All posts by @MCorbettWilson

Open Participants, Syndicated

Breathe

In the spring of 2021 I participated in “Elder Circles: Fierce Words of the Third Age”, StoryCenter’s (storycenter.org) first workshop for those over 60. I joined founder and Executive Director Joe Lambert and Linda Parris-Bailey, playwright and Founder of ParrisBaileyArts.com, who also served as the Executive/Artistic Director of the Carpetbag Theatre for 45 years, in a six-week workshop to examine stories of life as an older adult. The screenshot (above) of the Google Site I made for the workshop explains the approach we took.

The first four weeks we responded to the prompts and shared our stories of each facet of our experiences in a virtual writer’s circle using Zoom. For example, I shared these thoughts on “Invisibility”:

I’ve been thinking about invisibility this week. I’ve always felt hypervisible, especially outside of my native coastal California. Only now, being older, do I experience invisibility. In this new cultural environment, I feel more erased than invisible. I even have a term for it from my ethnic culture. Scotched: to be canceled, or erased, or diminished.
I imagine the English came up with this use of the word. Once the Scots helped Unite the Kingdoms, they were erased from history. They became British. At different times their language, manner of dress, and other cultural expressions were outlawed. The image we have of the kilt wearing military soldier or bagpiper was invented by Walter Scott for the amusement of an English king visiting Scotland for his first and only time. Erased were the sheepherders and weavers that had been forcibly removed during the preceding century so the English Lords that owned the land could replace the peasants with sheep and move the weavers closer to the London marketplace. Perhaps this is the origin of the use of scotched to mean cancelled or removed. Thus you can scotch a person, an idea, or a people.
I recently read HG. Wells The Invisible Man for the first time. I’m glad I waited, as many of the references would have been opaque to my younger self, being written in the late 19th century. Some say it is the first science fiction story, who knows? As one who has studied optics, I can confirm it includes an accurate description of the physics of light and color and refraction.
I was disappointed in the protagonist Griffin’s use of his invisibility as a weapon.
I’m thinking about the possibilities of invisibility. Being able to move between groups or places unobserved. What opportunities would be presented? To be helpful, by being unrecognized.
What I want to consider is the affordances of this new invisibility, and how it can be used to contribute to the common good.

The facilitators selected one piece from each workshopper for our Zoom ‘performance’ the final week. They chose my COVID poem, “Breathe.”

Open Participants, Syndicated

An economy of care

When I went to sleep last night I meant to write about ethics this morning. I woke up early and turned on the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s “All in a Weekend” on CBC Radio with Sonali Karnick to hear her interviewing Judy Rebick about how women economists in Canada and around the world are transforming economics to focus more on social impact and an economy of care, as opposed to growth for its own sake.

Judy Rebick: Women Economists Changing Economics | All in a Weekend with Sonali Karnick | Live Radio

Ms. Rebick suggested viewing Mariana Mazzucato’s 2019 TED talk “What is economic value, and who creates it?” Ms Mazzucato points out that we’ve lost our way on the questions about what are the differences between value creation and value extraction, productive and unproductive activities.

She suggests we recognize the state as a positive economic force & questions the financialization of the economy. COVID has highlighted who the essential workers really are: healthcare, child & elder care workers (paid and unpaid), and food producers, transporters, and distributors.

Ms. Rebick then talks about Marjorie Griffin Cohen and other feminists and their theorizing a Care Economy. In their Rabble.ca article, “It’s 2021 and it’s time to care about care”, Mses. Cohen and Armstrong state “the conditions of work are the conditions of care” and recognize “the care infrastructure is the biggest employer in the [Canadian] economy, with the industrial sectors of health, social assistance and education accounting for at least 21 per cent of the total paid labour force” and that it “accounts for at least 12 per cent of the GDP, contributing more to the total income of the economy than sectors such as manufacturing, oil and gas, and finance.” They conclude that the Canadian government should provide universal care coverage so secure that it will become considered a right for residents of Canada. 

They then provide a link to “The Care Economy” statement by the Care Economy Initiative Team: Pat Armstrong, Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Laurell Ritchie, Leah F. Vosko, and Armine Yalnizyan.

