ehabitus

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Myth #4: The Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime Myth

Back in the Internet's heyday --when e-learning was seen as "the next killer app" (Chambers, 1999), threatening to turn traditional campuses into "relics" (Drucker, 1997)-- educational technologists celebrated the overcoming of space, time and even the body promised by new technologies and forms of learning. Commentators wrote, for example, of the "death of distance" (Cairncross, 2001), and of the promise of disembodied community and learning that would make prejudices like race and gender a thing of the past (Ried, 1998). Cyberspace was seen as clearly different from (and in many ways better than) the "real world" "a sentiment that has been given powerful and economic expression in phrases like "anyplace, anytime" education, or learning for "anyone, anywhere, anytime." However, more recent experience has shown that these worlds are not so different. "[T]he binary opposition between cyberspace and 'the real world,'" scholars have come to learn, "is not nearly as sharp or clean as it's [been] made out to be" (Kolko, Nakamura & Rodman, 2000).


All the same, claims of learning "anywhere anytime," and of being able to be "anyone" online --creating one's own Internet identity—are still commonplace in e-learning today. It is not at all uncommon to read of projects claiming that they are realizing the overall aim of making "learning available to anyone, anywhere, anytime" (e.g. Bourne, Harris & Mayadas, 2005). It is also not surprising to come across descriptions of the educational potential of blogs, e-portfolios, wikis, or other technologies emphasizing how they free the user to "construct" or "develop" their own "online identities" (e.g., Cameron & Anderson, 2006), with no explanation or qualification concerning such freedom.


But the freedoms of placelessness and facelessness available online do not exist independently of the problems and limitations that are more familiar from the "real" or "physical" world. Research has shown that individuals are not free to create new identities online that simply erase the physical markers of race and gender.


Read the entire piece.

Labels:

posted by Norm at 11:25 AM

1 Comments:

  • Here is my discussion with Stephen Downes on this posting (taken from http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=38959)
    ___________________________

    Stephen,

    Thanks for your response. We seem to be arguing past one another here on a number of points, so let me just focus more narrowly on the first, on "anytime, anywhere."

    The phrase "anytime, anywhere" (or some variation thereof) is used in connection with "Education" or "Learning" quite commonly to describe present realities. Here's an actual quote from the article I just reference in my piece:

    "Studying engineering online from anywhere and at anytime has become possible in recent years..."

    You might want to search for 'anytime' and/or 'anyplace' on your OLDaily archive. You and the items you quote usually use it in the present tense. Statements of the kind that I quote above are easy to find.

    So what is the meaning of this phrase in the discourse of e-learning? In my "Myth of Anywhere, Anytime...", I consider the implications of taking such language both literally (i.e. physical access) and figuratively (i.e. "positioning" of users in online environments), and draws out the problems that arise in both cases.

    Can you tell me what else "anywhere" "anytime" might mean, when used to describe our present situation? How is it to be understood, so that it is not taken, as you say, as a 'straw man'?

    Norm Anymouse, February 20, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

    Re: The Anyone
    First, Norm, you write, "You say: 'First of all, I don't think that anybody asserts that the internet presently allows 'anyone, anywhere anytime' access.' This was not my claim. I don't say that anywhere."

    But in the article, you write, "Cyberspace was seen as clearly different from (and in many ways better than) the 'real world' a sentiment that has been given powerful and economic expression in phrases like 'anyplace, anytime' education, or learning for 'anyone, anywhere, anytime.'"

    So you do make the claim, protestations to the contrary.

    Even so, you say, "I observe that that people are claiming all the time that e-learning can occur anywhere and anytime. My point is that this claim is misleading in its unqualified universalism."

    My point still holds. Nobody says that the internet currently allows this. It would be an absurd point to make. You are responsing to a straw man.

    Second, you say I've missed your point when argue that "Second, the detection of stereotypes on the internet does not make it impossible to be 'anyone'."

    Presumably, when you say that I missed your point you mean to say that you did not say that "the detection of stereotypes on the internet makes it impossible to be 'anyone'.

    But you say, "Research has shown that individuals are not free to create new identities online that simply erase the physical markers of race and gender, for example" which just is the assertion that the creation of such an identity is impossible.

    Even an assertion like this makes it should like it's impossible to get away from the stereotypes: "Tools that would 'redress' issues of 'age, gender and races,' she explains, themselves 'produce cybertypes that look remarkably like racial and gender stereotypes. [...] The Internet,' she concludes 'propagates, disseminates, and commodifies images of race and racism.'"

    Now, how did I misinterpret you? I content that I did not - that you did indeed intend to say that it is impossible to use the internet to escape the stereotypes.

