Day 24-Full Circle--The Choice is Ours #edcmooc

photo courtesy www.sallyhepler.com

The Introduction: Approaching Post-Humanism, by Neil Badmington, goes to great length to summarize the view of Descartes as the originator of the accepted definition of “what is human.” He states:

“There is…an absolute difference between the human and the inhuman: only the former has the capacity for rational thought. Reason belongs solely to the human and, as such, serves to unite the human race. ‘We’ may have different types of bodies, but because reason is a property of the mind (which, for Descartes, is distinguishable from the body), deep down ‘we’ are all the same.” (Badmington 4)

As we (humans) continue to evolve, as technology moves from healing to enhancing, we will be pressed with the task of deciding what future we want for the creatures of the Earth.  One possibility is expressed in the video True Skin. 

In this short film, man has “progressed” to a point where the norm is physical enhancements.  If a person is “entirely organic,” they are considered a lesser quality.  The poor and indigent are those who cannot afford enhancements.  This is demonstrated by the sign which reads, “SERIOUSLY --NOT HIRING NATURALS”  In this video, the narrator has stolen a brain implant which has made him the target of an all-out manhunt.  As the government agents are closing in on him, he reached for a fingerprint pad, when touched it will “backing up” his consciousness so that it can be downloaded into a future body.

This future society might appear utopian to some, but to me it is frankly dystopian.  Medical science has made amazing progress in area of prosthetics for the healing of injury and birth defects (utopian).  But should these services become available to the highest bidder, making them less or un-available to those who actually need them (dystopian)?  And what of the concept of “backing up” your memories so that you can “download” into another body? No thank you.  When I finish my term on this earth, I am perfectly ready to begin my journey into the next stage of existence.  Trapping a soul in an endless loop of earthly bodies would condemn them to an eternal hell of self-imposed “ground-hog days” without the opportunity to progress.

The face and future of posthumanism are, as N. Katherine Hayles recognises, uncertain: the prefix does not pre-fix. What matters, rather, is that thought keeps moving in the name of a beyond, in the shadow of the unknown, in the fault-lines of the ‘post-’. (Badmington 10)

It seems we have come full circle.  In a blog post of the week 1 readings (Day 2), I quoted the Polish-American writer Isaac Bashevis Singer who declared,

'We have to believe in free will. We've got no choice.'

As human kind moves forward into the new world which technology will make possible, only we can decide which way we will move forward. 

Day 21 - What is a Human? #edcmooc

As week 3 draws to a close, I realize we have only one week of content left and then a mad dash to finish up our artifacts and *poof* no more EDCmooc! I find it hard to remember LBM (life before MOOC).  But as that is still many a sleepless night away, I will defer further reflection on that topic.

This week we’ve been studying the question, "What makes a 'human'?"
We’ve looked at real vs. digital, alien intelligence vs. mere human "meat." 
We have even gone down the road of creation vs. evolution.  But I think the question is a much simpler than any of these.

Earlier this week while bouncing around through the resources made available on the Facebook and Google Circle pages associated with this course, I came to a mosaic of self portraits which appeared to be taken with cell phones.  These pictures, called "selfies," are taken of oneself, usually with a cell phone with the intent to post to a social media site. 

In my blog post for day 18 of this course, I shared a selfie taken by a two year old boy.  When you look at that picture (below), you can see the pure joy on the face of this little boy--joy over his mastery of his moms iPhone; joy over seeing his own face smiling back at himself.  This self awareness, this joy in our own accomplishments, this thirst for knowledge at the tender age of two,THIS…I think…is what makes us human.

 

Day 20 - Evolution/Creation Why Not Both? #edcmooc

I have found this week's topic the most interesting yet, and also the hardest to put my thoughts into words.  In Steve Fuller's lecture, Humanity 2.0, his "jumping off point" for his whole theory about the non-humanity of mankind is that we are really not that different from apes.  That in fact, there is an "overlap of species" on this planet which makes us not all that special. He attempts to use this argument to disprove the theory of creation altogether.

I must object. I would propose instead that the theory of evolution and creation do NOT need to be mutually exclusive.  I ask instead, would not a God who is intelligent enough to create the heavens and earth and all who dwell within, also be intelligent enough to make his creations capable of adapting to change when necessary?  