It states:  “Future budgets and public policies of all governments must address these core principles:

  1. Care, both paid and unpaid, is a fundamental component of our basic infrastructure. Paid care in health and education alone is a key engine of the economy, generating at least 12% of GDP and 21% of jobs. A well-functioning care economy is key to the functioning of all the other parts of the economy.
  1. A care economy includes those who need and those who provide care, both paid and unpaid, and recognizes that our care needs and care provision vary throughout life.
  2. Care is skilled work that requires ongoing skills development, appropriate compensation, and adequate supports. The conditions of work are the conditions of care.
  3. A care economy includes the entire range of health and education services, including child and elder care. It also includes other social infrastructure such as employment insurance, labour standards and their enforcement, immigration policies, and paid sick leave.
  4. A care economy requires public investment in public services to ensure equitable access to quality care. Public spending on social infrastructure is as critically important as building and maintaining our physical infrastructure.
  5. A care economy promotes inclusion when its design is rooted in a feminist, intersectional, anti-colonial, and anti-racist approach. (emphasis in original)”

The statement concludes “For the past year, our governments emphasized that we are all in this together. We would add that to get out of this together we must care for each other. We need federal leadership to carry these hard-earned pandemic lessons into a recovery by investing in a care economy that supports both those who need and those who provide care.”

I’ve been made aware of teaching and learning with care in higher education by the work of Drs. Mia Zamora, Maha Bali, and Lee Skallerup Bessette. Last summer I joined Drs. Zamora and Bali in their Digital Pedagogy Lab course “A Critical Digital Pedagogy Buffet” where we covered Community Building, Critical Open Pedagogy, Decolonial & Antiracist Pedagogy, and Ethical Ed Tech.

Placing the duty of care in education under the umbrella of an economy of care ties the concerns of the academy, workers and the public together. Creating an economy of care will require a restructuring of the economy to serve the needs of the many rather than the needs of the financial (1%) class. I’m looking forward to exploring these topics in the cMOOC “Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care.” Finding the political will to enact an economy of care is the larger project.

Open Participants, Syndicated

Saudade in Santa Fe

It’s been 20 years since the last time I was in Santa Fe. My mom was from New Mexico and we used to spend one month each summer visiting her parents in Silver City in the southwest corner of New Mexico. We traveled around visiting our many relatives and exploring the beauty of the landscape, so I often got to Santa Fe as a kid.
As an adult, I was fascinated by the history and culture, and visited Santa Fe as often as I could. This year, after the director of storycenter.org in Berkeley, California, suddenly moved to Santa Fe, I decided to attend Story Center’s first in-person workshop in nearly two years and visit its new home.
Coincidentally. I’m taking a class on intercultural communication and the week before the digital storytelling workshop we had been talking about words from other languages that have no direct translation into English.
I had used saudade as an example in my weekly essay. It’s a Portuguese/Brazilian word I had learned about while living in Half Moon Bay, California, which has a large Portuguese population (relatively) who still fish commercially. There is also a musical style associated with saudade: Fado (fate) is a haunting and slow vocal music performed world-wide.
Many have written about saudade and saudade culture. Being a seafaring nation, the Portuguese, as I understand them, long for their home land and at the same time their grandmothers long to see the grandchildren they may never meet. More than nostalgia, saudade is the constant presence of absence, a bittersweet state of desire for what once was or may never be.
I called the digital story I made at the “Stories in Motion” workshop “Saudade in Santa Fe.”

I hope you enjoy it.

 

Open Participants, Syndicated

Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care

I’m looking forward to participating in Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care cMOOC created by Stephen Downes.
Join in the fun!
https://ethics.mooc.ca/course_outline.htm

My learning philosophy in a graphic I created. Click for more.

AIRT is Scots Gaelic word meaning direction. It is also an acronym for Appreciate, Include, Reciprocate. and Trust.
AIRT is Scots Gaelic word meaning direction

I’m interested in connectivism, personal learning networks, graphing my learning – both formal and informal, FOSS, and heutagogy. A retired craftsman, with five decades of experience unrecognized by higher further education, I have taken dozens of online courses, accredited and not. I’m particularly interested in how working class people can document, organize, and present their informal learning for assessment and college credit.