    But if this is so, then my response holds. Merely observing that the stereotypes persist - which is all the sources report - is not sufficient to show that it is impossible to remove them. I contend that it is possible, but that most people don't bother.

    This is therefore not, as you claim, a "literal limit."

    Third, you argue that "I'm saying that the language in e-learning is misleading when compared to what research shows happens in observable reality."

    I am saying that you haven't come close to showing this.

    I am saying that you are creating caricatures of that language, and then against every instance of the caricature, apply a class analysis, as exemplified by the digital divide.

    I think it is telling that there are no actual quotes of such language used in e-learning. You leave your opponents fighting a chimera, trying to defend a position that cannot be found anywhere.

    I am moreover not certain of the point of this whole critique.

    Pretty much any generalization can be shown to be false, and on numerous grounds. To take the 'anytime, anywhere' example, you could show that it is false merely by pointing out that internet access is not available on a bus. So why not do this instead?

    It almost reads as though you are trying to show something deep about e-learning writers through this series of critiques, something along the lines that they either embody or perpetuate various stereotypes. But you haven't been able (or willing) to make this point directly.
    Stephen Downes, February 20, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

    Re: The Anyone
    Stephen,

    Thanks for posting my piece. Let me respond to your 3/4 objections.

    You say: "First of all, I don't think that anybody asserts that the internet presently allows 'anyone, anywhere anytime' access."

    This was not my claim. I don't say that anywhere. I observe that that people are claiming all the time that e-learning can occur anywhere and anytime. My point is that this claim is misleading in its unqualified universalism.


    You say: "Second, the detection of stereotypes on the internet does not make it impossible to be 'anyone', it merely points out that most people choose to be more or less themselves, through which some people can identify stereotypes."

    You've missed my point here as well. Note the quote from Herring, who has done lots of systematic empirical research: "gender is often visible on the Internet on the basis of features of a participant's discourse style, FEATURES WHICH THE INDIVIDUAL MAY NOT BE CONSCIOUSLY AWARE OF OR ABLE TO CHANGE EASILY." Research has also shown that communicative contexts in which participants are anonymous, and able to *consider* constructing an alternative identity occur relatively infrequently anyways.


    You say: "Finally, this assertion that "the experience of a single (and relatively small) class of people is privileged and universalized" doesn't trump everything.[...] Friesen needs to show that the generalizations that he says apply only to privileged users cannot apply to other users"

    I am not trying to "trump everything." Nor is it fair to expect that I should prove that positive possibilities CANNOT apply to less privileged users (talk about a restriction!). I look at what different classes tend to do (or do not do) with the Internet, and to argue that class lines fall along gaps in accessibility. Maybe the reason you are holding my arguments to this kind of standard is that you think, as you say, that my arguments attempt to "trump everything." My point is simply that: "we need instead to qualify our language, mind the gaps" and avoid universalist claims. The issues I focus on (access, identity, etc.) are matters of degree that are based on empirical observations of social tendencies and trends, not open and shut arguments or hypotheses that can be falsified by one or more counter-cases. I'm not arguing that certain things are uncategorically possible or impossible with the Internet/e-learning; that would be a relatively pointless exercise. I'm saying that the language in e-learning is misleading when compared to what research shows happens in observable reality.

    I am not arguing based on falsifiable logic, I'm arguing based on evidence.

    -Norm
    Anymouse, February 19, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

    The Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime Myth
    Norm Friesen offers the fourth of his 'e-learning myths' series. It follows the form of his previous installments. He writes, "'Anyone, anywhere, anytime' invokes a kind of 'default' person, place and time which is generally white and male (Nakamura, 2002), in a position of wealth and in a space and time generally defined in terms of production and consumption. In uncritically invoking categories like anyone, anywhere, anytime, the experience of a single (and relatively small) class of people is privileged and universalized." First of all, I don't think that anybody asserts that the internet presently allows 'anyone, anywhere anytime' access. Second, the detection of stereotypes on the internet does not make it impossible to be 'anyone', it merely points out that most people choose to be more or less themselves, through which some people can identify stereotypes. Finally, this assertion that "the experience of a single (and relatively small) class of people is privileged and universalized" doesn't trump everything. The digital divide doesn't trump everything. If we are restricted to saying things about the internet that must be true not only of rich white males but also of impoverished people with zero access, we may as well go home; it's a ridiculous requirement. Friesen needs to show that the generalizations that he says apply only to privileged users cannot apply to other users, that is, that the privilege is essential to the experience. Norm Friesen, ehabitus February 19, 2007 [Link] [Comment]

    By Blogger Norm, At February 25, 2007 3:29 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]



<< Home