Ever hopeful for a more permeable barrier to participation, I have failed again to connect via @vconneting with the #digped kewl kidz. Just as I failed to join them IRL because I don’t have the spondulix to pay even adjunct price or have the right identity creds to muster sufficient “reality” to become visible and voiceable.
I am relegated to the the blog comment section, away from all the shiny, happy people. I am there in the free speech pen like a reporter at a Trump rally.
Here is the exchange (at least to the time of writing this) from there:
Is there a hashtag for those of us participating virtually?
Best of luck to those of you who are fellows and participants.
Something I would like to see this year that
Caines, Autumm. “We Are @vconnecting at Digital Pedagogy Lab 2019 #DigPed Aug 5-8.” Almost There … Virtually Connecting, 30 July 2019, http://virtuallyconnecting.org/blog/2019/07/30/we-are-vconnecting-at-digital-pedagogy-lab-2019-digped-aug-5-8/.
I am not sure will be specifically addressed is consideration of this question,
“How can our digital pedagogy remain relevant to our learners and communities in an age of
collapse?” I know I will be asking this question ad nauseum throughout the week and continuously throughout the rest of my digital pedagogy. We need to justify
the carbon resources being released into the ecosphere as result of this conference and it seems to me
answering this question should be foundational.
Vanessa Vaille, who is also engaging #digped from outside and was the only other commenter, honored my response. You see, one of the problems with social networking tools is that implicit in using them is a big ask that oftentimes leads to a big fail. The big ask is this: join me. It is risky to say this. You are lowering a boundary or you are making it contingently permeable. In this case the blog at VConnecting is tacitly saying, “Join in and I will honor your commitment.” And honor it you must by responding, even in a boilerplate thank you, to that more than modest commitment. I might also add that you not subject your commenters to moderation unless commenters prove to be unworthy of that respect.
Here’s what Vanessa wrote,
Vanessa VaileAUGUST 7, 2019 AT 9:43 PM
Terry, I think of it as collecting ideas to adapt in a time of collapse if education becomes an exercise in samizdat.
Thank you, Vanessa, for minimum viable engagement. I do not say that in a snotty way. What I mean is that I am grateful that you know how to play the game. And it is not some damned attention economy I speak of. We are not exchanging bitcoins of attention. We are expressing a modicum of care and empathy. The beauty of this is that it is an infinite game if practiced by true players and it is intended to be played not for chits of attention but for the intrinsic sake of connecting. That is the ultimate purpose of the game, isn’t it?
I respond to Vanessa. Sorry to be so…full on Cassandric on everyone. I guess I really am gaming the attention economy here. I prefer to call it righteous anger in face of the apocalypse. Dammit, some of us have grandkids.
(Just a sidenote: the comment has not been “moderated” yet. Pretty early to be condemning that, although part of me thinks that it will be considered trolling and therefore silenced. We shall see and I shall update if need.)
I haven’t found anything remotely useful to my students to help them survive a slow or a catastrophic collapse. You want to know why? Because my students are already in freefall and the loose rock above them, i.e. the rest of us, are sliding down on top of them. We are all part of the precariat when the rockslide tipping threshold has been crossed. Here’s a timely quote from Ronald Purser’s book “McMindfulness,” “Instead of setting practitioners free, it helps them adjust to the very conditions that caused their problems. A truly revolutionary movement would seek to overturn this dysfunctional system, but mindfulness only serves to reinforce its destructive logic.”
Substitute “digital pedagogy” for “it” and for “mindfulness” in the quote.
No one wants to hear this, but we are all gulping down Ambien/samizdat as the sinkhole opens up beneath us. Of course, I only see what I can from my precarious higher education perch in the middle of Kentucky at a regional state university, but remember why the orchestra played on as the Titanic went down–to soothe us as the cold waters took the passengers. Play on, #digped, play on!