Last summer I attended Drs. Mia Zamora and Maha Bali’s Digital Pedagogy Lab course to learn more about their work on open education, ethics, and care. I’m looking forward learning with all the participants, growing a learning network, and creating open educational resources to be remixed and reused by anyone interested in open access to education.

 

Open Participants, Syndicated

Storytelling

I returned to StoryCenter in Berkeley this week to participate in a Digital Storytelling workshop as a civilian.

I returned to community college as a non-traditional (adult) student after President Obama urged displaced workers to update their skills in his first State of the Union address. I had such a terrible experiance in Oakland’s Peralta Community College District I was forced to become a student leader. That led to being invited to a New Organizing Institute workshop to learn Harvard University’s Marshall Gans’ “Story of Self” method for political communication. Hey, it worked for Senator Barak Obama.

I then discovered the Digital Storytelling Center (now StoryCenter.org) in nearby Berkeley, California. I’ve been taking workshops for the past five years and have been trained as a DS Facilitator. I recently co-taught a Digital Storytelling workshop with Dr. Bryan Alexander at EDUCAUSE’s annual convention in Denver. I highly recommend his “New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media“. 

It was fun to just be a participant again. With the help of my fellow workshoppers in the story circle, and facilitators Rani and Andrea, for the first time I was able to edit an idea down to about three minutes and actually finish a story during a three day workshop. 


Please leave your comments below.

Open Participants, Syndicated

Can Democrats learn from President Macron’s example?

French President Macron snubs Donald Trump at the new NATO headquarters.


 

At the 2017 ceremony to open the new NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, French President Macron demonstrated how to communicate with a bully. I added the Belgian national anthem, performed by the US Navy band, for atmosphere. And a fake news ending.

If the video player isn’t working for you, you can watch President Macron handle Trump on YouTube.

 

 

Open Participants, Syndicated

Further Education Adventures of an Adult Student Spring 2018

A mashup I made from a google map image of Berkeley City College, a picture of the Campanile at UC Berkeley and an inviting meadow leading into a thicket.

Above – Stay on the Path
A mashup I made from a google map image of Berkeley City College, a picture of the Campanile at UC Berkeley and an inviting meadow leading into a thicket of distractions.

One year ago (April 2017), having struggled with the culture of incompetence across the Peralta Community College District (PCCD) during my years of service as a student representative, I emailed my counselor and asked what was needed to complete my two Associate’s degrees. She replied; “I am on spring break and will check when I return on Monday.” The following week she checked with the Admission and Records Office (A&R) and reminded me of the classes I needed to complete my education plan. Life intervened again (but in a good way this time) and I didn’t finish my final class until Fall semester. As soon as grades are posted I emailed my counselor my completed education plan and pointed out my sociology degree was completed with “highest honors.” A month later she replied; “Sorry for the late response as I was out of the country. Please complete the petition for AA degree…” and added a link to the forms. Being able to access the forms online. Just a few years ago, I would have had to go to the counseling office and stand in line to pick up the forms and then stand in line again to turn them in. I filled out the forms and emailed them back to her.

After not hearing anything for 6 weeks, at the end of February I emailed my counselor to ask if there was anything left to be done. She replied; “I have submitted your petition to the Admission and Records Office. I think we are waiting for the substitution approval for Psych 1A from Rio Hondo. You will receive a status of your petition in April and invitation for the graduation ceremony in May.” This referred to a class I took a 1973, on a transcript they had received more than five years ago. Last week (April 9th) I received three letters fromPCCD, one stating I still need “Substitution/waiver for Psych 1A to meet the requirement” for my Sociology degree. I emailed my counselor and asked “how long can this possibly take?” She replied; “I am in a meeting and will check if substitution for psych 1A is approved when I return to the campus this afternoon. Will get back to you then. By the way, I will be on vacation for the next 2 weeks. If there is any question, please see a counselor or go to admission office.” Groan That afternoon she checked with A&R and my substitution was approved, I’m going to receive my degrees. Also, according to the letters I received, my diplomas will be available sometime in August. I also received a follow-up email:

Dear 2018 Berkeley City College Graduates!!!
On Behalf of the Berkeley City College Graduation Committee, Congratulations on your recent accomplishment!
…
A black gown & cap with a tassel is required for all graduates. The cap and gown will be available for purchase at our campus bookstore located on the 5th floor after May 1, 2018. The regalia purchase price is $35 + tax, which includes the cap, gown, tassel and courtesy 5-pack of announcements. At the commencement ceremony graduates will also receive a BCC diploma cover and BCC zipper pull. The regalia set that you purchase is yours to keep. It is not a rental. (my emphasis) Since there are no dressing rooms at Zellerbach, you are encouraged to arrive in your cap and gown. Note: The bookstore only accepts cash, credit and debit cards for payment.
Honor Students: If you are an academic honor student, your honor cord will be included in your cap & gown set. Please refer to the section of this letter regarding “honors at graduation” to see if you are eligible to receive the honor cord (Honors pertains only to Associate Degree candidates). Your name will be on an honors list at the bookstore.

After my experiences in the PCCD (Berkeley City College is one of the four Community Colleges that make up the PCCD), I have no interest in participating in the graduation ceremony. I would like my “honor card” and tassle but doubt I’ll go to the “GradFest” (is everything branded?) and pay another $35 + tax. From the posting of my final grades to receiving an official document of my accomplishment – eight months. Good thing I don’t need my diploma to get a job; and this is the new and improved Peralta Community College District! The email thread with my counselor showed it was exactly one year to the day from my inquiry about graduating to receiving notice that my forty-five year old transcript was accepted. Happy Friday the 13th to me!

Last month, based on my experiences in the Peralta Community College District, I called my Distance Education (DE) advisor at my new school Metropolitan State University (Metro State), inquiring about registering for summer classes. I was concerned about an Incomplete grade I have and wondered if I had to clear it before registering. She told me she didn’t think the incomplete would affect my ability to register and I should wait until my registration date and try to register. I followed her advice and the day my registration window opened, I tried to register. I was blocked by a hold for a math assessment placed last fall until my transcripts could be articulated (classes checked to conform to Metro States class descriptions). Soon afterwards I received a “Math Assessment Exemption Granted” based on my C in Trigonometry from 1982. After failing to register I went to my eServices account to check my Degree Audit Report (DAR). I had already pointed out to my advisors how hard it is for a DE student to find their DAR, it was a constant topic on the discussion boards in our orientation class. Five clicks through three menus, but that’s another story. My “Math Assessment Exemption Granted” with a green check mark was still there. I went to the Contact Us page and submitted a request through Student Services; “Can someone review my DARS and remove the assessment hold…?” I got a quick response; “Upon reviewing your account, I do see that you have an assessment hold on your account. It states that the Math Assessment is needed. …If you need someone to review your DARS, please contact your academic advisor…” I replied I do not need a math assessment and sent a screenshot of my DARS, with the green check mark. They replied I needed to contact the Assessment office. I emailed my academic advisor informing him of my predicament. To make a long story short(er), it took ten days of daily emails between my academic advisor and the Assessment office with me trying to register each day to see if the hold was removed. This reminded me of when I had recently gone online and updated my address for my bank account. My checking account and debit card were frozen for ten days, with daily calls to my “Private Banker” until the IT department figured out why. Imagine what regular customers have to endure.

Finally I was able to register at Metro State, but when I went to the payment page I was shocked to see $138 in fees for services I will never use as a DE student. Then I remembered I was sitting on a deck at Stanford University waiting for a meeting when I was cleared to register last fall. I was surprised and happy to find out I could register using my phone. I don’t recall seeing a list of fees. For students in a hurry to complete a degree, that’s $414 a year (with summer session) for services we will never use, including a $48 parking pass! I emailed a screenshot of the fees to my DE and academic advisors, the director of student life and the student ombudsperson and asked why students are charged for services they can never access. The silence was deafening. After 10 days I called my DE advisor and asked if she had seen my email. She replied that she had been at a conference the past week and was just catching up on email. I mentioned that no one else had replied and asked what could be done. “Nothing” she replied, the state trustees had approved the fees and it would take a statewide campaign to get them to remove them. I couldn’t find the number of DE students statewide in Minnesota, but Metro State has $1,500 DE students. That’s over $400,000 for two semesters and over $600,000 for three semesters, each year. Nevermind academic fraud, isn’t this consumer fraud?

