Week 7: Distance learning: China

China is a biiiiiiiiig nation, and not just big in size, but it is the enormous population of the country that originally called for the need for distance learning platforms in the "now-sort-of-former-communist" country.

In (traditionally capitalist) country's like Australia the distance learning phenomenon had already been widely adopted due to its relatively small population being spread out over quite a large island. Therefore people were not always able to get their children educated in the traditional school-going way.

In the 1960's China adopted a similar system to solve their own problem of having TOO MANY students to educate in the traditional way, but by using distance learning principles on platforms such as radio, television and "microwave" (in the out-of-the-kitchen-sense) it wa spossible to reach a large proportion of the population without having to build traditional schools/universities, thus keeping costs down whilst not compromising on the amount of people being educated. The Television Universities are funded by the State Education Commission and the quite steep tuition fees of the university. Later the broadcasted lectures became also available on audio and video tape and printed material, such as course books and study guides became available.



Over the years these Television Universities have proven to be moderately succesful educational institutions indeed with a range of 150 different undergraduate courses and over half a a million students graduating in th e last 8 years alone. However, I guess it needs pointing out that over 1.2 million people had enrolled in the same timespan, which means that less than half of all students who enrol actually finish their course.



I have a few issues with this educational system, though.



For one thing, not only do a BIG group of people receive exactly the same information in exactly the same way from exactly the same person, maybe not so muhc a problem in communist China, but still, but also is there no ability for students to question what is being taught. In a traditional learning environment there is quite usually a way for students to ask a lecturer "why" this is what they are being taught and are quite often encouraged to give their own ideas and opinions about an issue, after which a lecturer might even admit that the student "has a point" (even if it is quite often followed by "But,..."). If, for a television uni student the only platform they have to give their OWN opinion on something is in their actual assessment they might not feel comfortable enough to be (somewhat) alternative in the way they address issues and just write safer not-quite-as-ground-breaking (?) work instead.



Lateron, the ongoing crtisisism abotu this resulted in the Television University now offering the availability of face to face tutorials, which is all good and all, but it does mean that two of the main advantages of distance learning. One being the cost-saving of needing physical locations for tuitions and secondly availability for all as some of the students simply would not be able to attend a face-to-face tuition. This way not all students can receive the same level of tuition. Avilability for all is a bit of a weird concept to use in a country like China anyway, where wealth isn't exactly wide-spread and the courses given by the Television Uni's aren't exactly cheap. So basically University is still as elitist in China as it is in many other countries.

Week 7: Distance learning: The LOI (The Netherlands)

The LOI (Leidse Onderwijs Instellingen > Leiden-based Educational Institutions) is a privately owned educational institute providing distant-learning only. I feel it needs pointing out that the city of Leiden is home of the prestigious Univerity of Leiden (www.leiden.edu) and that therefore the name of the city is usually associated with higher education. The LOI always put great emphasis on the fact that they're from Leiden in their promotional campaigns, however, the LOI have nothing to do with the university, which is one of the oldest universities in the country.

The origins of the LOI lie within the city's "Institute of Trade Sciences". In 1923 this institute started doing their first (postal) distance-learning programme: a course in book-keeping. Ove the years the the institute has started running several other courses and in 1941 (So, surprisingly, in war time) the institute teamed up with a number of Leiden-based colleges to run distant-learning courses on their behalf, all under the LOI-banner.

In 1953 the LOI started providing audio-based language courses (on good old fashioned casettes) and in 1988 the LOI started experimenting with something called "digimail", a computer-based form of distance-learning, the technology of which seemed to be quite similar to what we would later become familiar with under the name E-mail. In 1996 the LOI introduced what they called the "LOI campus", an online, web-based learning environment. Originally the campus provided only written lectures, later video-lectures (some also streamed live) and downloadable audio-lectures became available. Since 2001 most of the courses are almost completely web-based with lectures ebing given through audio, video and text, seminars taking place in forums and online audio/video conferences and most assessments being submitted online. The LOI provides students with their own personal tutor (or I-coahc, as they like to call them) with whom they keep in contact through both email as well as instant messenging.


In 2002 the LOI started doing a small number of full university degrees, completely through distance learning, which up until then these were only provided by the Open Universiteit (Obviously the Dutch equivalent of the Open Univerity). The two however are not really in competition though, as these two distant-learning giants provide different degree courses. The reason for this is probably because the LOI would find it hard to compete with the lower tuition fees of the government funded Open Universiteit. Nonetheless, the LOI-brand has pretty much become synonym with distance-learning in the Netherlands and some of the open university's online services are clearly inspired by the LOI's online campus.

