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Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/389341/20120929/sony-olympus-joint-venture-medical-field.htm
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Sunday, September 30, 2012
Will.i.am and Simon Cowell Are Bringing You an X Factor for Tech Whether You Want It or Not [Television]
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Anne Hathaway marries Adam Shulman
Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images
Anne Hathaway and Adam Shulman in New York in June.
By Bruna Nessif, E! Online
Anne Hathaway's big day was Saturday. The "Dark Knight Rises" star wed?fiance Adam Shulman in a private ceremony in the scenic redwood-studded coastal enclave of Big Sur, Calif., E! News has confirmed. As we previously reported, Hathaway was swathed in a gown specially designed by her friend Valentino Garavani.
The 29-year-old Oscar-nominated star found her Mr. Right, fellow actor Shulman, not long after discovering she had devoted years of her love life to Mr. Oh-So-Wrong. So in honor of their nuptials, let's take a look back at how the newlyweds' love affair began...
Five things you need to know about Anne Hathaway's hubby
January 2009: The public first caught wind of this new couple when Hathaway was spotted with Shulman at the opening gala of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, where Hathaway picked up the Desert Palm Achievement Award for "Rachel Getting Married." PDA was kept to a minimum, but there was a quick lip-lock (many more to follow in the coming years).
May 2010: Anne and Adam stayed off the radar for a bit, that is, until Shulman was spotted jacking some mural art from a Manhattan construction site. Don't worry, he returned it (after paparazzi got pictures of him taking it).
August 2011: Seriously, though, where was Adam Shulman hiding? Apparently, he was a little camera shy. "He's in there hanging out with my friends," Hathaway told us during the One Day premiere?in New York City. Hey, more spotlight for his leading lady.
Anne Hathaway ties the knot with Adam in Big Sur
Nov. 28, 2011: And all of a sudden -- bam! -- this duo is engaged! Well, maybe not exactly "all of a sudden," since it had been three years, but we were happily surprised, nonetheless. Hathaway's rep confirmed the engagement to E! News, but the actress kept proposal details under wraps. Shucks!
Nov. 30, 2011: The ring! Anne showed off the unique creation made especially for her by Shulman and Kwiat jewelers. "We were honored to have the opportunity to work with Adam. He had a strong vision for what he wanted to present to Anne and we worked with him to make a custom design," a rep for the company told E! News.
December 2011: Speculation as to when the big ceremony would go down started swirling and leaned toward October 2012. Her rep denied such claims, but it clearly wasn't too far off.
Les Misrables' release date changed to Christmas
July 2012-September 2012: Remember how we said that these lovebirds kept their public displays of affection to a minimum in the beginning? Well, it seemed like all that changed once that diamond was on Anne's finger, because it became PDA all day, everyday, anywhere, any time. But it was super sweet.
Sept. 20, 2012: Most of the wedding plans have been kept hush-hush, except for one (pretty important) detail: the designer of Anne's wedding dress. And that just so happens to be Valentino Garavani. During the New York City Ballet's fall gala, the fashion icon told E! News he "did the dress" for Anne's nuptials. "She's a very good friend of mine," Valentino gushed. Like family? "Oh, yes. She's like my daughter!"
Sept. 29, 2012: The couple swap vows in Big Sur, Calif.
Let's take a stroll down memory lane with these newlyweds!
More Entertainment news:
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Saturday, September 29, 2012
Confessions of an English Tutor: The Two Writing Errors ...
Note from Nick: Today?s post is a whopper ? It?s a guest post from Jessica Ruane, and it?s a really helpful post if you?re interested in grammar, sentence structure, and the nuts and bolts of writing (and you should be!). Let us know in the comments what you think of this, and if we should continue posting some more content like this!
I was an English tutor at a community college for many years. The school I worked at was the most culturally diverse campus in southern California, and I can honestly say that I?ve seen it all when it comes to good and bad writing. I?ve read plagiarized papers, helped English learners from other countries who were still learning the Roman alphabet, and worked with hundreds of students who freely admitted to me how much they ?hate writing?. No matter how different the needs of each and every student was, I started each session by saying, ?Writing is an absolute beast, but once you understand what you?re dealing with, it?s easy to tame.?
I?ve read A LOT of people?s writing at every level, from basic ESOL to honors British lit. One day, I realized that I was repeating the exact same instructions over and over because EVERYONE MAKES THE SAME MISTAKES. Whether a student was a Somalian refugee or a 45 year old native English speaker, I kept seeing the same two grammar mistakes over and over. Everywhere I looked there were run-ons and fragments.
I also read a lot of published work. Writers should read when they aren?t writing. To my horror, I realized that my students weren?t the only ones who struggled with the art of a sentence. I found fragments in newspapers and run-ons in my favorite books. So, I decided to do something about it beyond organizing workshops and study groups at my school. I needed to reach a larger audience if I was going to win this war I?m waging against run-ons and fragments. I?m starting my battle with this blog entry. So, without further adieu, here is how to avoid these two super common writing blunders straight from the horse?s (I mean tutor?s) mouth.
Super Common Writing Error #1: The Run-on Sentence
By far, the hands down most frequent grammatical error writers make is the run-on sentence. When we communicate verbally, intuition guides when we pause. This is an efficient strategy for talking, but writers can?t afford to just go with their gut.
When you are writing, if you have two independent clauses that are improperly joined, this is a run-on sentence. Believe it or not, you actually did learn this is elementary school, you just don?t remember. But don?t worry, I?m here to remind you.
What is an independent clause?
An independent clause (IC) is simply a complete sentence. A complete sentence contains: 1) a subject, 2) a verb, and 3) is a complete idea. A common misconception that writers have about run-on sentences is that they are always long. This is not necessarily true. For example: John eats, Joe sleeps. Even though this sentence is only 4 words long, it is still a run-on because it is two independent clauses improperly joined by a comma.
Types of run-ons
There are two kinds of run-on sentences. They are both equally bad.
- Fused Sentence: Two independent clauses slammed together with no punctuation. How rude! Our equation for a fused sentence will be: ICIC.
- Comma Splice: Two independent clauses improperly joined by a comma. Nice effort, but a comma is not strong enough punctuation to separate these feisty independent clauses. Our equation for a comma splice will be: IC,IC.
Basically the moral of the story here is that independent clauses are like betta fish. If they are too close to one another, they kill each other, and everyone is sad. Give your ICs the space they need by combining them correctly.
