2-Perceptions as an educator (Posting 2)

How has my learning path shaped by perceptions  as an educator? Cont'd
In response to the article Mills 2010

It is imperative that prior student knowledge should be accessed before we start applying digital solutions to all their learning outcomes for literacy. Digital and social media are just adjuncts to reading and learning not replacements. Too often we are inundated the messages of digital zealots, who claim to have the solution to all learning, whether it reading, Science-Technology-Engineering-Math (STEM) pedagogies, or one of the many forms of expanded multimodal literacies. As you correctly point out, teachers need to be more critical as to whether the students learning needs are being met by yet another Powerpoint presentation in compliance to digital inclusion their course. Many teachers do not accurately assess student’s abilities (pre-knowledge as per good pedagogy) using digital technologies and thus are defeated before they start.

In my 30 years as an ICT teacher and consultant, I have witnessed many failed educational initiatives using video, web and many other educational integrations of digital technologies. This was partly because of incorrect teacher perception of student skills that were non-existent, or poorly developed. Additionally, access to computers and lack of teacher competence and confidence were limiting factors. A BU study of new teachers attests to the fact that teachers competencies, by their own admission, is at very low levels ( Nantais & Cockerline, 2009), coupled with anxiety to be keeping up with digital technologies many teachers use what is familiar and expedient, as do many students. The critical factor of time, to learn how to use digital tools in order to master them, then to be creative, puts great limitations on regular class inclusion of digital technologies in non-tech courses. In my time as a systems analyst and programmer I learned that in business and IT, project failures and constraints are always followed the principles of the Iron Triangle: Scope (Time X Resources), Cost and Scheduling. The principles apply even if the cost is free digital educational tools and unlimited or free resources. The scope (time) and scheduling elements are what cause many forays into digital literacy. None of the realities of barriers to adopting new modes of literacy are new, but they are under-promoted to both teachers and students, leading many authors to argue there is much more of industrial revolution 2.0 ( Rushkoff, 2009 ), Taylorism, and corporate commercial interests at work  in our educational institutions, than paradigm shifts in literacies (Selywn, 2013).

The fact that the paper was not critical of any aspects of the digital turn in new literacy, which we have been promise for many decades now tends to make me be skeptical of the motives being presented as just more techno-utopianism. I don’t dispute that there is better access and ubiquity to literacy materials in multiple forms, or that is can be transformative. I just would like teachers critical of educational technology similar to Douglas Rushkoff when he used McLuhan’s tetrad of media effects  to examine digital promise. Or Neil Selwyn, who wrote an under-recognized book on this whole subject. What is being lost in this rush to the ‘new literacy’ is just as important as what is purported to be gained. One thing that remains constant is that students need time to read and think deeply so as to be ‘creative rather than consumer’ (Mills, 2010, p. 256). For an article not to take into account some of these aforementioned critical elements in its discourse, is not to provide balance, and panders to the same tech-based, panacea mentality, and the myopia many educators have concerning use of digital technologies in service to education.

6 Word Stories

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio entries 

6 word stories for educational technology realities 

• ·       Pay (continuous partial) attention said teacher.
• ·       A smart phones make you smarter
• ·       Think critically utilizing your online tools
• ·       Technology ameliorates all said Ellul
• ·       The future is bright exclaimed Giroux

1. Educational technology (Post 2) Digital Realities

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio 

Educational technology (Post 2)

1. What are the main ideas  I have learned in my readings from various books, articles and from both informal and formal experiential,social, and online learning ?

