Today I started my first Coursera course: E-learning and Digital Cultures
This 5 week MOOC will consider a key themes emerging from popular and digital culture. First it will look at utopias and dystopias and second, it will focus on being human in a digital age.
Browsing through the discussion, blogs and fora I already came across some nice resources and blogs. I really like the blog about sketch movies
Also the preview to the final assignment to create a digital artefact with the online free tools mentioned was very interesting:
What online tools are available for making my digital artefact?
I will continue to blog here about the course #edcmooc
This blog is specially created to show my notes, perform assignments and create at the end my digital artefact.
There are many online tools you could use to create and/or publish your artefact. Here are just a few ideas:
Voicethread:
Storify:
Xtranormal:
Pixton:
Issuu:
Storybird:
Weebly:
Animoto:
Prezi:
Wikispaces:
TedEd:
Videos week 1 to watch:
Film 1: Bendito Machine III
This animated film tells the story of technological development in terms of ritual and worship - the characters in the film treat each new technology as god-like, appearing from the sky and causing the immediate substitution of the technology before it. What is this film suggesting are the ecological and social implications of an obsession or fixation on technology? Do the film’s characters have any choice in relation to their technologies? What are the characteristics of various technologies as portrayed in this film?
My impression:
The Bendito Machine is an example of a dystopian (creating extremely negative effects for society, education or culture) effect on the culture. New technology is from outside. People accept the new technology without choice and are completely devoted. The old technology is dumped and nobody looks at it again. The only one with a choice is the person climbing the mountain to receive the new technology. The others blidly follwed him when he brings the new technology. Technology is shown with much destruction both of villagers and of killing the old technology. The new technologies were also more and more destructive: from the bull to worship (radio), the devil with horns (TV) until the man controlled weapon.
Inbox is a quirky representation of the ways in which web-based technology connects people, the limitations of those connections, and the nature of communication in a mediated world. Depending on how you interpret the relationship between the two main characters, and the ending, you might argue that this is a utopian account, or a dystopian one - what do you think, and why?
My impression:
For me this is more of an utopian love store. Two people connect via a mysterieus technology: a red bag. Or better two red bags that were first linked to each other and later seperated from each other able to communicate. They exchange gifts to show their identity, they make fun with each other and when they finally would like to met, the connection is broken. But via the original shop of the ïnbox" they actually met and continue to communicate with words and not with direct talk.
The dystopian part of the story is more at the beginning when face to face meetings in the shop were still easy but did not take place. Technology was needed as supporting tool to let it happen for the ordinary guy to let it happen.
But how this could be translated into eLearning? I have no clue. The whole video did not really touched me at all. I probably missed the deeper layers other people beautifully described like in the blog of Angela.
Film 3: Thursday (7:34)
Watch on YouTube
Thursday depicts a tension between a natural world and a technological world, with humans caught between the two. What message is the film presenting about technology? What losses and gains are described? Who or what has ‘agency’ in this film?
My impression:
First thing that you observe is the two main humans in the story completely are disconnected from the nature around them. They don't observe the birdsong or the sun, but are all the time into their small own world. They are due to the technology able to connect and to make a space video, but it is all very superficial. And boring, not much is happening thanks to the technology we all live in boxes. A very dystopian view of our future.
Film 4: New Media (2:21)
Watch on Vimeo
A very short, very grim representation of the effects of technology on humanity. There are definite visual echoes of “Bendito Machine III” here - what similarities and differences can you identify between the two films?
My impression:
A weird, wooly short video. Creepy music and clearly dystopian. Difference with Bendito Machine III: Technology is not a god, it is not glorified. On the other end the similarity is the admosphere: greepy, uneasy. Not a world where you would like to live
Finally: There are many utopian and dystopian stories about technology told in popular films from Metropolis to the Matrix. Can you think of an example and describe or share it in the discussion board, on your blog, or on Twitter?
My Answer:
Utopian/dystopian stories about technology are from all times. An uptioan fiction story about the ideal world with a pessimistic view on the world. The first Utopian story Plato's Republic was not really yet fixated on technology but did depict an ideal world, just like Thomas Moores Utopia from 1551. Utopian stories about futuristic ideal worlds are for example Avatar, but also Starwars could be partly seen as an Utopian world that is under attack by dark forces to destroy the utopian World.
In general there are more fiction stories/movies about a dystopian future. Dark stories about a pessimistic view on the world. A world that is distroyed by humans and thre technology for example "Twelve Monkey" where from a dystopian world someone travels back in the history to save the world! Other examples are "Demolitiona Man", "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall"
Reading
"Technological or Media Determinism" from Daniel Chandler
A central controversy concerns how far technology does or does not condition social change. In my work for IICD, a Dutch NGO we support organisations in developing countries with the sustainable integration of ICT in their Education, Health or Agricultural programmes. We do have a positive world view, but a realistic. So not an utopian world, but close and certainly not a dystopian world. Our approach for Social Innovation (which leads in our view to Social Change) could be downloaded at http://www.iicd.org/about/publications/the-iicd-approach-from-need-to-sustainability. In our bottom-up approach humans are the enabling factor to achieve the social change, but technology could be a tool to support that process and to accelerate it. So not a technology-led theory of social change, but technology as the enabler for a juman-led theory of social change.