How to combine independent clauses
You may be thinking, ?Well why don?t you just make each IC its own separate sentence?? You could do that, but stylistically this is a poor solution. It would reduce your writing to short staccato sentences which would make you sound like a third grader. John sleeps. Joe eats. We walk. These technically are grammatical sentences, but you probably want to evolve your writing past elementary school.
- Separate independent clauses with a semicolon I almost hesitate to offer this up as a solution because semicolons are one of the most widely abused punctuation tools. You should only use a semi-colon if the ideas in your clauses are highly connected. You could say, ?Some people only drink beer; others will drink just about anything.? In this case, the ideas are closely related enough to justify using a semicolon. I always liked to tell students, ?Semicolons are like a strong spice. It?s fine to sprinkle a few here and there, but overdoing it will ruin the dish.?
- Combine ICs with a coordinating conjunctionYou can use a special type of word called coordinating conjunctions (cc) to combine two independent clauses. The English language contains 7 coordinating conjunctions: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So. A common acronym for remembering coordinating conjunctions is FANBOYS. Insert a comma and a coordinating conjunction between two independent clauses to fix a run-on sentence. For example, ?John eats, and Joe sleeps.? Hooray! We fixed our run-on! Our equation for this will be: IC,cc IC.
- Make one of your INDEPENDENT clauses a DEPENDENT clauseLike relationships, combining clauses works best when one is independent, and the other is dependent. This creates a nice balance, and avoids power struggles.This can be tricky so please listen closely. A dependant clause (DC) is made by adding a SUBORDINATING conjunction to the beginning of an independent clause.Unlike COORDINATING conjunctions, SUBORDINATING conjunctions are numerous and do not come in a neat little package for us like the FANBOYS acronym.Don?t worry. Stay with me. Examples are coming.
Here are some common subordinating conjunctions:
| after | notice how | just as |
| although | if | unless |
| as | lest | until |
| as if | in order to | when |
| as long as | rather than | whenever |
| as much as | now that | where |
| as soon as | provided (that) | whether |
| as though | since | while |
| because | so that | why |
| before | than | supposing |
| even if | that | if only |
| even though | though | now that |
To review, a dependent clause is just an independent clause with one of the words listed above at the beginning. For example, ?Before I lose my mind.? This is a dependent clause because the word ?before? is a subordinating conjunction and ?I lose my mind? is an independent clause. Subordinating conjunction + independent clause = dependent clause. Our equation for this will be: DC, IC. OR IC DC.
Back to our original run-on. ?John eats, Joe sleeps.? This can be fixed by changing it to, ??While John eats, Joe sleeps.? OR ?John eats while Joe sleeps.? It doesn?t matter whether the first or second clause is dependent! Just as long as there is one IC and one DC.
** Notice how if the DC comes first, you need a comma. If the IC comes first, a comma is not necessary **
So, to recap there are 4 ways to fix run-on sentences:
- Separate two ICs with a period (IC. IC). (I don?t recommend using this strategy very often. However, if you have a lot of long confusing sentences, it might be a good idea).
- Separate two ICs with a semicolon (IC; IC). ?(Remember to use them sparingly!)
- Combine two ICs with a coordinating conjunction (IC, cc IC).
- Make one of your independent clauses a dependent clause (DC, IC) OR (IC DC).
Let?s review that again
A run-on sentence is two independent clauses (ICs) that are improperly joined.
- IC IC = Fused Sentence ? BAD
- IC, IC = Comma Splice ? BAD
When independent clauses are properly used, they create grammatical sentences.
- IC. IC = Third grade writing level, but still grammatical
- IC; IC = Good
- IC, cc IC = Good
- DC, IC = Good
- IC DC = Good
Super Common Writing Error #2: Fragments
Whew! That was a lot of information! It was necessary to get all that out of the way because you have to understand run-ons before you can tackle the next biggest writing error that English tutors see ? FRAGMENTS! I can?t tell you how common fragments are even among professional writers. (I know what intentional, poetic fragments are, but I?m not talking about the kind of fragments that authors write on purpose).
Fragments are simply incomplete sentences or ideas. Although they might not be as complex as run-ons, they are just as distracting for readers.
There are 2 types of fragments
- Missing either a subject OR a verb -?A complete sentence must contain two things ? a subject and a verb. This is not negotiable. Sometimes writers get drowsy and start poppin off periods all over the place. Be careful! Just like run-ons aren?t always long, fragments aren?t necessarily just sentences that are just too short.
Here are some flowery phrases that are still technically fragments:
The long and winding road ? missing a verb
The girl with gap teeth and a spray tan ? missing a verb
Might have been listening to the neighbor?s argument ? missing a subject
Will have been at the store, down the street and around the corner, for 5 hours, waiting for the pharmacist to fill the prescription ? missing a subject
These sentence fragments can all be fixed by just adding either the missing verb or subject.
- Dependent clausesLike needy people, dependent clauses can not stand alone on their own. You must attach an independent clause in order to complete the idea. Even though it contains a subject and a verb, the subordinating conjunction at the beginning makes the clause dependent on more information in order for it to make sense.
Some examples of dependant clauses are:
Because it was raining outside
Since I don?t have any money
After I lit the house on fire
Before it?s too late
Careful writers! Even though these clauses contain a subject and a verb, they all begin with a subordinating conjunction which means they must have an independent clause attached to them. Let?s give these poor little dependent clauses what they need and attach independent clauses.
Here are some ways we can complete those clauses:
Because it was raining outside, I stayed home.
Since I don?t have any money, I stole his wallet.
After I lit the house on fire, I felt guilty.
Before it?s too late, I need to go back to school.
Remember, it doesn?t matter whether the first or second clause is dependent! We could switch the ICs and DCs around and the sentence would still work.
I stayed home because it was raining outside.
I stole his wallet since I don?t have any money.
I felt guilty after I lit the house on fire.
I need to go back to school before it?s too late.
Isn?t that cool? English grammar can be fun if you understand it! Just remember, if your dependent clause comes first, you need a comma. If your independent clause is first, the comma is not necessary.
Writing is Harder Than Talking
People often mistakenly associate writing and speaking as similar skill sets. The reality is that this assumption cannot be further from the truth. The ability to talk and learn spoken language is something that every person on the planet is hard-wired to do. Speaking is as natural an act to us as walking; it occurs naturally, at an early stage in our lives, and develops without instruction. Unless a person was born with a physical or mental condition that prevented him or her from developing language, every human being is born with an innate ability to speak.
