Individuals & embodiment
Related to this week’s examination of identity and technology, themes such as: “considering individuals as individuals” (Taylor, p. 226) and “virtual world as embodied place” pervaded much of the reading. On the one hand the articles stressed the need to remember that students do not fit neatly into categories while on the other hand we all have the connection to our bodies and our “humanness” in common.
Taylor’s discussion of body language in a networked classroom is so interesting because the lack of physical presence in online interaction is what we begin to miss. “Because a teacher cannot read minds and because students are more often silent than vocal when there is a problem, the ability to read faces, postures, tones and gestures can help one teach effectively” (p. 224). Here though, a student’s silence during a problem may be more likely in a face to face situation than online. So yes, the facial expressions are beneficial face-to-face but maybe students would feel better about approaching a professor without having to see the professor’s reaction (sometimes a confused or frustrated look from a professor can be really disheartening to an unsure student). On a different topic, Taylor notes that our virtual spaces are metaphors that strive to re-create an online body or material existence similar to our offline existence. Traditionally in the western philosophical tradition we try to separate our thoughts/mind/souls from our body but then when given a chance to experience a world online (like MMORGs) we still experience it through a digital “body” or avatar (at least in the more sophisticated virtual worlds)–we are still contained and by choice.
My relationship to much of the reading this week exists primarily through my experiences in DELTA (Distance Education & Learning Technology Applications). Really there hasn’t been too much overlap between the workshops & seminars I took in DELTA and the discussions we’ve had in 704. However, the Dunn & Dunn De Mers (2002) “Embracing Universal Design… in Web Space” and DELTA’s “508 Accessibility” workshop, covered a lot of the same material – the importance of making webpages accessible to those with disabilities and some of the most common ways to go about doing so. For anyone who is not familiar with the US Rehabilitation Act guidelines, this is one DELTA course I would suggest taking. Some of the most interesting tools they introduced us to were sites that allowed you to hear what a web page would sound like if a screen reader like JAWS were used to render the page:
Accessibile IT @ NC State
http://ncsu.edu/it/access/webaccess/bestpract.php
WAVE: a free web accessibility evaluation tool (this is actually kind of fun to test your webpages with)
http://wave.webaim.org/
Audio example of screen reader
http://www.websavvy-access.org/resources/formexample.php
Thoughts on “Social Networking in Plain English” & Bronwyn Williams
I think one of the things we often forget to acknowledge is that a lot of colleagues and people who are in position to connect us to jobs still may not use social networking sites. Also, if everyone does eventually use social networking sites to make connections, how much of an endorsement is that connection if the connecting thread has many many nodes of separation? Also, I’m not sure if I’m convinced by Williams (2008) argument that we need to fully understand how our students use the social networking genres to teach in the classroom. It seems that the tendency would be to try and get them to change how they are using the medium – like Williams’ example with the “about me” section. I could definitely see myself suggesting, “hey as a class activity let’s try to write something really revealing and interesting about yourselves for the ‘about me’ section of your MySpace page”. This seems like I would try to fully understand how they use the social networking site in order to then convince them to change.
