WWW: Making the Familiar Unfamiliar
Liddy Nevile, Director, Sunrise Research Laboratory at RMIT, RMIT, GPO Box
2476V Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. Phone: +613 9660 3024 Fax: +613
9660 2761
E-mail: liddy@rmit.edu.au Web Pages: //www.srl.rmit.edu.au/
Keywords: WorldWideWeb, reconceptualisations, literacy, author, artist, audience
Introduction
In this poster, we propose to question some of the familiar concepts which
we currently attach to community practices and activities.
We note that when thinking through the veil of the WWW, we do not always
find old conceptualisations as useful as they once might have been. Our
work with students, teachers, lecturers, educational institutions, and
cultural institutions and their audiences and artists, challenges our
complacency in formative ways.
The range of new ways of understanding old practices [HREF
0] extends across such areas as:
- literacy skills and practices - how have they changed
and what can we expect?
- research activities among scholars, and students -
what is the role, and what are the needs, of the questor?
- relationships between teacher and learner in the learning
environment - does access to 'richer' resource-collections make a
difference?
- authorship and readership - who has control?
- cultural institutions as heritage collections - what are exhibitions?
- cultural institutions as the interface between artists and
their audiences - what is their future?
Working with school principals, and others responsible for budgeting and
decision-making with respect to access to the www for students, it has been
helpful to think beyond the immediate to give some sense of perspective.
If the www is mastered by the acquisition of only a new set of skills, the
expectation becomes one of a quick fix, the possibility that only a few
classes will be needed to get it done. By contrast, deep understanding of
the difficulty of moving from illiterate to literate within an reading
community, recognition of the years of nurturing that accompany the
development of the few skills needed, helps explain the dimensions of the
task which confronts those who are prepared to accept that working in
hypermedia instead of serial text, for instance, can change radically what
can be expressed, by whom, and in what form. For many, gaining 'graphic
literacy' can be an enormous challenge, especially for those by whom text
has been privileged almost all their lives. Their skill set for use with
other forms of expression have not been well developed and for them, there
may need to be both a significant change in value and expertise.
We have found that in giving opportunities to work in unfamiliar forms of
expression, such as with pictures and sound, many have learned at least to
appreciate the role these forms may perform for their students.
The acceptance of multiple forms of representation, and better, the
offering of multiple forms, is one step towards the development of
epistemological pluralism [HREF 1] which may open the
way for more inclusive education.
Questor is a Middle English term for a person who is seeking
understanding. It has recently been revived by our colleague Assoc
Professor Patricia Gillard and appropriated by us for the fresh opportunity
it offers us to re-think the role of investigating, thinking, questioning,
whatever it is we often do when surrounded by new information.
In 1994, Nevile & Mathews [HREF 2] questioned the
process of 'doing the literature search'which was compulsory for graduate
students as they commenced their work. It seemed that, at least in the
field of educational technology in Australia, many of the texts discovered
when using the standard bibliographic processes were not leading students
to the material which experts in the field would have chosen. Close
examination of the problem revealed that Australian bibliographies were not
comprehensive and were less and less likely to be so, given the shortage of
funds for the requisite process of cataloguing. It was shown that for
successful academics, the process involved substantial use of collegial
interaction and prior knowledge, neither of which were available to the
novice in a field. At that time, the future was uncertain but viewed
optimistically.
Today, it is still not clear that a novice researcher will be able to act
as an expert just because there is more information available but it is
clear that many students who are new to a field are making use of
opportunities to lurk in order to get a sense of the values of the academy
(where that is important), to discover who is doing what, or to identify
people with whom direct contact might be made for information or help.
Daily requests for information, interviews, opinions, are being received by
recognised experts in situations where, were they not available on the
'anonymous' electronic media, this might not happen.
While there are many benefits to be derived from this more inclusive set of
community practices, what Jean Lave would call 'legitimate participation in
the communities of practice', it is also true that opportunies abound for
the 'vociferous' who can gain notoriety with little critique if they choose
to swim in the right pond. The rapid turn over of list-servers as
readers/writers find their personal level of interaction often means that
those who could help others within a small pond have moved on.