And are we not all made of the same star dust? Evolutionists believe this is because our ancestor climbed out of some primordial goo.  However, if an intelligent being created us with the same stardust, would we not all have similar components? (90-95% genetic material)

Reproduction of A Starry Night by Jessica Siemens

Do we say that all of Van Gogh's paintings are "the same" because he used similar paint to paint them?  I do not believe you can say a human is less of a human because some of God's other creatures have similar skill sets and are made from the same "star stuff."  While humans share the ability to communicate, build tools and live in communities with other species, humans have taken these abilities to an exponentially higher level than any of the other species currently inhabiting earth.

According to Rod Mickens at the American Museum of Modern History, in Manhattan, 

"All species on Earth, including humans, are unique. Yet our intelligence and creativity go well beyond those of any other animal. Humans have long communicated through language, created and appreciated art and music, and invented complex tools that have enabled our species to survive and thrive, though often at the expense of other species.

We owe our creative success to the human brain and its capacity to think symbolically. While some other species can solve problems and communicate with each other, only humans use symbols to re-create the world mentally and dream up endless new realities. Although humans have not lost their selfish motivations, symbolic thought has opened our minds to spirituality and a shared sense of empathy and morality."

As for me and my house, I'll go with that definition.

Day 18 - "I'll have the Veggie Burger, Please" #edcmooc

"They're Made Out of Meat," the fourth video in the Week 3 assortment is a perfectly horrific video.  With mere vocal inflection and basic dialog this short flick manages to dehumanize and even engender disgust for the human being.  Two men from outer space discuss earthlings as "meat" who are "born meat" and who "die meat" and make "meat sounds." 

While watching this video, it is difficult to remember all that is beautiful about the "meat" that makes up the human form--from a newborn, to a child on a school yard, to an expectant mother, to a bent old man.  Yes, they are made of meat, and bones and energy and a spiritual essence which sets us apart from any other species on earth. 

Two days ago I read the term "selfie" for the first time. According to the Urban Dictionary, a Selfie is: "A picture taken of yourself that is planned to be uploaded to Facebook, Myspace or any other sort of social networking website."  Today a dear friend texted me this picture of her two year old son with only one word in the text-"selfie."  I Photoshopped texture and blur into the photo as she was reluctant to have her son's image bouncing freely around the web, but you can still see the pure joy in the face of this very young digital native who is pleased a punch with his newly acquired selfie skills.  In my mind, this makes him human, not meat.

Day 15 - Putting the Human in eLearning #edcMOOC

The first week 3 video, Toyota GT86, was about a new model of Toyota which literally breaks/drives out of the boring, emotionless, muted colored, digital world--through a glass enclosure dome to the vibrantly colored real world where everything is exciting and desirable.  

Compare this to eLearning. Do our students want a boring, emotionless, muted colored, text-based course or would they rather "break through" to a vibrantly colored learning environment which includes audio and video interactions with their teacher and classmates? In Steve Kolowich's article, The Human Element, he suggests that student retention and success rates can be improved by professors using video and audio of themselves to teach and interact with their online students.  The article goes on to say, 

"For Hersh, engagement goes hand-in-hand with audio-visual communication. The more that exchanges occurring within an online learning environment resemble those that occur in classrooms, he says, the more that students will feel connected to their professors and classmates, and the more likely they will be to stay in a program."

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/29/lms#ixzz2lXD92xoE 
Inside Higher Ed

My personal experience leads me to agree.  In my own online Business Management course, I simulate my face-to-face classroom in several ways, but my favorite example is to use VoiceThread (www.voicethread.com) in place of the text based discussion board several times during the semester.  I receive consistent student feedback which states that seeing and hearing their fellow students' comments makes it feel "more like a classroom," and they like it because it adds variety to their online experience.  

I believe as we increase human interaction in eLearning, we are better able to reach the human on the other end of the digital chalk board and bring color to their educational world.  

Day 14 - What Defines Your SIGHT? #edcmooc

As week 2 draws to a close I am a little surprised how far I have come on this adventure through the MOOC: eLearning and Digital Cultures.  At the end of last week, I thought I had a grasp on this whole MOOC thing.  And then this week I found several new resources that I hadn’t even noticed before.  I’ve also seen several people on the course who say that they are taking it for the second time around--I can see why.  