I see zombies everywhere. #Digped and @vconnecting can play whackamole and we can all pretend that we are living in the best of all possible times and worlds. I don’t think so. I suspect that Yogi Berra was right when he said to Sol Hurok, ““If they don’t want to come out, nobody’s gonna stop ’em.” No problem, but here’s the issue: I wanted to come out and I feel stopped.
And it doesn’t particularly matter. I have plenty of work to do as we go down. I am reminded of another Yogi quote:
So I’m ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face.
Yep, I will take my bat and ball and game somewhere else. There are an infinite number of players and my observations may serve usefully there. Or not. I play for a bigger game than digital pedagogy. If you don’t wanna play, nobody’s gonna stop ya.
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I saw your Tweet and came over to read your blog. While you are reaching into the education sector in your quest to engage I have been trying to reach into the ecosystem of business, political, philanthropic, non profit, media and research sectors for many, many years, in a similar effort to engage.
I attended a conference in Chicago yesterday and the keynote speaker was the leader of a Chicago non profit that engages volunteers from the business community. I first met here around 2000 and shared ideas that I now post on my blog. I was pleased to hear that in the past couple of years her organization has focused on volunteer engagement that has a long-term impact, and is encouraging companies to spend time thinking of ways to use their resources, not just ways to get a lot of volunteers out on a single day to paint a school.
The frustration to me was that this is what I’ve been sharing for 20+ years. I’ve just not been able to connect with others in ways that might speed this process. Yet, when I see what looks like ideas I’ve been sharing being used by others, I feel some sense of satisfaction.
You never know who’s reading what is posted and can’t tell by just looking at responses.
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There is some faith that has to happen when you are advocating for change. Sometimes, it comes to fruition. Sometimes, not. Sometimes, it takes a long time. Sometimes, you never even know the impact. Faith, and forward motion.
Kevin
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Yes, let’s shake the rag doll of absolution here like some crazy rat terrier going after a snake. I do forgive them, but a need a good ripping fight first.
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Thanks, Dan. I feel your pain. I acknowledge and despise the term “attention economy”, but that appears to be what we are stuck in–attention capitalism. I have just watched the documentary “The Great Hack” on Netflix and am gobsmacked by what is happening on the internet with what Shoshana Zuboff calls “surveillance capitalism”. I am, unfortunately, playing into the whole game of attention by playing the Cassandra card. I did this for the same conference about a year ago. I tried to join in, but was confronted by what was effectively a pretend offer of connection. I have to ask myself now why I would possibly want, as the great philosophy Marx (Groucho, that is) once argued, ““I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER” (all caps because it was a return telegram to the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills who rejected his membership because he was a Jew.)
Of course, I can’t help you connect because I am ignored by the same kinds of folks who are always arguing that everyone has a voice that matters. That is one of my most important points above. If you invite folks to participate (and digital pedagogy did), then you should dedicate yourself to making that accessibility possible. Most of the inaccessibility is unintentional, but some of it wasn’t. For example, for the third year in a row my request for a fellowship (the only way I can go to the F2F conference) was denied. No big deal. If I do not fit, then as a big, fat, older, privileged white guy I am prepared to let that ride. What I am baffled by is the lack of empathy for rejected folk who still want to participate and are just left to their own devices to do so. That’s bullshit.
Are they under anything other than a moral obligation to do so? No, they are not, but if you insist that you are a cadre of empathic, kind educators, then show it. This is not the fabled attention economy but more like the academic economy where we have a two-tiered system of rights and duties–the tenured and the prol precariat–where the expertise of the researchers is lorded over the prols on the ground. I am not over this treatment. I won’t forget it, but I will move on and continue to share with an audience of proven, kind empathic folk who are few but very, very fine indeed. Like you, Dan. This is the infinite game,Dan. We play the infinite game of love and life, doing our best to be humane, sharing folk. I know that sometimes keeps me from being a shiny,happy person. My sharing has barbs like a wild blackberry. Too bad. That is the best imperfect self I can share.
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“… if you insist that you are a cadre of empathic, kind educators, then show it.”
A message to remember … and make happen, always.