A screenshot of the student fees charged at registration at Metro State U.

I’m the first student at Metro State approved to document their learning for college credit on a personal e-portfolio, on my own domain, through prior learning assessment (PLA). I’ve been working with e-portfolios for a few years and have been a member of the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based Learning (AAEEBL) since attending their conference in Boston three years ago. Last year, for the first time, the conference was in a different city, Portland, Oregon, so I attended. I had seen a presentation on e-portfolios for adults in Canadian native cultures at an Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) conference in San Francisco. I saw the author at the AAEEBL conference and after introducing myself and telling him about my project, he introduced me to the DE advisor for Metro State. That’s how I became a Metro State student, but I digress.

After my first AAEEBL conference I started a dialog with the President, Dr. Trent Batson, about creating an ontology (or controlled vocabulary) for eportfolios. This would help students, faculty and adult learners connect and share resources on the internets (Semantic Web 2.0). He approved of my idea but cautioned AAEEBL was focused on a research project that would lead to e-portfolios being added to Dr. George D. Kuh’s list of “High-Impact Educational Practices” and thus promoted by the AAC&U. Last year the research was published as “High-Impact ePortfolio Practice: A Catalyst for Student, Faculty, and Institutional Learning” by Drs. Bret Eynon and Laura M. Gambino, with a foreword by Dr. George D. Kuh. I’m proud to have read their book as soon as it was published as I participated in Open Learning 2017, an open online collaboratory hub where Dr. Eynon and “High-Impact ePortfolio Practice” were featured. Now that this project was finished, I took the opportunity of being at the AAEEBL conference to present my ontology idea to the Practices & Pedagogies Special Interest Group (P&P SIG). It was favorably received, with several AAEEBL officers voicing their approval. As fall became winter, not much was happening in the P&P SIG. I continued to ask the SIG leaders about moving forward and finally created a model ontology for the groups consideration. I received zero constructive feedback. Then the call for conference proposals went out. I contacted the P&P SIG leaders inquiring if they had plans for a proposal. They suggested I submit one. I submitted three: one for my ontology idea, one to promote a student self-assessment rubric developed by two Professors at California State University, Sacramento, who can’t attend the conference, and one about my portfolio for Metro State. As an opportunity to learn about conference presentations, I made each a proposal for a different presentation format. When I got my responses, each was an almost identical form letter stating there were too many submissions in my preferred format, and then suggesting I resubmit my proposals for another presentation format. None of the letters referred to a specific proposal. I think I could decipher which is which, and modify them accordingly, but I wanted to be certain. I emailed my contact at AAEEBL but she said the President had sent the letters and would have to be the one to respond. I reminded my contact that the deadline was approaching but she responded that she was leaving her role at AAEEBL. The due date for the revised proposals has come and gone and I have yet to hear anything more. I have other influential AAEEBL members to reach out to, but my enthusiasm for doing all the work alone by myself has waned.

I won’t even start to include the ICT (information and communication technologies) issues I’ve experienced during this time. Why aren’t ISPs (internet service providers) regulated as public monopolies? Distance education still holds tremendous promise, especially for adult learners, but it sure can be alienating for students.
What does it digital spring break look like anyway?

Open Participants, Syndicated

Enough

I made a digital postcard to commemorate students in dozens of cities in all 50 states staged demonstrations and observed a moment of silence to honor the 14 students and three adult staff killed a month ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

I made a digital postcard to commemorate the students from Granada Hills High School in Southern California (and in cities in all fifty states) who walked out of their classes, staged demonstrations and observed a moment of silence in honor of the fourteen students and three adult staff killed a month ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. I’m proud the students are politically savvy and followed what Granada Hills alum John Elway does, not what he says, regarding politics.