Written language exists on the complete other end of the spectrum. Whereas spoken language is produced spontaneously, written language requires methodical planning and time consuming execution. Spoken language utilizes paralinguistic techniques such as body language and hand gestures to communicate. In contrast, a writer cannot rely on this type of added support to convey a message to an audience. The differences between these two forms of communication are virtually endless, but we can draw a singular conclusion from them. The takeaway here is that writing is a skill that must be taught to us, and comes with a greater level of difficulty. This of course means that there are more opportunities to make mistakes when writing as opposed to speaking. Writing is a process, so don?t be too hard on yourself. Nobody gets it right the first time ? ?just ask my editor!
Jessica Ruane is a freelance blogger from San Diego, California currently writing for Instant Checkmate. Her primary areas of focus include education and writing. To follow?Jessica?and Instant Checkmate?s works, please?follow her on Twitter?or check her out? on LinkedIn.
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Friday, September 28, 2012
'Melt in the body' electronics
27 September 2012
Last updated at 14:00 ET
Water dissolving an electronic device - Courtesy Beckman Institute, University of Illinois and Tufts University
Ultra-thin electronics that dissolve inside the body have been devised by scientists in the US and could be used for a range of medical roles.
The devices can "melt away" once their job is done, according to research published in the journal Science.
The technology has already been used to heat a wound to keep it free from infection by bacteria.
The components are made of silicon and magnesium oxide, and placed in a protective layer of silk.
It is part of a field termed "transient electronics" and comes from researchers who have already developed "electronic tattoos" - sensors that bend and stretch with the skin.
They described their vanishing devices as the "polar opposite" of traditional electronics, which are built to be stable and to last.
Getting the electronics to fade away in a controlled manner relies on two scientific developments - getting the electronics to dissolve at all and using a shell to control when that happens.
Silicon dissolves in water anyway. The problem is that the size of components in conventional electronics means it would take an eternity. The researchers used incredibly thin sheets of silicon, called a nanomembrane, which can dissolve in days or weeks.
The speed of melting is controlled by silk. The material is collected from silkworms, dissolved and then allowed to reform. Altering the way the dissolved silk crystallises changes its final properties - and how long the device will last.
Prof Fiorenzo Omenetto, from Tufts school of engineering, said: "Transient electronics offer robust performance comparable to current devices but they will fully resorb into their environment at a prescribed time, ranging from minutes to years."
The future?A range of uses have already been tested in the laboratory including a 64-pixel digital camera, temperature sensors and solar cells.
John Rogers, a mechanical science and engineering professor at the University of Illinois, said: "It's a new concept, so there are lots of opportunities, many of which we probably have not even identified yet."
He told the BBC one likely use would be in wounds after surgery.
"Infection is a leading cause of readmission, a device could be put in to the body at the site of surgery just before it is closed up," he said.
"But you would only need it for the most critical period around two weeks after surgery."
The team of researchers have tested on rats a device that heats a wound to kill off bugs.
There are also ideas around using the technology to slowly release drugs inside the body or to build sensors for the brain and heart.
It could also be used to make other items such as computers or mobile phones more environmentally friendly.
"Imagine the environmental benefits if cell phones, for example, could just dissolve instead of languishing in landfills for years," said Prof Omenetto.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19737125#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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How To Measure for a President
President Ronald Reagan's famous 1987 call for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!"Photo by Mike Sargent/AFP/Getty Images.
On Election Night, after a winning presidential candidate enjoys his victory party, he should be given a bathrobe, slippers, and taken to a decompression chamber. Victory can give a president-elect a case of the bends. He is likely to think that since he has convinced the public to elect him, he will have power as president to convince the public to follow him. "It's a malady and it's a dangerous one," says presidential historian George Edwards III. "They have been talking for two years and that's all they've been doing and then they win and they say I can convince people of anything. The feedback is?pretty strong."
We're all conditioned to think presidents have a powerful ability to persuade the country. That?s why the press and public pour over every word of their speeches, press conferences, and Oval Office interviews. The president and his staff think speeches can change minds, too. If people are mistakenly thinking X, it?s just because the president hasn?t had a chance to explain Y. Once he does, polls are taken. If the people still don't agree with the president, we see it as a sign that he is somehow flawed.
But we are giving the occupant of the White House too much credit. The evidence suggests that if people don't agree with a president, his ability to persuade them otherwise is pretty limited. ?The idea that presidents accomplish more if they give the right speech is?magical thinking," says political scientist John Sides. "It feels good for people to hear the president say things they want him to say, but they can't mistake that warm feeling for what gets legislation on the president's desk."
In campaigns, you can draw a relatively straight line between the speeches and the outcome. To win an election, a candidate just has to convince voters he?s better than the alternative by a day in early November. But to win a complicated policy debate a president has to convince enough legislators and a distracted American public that the situation is urgent or at least matters a whole lot. For a president?s opponents, delay is always an option and it?s hard to focus the mind if people aren?t already on board. In that atmosphere, a presidential candidate?s ability to read public opinion is a better guide to their ability to persuade the public than their gift for delivering soaring rhetoric.
Admittedly, this view of oratory is not going to get your movie script green-lighted. Harrison Ford doesn?t want to be attached to a movie about a president with a knack for shaping existing public desires.?The action-figure president we like to imagine rallies the nation with his words and dispatches foes with tart rejoinders.
The Framers weren?t interested in the Hollywood version, though. As Jeffrey Tulis, the author of The Rhetorical Presidency points out, they wanted a man who cooled public passions, not a president who got them all stirred up. Though we prize extemporaneous presidential speech today?and snicker at Barack Obama?s dependency on the Tele-prompter?there was a time when the presidency did not have a chat-show element. President Harry Truman was criticized when he went off script. ?When the president speaks, something more than an off-the-cuff opinion or remark is expected,? wrote the Washington Post editorial page in May 1948, chastising him for delivering anything other than a ?set speech which has been prepared and combed over carefully by presidential advisers.? Presidential policy was too important to make up on the fly. Speeches were the public culmination of an entire presidency?the tip of the iceberg. They weren?t the thing itself.
Technology has put a premium on communication, ushering in the rhetorical presidency. But the focus on presidential talk has also come from a change in how we see the office. As governing has become more like a permanent campaign, we?ve grown to thinking that an effective president is one who speaks in campaign mode?all the time. And if he could persuade people to join his side as a candidate, why wouldn?t he be able to do it as president?
How powerful is the bully pulpit?