Kevin
PS:
“Despite the song’s success, band members were ambivalent about being known for a pop song that lacked gravitas. ‘It’s a fruity pop song written for children. It just is what it is’, Michael Stipe told the BBC’s Andrew Marr in 2016.” via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiny_Happy_People
Can I suggest instead, some Nightswimming? 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YHU6BwPR0
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Yes, fail harder and show me your skinned up knees and elbows where you tried.
Maybe “Shiny Happy People” is a rorschach test, but Stipe has a history of dicking around interviewers so my bet is that it is only a children’s song on its shiny happy surface. YMMV.
Check out this upfunked version of “Nightswimmers”
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Thinking of how moderation for a live conference blog seems like it might be a barrier to discussions. I get why they might impose that kind of mechanism — trolls, and all that — but for a live conference, open comments and discussion seems critical (particular in the idea of VConnecting and engaging those outside of the event) and maybe they needed to designate someone as “blog comment watcher.”
Happy that Vanessa responded to you, but not surprised. She’s already loosely part of our networks (or at least, mine). Better if others you didn’t know joined in and engaged in discussions with you. But, we know this quiet happens, quite a bit, unless there are people whose role it is (official or otherwise) to engage in conversations, facilitates it. Not sure that is part of that program (I don’t know enough about the conference other than lots of people shared out dog-room photos when I looked at the hashtag one day).
I laughed when I saw the Yogi quote in your newsletter and then laughed again when I saw the reference here at your blog. So, you know, there’s that ..
Kevin
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I be laughing at the trolls, invite them in for shot, tell them a good joke, and them take them to the alley for a discussion in no uncertain terms if needed. Be not afeerd of the trolls. Rather be afraid of the fear. No, wait, don’t fear the fear. Crap. IDK.
If you invite me in, I just might be a vampire, but isn’t that always the risk you take when you drop the barriers. Hell, I might be Jesus with a bong hit. You never know.
Vanessa, as I already told her, rocks. She reminded me of Bryan Alexander’s Future vodcast which I visited on YouTube. I commented there and guess what? Exactly, he gave a clinic in conviviality. His invitation was authentic. I have been applying to be a fellow at DigitalPedagogy for three years. I have been rejected three years. Meh? Their preferences are set for a certain kind of non-privileged (whatever the hell that is) participant and I get that. That is their call, I think. So for the last two years I have tried to participate virtually. You might think I would be pretty good at that. And they have Virtually Connecting trying to open the windows as well, but…no one seems to know how much I want to be a part of their reindeer games. You might assume that if someone applies for a fellowship and doesn’t get in as often as I have that there might be some kind of kewpie doll, but no. If I had a list of people who applied and were rejected I would certainly have a mailing list that tried to keep them involved and in the loop, but no.
So if I sound and seem all sour grapey, I am, although the cute quotient of the dog room on Twitter was pretty high and way too treaklish for me.
Of course, we always gots the Yogi. And the few but fine!
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Great to see a conversation around this article. Too bad it’s the same three of us in the conversation.
I started trying to connect people on-line around 2004. In the link below I show what I was trying to do. I led off with “Our challenge: Connecting busy people from multiple sectors.”
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/conferences-and-online-forums/88-e-learning-goals
At least the education ecosystem has created quite a few entry points on Twitter, and via blogs, for people to join in…even if some of those entry points are not very welcoming.
There are far fewer on-line conversations connecting the ecocoystem I’m focusing on, which is not just people directly involved in non-school programs (staff, volunteers, youth, researchers, etc) but also funders, business leaders, policy makers, traditional educators, etc.
Kevin’s right when he says “There is some faith that has to happen when you are advocating for change.” I’m not a Bible thumper, but the Old Testament shows hundreds of years of faith in a vision. The story of John the Baptist predicting a future savior is one of faith and hope, and perseverance.
Let’s keep doing what we do, and try to keep from “getting our heads chopped off”.
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And of Moses before that. Promised Land. What mean that? I am so far from the Promised Land that I really do have to take it on faith that it is there.