Responsibilitiy for others in cyberspace is not yet a condition of
employment for university staff, for example, but it might become so as
more lists are deliberately developed for the use of students. (We
question the price at which this might be done, remembering that creating
new opportunities for patronage may not be the way to open up the
academies.)
In 1995, Ashdowne, Cartwright and Nevile [HREF3],
worked interactively on the web in a field where others were doing the
same. This led to questioning of the writing process [HREF
4]. To what extent is the opening of questions the goal, and to what
extent the provision of solutions?
In 1995-6, Sunrise has been working with many to develop the OZeKIDS
Internet/CD [HREF 5] as a resource for those offering
professional development to teaching colleagues about the use of Internet
facilities and modes of activity. Providing a workshop with a
resource-rich CD immediately has the effect of changing the nature of the
workshop, in our experience. If not all the how-tos need to be
learned at the time, during the contact session, because they are covered
in the on-line tutorials on the CD, if the process of browsing and
evaluating others' websites is not done on-line at high prices, or even in
computer laboratories or other such unfamiliar locations but in 'the
privacy of one's own home, at times convenient to oneself', and so on, the
workshop does not need to be skill-focussed in the same way. If the
material on the CD encourages the development of websites for local and
publishing purposes, the emphasis shifts from staring at others' work on
the www to personal uses of www-style material, including the development
of personal 'knowledge spaces', in new ways
In 1993, Cielito Baria [HREF 6] completed a masters
thesis on the construction of a hypermedia knowledge space. This idea is
not as easily played out in the www environment yet as it might have been
in the Boxer [HREF 7] context (the computational
environment in whichBaria was working) but it informs the ways in which
the www might be used.
A simple example is offered by the understandings which might be attached
to the expression 'home page'. Netscape asks the user to identify which
page they want as their 'home page'. It is often assumed this means to
which page do you wish Netscape to point as default? For many this means
either their own site-top, or the site-top of some website which they find
useful. Few have been found to use the pointing to a home page as the
opportunity to personalise further the www browsing environment in which
they will be working. Do many even think of themselves as entering a
workspace when they turn on the browser? Making a 'page' which is like a
pencil case, with hot links which open web-editors, point to favourite
search engines, link in personal bibliographies, and generally customise
the tools for operating, can transform the browser and, it is suggested,
provide a home page with real utility and meaning - a home environment.
One difficulty, it has been found, is that many are loath to think hard
about the roles being played by the various components which make up the
user's environment, The mere suggestion that there are a number of agents
to be exploited makes some wilt. The acceptance of intelligence and
control in inanimate objects is challenging and until debunked as
threatening and re-thought as empowering, leads many users to gloss over
the possibilities. Trainers in the use of the www are also shying away
from confronting these issues. In some cases it seems that the old game of
not worrying the users with the 'hard stuff' is continuing but, we fear, it
is serving no other purpose than to reinforce established (and often hard
won) power structures.
The particular context in which we are interested in this issue, relates
to student use of teacher-prepared material. Lecturers who continue to
prepare PowerPoint presentations, or worse, those who learn to make them
and then offer them, seem to us to be missing opportunities to work
effectively in contact time with their students, and making the
out-of-class work of the students more difficult. PowerPoint users often
comment that they have to learn to think according to their presentations -
and in the moment of presentation cannot deviate as they might when
spontaneously prompted by something that happens in a lecture. Those who
develop comprehensive 'websites' and work on them via browsers in the
presentation process have far more flexibiity in the moment, which is when,
we contend [HREF 8], real teaching takes place. After a
lecture, students who can work on from a comprehensive website of linked
information, are better equipped to pursue personal study needs than those
given only a PowerPoint outline, let alone when that is offered on paper.
Again the issue of control is raised, and again it is important to look to
the long term to inform the immediate action: lecturers who build in
dependency will not have students who work beyond the individual lecturer's
capacity but those who empower their students will often reap the reward of
high performance without themselves having attained the same competence.
There are many issues of significance which emerge from debates about what
should be digitised and who should have access to the digitised images, at
what cost. Rethinking the use of exhibitionsas opportunities for
presentation of cultural material, and re-valuing exhibitions as in
themselves significant forms of representation, the composition being the
original expression to be valued, changes the nature of the interplay
between artefacts and their exhibition. We consider it essential that we
do not deny the difference between digitised representations of objects and
the original art forms, whether these are fixed such as a painting or of
performance form, such as a ballet performance or the making of a mandala.