As Ezra Klein wrote in The New Yorker, Texas A&M University?s George Edwards and a number of other political scientists have systematically dismantled the idea that presidents can cause significant shifts in public opinion. The starkest examples come from the presidents known for being our greatest communicators. In 1937, at the height of his power, Franklin Roosevelt tried to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court to receive more favorable rulings for his New Deal legislation. He went directly to the public, making the Judicial Procedure Reform Bill the subject of one of his famous fireside chats. Most of the other chats had not been used so pointedly?to make a pitch for a specific program?but this was a special issue for FDR. The public didn?t bite. They saw it as a power grab and the measure failed. One of our great rhetorical presidents, Roosevelt could not convince the country to join World War II before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
John F. Kennedy's words are repeated as much as any other president, but his eloquence didn't help him in the Oval Office. He was constantly frustrated with his inability to gather support to pass education and health care bills. When he?made a televised address in Madison Square Garden for Medicare reform,?he tried to rally the country to his cause. ?In this free society of ours the consent and support of the citizens of this country is essential if this or any other piece is going to be passed,? he said to an estimated television audience of 20 million. The next night a family physician, Dr.?Edward Annis, gave a televised rebuttal. More than 30 million people tuned in, according to one report, suggesting that Kennedy was perhaps less popular in this fight than the family doctor. The president did not sway his audience and the measure was defeated in Congress.
Ronald Reagan was?unsuccessful?in convincing the public to support increased defense spending. He made repeated appeals to give support to the Nicaraguan Contras against the threat of Communism, but to no avail. His pollster Richard Wirthlin wrote the president a memo suggesting he stop pushing the policy because it was likely to lower his approval rating and only harden people against helping the Contras.
The relationship between presidents and the partisan feelings they provoke by pushing a policy has only grown more acute since Reagan?s years. In our increasingly hyper-partisan era, presidential communication can actually diminish the chances that both parties can find common ground. Sometimes the best thing to know about the bully pulpit is when not to use it.
Each of these presidents?with the exception of Kennedy?also had a string of successful presidential campaigns. Still, they all?even Reagan?lamented at the end of their administrations that they wished they had been able to communicate better with the American people.?
President Kennedy giving his inaugural address in January 1961Photo by Frank Scherschel//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Barack Obama has been sounding this lament for several years. In interviews with Ron Suskind in 2010, Obama said,??The area in my presidency where I think my management and understanding of the presidency evolved most, and where I think we made the most mistakes, was less on the policy front and more on the communications front. ? I think I was so consumed with the problems in front of me that I didn?t step back and remember, ?What is the particular requirement of the president that no one else can do?? And what the president can do, that nobody else can do, is tell a story to the American people about where we are and where we are going ... going forward as president, the symbols and gestures?what people are seeing coming out of this office?are at least as important as the policies we put forward.?
In an interview with Charlie Rose two years later, the president said the same thing. Asked to name a mistake he'd made, Obama said it was not telling good enough stories to the American people.
But good yarns are not enough. In the more than two years since the president started saying he needed to tell better stories, he?s been trying, but on issues from health care to the economy, people aren?t any more persuaded. The more likely reason for the president?s low approval ratings is not that his words weren't conjured properly or arranged in the right order, but that unemployment was high and the country?s economic plight wasn't getting better fast enough. If the mechanic hasn?t fixed your car, you may understand the story he tells you and you may even be sympathetic to it, but you still want your car fixed.
Even when a president can take advantage of existing sentiment to move legislation, the economy can limit the power of his words. The country overwhelmingly supports the ending of the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy. You might think this would give President Obama the upper hand when Republicans took the position that they would support an extension of all tax cuts or none at all. But the president and his advisers calculated that if no deal was reached and taxes went up that would create greater economic pain that would?ultimately?be blamed on the White House. He couldn't talk his way out of that with a good story.
Presidents can?t fight against an underlying feeling about the economy. But that doesn?t mean they can?t try. They have to appear to be doing something about the No. 1 issue of the day. Giving a speech is the most effective way to look like you?re taking charge when your other options are limited. Plus, while political scientists make a good case that presidential speechifying might not always swing voters in a positive direction, it?s still possible that speeches keep public opinion from falling into the well.
There may also be a political benefit to the endless speeches. Take the current president, who has been criticized for giving too many speeches. Today, the American public thinks the economy is lousy. They don?t trust that the country is headed in the right direction. And, generally speaking, they think the president?s stewardship of the economy is lackluster at best. So why aren?t Obama?s approval ratings lower? What keeps him afloat, Democratic strategists wonder? It may be that President Obama?s speeches over the years have contributed to the relatively warm feeling people have about him. As even Mitt Romney admits, people like the guy.
Of course, there are speeches that move people, and in so doing accrue important political points for a president and his administration. Oftentimes they come from moments of national tragedy or sadness. Bill Clinton?s speech after the Oklahoma City bombing broke what had been a series of bad months for him, aligning him once again with the nation. George W. Bush?s words on the rubble pile at Ground Zero rallied the nation to his leadership in a way that his initial response to the attack had not. Obama?s well-received speech in response to the shootings in Tucson, Ariz. that wounded Rep. Gabby Giffords interrupted what had been a dreary period for his administration after the 2010 losses in the House. It?s hard to imagine Mitt Romney, who is a workmanlike speaker, seizing one of these moments for his advantage. But the quality of his oratory probably wouldn?t hurt him too much. These are situations where the public is straining to embrace a leader; the president just needs to be there to accept the embrace.
How do you know what the public thinks?
The reason presidents can seize on public moments of tragedy is that presidential communication is most effective when it taps into the public?s mood. ?When broader forces align?public opinion, the right number of legislators?presidential action is a useful addition of momentum to that change,? says Sides, the political scientist. ?It's not going to create that change by itself, but it can direct it.? In this case, then, the most powerful thing a president does when he communicates is topic selection. The public wants many things. Much of what it wants it shouldn?t have. Presidential speechmaking sets the agenda and draws the crowd to a topic, which a savvy president knows they are at least somewhat predisposed to supporting.
Presidents are not supposed to be motivated by polls. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie argued this point at the Republican National Convention: ?You see, Mr. President?real leaders don?t follow polls. Real leaders change polls.? That?s not exactly true. Successful presidents all credit their ability to figure out where the country was headed and then rush to the front to organize the parade. Lincoln not only managed by wandering around, he used to take what he called ?public opinion baths,? gauging the public?s attitude about a particular issue before he made a decision. FDR famously said ?I cannot go any faster than the people will let me.?