So, Week 2 in review-

New for me this week:

• I (learned how to and) created a Google map for everyone to add their name and location to.  If you haven't added yours yet, go to: http://bit.ly/1cQI5oy to add your marker!  It would be pretty exciting to see where everyone is from.  
• I signed up for tweetdeck so that I could participate in my first ever tweetchat.  
• Learned two new colloquialisms (through twitter, no less).  
• “Bob’s your uncle!”  
• “Put the butter on the spinach!”  

Perhaps the most exciting thing that happened to me this week was when my Tweet concerning the amazing "community" present in EDCmooc was read  by Dr. Sinclair during the Google Hangout. :)  Then when I tweeted my excitement over hearing my tweet read, she read that tweet as well.  Pretty heady stuff for a first-gen college grad who grew up on a little farm.  I have ancestors who came from Scotland and have always wanted to go there...today I did--digitally. .  I can't help but be struck by how much a Massive Open Online Course, with over 22,000 students can be affecting me so personally.

A shining jewel which surfaced in this weeks strolling through the MOOC was a reference to Amy Burvall's blog post entitled, Why We Need Digital Vikings, which can be found at: http://bit.ly/ULle31. This post was witty and creative in it's prescription on how-to explore the internet with the courage of a Viking. 

I have made a video with my reflections on week 2 and more of my thoughts on this week's videos and reading. I've been thinking a lot about the video Sight and other's reactions to it.  I find it most interesting that once the woman lost her agency and was controlled by the man, I assumed she was part of his imagination--not real--like the art on his blank apartment walls.  Yet others voiced a concern over a loss of agency. My "take away" from this is not a debate over who interpreted this video correctly, but rather that we students in EDCmooc come from many different age, education and cultural backgrounds from around the globe and of course we will interpret things differently.  This is an opportunity to benefit from others' Sight.  

  

Day 9 - From A Day of Glass to A School of Glass #edcmooc

A Day of Glass was utopian to the extreme.  From the glass walls that brighten to wake you up to the playful family relationships that thrive on the super-iPad electronic interactions to the doctors who can look inside your brain to find out what ails you, UTOPIA! But as an educator, the educational uses were even more over the top. From the bulletin boards which kept up to the minute announcements, the architectural glass walls with interactive lesson information, the smart boards with bio-metric response to the teacher's touch and the lesson on color, Awesome! And then the field trip to the Redwoods--I've been to those very redwoods and I've NEVER seen those dinosaurs! I'll bet if I had that glass, I'd see the dinos! And The Bridge was merely a continuation on a smaller scale of A Day of Glass.  Technology's only purpose in the future is to make mankind's life better...to improve education, right? Right?!

The entire time I watched these two videos, another movie kept playing in my mind. Ender's Game, based on the novel by Orson Scott Card, just hit US theaters November 1, 2013. Ender was set primarily in educational environments and most of these were constructed of architectural glass, glass counters with reactive bio-metric surfaces, remote controlled devices which reacted to mere muscle control rather than sticks or buttons--all that we have talked about.  Academic utopia, right? One would think. Except that in Ender's "utopia" the students were being educated to wage war. They were being trained to defend Earth against the enemy who almost wiped out humans 50 years ago, should they return.  
**SPOILER ALERT**  (The book has been around for 30 years so spoilers follow.  If you want to see the movie and haven't read the book, stop here!)

In Ender's utopian educational system where they need to train a 14 year old military force to lead the earth to victory against the alien/bug enemy, no technological advance is spared.  Ender moves up through the ranks with various plot twists and ends up as commander-in-chief-to-be, with only the final exam to go.  He has his team around him in the simulation room near to the enemy planet when he gives it his all and as he sacrifices his entire force, he annihilates the entire species and "wins the game."  Only he soon finds out that it was NOT a simulation, but he had actually committed genocide. The boy is devastated as he thought he was only playing a game.

The metaphors here are many. Ender is the savior of humanity.  He is a third child which is only allowed by special government permission to help save the Earth. Ender is different than other kids.  He is sensitive in ways that others are not. He understands his opponent and through understanding them, he is able to destroy them. It is very interesting the way the military is made up of the best and brightest youth who are sent into battle by the old(er) men who stand behind their safety glass and watch.  Sound familiar?