the month of June

In his forward to (Re)Visioning Composition Textbooks: Conflicts of Culture Ideology, and Pedagogy, Gary Olson notes that since 1987 when Kathleen Welch published “Ideology and Freshman Textbook Production: The Place of Theory in Writing Pedagogy,” scholars in composition have pointed out the “normalizing, even anti-progressive force that textbooks play in composition pedagogy” (ix). In that article, Welch notes that not only do most composition textbooks not seem to reflect writing pedagogy theory, many also present “unconscious theory” (269). I believe that course-in-a-box software is in need of this same kind of critical work that’s been done with textbooks over the past twenty plus years and that it too presents “unconscious theories” (although I’m not entirely sure of how “unconscious” it is on the part of software developers, but that might be sounding a bit conspiracy theory-ish): 1) is that knowledge, particularly the kind of knowledge produced in higher education must be protected behind firewalls (and yet at the same time, students never truly get to “own” their own knowledge as whatever gets produced within these CMSs is removed at the end of the semester) and 2) that knowledge is best produced in a highly structured and closely surveyed environment where everything a student does can be watched by not only the teacher and other students but by administration (this also goes for everything that an instructor does). The hierarchical and rigid structure of most course-in-a-box software emulates the classroom with desks in straight rows with an instructor at the front who is the central authority figure and can see all of the room, thereby, cementing the teacher-centered approach to teaching/learning that so many of us in composition discarded long ago. As Matthew K. Gold puts it, “The problem with Learning Management Systems lies in the conjunction of three words that should not appear together. Learning is not something that can be “managed” via a “system.” We’re not producing widgets here — we’re attempting to inspire creative thought and critical intelligence.” And a similar sense, the accuracy of the description “course-in-a-box” says a lot about the outdated, “normalizing,” “anti-progressive” force that these systems are having in our classrooms. Self-contained systems like Blackboard and Angel, etc. are a one-size-fits-all approach to pedagogy, which, we (at least in composition) have addressed in the form of textbook production as problematic. Gale and Gale open their book discussing how often a first-year teacher or teaching assistant is ready to dump the assigned text at the first given opportunity. They discuss the frequency with which instructors pick a bunch of handouts over a single textbook or how many instructors prefer to compile their own readers. This approach of the pile of handouts and/or customized reader is very similar to the loosely-pieced-together approach to classroom new media tools that many, including myself, are suggesting as an alternative to ready-made, self-contained CMSs.

In his blog entry called, “Parsing the Box,” “Boone” writes, “Moreover, I think there’s a tendency on the behalf of many educators to default to the closed system out of fear or laziness, and this tendency should be challenged.” I can further solidify his loosely held belief about why educators tend to use course-in-a-box software with stats from my research study conducted last year. Yes, two of the top reasons are fear, and let’s say, “ease” of use (see Bradley Dilger). The other reason is the lack of knowledge of any alternative(s). And this, I believe, is partially the fault of system administrators and campus instructional technologist. Now that is a broad sweeping claim, and I certainly don’t mean all of them. This happens because, as Trip Kirkpatrick points out in the discussion that follows Gold’s post “Against Learning Management Systems”, “Because fast-cheap-and-out-of-control is scary. It requires keeping up with tech, it requires learning new things regularly, and it requires taking risks.” In other words, this alternative to ready-made CMSs in the form of small-loosely-pieced applications and software components appears risky to administration. Part of the appeal for administration to software like CMSs and ePortfolio software is the tight control they have over it. They get access to “outcomes” for assessment purposes and get to manage the outcomes to a large extent. Furthermore, as Kirkpatrick writes, “Finally, of course, there’s the budget. When the Provost’s office asks how much is needed to implement a “small-pieces-loosely-joined approach”, those without experience doing it won’t even know how to figure out how to answer the question.”

Typically, Friday mornings begin with dissertation writing. Lately I’ve been trying not to get bogged down in all of the materials that I need to read more closely and integrate more carefully and thoroughly into my work (like all of the debates around assessment and accreditation as instigated by the Spellings Commission), and I’ve simply been trying to “slop” words onto the page. But today I got bogged and came to realize how much I need to develop and unpack what I mean by “open source.” And then there are all the groups, movements, and organizations working with open source concepts that are also doing work relevant to my own: the open educational resource (OER) community, the open source initiative (OSI) organization, and the schools like MIT who are working with open courseware, and it goes on and on — website after website, article after article, wikipedia entry after wikipedia entry…. How’s a girl supposed to keep all of this organized both in her head and on “paper”?

So instead of plugging away at creating chapter descriptions for my introduction, I wrote this blog entry — to moan a little and to try to see a bit more clearly the unruly monster of “open source” that I’m dealing with.