Franklin D. Roosevelt during one of his fireside chats, on August 1933National Park Service.
Reagan was a masterful communicator, in part because he didn?t try to force the country to go in a direction it didn't want to go. He managed tax cuts and reductions in government spending that met the desires of a conservative wave in the country. Reagan's talent was to give voice (and easily repeatable aphorisms) to the country?s mood. (They are still being repeated at GOP rallies today, where I?m with the government and I?m here to help you is a ready laugh line.) The economic success of Reagan's term ratified the ideas behind it?smaller government and the belief that tax cuts lead to economic growth?but his ability to communicate branded those ideas to the times more than simple prosperity could.
Bill Clinton, whose skills connecting with the American people are legendary, nevertheless faced a series of stinging defeats early on. But he learned his lesson after the Republicans took over Congress in 1994. He immediately started supporting a number of small provisions?from encouraging school uniforms to V-chips that would block offensive programming on television?that had wide popular appeal. The triangulation he practiced in which he supported positions in the middle against the extremes of both parties gave him a series of victories that matched the public mood. By offering the public what they wanted, Clinton realigned his presidency with the majority. It wasn?t Clinton?s words that won people over. It was the policies, stupid.
If a president can?t sell a program, is it his fault?
Barack Obama had an opportunity to shape public opinion on health care reform. When he started his push, the idea of reform was broadly popular. In April 2009, 59 percent of respondents in a Kaiser health care poll believed health care reform was more important than ever?even amid an economic downturn. Only 37 percent said we couldn?t afford health reform because of economic problems. But the more Obama worked on the legislation, the more partisan the issue became. Soon the numbers began to turn against him. It became a game of beat the clock: Could he get the bill through Congress before opposition to it calcified? But Obama didn?t sprint. He thought he could keep the public on board while everyone waited for the Senate Finance Committee and its chairman Max Baccus to deliver a bipartisan agreement. During that time, the president allowed the health care bill to take a pounding each day, lowering its popularity.?In February 2009, the president?s approval rating on the question of health care was a rosy 57 percent favorable to 41 percent unfavorable. By the time he signed the law in March 2010, those numbers had flipped. Even under a president with rhetorical gifts, the partisan and confusing nature of public-policy debates can overwhelm the oratory.
In the end, Obama had to jam the bill through. As health care reform came to a vote, Obama was no longer trying to win over Republicans or protect his brand. He supported the Senate use of reconciliation, a back-door procedural move that destroyed any chance of bringing along Republicans, and he turned his megaphone toward rallying his own troops. That?s a place where presidential rhetoric can be powerful. Obama's speech to House Democrats on the eve of the vote appealed to the common bonds that brought them into politics as Democrats. Since then, public support for the legislation has not improved.
Describe a situation when you convinced an adversary of something.
If Obama wasn't naive about the political reality, he may have had too much faith in the play he kept running:?Look reasonable so people will see that Republicans are overstepping. It didn't really work. It didn't cow Republicans. Their approval ratings sank, but their positions didn't change, and Obama's status with voters didn't improve as he?d hoped it would by using the GOP as a foil.
The president also probably had an outsize opinion of his own powers of persuasion. "One of the things I'm good at is getting people in a room with a bunch of different ideas who sometimes violently disagree with each other and finding common ground, and a sense of common direction," Obama told 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft. "And that's the kind of approach that I think prevents you from making some of the enormous mistakes that we've seen over the last eight years."
This was a theory largely untested by reality. Obama had worked with Republicans in Illinois, but that was a much smaller playground and he'd only done it for eight years. In the United States Senate, there was virtually no evidence of his persuasive powers on any meaningful issue. In the early days of his presidency, Obama couldn't even get his own economic advisers to agree, let alone Republicans.
Mitt Romney propagates a similar notion. It?s the myth of smart people in a room and the ability to wrangle a way forward from knowing how to conduct them. But what if the smart people in the room don?t want to agree with you? If they?re members of Congress, you can?t fire them. You can?t engage them in collective action for the good of the share price. They are trading on an entirely different market.
How do you know what the public wants?
If the political scientists are right, we should stop hanging on every president?s every word. That?s good news for Mitt Romney. He is not a memorable orator, but it turns out that he doesn?t need to be on many issues. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The average of polls shows 50 percent of the country wants the law repealed and only 40 percent does not. That?s more important than all the wordsmiths in the land.
President Obama?s rhetorical skills have already been downgraded in office. You could see it at his convention where he delivered a more earthbound speech. It seems like he knows that people may be a little skeptical this time around. When President Obama inevitably reinvigorates his base with rousing words during the campaign, no one should assume he will be any more effective in a second term as president.
Then Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama speaks at a town hall meeting in July 2008 in VirginiaPhoto by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
If we want to measure a candidate?s potential in office, perhaps the more important thing to measure is their ability to read the public. It?s only with an understanding of what the public wants that they can shape public views. Candidates speak as if they can intuit the deepest wishes of the public, but where does this understanding come from? They attend rallies made up only of their supporters and they never admit to reading public-opinion polls. Democrats say they don?t watch Fox news and Republicans don?t wake up to the New York Times.
If voters aren?t with a president on a specific issue, all is not lost. Their general disposition toward their leader?whether they think he has their interests at heart?still offers something. If they do trust that he has their back, people might be more predisposed to hear him when, as president, he tries to argue that he has plans or ideas that may first strike them as unappealing. This is an area where Mitt Romney has lots of work to do. When pollsters ask voters which candidate they think cares more about average people, Obama beats Romney regularly by 20 percentage points or more.
That?s a tough position to start from when you are promising to transform the Medicare program, a proposal that does not have majority support. Romney?s plan to extend the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy also doesn?t have broad support.
Do the rules of presidential rhetoric suggest that there's no way that Romney can accomplish what he's proposing? Is he willing to go forward even though his Medicare reforms are likely to be unpopular, the way Barack Obama did with health care? Romney and Paul Ryan have suggested that they will receive a political benefit for taking on these hard tasks. But that?s just campaign talk. There is no evidence from the real world that this is true.?
These were the questions Newt Gingrich was noodling when he raised doubts about Paul Ryan's plan to transform Medicare. The country wasn't ready for "right-wing social engineering" any more than it was ready for left-wing social engineering, Gingrich argued, because to make big changes you can?t change public opinion, you need to shape it. So what was the plan for getting the country in the right frame of mind to accept it?