Students who spend more time socializing do so with the exclusion of engaging in academic tasks thus showing poorer academic performance in schoolwork (Junco & Cotton, 2011, p. 512).  Others however, state that task switching causes inefficiencies in performance when returning to the primary task, but has benefits if it is secondary and passive, since it can provide pause to enable renewed focus (Spink & Waller, 2008 p. 108).  Multitasking and digital technologies are being used incorrectly in educational settings and can impair learning and retention of data in most students.  In the fields of educational and clinical psychology, it has been well established that there is a “cognitive bottleneck” in the prefrontal lobes where higher order thinking occurs, and there is increased competition for an individual’s attention between one or more tasks (Wood, et al., 2011, p. 366).  Even if a learner is alert to the task at hand, and actively willing and able to selectively choose to which information it is important to attend, if attention is divided, then rapid switching between tasks will cause cognitive overload.  As a result, students will not encode or remember all the things to which they attended (Junco & Cotton, 2012, p. 505).  Imperfect selection of information means that the data is not fully accessible for later accurate retrieval or for use in higher order cognitive activities.  The performance decrements are worse when the two mental processing tasks, competing for limited working memory resources, are similar (Wood et al., p. 366).  For instance, listening to music and trying to listen to the instructor would be more taxing on working memory that listening to the instructor while viewing images on Facebook (Junco & Cotton, 2012, p.512).  It is apparent from research that educators will have to be aware of these impairments to learning and retention in order to be help students effectively engage with classroom material.

Students’ perception of ease of use of digital technologies, coupled with the ubiquity and range of activities available on digital devices, have shown that learners, especially young adults, will engage in off-task behaviors both in and out of instructional environments (Wood et al., 2011, p. 365; Junco & Cotton,  2012, p. 511).  Students have self-reported being off-task with digital technologies 43% of the time in controlled experiments with approximately even amounts of the remaining participants choosing to be super-multitaskers, and thereby even less engaged, or non-users, avoiding the technology altogether (Wood et al., 2011, p. 369 Sana et al., p. 25).  Research also indicates that Instant Messaging (IM’ing), and its successor, texting, is by far the worst arrestor of the cognitive processes for a multitasking learner in any setting (Junco & Cotton, 2011, p. 371).  More definitive research could be done using eye-tracking technologies or direct observation via video recording instead of self-reporting to better assess complete attentional focus (Sana et al., p. 29; Zhang et al., 2013, p. 29).  But, it is clear that in formal or informal learning settings, students are at a distinct disadvantage with multitasking and digital technologies no matter how adept they are, or perceive themselves to be, due to the evidence seen.  They will continue to disengage with difficult learning tasks by multitasking or choosing off-task activities.

Multitasking in any learning environment affects quality of learning and retention of even simple information. In an institutional setting, learning is hampered by multitasking and by not mentally attending or focusing on informational input.  Multitasking might hamper higher order tasks that involve understanding material and application of material to novel situations” (Wood et al. 2011, p. 366).  Even worse for learning is that in the relaxed, unsupervised home setting, where there are frequently no controls on usage of digital technology there is a frenzy of task switching and all the associated data loss and imperfect mental encoding.  This is where studying supposedly takes place.  Internationally, non-culturally bound information exists suggesting that lower GPAs and poorer academic performance may be a result of less studying because of the strong negative relationship between time spent on computers and the amount of time studying (Wentworth & Middleton, 2014 p. 310).  If multitasking and off-task activities teachers hamper simple information in any learning environment will continue to be at a disadvantage with getting students to engage with difficult and arduous reading and writing tasks.

Motivation is a big factor in off-task activities in all learning environments. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are: perceived efficiency; enjoyment; and the desire to use technology to learn are all linked to socializing and relationships when learning using digital technologies (Zhang et al., 2013).  More research is needed to ascertain whether students at all levels of education are learning socially or using social connections as avoidance mechanisms to academic engagement.  Given the poor results of engagement in online Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) (Konnikova, 2014, para. 6), it is clear that teachers need to develop more social relationships in order to connect to students in digital learning settings and to keep them motivated to be on task with the learning tasks presented.  Otherwise, socializing and other cognitively low-cost activities will trump academic engagement when in competition for students’ attention. With status quo digital course design and delivery, motivation for enjoyment and socializing will keep learner disengaged in the classroom.