Week 5 | Meikle: Indymedia and The New Net News

Para. 7-9 What do you think constitutes ‘news’ on the Web?


Well, the article claims that the internet “has led to a shift in how we recontextualise news around a much larger search for information”. I think the jist of this phenomenon is that the internet has significantly removed the "authority" of news services. Whilst before the audience would mainly use one source for their news-imput for different types of media (reading ONE newspaper and/or watching ONE TV news bulletin) the internet makes it very simple to look at different news sources and select the news stories they find interesting (and often click on those for a more in-depth analysis of the story) Also, news sources other than big established agencies can run news-services online. And, as I have said abut a lot of things on the internet, they can often report about news on very specific interests and for very specific communities. However, not all of the news sources online are reliable, in fact, ever idiot can start a website and declare themselves a news source. But following a combination of both types of news sources could be a good idea: using the open news sources to find out the latest events and checking the established (quality checked) news sources later to confirm their reliability.



Para 9 Are there ‘new kinds of journalist’ online? If so, how so?
I guess by new kinds of journalists we could mostly think about those who post on "open" news sources like Indymedia where, according to their website, anyone can post news stories and news-media:
"The content of the Indymedia UK website is created through a system of open publishing: anyone can upload a written, audio and video report or a picture directly to the site through an openly accessible web interface. Through this system of 'Direct Media', Indymedia erodes the dividing line between reporters and reported, between active producers and passive audience: people are enabled to speak for themselves. At bigger actions, Indymedia UK volunteers extend this participatory model by establishing 'Public Access Terminals' on the streets, and facilitating direct access to the technical equipment that enables participants to upload to the website."

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/mission.html

However, obviously, in a similar way as WIkipedia, nobody "owns" the content, but that also means that , really, there is nobody responsible for it, or it's genuinity. Anonymous posting of articles means that the produser's actions have no consequences for them. Therefore, I'd say that websites like Indymedia is a good way to get an idea of what is happening, but not to take anything for fact unless it has been confirmed by professional sources in a similar way in which Wikipedia is good to get "the jist" about something but relibale sources need to be checked before what WIkipedia states is in fact true.

Paras 14-15 Are those who want to make DIY news online, best thought of as part of an alternative culture (that also exists offline) or is it more diverse than that? Think of examples beyond Indymedia.
In all honestly I am somewhat struggling with this one, but I'll have a go at it. I think that news concerning news coverage on alternative (small) cultures is often going to mostly be covered by DIY (open) news sources simply because the stories are too specificaly bound to an area of interest to get the attention of larger news sources. Also, a small open news-platform specific to a culture or interest can set up their own set of news values that are suitable for the culture or interest/perspective it covers. I don't think it is solely bound to offline-cultures or even alternative cultures persé, as some open news sources do cover "general" news stores aswel (be it from a specific point of view) but particular alternative cultures can make good use of the open-news formula, after all, what is the point of being alternative bybeing a DIY news source if you don't bring a certain specific point-of-view or directness to the story, there isn't much that makes it different from other (so-called professional) news sources.

d) Para 18 Is open news quality news?
Well, it can be, there is just hardly any way of checking it. Therefore it's hard to tell whether or not something is or isn't a non-biased report and what the intentions of the DIY journalist were when they wrote it (and how much research actually went into writing it.) The changes in the formula of the website in 2002 do show the institution's own doubt of the quality-value of open-news though, as now stories that make the front page were selected to do so rather than just wacked onthere.

e) Para 19 Can open news ever be completely open? Do people take different (possibly unequal) roles in collaboration?
I can't ever see open publishing being completely open, as not all web-users can be trusted the websites do need constant checking and moderating. Anyone can contribute but different websites will always have their own rules, regulations and discourses on what is and what isn't considered suitable material to be on their website. For example, Indymedia themselves in their mission statement:

We aim to live up to the following principles:
-Indymedia United Kollektives works on a non-hierarchical basis
-we reject all systems of domination and discrimination
-we acknowledge that the struggle for a better world takes many forms.
-The focus of the Indymedia UK collective is on grassroots politics, actions and campaigns
-Indymedia United Kollektives does not have any ties with political parties or larger NGOs
-we understand that by lobbying there will be no radical change.
-As a collective our attitude is assertive, and where necessary confrontational

Discrimination is considered a big no-no, understandibly, and so is Indymedia not beig affiliated with any political parties, but it IS an ideology that it is not acceptable all the same. Also, how can you even check a produser's own ideologies and point-of-view and what exactly ARE the parameters of an unacceptible article (other than these two extreme examples)? Surely, it can't always be that simple to say what is own opinion and iseologies aren't always that easy to spot. Furthermore, where does moderating end and freedom of speech start?