Open Participants, Syndicated

Listening to the Spring Rain and Wikipedia

So far in 2018, the second Monday evening of the month is technology night at the Western Institute for Social Research (WISR). In my new (volunteer) position as Learning Technologist, I suggested it to help the faculty and administration improve their digital skills as they transition to an online accredited institution. For our first project, I set up a free Wikiversity course so we can all learn to edit and eventually create Wikipedia pages. “The Wikiversity e-Learning model places emphasis on “learning groups” and “learning by doing”. Wikiversity‘s motto and slogan is “set learning free”… .” With all the work being done around accreditation, a part time faculty and a student body of working adults I hoped this asynchronous exercise would be a low stakes way to invite learning and lead to the creation of a Wikipedia page for future students and other interested parties to learn more about WISR.

The same small group has been attending the meetings, but not really doing any coursework. This is typical of free no credit online courses. Hopefully, as more folks hear about the class, this will improve. We’re also comparing Zoom to GoToMeeting, so there is a lot of technological change going on. And sound issues, always sound issues.

The next morning I received an email notice of a new blog post from my favorite Learning Technologist CogDog. If you haven’t visited his websites, you should. You’ve certainly seen one of his thousands of daily photographs that he posts to Flickr, they are licensed for free use and are all over the internets. Anyway, his latest post is about the class he’s co-teaching in Mexico on “Open as a Question; Wikimedia as Example, Open Pedagogy, Open Technology, and Open Scholarship.” His posts are always filled with links to social media, learning technologies and even code he writes. Near the end of his post he embedded a presentation he prepared, but never used. CogDog doesn’t throw away projects, he shares them. Instead of making slide decks for presentations he creates websites, or as he describes them, SPLOTS (Smallest Possible Online Learning Tools). Of course, he’s posted the modified Word Press theme he uses to create SPLOTS on GitHub, so you can use it too.

I clicked on “The ‘Pedia and Beyond” and wandered through it’s eleven pages of video, photos, instructions and social media links. The last page has a link to “Listen to Wikipedia”, an audio visual representation of Wikipedia events in real time!

 

http://listen.hatnote.com/

 

“Bells indicate additions and string plucks indicate subtractions. Pitch changes according to the size of the edit; the larger the edit, the deeper the note. Green circles show edits from unregistered contributors, and purple circles mark edits performed by automated bots. You may see announcements for new users as they join the site, punctuated by a string swell. You can welcome him or her by clicking the blue banner and adding a note on their talk page.”

To me it sounds like a cross between Indonesian Gamelan music and New Age relaxation sounds. I was mesmerized by the floating circles (with their Wikipedia titles) and the various sounds identifying the types of Wikipedia edits happening when SPLAT! A giant gray circle covered nearly the entire screen and inside the circle was “Presidency of Donald Trump.” I clicked on it and was taken to the Wikipedia talk page for this Wikipedia article. There was the major addition to the “Presidency of Donald Trump” article ; the list of Notable Departures from his administration. I imagine this was inspired by the one Rachel Maddow has been scrolling on her nightly cable news show.

List of Departed Trump Administration list on Rachel Maddow Show.I scanned down the Wikipedia list and back to the top: it is chronological and the top entry in Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and today’s date, March 13, 2018. That’s how I found out the US Secretary of State has been fired!

Below his entry is
John McEntee – Personal Aide to President Fired 3/13/2018
James Schawb – Spokesperson for ICE Resigned 3/12/2018
Gary Cohen – Top Economic Advisor Resigned 3/7/2018
and Hope Hicks.

Hope Hicks “Role” was listed as Secretary of State, a copy and paste error no doubt, so I signed into Wikipedia and edited it to read “White House Communications Director.” This entry referenced a Business Insider article which had her correct title. Did you know all Wikipedia entries have to have references? Several people at the Western Institute for Social Research do. They now have Wikipedia accounts and are researching new articles. Why don’t you join us?

 

 

https://github.com/cogdog/splotpoint

 

https://github.com/cogdog/splotpoint

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rachel_Maddow_Show