The effects of multitasking has impact, even on those who are quite successful in both online and offline learning. Studies to date are inadequate, but suggest that effective student e-learning engagement and skills sets mirror those of effective learners in general (Winter et al., 2010, p. 72).  The authors showed that Ph.D. students are successful learners already, and have success in learning using traditional skills which correlates with effective online learning and time management skills needed to be successful as an e-learning online milieu.  Because the Doctorate students sample is better able to seek information and educational resources offline, they experience more success doing the same online. The learning cohort used technology differently based on successful strategies that were not technology based.  Also is has been shown that those who used sophisticated strategies in offline environments practiced successful attention management in digital learning settings (Sánchez, et al., p. 553-4).  Even students that can transfer highly successful skills to the online environment still remain cognitively ineffective and less cogent then they might be without the distractions of multitasking (Frontline, [Video file], Digital Nation, 2010).

Multitasking in educational settings affects not only the active participant but also those in close proximity. Stanford University researchers and others have concluded that “multitasking on a laptop poses significant distraction to both the users and fellow students and can be detrimental to comprehension of lecture content” (Sana et al., p. 24).  New York University social media theorist Clay Shirky, an early proponent of digital technology use in educational settings, has now changed the rules from ‘allowed unless by request’ to ‘banned unless required’ because of the distraction and negative impact technology is having on those who are not choosing to use it (Shirky, 2014, para. 5).  Many educators are now in agreement that it is unfair to place other students at a learning disadvantage because of the choices of their peers.

It is becoming evident that continual attention arrest for socializing is deleterious to all persons, whether an expert or novice to digital technologies; the cost to society being the inability of learners to formulate cogent, reasoned ideas or follow lengthy or complex instructions.  Additionally, there is evidence that deep reading is in jeopardy because of media-driven cognition, with its emphasis on speed and discouragement of deliberation in both thinking and reading.  The brain’s plasticity may be at risk of being rewired due to the ubiquity of digital media and information overload (Wolf, & Barzilli, 2009, p. 33). This does not bode well for today’s digital learner in the more complex and information-saturated learning environment of the 21^st century.  Educators are expected to make information more palatable for the new learning paradigm and in fact, we should be doing the opposite by building in more complexity and difficulty to challenge learners and expand their thought processes, not bring them to a lowered learning baseline.  Removing socializing and procrastination inside of the period of work; focusing on educational tasks instead of attentional arresting technologies; and maximizing engagement with learning objects are tasks  to which we as educators and learners will have to put greater efforts.

Due to digital technology’s ubiquity, novelty, and the false premise that technology makes learning more efficient, many learners’ behavioral conditioning in non-instructional settings is to accept many small rewards for many menial digital tasks, such as emailing and posting thoughts to social media (Levitin, 2014, p. 15.70).  This reward system is becoming manifest in the learning setting at all levels as a non-cultural indicator of how students wish to learn and how they perceive valuable learning to be presented (Wentworth & Middleton, 2014 p. 310).  It will have disastrous consequences for learning as ‘continuous partial attention’ continues as the standard in classrooms unchecked and unmonitored (Stone, 2002-2014, [What is continuous partial attention] para.1).  Multitasking and unregulated or unsupervised use of digital technologies in an educational setting will dictate changes in the way we teach and learn if we wish to minimized distraction and maximize attention to material for retention and use at Bloom’s higher taxonomic levels.  Educators will have to make course content that runs counter to this behavioral conditioning which appears to be taking precedence both in and out of a formal learning environments.