Hmmmm, loads of stuff to think about here.

Week 2: Topic 2 | Blogs

NAVIGATION | Navigation around the blogs is quite easy, especially since I already had experience with Blogger in particular. It easy to keep track of new posts on blogs of your peers, making it easy to respond to each other's posts. Also, the actual posting-part of the website works very intuitive and is easy to use.

EXPRESSION | Well, originally the essence of blogging is publishing your thoughts and musings to the world, and it is noticeable how blogger is clearly designed to make it as easy as possible but at the same time enables more advanced functions like HTML-support and custom layouts for those "in the know".
In this case it works very well as it enables us to put our different findings in different posts and make it easy for people to find similar posts by using tags.

INTERACTION | It's nice to have an on-the-spot comment-option here on blogger enabling people to comment immediately after reading the post without having to go elsewhere. Hopefully over the next few weeks the blogs will become a places of in-depth discussion and fiery debates! It's a nice thing to be able to read back what people are on about, something you can't do in a real-life discussion without having to ask and halting the process of the conversation when doing so.

TIME | The same goes here as what I said about this this specifgic topic about the forums, really. It is nice to do the work at a time when you are at your best, whether it's at 10 AM or 10 PM, the site works the same and people can respond to your posts anytime after you've posted them!

AUTHORITY AND IDENTITY | THe person who's blog it is is sort-of in charge I think. But more like a discussion leader, if anything. He/She brings up the points of discussion and the conversations go from there. For the rest of it I think the same sense of equality is on the blogs as there is on the forums.

SPEECH & WRITING | The same applies as to the blogs, I feel. The mode of address is quite informal as there is no requirement to use formal "essay style" writing. It is merely a platform to raise topics and share your findings with others. It is even possible to just say that you really don't get or really don;t agree with something that's written or taught on the course.

Week 2: Topic 2 | Forums

NAVIGATION | The navigation around these specific forums is rather basic, but in this instance that's fine as they have a very specific and sober purpose. Some other web forums have more advanced navigation options but these often also feature posts containing images and other types of multi media. But the basic navigation and the sober appearance of the forum fits the to-the-point purpose of the forum and doesn't allow people to be distracted by things that simply do not matter.

EXPRESSION | Of course posting on a forum is different from just saying things in a group meeting or actual seminar. For one thing user's would've thought more about HOW they are going to make their point before they start typing away. I don't think the views expressed themselves are very different though. Also it allows people to have a good hard think about what is being said and come back later to respond. Something you can't to in real-life as, well, you would've left by then.

INTERACTION | It is sometimes hard to get how people MEAN what they say. Are they being sarcastic or do they ACTUALLY agree? On many online communication platforms they have emoticons (smileys) to help get your point across, but out forum doesn't. This doesn't always make it easy to understand how to interpret what is being said sometimes.

TIME | One of the great advantages of using a forum ios that they are available all the time, you can whack a question onthere as soon as it arrises and you can respond to it whenever you've thought of an answer. It's also handy as some people are morning people while other, like myself, are definitely NOT and function better at night.

AUTHORITY AND IDENTITY | Every one is equal on the forums, there is no way somebody can shout over you as all opinions get the same space and the same amount of attention. Talkative people and those who are less confident to speak in "public" are both able to express their opinions like equals.

SPEECH & WRITING | The tone of the forum is quite informal, so the way we all interact onthere is not too different from how we address each other on a day to day basis.

So, here is where the whole thing starts...

Right... it's still early here at the first ever digital-thingy tutorial, so far we've...

• Been introduced to the forums
• Set up our blogs (As you probably would've guessed)
• Made our groups

My group consists of my good self, Jason New (for as long as he's here, anyway), Sam Jarvis and Pete Byrne. And one of today's skyvers will probably be added to our group next week.

Oh, would you look at that? It's an actual, factual picture!!