The limits of Barack Obama's communication skills have already been exposed. He is not going to be a more effective story-teller in his second term, but then again, his ambitions are less lofty than Mitt Romney's. Obama's agenda?to manage future budgets to reduce growing inequality through protection of investments and rearrangement of the tax code?is essentially in line with public opinion. Polls show that the public trusts him to handle issues of Medicare, taxes, and health care (despite disapproval of the Affordable Care Act). Without another election to worry about, Obama might feel emboldened to negotiate on behalf of those popular positions in the budget fight that will start the day after Election Day as he tries to avoid the fiscal cliff created by last year?s budget deal and the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts. Whoever the next president is, when his term begins, he?s going to have a lot of explaining to do.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=afb58020a4b5c048778a03d2112a8bef
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Political Oratory: Power of words, the case of Khumbo and Mutharika ...
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By Ndumanene Devlin Silungwe |
September 28, 2012 ????? 0 Comments |
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?Email This Post It is said that words create, use them wisely; be in the shoes of your audience before uttering them. For politicians in government, that audience is beyond a political podium; it is a nation. Thus it helps for politicians in positions of authority to do a self-reflection on the potential consequences of what they speak both publicly and privately.
The Khumbo Kachali Karonga slurs and even the Peter Mutharika MIJ FM slurs ? made both in public and private respectively, come as classic examples. I had made a contribution previously, on the passing of Bingu wa Mutharika, that one political institution the government of President Joyce Banda needed to urgently overhaul, as a way of introducing civilized politics, was the Malawian nature of political oratory.
Khumbo Kachali: Made rude remarks in Karonga
The saddening situation is that political oratory in Malawi, both in the ruling camp and the opposition, has thrived on being combative, confrontational, defamatory, malicious, hateful and disrespectful of the emotions of those holding honest divergent views. This problem is partly caused by the ndale mindset which looks at politics as the game of entangling each other into failure.
For this reason it gives birth to ?them and us? paradigms ? where governments are constantly paranoid seeing those outside it as having a small axe to grind. Sometimes the negative energy comes from opposition that is driven by nothing more than seeing those in government fail. But this is the more reason people in government must approach and respond to criticisms with maturity.
It is encouraging, from the KK incident in Karonga, that Malawians are giving a cue to public officers about what the nation expect of behaviour of their servants. I can only pray that this will not be a selective incident, but that it will continue for the future KKs. This is significant because if leaders that spew hatred and demean Malawians are left unchecked what becomes of the the future politicians? The destructive and unchecked oratory of previous arrogant political personalities like ate Charles Kamphulusas and late George Bundawunda Phiris in Kamuzu?s government; Davis Kapitos in Muluzi?s government and Patricia Kaliatis in Bingu?s government have perpetuated hateful politics for too long and compromised quality of unity in our society and that is why it is refreshing to have this uproar. This country has had inter-generational been predisposition to hateful political oratory so much so that this has been normalized for the reason that none of our leaders were taken to task either by the electorate or their rank and file.
We need to imagine the slanderous political comments made during the ruling political parties? rallies which have been broadcast and rebroadcast, often unedited since the 1964 cabinet crisis of Hastings Kamuzu Banda. Think of abongololo, wabodza lenelene, madeya, omwa mapilisi 30, tiankhwezule ting?onoting?ono etc. Does not this translate to over 40years of extra-curricular lessons on our radio and television? For not reprimanding those that misspeak, it has reinforced not just the language, but also indoctrinated nursery politicians with insulting oratory. Such politicians compromise the dignity of parenthood and do not do children glued to radios and television justice. Children expect symbols of parenthood to do what they teach, and lead by example.
Does it need to reach censorship proportions when it comes to political and presidential rallies broadcast on radio? Say LVIP10 for ? Language, Violence, Insults and Prejudice and fit for those 10years and above? I had asked. How do parents ensure the safety of children? How do parents explain themselves to children who question them for being disciplined of behaviour that elders in political arena make a meal of? The KK incident must be a wakeup call for the mettle Malawians are made of.
Tags: Khumbo Kachali, Peter Mutharika
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Thursday, September 27, 2012
Herbert Lom, boss in Pink Panther movies, dies
Everett Collection
Herbert Lom, left, and Peter Sellers in "The Pink Panther Strikes Again."
By Reuters
LONDON -- Czech-born film star Herbert Lom, best known as the deranged Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the "Pink Panther" comedies, has died, according to British media. He was 95.
His agent was not immediately able to confirm the reports that Lom died peacefully in his sleep on Thursday. They did not specify where, but he had been based in London.
Born into a poor aristocratic family in Prague in 1917, he shortened his complicated name to Lom and appeared in a handful of locally made movies before emigrating to Britain before the outbreak of World War Two and making his home there.
There he built a career that spanned over 100 films and included more than its fair share of villains.
"In English eyes all foreigners are sinister," he was quoted as saying resignedly in 1991.
He portrayed Napoleon Bonaparte twice, including in "War and Peace" in 1956 alongside Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn, and the King of Siam in the first London production of the stage musical "The King and I" in 1953.
Two years later he collaborated with Peter Sellers in the dark comedy "The Ladykillers", and they would work together again in the 1960s and 1970s on the Pink Panther series.
In them Lom played the increasingly crazed Dreyfus alongside Sellers' hapless Inspector Clouseau, and the success of his character owed much to Lom's own improvisations.
In an interview with the Independent newspaper in 2004, Lom recalled that it was him who invented Dreyfus's nervous twitch that became his trademark gesture.
"I started winking out of nervousness, and couldn't stop," he said. "It wasn't in the script but (director) Blake Edwards loved it. But it became a problem. I made those films for 20 years, and after 10 years they ran out of good scripts.
"They used to say to me, 'Herbert, wink here, wink.' And I said, 'I'm not going to wink. You write a good scene and I won't have to wink.'"
He also wrote two novels, "Enter A Spy" published in 1971 and "Dr Guillotine" in 1993. (Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato.
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Video: What?s going on with the Romney campaign?
Angry pet owners take jerky treat fight to stores
Grieving pet owners have started warning other consumers with fliers, cards and posters about potentially dangerous chicken jerky treats from China. After the death of her German shepherd, one Illinois woman gathered 60,000 signatures demanding retailers stop selling the treats.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/49202033#49202033
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Enjoying our last few days as a family of three! - Surviving Motherhood
We have SO been looking forward to the cooler weather this Fall and with the change of Seasons comes lots of fun Fall family activities! Lindsay has been talking about how much fun her kiddos had recently apple picking and sharing delicious recipes for all things Autumn has to offer!