Some authors state that students will have to accept responsibility for their own learning but can be included in the process by creating classroom etiquette rules or restricting access in classes to course-based websites only (Sana et al., p. 30).  The technology for culling and presenting information from the vast database that is the World Wide Web and presenting it a ‘walled-garden’ (an Intranet) has existed  since the earliest days of the Internet.  These methods have seldom been used because they are seen as either limiting in scope and breadth, or because they eliminate the serendipity that comes from surfing the web.  In fact, they are exactly the tools needed so teachers can collate and deliver many resources in a non-distracting, focused, multi-modal way while eliminating the distractive elements of online learning.  Other solutions for educators have been suggested such as instructors being given help to compete with Facebook, Twitter and texting by “developing enriching, informative and interactive classes…” (Sana et al., p. 30).  This method of enrichment seems idealistic, given the current workloads of teachers and professors without remuneration or time off in lieu of work done.  Additionally, the lack of familiarity with creation tools for teachers is a hindrance for even teachers who are technologically inclined.  Teachers’ perceptions of the efficiency of delivery methods other than technology, and value judgements as to the return on investment of multiple means of delivery for those who might possibly engage, have to be take into account before there is large scale adoption  Teachers are not instructional designers.  Another measure to insure engagement is the Personal Learning Communities (PLC) which incorporates socializing and learning in less formal setting, and leaves it to the student to engage, if they choose, asynchronously. Other initiatives include flipped classrooms and blended learning environments.  These also put the onus on the students to engage with course material, and free up time for the teacher to be the facilitator of knowledge acquisition, rather than the content expert. Institutions and administrators will have to be less technologically Utopian to make sure that educational technology are being used correctly in service to students and by extension to society.  Even if legions of teachers will create multiple means of access to interesting lesson material, the responsibility will ultimately fall to the individual learner to engage, focus and rail against the predominate easy route of multitasking and reward.

Frontline, (2010), [Video File]. Digital Nation. Producer-Director Rachel Dretzin. Retrieved June 21 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Junco, R., & Cotton, S. R. (2011). Multitasking behavior. Computers & Education, 56(2), 370-378. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2010.08.020 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Junco, R., & Cotton, S. R. (2012). No A 4 U: The relationship between multitasking and academic performance. Computers & Education, 59(2), 505-514.

        dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.12.023 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Konnikova, M., (2014). Will MOOCs be flukes? Retrieved June 14, 2015, from http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/moocs-failure-solutions.

Levitin, Daniel J., (2014). The organized mind: Thinking straight in the age of information overload. [Kindle Edition]. Retrieved from Amazon.ca

Sana, F., Weston, T., & Cepeda, N. J. (2013). Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers. Computers & Education, 62, 24-31. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2012.10.003 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Sánchez, J., Salinas, A., Contreras, D., & Meyer, E. (2011). Does the new digital generation of learners exist? A qualitative study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42(4), 543-556. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01069.x

Selwyn, N., (2104). Distrusting educational technology: critical questions for changing times. New York, NY: Routledge.

Shirky, C., (2104). Why I just asked my students to put their laptops away. Retrieved June 9, 2015, from https://medium.com/@cshirky/why-i-just-asked-my-students-to-put-their-laptops-away-7f5f7c50f368

Spink, A., Cole, C., & Waller, M. (2008). Multitasking behavior. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 42(1), 93–118. doi:10.1002/aris.2008.1440420110.Retrieved June 9, 2015 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aris.2008.1440420110/pdf

Stone, L. (2002 - 2014). Continuous partial attention. Retrieved June 9, 2015, from http://lindastone.net/qa/continuous-partial-attention.

Wentworth, D. K., & Middleton, J. H. (2014). Technology use and academic performance. Computers & Education, 78, 306-311. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.06.012 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Winter, J., Cotton, D., Gavin, J., & Yorke, J. D. (2010). Effective E-learning? multi-tasking, distractions and boundary management by graduate students in an online environment.

