A moment of self-discovery (or a confession, depending on your perspective)
Posted by susankmiller on September 28, 2007
I had an unusual moment of self-discovery a week and a half ago when I was preparing for my graduate class on technology and pedagogy. We were discussing open source software, and I assigned an article for my class that was written by two friends, Colleen Reilly and Joe Williams (“The Price of Free Software: Labor, Ethics, and Context in Distance Education,” Computers and Composition, 23:1 (2006): 68-90.). As I sat down to read the article when I was prepping for class, I was particularly drawn to the section toward the end of the article that described the responses of faculty interviewed about their use (or lack of use) of open source learning management systems (such as Sakai or Moodle). One of the respondents that drew my interest was a community college faculty member that the authors referred to as “Shannon,” and she talked about the context in which she was teaching. She admitted that she used WebCT to offer her distance learning courses instead of an open source application, but she also mentioned that a faculty member who chose to use open source applications would probably not meet much resistance from administration or IT folks.
One of the reasons I was drawn to her comments was that I found myself wondering, “Then why aren’t you using open source?!?! Why are you still using WebCT???” But the other reason was that I realized that the responses sounded very familiar. The description of the community college sounded a lot like Mesa Community College, and her classes sounded a lot like what I taught when I was teaching at MCC.
And then I faintly remembered a brief interview I had done a few years back. I realized that Shannon was me.
What a strange, eerie sensation! Sometimes I have a moment of self-conscious awareness when I read something I wrote and published years ago and find myself questioning some of my own assumptions and conclusions. But this was a little different…I was able to suspend that self-conscious feeling because I didn’t recognize my own responses at first. I argued with my own self-reporting, questioning the pedagogical choices that I made just a few short years ago. I guess I realized that I always have something to learn.
Or perhaps I just realized that I have a really, really poor memory.
October 1st, 2007 at 3:31 am
Unfortunately using open source is still kind of a “way of life” and not based on rational thinking. It’s like the fight between Windows and Mac: Not the rational facts count but the emotional attachment. I do work for an open source learning management system (called OLAT) and so I am familiar with the “reasons” for not using open source and for buying expensive commercial software instead. But I think the times are changing. Some years ago it was unthinkable for a company to totally rely on open source software (operating system, office software etc.) and now there are more and more doing exactly that. Also, here in Switzerland at least, some government agencies have been switching to open source, all the way from the desktop to high end application like GIS (geographic information systems) etc. I would be very curious to know how the situation will be in 10 years but I dont want to make a guess
October 1st, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I agree with Joel that it is a way of life. I think part of that way of life is just forcing yourself to use something. For example, I only put Open Office on my laptop. So whenever I’m working on my laptop I can only use it. Similarly, whenever there is a new technology I want to use, most of the time I attach using it to some other project I am working on. It forces me to use the technology. Occasionally that backfires…I get into the middle of something and the technology is not working so well. Like write now I’m using Google Groups with an online class. Once it hits a critical mass of people…it’s gets messy in there. I couldn’t know that until I hit that critical mass.
Back to the topic of ethics (ie, way of life) and technology (esp. open source). I think there is another issue: technological know how. For example, if you wanted to run Sakai, Moodle, or Drupal you would have had to either
1. ask someone at the school to host it on a school server, or
2. host it on your own server.
If the school isn’t willing to support that level of experimentation…you need to both have and know how to run your own server. And whereas I know I would like to go down that road, it’s totally a time-on-toilet project. In other words, currently I don’t have the time to learn how to host my own server to then install an instance of Moodle. Ahh…maybe someday!
October 1st, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Perhaps these are the issues I’m still finding myself struggling with…even after having my moment of self-realization when I read that piece for my class. Maybe I’m more resistant to change than I would like to be (or than I imagine myself to be)–I get into the habit of using one program, and it’s just easier, and less time-consuming, to keep doing the same thing.
So…I need to build time into my schedule to find new alternatives, and to give myself the time to play around with them and decide what the best options are.