We had a fun weekend recently and decided to head over to Irons Fruit Farm and enjoy our last few days of being a ?family of three?! This year, because of the frost, they aren?t offering u-pick apples but what I do love about Iron?s is the fact that they don?t nickel and dime you during your visit. The hay ride to pick your own pumpkin out from the field is free, you just pay by the pound for whatever pumpkin you choose. I also love all the yummy treats they have on offer, no one beats their home made apple spice donuts! YUM! The cider is also great and so is their offering of a ?whacked apple? which includes a fresh apple, warm caramel, whipped cream and topped with nuts!
The boys loved it!
I was planning to get a bag of apples but decided to wait for now, I have a hankering (errr?the last of my pregnancy cravings?) for apple pie and vanilla ice cream. This might be on my ?list? of food to ask my mom to bring over once the baby arrives!
Check out that baby BUMP! We are 40 weeks officially when we took this pic and now a couple days overdue so she will be getting an eviction notice soon! We?re in no rush for her arrival, just thrilled and excited to meet her! We will have an ultrasound next week and if all continues to look well we?ll wait two weeks before talking about possible induction. I think she will be like her big bro and be a few days late so we will see!
What are your favorite Fall activities to do with the Family?! Any fun Autumn traditions??
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Five-year-olds put to the test as kindergarten exams gain steam
(Reuters) - With school in full swing across the United States, the littlest students are getting used to the blocks table and the dress-up corner - and that staple of American public education, the standardized test.
A national push to make public schools more rigorous and hold teachers more accountable has led to a vast expansion of testing in kindergarten. And more exams are on the way, including a test meant to determine whether 5-year-olds are on track to succeed in college and career.
Paul Weeks, a vice president at test developer ACT Inc., says he knows that particular assessment sounds a bit nutty, especially since many kindergarteners aspire to careers as superheroes. "What skills do you need for that, right? Flying is good. X-ray vision?" he said, laughing.
But ACT will soon roll out college- and career-readiness exams for kids age 8 through 18 and Weeks said developing similar tests for younger ages is "high on our agenda." Asking kids to predict the ending of a story or to suggest a different ending, for instance, can identify the critical thinking skills that employers prize, he said.
"There are skills that we've identified as essential for college and career success, and you can back them down in a grade-appropriate manner," Weeks said. "Even in the early grades, you can find students who may be at risk."
At least 25 states now mandate at least one formal assessment during kindergarten. Many local school districts require their own tests as well, starting just a few weeks into the academic year.
The proliferation of exams for five-year-olds has sparked a fierce debate that echoes a broader national divide over how much standardized testing is appropriate in public schools.
Advocates say it's vital to test early and often because too many kids fall irretrievably behind in their first years of schooling. The most recent national exams for fourth graders found just 34 percent proficient in reading and 40 percent proficient in math.
Opponents counter that testing puts undue stress on 5- and 6-year-olds and cuts into the time they should be spending playing, singing and learning social skills. They also contend that most tests for kindergarteners are unreliable because the children have short attention spans and often find it difficult to demonstrate skills on demand.
'WE SHOULD KNOW BETTER'
Formal tests give a narrow picture of a child's ability, said Samuel Meisels, president of the Erikson Institute, a graduate school in Chicago focused on child development. He urges teachers instead to assess young children by observing them over time, recording skills and deficits and comparing those to benchmarks.
But Meisels fears such observational tests won't seem objective or precise enough in today's data-driven world; he says he too often sees them pushed aside in favor of more formal assessments.
"I am worried, yes," he said. "We should know better."
Kari Knutson, a veteran kindergarten teacher in Minnesota, has seen the shifting attitude toward testing play out in her classroom.
During her first two decades of teaching, Knutson rarely, if ever, gave formal tests; kindergarten was about learning through play, music, art and physical activity.
These days, though, her district mandates a long list of assessments.
Knutson started the year by quizzing each of her 23 students on the alphabet and phonics, through a 111-question oral exam. Last week, she brought the kids to the computer lab for another literacy test. Each kindergartener wore headphones and listened to questions while a menu of possible answers flashed on the screen. They were supposed to respond by clicking on the correct answer, though not all could maneuver the mouse and some gave up in frustration, Knutson said.
This week, it's on to math - and a seven-page, pencil-and-paper test. "It's supposed to show them what they'll be learning in first grade," Knutson said. "Like they really care."
In her view, the kids are far too young to tackle formal exams, especially in their first weeks of what is for many their first school experience. "Half of them are crying because they miss mom and dad. When you tell them to line up, they don't even know what a line is," Knutson said.
Despite her frustration, Knutson acknowledges the tests have some advantages. The results help shape her lesson plans, she said, as she can quickly group kids by ability. Now and then, the exams reveal hidden strengths or unexpected weaknesses in her students.
Plus, when scores rise, both she and her students feel a genuine pride. "At the end of the year, it's like 'Wow, we really improved.' It's cool because you can see it," Knutson said.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Testing young children is not a new concept. In the 1980s, many states assessed children to determine whether they were ready to enter kindergarten or first grade. Experts in child development denounced the practice as unfair and unreliable and it faded out.
In recent years, however, the federal law known as No Child Left Behind has put pressure on schools to raise scores on the standardized reading and math tests given to students starting around age 8. Schools that post poor scores are labeled failing; principals and teachers can lose their jobs.
With the stakes so high, many administrators have decided to start testing in the earlier grades, to give kids practice and to identify students who need help.
The Obama administration accelerated the trend in 2011 with a $500 million competitive grant to bolster early childhood education. States that pledged to assess all kindergarteners earned extra points on their applications.
After all, taxpayers are investing more than $500 billion a year in public education and "we need to know how children are progressing," said Jacqueline Jones, a deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education. "There has to be some accountability," she said.
The administration's grant guidelines encouraged states to develop holistic assessments that measure the 5-year-olds' social, emotional and physical development as well as their cognitive skills. About a dozen states, including Georgia and Maryland, have developed such broad assessments, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Others states, though, focus more narrowly on reading and math skills; some are even beginning to evaluate kindergarten teachers in part on how well their students do on those exams.
The format of kindergarten assessment varies widely.