Research in Learning Technology, 18(1), 71-83. Retrieved June 14^, 1025, from http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/10753/12376

Wood, E., Zivcakova, L., Gentile, P., Archer, K., De Pasquale, D., & Nosko, A. (2012). Examining the impact of off-task multi-tasking with technology on real-time classroom learning. Computers & Education, 58(1), 365-374. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.029 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Zhang, Y., Mao, M., Rau, P. P., Choe, P., Bela, L., & Wang, F. (2013). Exploring factors influencing multitasking interaction with multiple smart devices. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(6), 2579-2588. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.06.042 Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Masters Summative Journal - Educational technology Context

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio 

Educational technology 

In order to better focus on what I have learned in the last years during my thematic educational Masters journey at university,  I have decided to answer 3 main topic questions: 1. What are the main points I have learned in my readings from various books, articles and from both informal and formal experiential,social, and online learning ? (  see later posting on Education Writ Large ); 2. How has my learning path shaped by perceptions as an educator? 3. How have my pedagogical practices been affected by this knowledge and experience?

First I must provide some context for my learning experience over the last 25 years that preceded my entry in the Masters programme at Brandon University.
My lifelong educational pursuits have been around effective use of ICT in education. This originated with my ‘Computers in the Classroom’ course at Lakehead University in the 1980s and my first use of computers on the First Nations reserve of Pic Mobert where the students had pen overseas pals and my own kids used cd versions of Winnie the Pooh story books ion our AST Advantage PC with the awesome 8 MB of RAM and a 264 MB HDD.

With 3 jobs at First Nations schools  ( 2 in Northern Ontario, 1 in Northern Saskatchewan ) and a year in Spence Bay NWT ( now Taloyak, Nunavut), and after many attempts at procuring jobs in education in New Brunswick, I finally went to IT school in Moncton NB. The very expensive Information Technology Institute taught me programming and networking as well as exposed me to the real world salaries and extensive work commitments in the IT field. Three years as a programmer with McCain Foods at their Global Data Centre in Florenceville, New Brunswick, solidified for me that there are those in the IT field who make the exorbitant salaries and those who are the work-a-day salaried employee chasing the illusive fame or fortune promised by the IT recruiters. Since jobs in the US or in Canada did  not pay nearly as well as the teaching profession, I decided to parlay my applied IT credentials, my Science  and education degrees and my systems/programmer experience with McCain into a reboot of my teaching career. With all this education and experience I thought sure I would land a position somewhere on the east coast. I truthfully did not get but one response to the 40+ resumes and cover letters I sent across Canada. The job prospect , which I accepted hastily, was in Brandon MB. As soon as my job as a technology teacher at Neelin started I was interested in promoting technological realism and pragmatism in my students. Whether it was in the area of computer science web design, desktop publishing or information technology in  business, I tried to instill critical thinking in my students. my classes diminished in size over the years, because I tried to imbue my classes with academic rigour and not allow them to be hollow of content and form. This was not a recipe for sustainability of my school initiated courses. Thus I fell out if favour with the powers that promoted technology in education and my services were demoted. In fact, others would curry favour in other high schools and get far more technology that I ever received to make their IT promises  ( which demanded less rigour ) a reality in our division. On the way I did manage to keep up my research into educational technologies through a series of professional development sessions from the  Manitoba Association of Distance Learning and Technology (MADLat 2005 to 2010)  and a  post graduate studies at the University of Manitoba in  Emerging Technologies ( See other postings in this blog). I also received my Vocational Education certification in microcomputers from studies at Red River College. This background information coupled with the reading and research I have done will lay the foundation for my perceptions and the realities of pedagogy utilizing educational technologies and it's antithesis, authentic learning in which technology plays a minor role to human interaction and socially constructed sense-making for learning.
NB. Emerging technologies courses I have done have postings  from previous years. I will not repeat in what I learined or how it affected my pedagogy 

Educational Technology (Post 1)

Summative course for Masters of  Education Portfolio 

Educational technology (Post 1)