Exhibiting which may be better thought of as telling a story through
artefacts, could become a popular and important process for re-defining
ourselves in our cultural context, and available to all at no substantial
cost. Redefining of cultural values and redevelopment of cultural
practices is a goal for many cultural groups, in particular those working
with eMERGE, the new Victoria Co-operative Multimedia Centre. Our
intention is to work towards encouraging those practices and the digitising
of those artefacts which support more inclusive cultural participation.
Actively challenging the use of electronic media to make such activites
even more exclusive is not expected to happen by mandate but, hopefully, by
example.
Finally, we have been working on the ways in which we can understand the
relationship between cultural content providers, as the commercial world
seems to have redefined artists, and their audiences. In a project
called Australian Writers Microworlds, we are engaged in giving children's
authors access to Internet so that they can work more directly with their
audiences. we will also reform the environment in which these artists will
interact with their audience, making available more than mere browsing
spaces. We do not intend to replace their book-writing activities, but
rather to augment them by allowing the authors to conduct their writers
workshops with young people at their leisure, with new facilities. We
expect to find that giving better opportunities to the audiences to relate
to the authors as authors will help increase the understanding of the role
of authorship. Our work with the authors involved has suggested that for
them, being able to broaden their interactions so they can help their
readers identify the role of authors as current interpreters of cultural
heritages, will be one aspect of this.
Conclusion
Our work in the field of re-conceptualisation is informed by the
ethnographic practices of those researchers with whom we work. Listening
to the cultures in which we operate and working with what we hear,
transforming discourse as peripheral cultural practices, has become a
disciplined activity which we consider to be distinctive as a Sunrise
approach to working with technology.
References
HREF 0 Nevile, L. (1995). "Sense making and
Sensitivities: New Pedagogies? New Practices? New Acceptance of Old Ways
of Learning?" in Australian Journal of Educational Computing (in press).
HREF 1 Nevile, L. (1991). "Can epistemological
pluralism make mathematics education more inclusive?" In (3) 80-87,
Proceedings of PME XV. Assisi: PME.
HREF 2 Nevile, L & Mathews, P, (1994). "Educational
Technology - the Problem of What's Where That is Worth Reading" in Ryan,
M. (ed.), APITITE 94, Proceedings of the Asia Pacific Information
Technology in Training and Education Conference. Milton, Qld: APITITE
94 Council.
HREF 3 Ashdowne, S, Cartwright, W and Nevile, L,
(1995). "Designing a Virtual Atlas on the World Wide Web" in Debreceny, R &
Ellis, A (eds), Ausweb95: Innovation and Diversity, Proceedings of the
First Australian World Wide Web Conference. Ballina, NSW: Southern
Cross University.
HREF 4 Nevile, L, (1995). "Does the World Wide Web make
it Worse for Naive Users" in Debreceny, R & Ellis, A (eds), Ausweb95:
Innovation and Diversity, Proceedings of the First Australian World Wide
Web Conference. Ballina, NSW: Southern Cross University.
HREF 5 url is http://www.srl.rmit.edu.au/ozekids/
HREF 6 Baria, C., (1993). A new approach to
building information systems and the role of users in the development
process. Unpublished Master of Business (Information Technology)
thesis, RMIT.
HREF 7 Nevile, L, (1995). "Do users inhabit or build their
Boxer environment?" in diSessa, A. et al (eds.), Advanced Computational
Environments for Education. New York: Springer.
HREF 8 Nevile, L, (1995). Sunrise Retreats: Reflecting
on Reflections on Moments of Teaching to Improve the Potential of Teaching
Moments. Working Paper Number 1. Melbourne: Sunrise at RMIT.
Copyright
Liddy Nevile © 1996. The author assigns to Southern Cross University and
other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to
use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided
that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is
reproduced. The author also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern
Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and
on CD-ROM, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World
Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of
the author.
AusWeb96 The Second Australian WorldWideWeb Conference
ausweb96@scu.edu.au