Conclusion week 1
A historic perpective on thechnology. Still all a bit woolly a far from what I had expected based on the title of the course eLearning and digital cultures. I hope the content of the course will become more concrete later on.
The Bendito Machine is an example of a dystopian (creating extremely negative effects for society, education or culture) effect on the culture. New technology is from outside. People accept the new technology without choice and are completely devoted. The old technology is dumped and nobody looks at it again. The only one with a choice is the person climbing the mountain to receive the new technology. The others blidly follwed him when he brings the new technology. Technology is shown with much destruction both of villagers and of killing the old technology. The new technologies were also more and more destructive: from the bull to worship (radio), the devil with horns (TV) until the man controlled weapon.
| Film 2: Inbox (8:37) Watch on YouTube |
Inbox is a quirky representation of the ways in which web-based technology connects people, the limitations of those connections, and the nature of communication in a mediated world. Depending on how you interpret the relationship between the two main characters, and the ending, you might argue that this is a utopian account, or a dystopian one - what do you think, and why?
My impression:
For me this is more of an utopian love store. Two people connect via a mysterieus technology: a red bag. Or better two red bags that were first linked to each other and later seperated from each other able to communicate. They exchange gifts to show their identity, they make fun with each other and when they finally would like to met, the connection is broken. But via the original shop of the ïnbox" they actually met and continue to communicate with words and not with direct talk.
The dystopian part of the story is more at the beginning when face to face meetings in the shop were still easy but did not take place. Technology was needed as supporting tool to let it happen for the ordinary guy to let it happen.
But how this could be translated into eLearning? I have no clue. The whole video did not really touched me at all. I probably missed the deeper layers other people beautifully described like in the blog of Angela.
Film 3: Thursday (7:34)
Watch on YouTube
Thursday depicts a tension between a natural world and a technological world, with humans caught between the two. What message is the film presenting about technology? What losses and gains are described? Who or what has ‘agency’ in this film?
My impression:
First thing that you observe is the two main humans in the story completely are disconnected from the nature around them. They don't observe the birdsong or the sun, but are all the time into their small own world. They are due to the technology able to connect and to make a space video, but it is all very superficial. And boring, not much is happening thanks to the technology we all live in boxes. A very dystopian view of our future.
Film 4: New Media (2:21)
Watch on Vimeo
A very short, very grim representation of the effects of technology on humanity. There are definite visual echoes of “Bendito Machine III” here - what similarities and differences can you identify between the two films?
My impression:
A weird, wooly short video. Creepy music and clearly dystopian. Difference with Bendito Machine III: Technology is not a god, it is not glorified. On the other end the similarity is the admosphere: greepy, uneasy. Not a world where you would like to live
Finally: There are many utopian and dystopian stories about technology told in popular films from Metropolis to the Matrix. Can you think of an example and describe or share it in the discussion board, on your blog, or on Twitter?
My Answer:
Utopian/dystopian stories about technology are from all times. An uptioan fiction story about the ideal world with a pessimistic view on the world. The first Utopian story Plato's Republic was not really yet fixated on technology but did depict an ideal world, just like Thomas Moores Utopia from 1551. Utopian stories about futuristic ideal worlds are for example Avatar, but also Starwars could be partly seen as an Utopian world that is under attack by dark forces to destroy the utopian World.
In general there are more fiction stories/movies about a dystopian future. Dark stories about a pessimistic view on the world. A world that is distroyed by humans and thre technology for example "Twelve Monkey" where from a dystopian world someone travels back in the history to save the world! Other examples are "Demolitiona Man", "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall"
Reading
"Technological or Media Determinism" from Daniel Chandler
A central controversy concerns how far technology does or does not condition social change. In my work for IICD, a Dutch NGO we support organisations in developing countries with the sustainable integration of ICT in their Education, Health or Agricultural programmes. We do have a positive world view, but a realistic. So not an utopian world, but close and certainly not a dystopian world. Our approach for Social Innovation (which leads in our view to Social Change) could be downloaded at http://www.iicd.org/about/publications/the-iicd-approach-from-need-to-sustainability. In our bottom-up approach humans are the enabling factor to achieve the social change, but technology could be a tool to support that process and to accelerate it. So not a technology-led theory of social change, but technology as the enabler for a juman-led theory of social change.
Conclusion week 1
A historic perpective on thechnology. Still all a bit woolly a far from what I had expected based on the title of the course eLearning and digital cultures. I hope the content of the course will become more concrete later on.