One of my primary investigations into effective use of technology in schools focused E-learning and Multitasking and how these affect pedagogy. While the literature is far from conclusive, it is evident from current research that multitasking and the constant connection to digital technologies, is having a negative effect on learning through the impairment of encoding information.  Off-task behaviors in instructional environments is challenging educators to maintain engagement while always connected students take a cognitive loss in nearly every digital multitasking endeavour they undertake, regardless of the  learning setting they encounter.  Learner motivations are directed toward more socially rewarding, non-academic engagement and therefore, at risk are deep reading skills and intimate understanding of complex issues.  Offline skills that would help mitigate online success are being neglected or ignored in deference to more engaging ways of digital learning.  The research however, is showing that digital technologies and always-on learners are at a cognitive disadvantage.  A learner’s social and academic worlds may intersect continuously, but this has consequences for the learner, the teacher and the educational institutions that have only just started to be seriously addressed in cognitive and educational instruction research fields.  Constant connection to attention-grabbing, cognitively novel, and emotionally rewarding, online content is causing both positive and negative changes for teachers’ course delivery, and content.  Examination and support via institutional channels must be increased in order to minimize the negative effects that constant connection creates and keep students focused in our new digital learning environment.
The current literature is replete with examples of how continual multitasking on multiple devices provide little added benefit at best, and impair retention and retrieval of fact-based knowledge at worst. I have read many papers, in my pursuit of a masters of education and my emerging technologies courses, which attest to the problems inherent in unfettered and unfocused and poorly implemented uses  of technology in education, either as mandated by ill-informed administrators or as means of remedial or entertainment modes of engagement. Therein lies the problem. A brief Google Scholar search can yield much literature critical of current practices, if teachers and educational leaders chose to be critical in their stance towards educational technologies. One such example.  (warning deep thinking and extended reading required ). 

Better late than never. AHHHHH! Smell the asynchronicity !!!

The topic for the interstitial week 6/7: Find and OER repository and comment on it's sustainability.

What does it do...............?
In the interest of expediency I chose to just WRITE about my findings rather than do any kind of multimedia formatted information. I have done podcasts, video podcasts (misnomer -as they are just called videos to the non-digital natives or questioning immigrant) Slideshare, Voicethread and numerous other multimedia presentations for other Emerging technologies courses and for my teaching assignments. I know the time commitments involved and qualities of the end products and I must say I have to defer to the age old medium of print ( as anachronistic and Luddite that may be.......... can you say Kindle boys and girls) as being the more expeditious means given my less than enthusiastic engagement in the course thus far. We will examine why if there is an exit survey at the end of the course.I chose a Secondary School repository for OERs using Universal Design for Learning, in the progressive province of British Columbia (The Special Education Technology British Columbia (SET BC). ).This is Governmental/Provincial site, so may not fit the parameters of what we were asked to investigate in our online assignment on the viability and longevity of OERs. The SET has been around since 1989
so I guess would classify as a mature OER. It was created "To enhance student opportunities for success by providing access to curriculum through the use of appropriate educational and communication technologies." They provide assistive technologies to teachers and students and support for same, to all teachers and their charges in British Columbia.This is a very specialized repository which I assume would attract all the technologically adventurous and those with the trouble-shooting skills and tenacity to stick with the project even when most would give it up as lost cause. I think that a lot of these OER sites have individuals with such rare and diverse skill sets that are willing to contribute and work pro bono , but even they cannot withstand the bureaucratic onslaught of apathy coupled with poorly thought out ICT goals.

