.....
Dear colleagues
The discussion on "Transactional distance theory as a foundation for
developing innovative and reactive instruction" is now formally over.
I would like to thank all of you for making it such a worthwhile
experience, in particular Wendy Lowe for moderation and summarization.
The final summary of the discussion will appear in the Educational
Technology & Society journal.
Those of us watching from the sidelines might add the "cc" of this ifets
memo but all would agree the synthesis was quite amazing.
The reason for this memo is to ask for each of you to think about (a)
distance education as an illustration of a particular moment of being
"transactional" in the describing of a physical phenomenon to occur, then
(b) conceptual innovation as a common reference in arts and in science.
Your response could be directed to me or the ifets community in general.
Wendy Wrote....
>Sender: IFETS Discussion List <IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
>From: Wendy Lowe <wlowe@ca.oracle.com>
>Organization: Oracle Corporation Canada Inc.
>Subject: Re: Ania, Farhad and David Kennedy
>To: Multiple recipients of list IFETS-DISCUSS
><IFETS-DISCUSS@LISTSERV.READADP.COM>
>
>List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
>Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
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>
>Prompted by the recent remarks of Ania and Farhad: the issue Ania
>raises is valid when she mentions that as teachers we try to control the
>environment; perhaps the loss of control is what intrigues us in the
>distance education setting and causes us to "worry".
>
>Practically speaking, while working on distance courseware I began to
>think of the issues that face students and teachers in the classroom. I
>considered the distance to be semantic or else very simply the degree of
>exchange between teacher and student.
>
>I think what caught my attention was the fact that we talk about
>designing distance courseware to minimise the distance "feeling" and yet
>in classrooms that distance still exists. There has seemed to be a
>preoccupation wiuth teacher/learner communication which in some distance
>programmes is minimal.
>
>But in some classrooms, the students might as well be a thousand miles
>away, for all the connection they experience with the learning
>material. That must be a combination of class size, teacher
>personality, subject matter and perhaps learning styles.
/snip/
MY first question is: suppose the ifets network wished to assess the
socio-psychological reaction to the Leonoid meteor shower this coming
Thursday. How would our communication begin as a "transactional distance"
exchange or is such impossible beginning with an electronic exchange like
ifets?
If such an effort were mounted as a test of electronic "semblence-gone-real
I might think that the nine of you most active participants at the end
would be our team of the best thinking directed at a globally significant
phycial event five days (rather nights) from now.
Say our collective purpose is to encourage folks worldwide to take time to
physically witness the Leonoid shower. ifets the ultimate stratified elite
but physically little more than a sprinkle or light dusting when
considering humankind numbers.
Influence in a time of pokemon...now that is a challenge!
What are the naturalistic delimitations even before the first exchange?
cloudover on the particular night ? no interest or insight about the
starry night? persons forced to remain indoors?
On the ohter hand in the 20th century of wonders what numbers might be
taking the 'redeye' flight between the coasts? How many on a 'vacation'
ocean cruise? Certainly, modern days add to the normal observer tending
sheep or cattle or joining kahilil gilbran in the 'so high' of the desert
night.
Whatever the final calcuation of 'possibles' how many could ifets breed of
communication change behavior of mass numbers?
I know what distance education is like when talked about like
http://www.albany.edu/~dkw42/eaps760.html
but it represents the formal institutional effort of graduate schooling to
create a qualitative 'equivalent' on two remote sites. The numbers answers
in this context is if sixxteen are handled well then next time we go to
sixty...on six sites, etc.
but to consider ifets as another form of distance educating in late l999?
If so, the ifets network, regardless of who is participating positively or
'lurking' to supress, should be able to take a self examination six days
from now and determine some expression of "learning impact" in a
non-formalized, non-institutionalized context of our world.
And if all your self congratulating about merging on trasnactional distance
is more than simple fizzzz each of you should be able to articulate a
cogent response about human interst in and expected response to , as the
departed john denver once sang, "fires in the sky" Thursday night.
Question two has no direct ifets reference but goes to the center of our
educating purpose, the cultivation of 'creative innovation.'
I am most interested in what you perceive as the conceptual linkage
between this phrase and "transactional distance"
Rhonda Roland Shearer and Stephen Jay Gould in the most recent issue of
Science (5 November, l999, volume 286) make a strong case for demonstration
of the common ground that the arts and the sciences share in valuing and
mutually supporting the superiority of common methods for mental creativity
and innovation over the tendency to think in dicotomies. Shearer and
Gould quote a maxim of Protagoras that "there are two sides to every
question, exactly opposite to one another." They go on that " given
another human propensity for judgment --so that "us versus them" easily
becomes "good versus bad" or even, when zealotry fans our xenophobic flames
"chosen for martyrism versus ripe for burning."
In contrast to that dreary end, the authors argue with physical
demonstration of a psychological phenomenon that shows "conceptual
innovation." Don't believe me or take the time to read the article, just
click the following link
http://www.artscienceresearchlab.org
Finally, Sherarer and Gould make an organizational argument about the
utility of people with cultivated "conceptual innovation" skills: "the
work of creative people whose innovations cannot be easily slotted into
either camp but can only be understood as a reinforcing unification of
goals usually parsed between the two realms under Kipling's motto 'never
the twain shall meet."
David Wiles
ps
The ifest exchange in the last two weeks have given all of us much to mull
over. As the next century dawns what do you think are the chances of
trumpeting triumph of this Shearer and Gould closing premise?
" What could be more precious, or more difficulat, than conceptual
innovation? We need to access all the tools at our command--even when
linguistic and sociological convention parcels out those common mental
devices among noncommunicative disciplinary camps---
if we wish to triumph in this hardes, yet most rewarding, or all
intellectual pursuits"
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