Where is it now.................??
Since 'high' or 'special needs' students are a growth growing segment of our population, it is little wonder that this OER site is still functioning at it's full capacity ( or so I assume without any statistics to back up my claim). Of course with an unlimited revenue stream provided by tax dollars it is easy to stay viable.
There are two areas you have to log in
and there are two areas for student work. The Learning Objects Repository has quite a few resources for K-8 but is sorely lacking in High School materials. I counted only 22 lessons for all secondary levels dating back to 2007. CurriculumSET was equally as sparse for secondary school with nothing for ICT in middle scholl or High school and only one resource for elementary. I guess sharing is not all it could be even in British Columbia. The pictureSET was the same .
However, the Learning Centre area had quite a few resources for teachers from 1997 onwards. This bodes well for the people who are contributing. Like most OER repositories however, statistics on use/resuse are lacking and simple hit counter tracking says noting about how or who the resource is being used by. Manitoba Ed has invested a lot of money in WebCt infrastructure , course development, promotion but they will be the last ones to give you any negative statistics on it's under utilization. I suspect the same is true of OER repositories


What is its prognosis for the future...............??I believe that there is a very good chance of it program surviving in some form or other (even if it is much diminished due to less government funding) since it is well distributed program over a lot of highly qualified ( and well paid ) individuals.


From my readings and discussions it seems clear to me that even with well established goals and progress assessment toward those goals, adequate funding ,and ongoing creative input that sustainability will remain elusive. Power structures aside, I think it is like Scott says, that the burden on the creative, technophilic educators will reach a point of futility and they will choose to disengage or contribute sporadically. People will cease to do work they perceive as unproductive. Once and OER smells stale , death is not far off

The dilemma for OERs:why they will not survive as socially created,shared, free entities.

This is a brain-dump too, as it appears, according to my wife, that this is the type of writing is of which I am most capable.Maybe I should write my own On The Road?

As we were encouraged to rant, I will oblige accordingly

If our most successful OERs in 'production' or 'mass circulation' now are the ones that are highly organized and stripped of cultural content, and if we agree that OERS that are the most pedagogically beneficial should be imbued with socially, politically, economically or culturally relevant context embedded or integrated, then we have a huge diametric contradiction here; one that cannot be solved by love nor money. Also if the ultimate goal is to have the underclasses of the world maximize the use of OERs, we need to scrutinize their underlying objectives, both overt and covert.

Are they to:

1/ gain legitimacy or prestige for the content creators and the 'experts' on these much debated learning objects

2/ build momentum for rapid adoption of OERs based on altruistic, democratic, humanitarian and philanthropic reasons for all learners to usher in a new golden age of teaching and learning

3/ monetize all online courses to eliminate the messy human element of teaching in favour of a more streamlined, cost effective, non-unionized, self-directed learning model for all learners, while still applying the ShirkyPrinciple.

We must examine not only who the target audience is for these individual OER commodities, but also , if we are serious about their use as a 'global levellers' for education, how we can give the content creators, regardless of geographic and economic constraints, the means to create their own OERs and by extension, their own reality. While this is on the radar I think it is imperative to any successful global pragmatic implementation or sustainability
I think I would have to agree with Douglas Rushkoff's argument in his recent book Life Inc., that global societies have essentially been systematically stripped of social interaction in favor of passive consumerism. We, as individuals, have become slaves to our ideals of private ownership and are only capable of identifying ourselves through branding and consumption. (For me, MIT's branding is the main reasons for MIT's success in the OER field). Because this anti-socializing corporate mentality is so firmly embedded in the global psyche that even questioning the power structure is tantamount to heresy, we cannot even approach framing a cogent argument toward the fact that OERs cannot exist in the diametrically opposed medium in which it (and all of us) exist.

As Rushkoff and many others point out, there has never been a level 'playing field' for any human endeavour since the ascendancy of money but rather one of privilege and monopoly. A lot of us are just becoming aware of this in the crisis situations unfolding around the world but rationalize this out of our academic and everyday lives. This rationalization is being applied in huge doses to the online OER debate."If the OERs had full funding...." or "If this technological roadblock were only removed...." or "If the Institutional leaders could only see....The commercialization of this section of the Internet has the same underlying constraints as those of the green energy revolution: Unless it can be controlled for private gain, it will be always subordinate to, if not actively fought against, by the status quo of more profitable means of business. There is no money in poor folks (former Yugoslavia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda...........) and no money in OERs. Thus they will not continue.