The Iowa Test of Basic Skills, which is used by schools across the United States, runs more than an hour as a teacher reads dozens of questions aloud and kindergarteners mark their response on a multiple-choice answer sheet. A typical question asks kids to pick the picture that illustrates the word 'sharp' from choices including a piggy bank, a glove and a pair of scissors.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Brigance kindergarten screen is set up as a game that students play one-on-one with a teacher, who may ask them to stand on one foot for 10 seconds, to count to 30, or to copy complex shapes like a diamond. The test takes 10 to 15 minutes and costs about $4 per child.
In addition to these comprehensive tests, curriculum writers are now incorporating multiple shorter exams into kindergarten lesson plans.
Consider the 68-page manual recently published by New York City education officials to guide kindergarten teachers through a math unit aligned to the new Common Core academic standards rolling out nationally. The unit, meant to introduce 5-year-olds to algebraic thinking, includes three short pencil-and-paper exams, culminating with a test that asks students to calculate all the ways they could divide six books between two shelves.
Some parents welcome all the tests as an indication that their kids are truly being challenged. If their children spend too much time finger-painting or playing at the sand table, "parents will say, 'This isn't academic enough,'" said Peggy Campbell-Rush, a longtime kindergarten teacher in New Jersey.
But other parents want kindergarten to be the way they remember it, as a time of relaxed exploration.
Dao Tran, a mother in New York City, said her heart sank when she learned that her neighborhood school emphasized standardized testing even in kindergarten. She scoured the city to find an alternative for her daughter. The public school she chose requires a 45-minute commute each way, but Tran says it's worth it.
The kids there, she said, "seemed happy, and that seemed like the most important thing."
(Reporting By Stephanie Simon in Denver; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Claudia Parsons)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/five-olds-put-test-kindergarten-exams-gain-steam-050058507.html
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Is Jimmy Hoffa's body buried at Detroit-area home?
By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News
Jerry Siskind / AFP - Getty Images file
Jimmy Hoffa and his son, James P. Hoffa, who later also became president of the Teamsters, in a 1971 photo.
The FBI and local police in Michigan plan to take soil samples from the backyard of a house in the Detroit suburb of Roseville on Friday, acting on a dying man's tip that the body of former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa might be buried there.
Authorities have chased down hundreds of would-be leads since Hoffa disappeared 37 years ago after he met with two top Mafia operatives at a restaurant in Bloomfield Township, another Detroit suburb, in July 1975. All have led to dead ends, but authorities said this lead could be different.
NBC station WDIV-TV of Detroit reported that?an unidentified man who is dying from cancer told Roseville police that he saw men moving a black bag at the garage of the house just hours after Hoffa went missing. Acting on the tip, authorities?ran radar tests last week that picked up an image of something buried beneath a cement slab in the backyard.
Roseville Police Chief James Berlin confirmed that investigators had received the tip, telling the Detroit Free Press that "the information seemed credible, so we decided to follow up on it."
The newspaper reported that the house is in the 18700 block of Florida Street in northern Roseville, about 20 miles northeast of Detroit.
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The disappearance of Hoffa ? who ran the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the country's biggest labor union, from 1957 to 1971 ? has long been a staple for conspiracy theorists. At various times, his body was posited to have been buried under Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.; beneath General Motors headquarters at Detroit's Renaissance Center; on a farm in Hartland Township, Mich.; in a field in Milford, Mich.; and even on the grounds of the White House.?
What is known is that Hoffa, who was then 62, was chafing at restrictions on his activity in the Teamsters that President Richard Nixon imposed when he commuted Hoffa's 1967 federal prison sentence for fraud and jury tampering in 1971 (he continued to run the union from his prison cell). On July 30, 1975, Hoffa met with?Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone, capo of the Detroit Mafia, and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, a former Teamsters vice president who was also a captain in the Genovese crime family, at a restaurant called the Machus Red Fox in Bloomfield Township.
In a 1976 "here we stand" memo published several years later, the FBI speculated that Hoffa reluctantly agreed to the meeting to try to smooth over differences with?Provenzano and Giacalone, who were reportedly perturbed that Hoffa was trying to get back into the Teamsters' leadership, That, presumably, would have lessened the mob's control over the union.
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"It is believed that the hit, if there was one, would have been approved at very highest levels within the Organized Crime structure," the FBI concluded. "If this be the case, it would tend to lend credence to the evidence that PROVENZANO or certainly someone at his level, both within the Teamsters Union and (Mafia), was responsible."
Read the 1976 FBI memo (.pdf)
Hoffa's body has never been found. Provenzano was later convicted of an unrelated murder and died in 1988; Giacalone, who was imprisoned for tax fraud, died in 2001.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Video: Obama to make the case for his foreign policy?
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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/49152748/
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UK leader Cameron to appear on David Letterman
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-leader-cameron-appear-david-letterman-184745562.html
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An explorative study of wiki as a teaching resource for students of ...
Roy Kr?vel
Published Online: In press
Full Text: HTML, PDF (416 KB)
Abstract
The article reports on how a wiki was introduced in the teaching of Development and Environmental Studies to journalism students in Oslo, Norway and intends to contribute to the understanding of how students use wiki technology to produce knowledge. The findings indicate that using wikis stimulates cooperation between students and strengthens collective processes of learning. Even more importantly, the investigation shows that using wikis can improve the teacher?s understanding of the process of learning. However, some lecturers found serious framing problems in articles regarding lectures they had given, especially when they had been introducing new terms or new perspectives on complex issues. To avoid a process where students repeat and mutually reinforce each other?s misrepresentations, it is necessary to construct a scheme of systematic feedback, including perspectives from lecturers and teachers.
Keywords:
Action research, depth of intention, interpretation, journalism, representation, wikis
Introduction
In 2004, Jeremy Williams and Joanne Jacobs claimed that ?blogging has the potential to be a transformational technology for teaching and learning? (Williams & Jacobs, 2004, p. 244). Williams and Jacobs were particularly intrigued by the possibility of providing students with a high level of autonomy and, at the same time, an opportunity for interaction with their peers. This had proved particularly valuable since students learn as much from each other as they learn from instructors or textbooks (Williams & Jacobs, 2004). Today, the same could be said about Wikis. According to Greenhow, Robelia and Hughes, Web 2.0 facilitates communication and learning in ways that require ?a new wave of research question?, especially related to learner participation andcreativity (Greenhow et al., 2009b). In order better to understand and take advantage of the potential of Web 2.0 in higher education, Greenhow, in particular, called for more research on student learning with Web 2.0, both inside and outside classrooms. Ronald Owston, meanwhile, called for the investigation of teacher learning with the Web, in particular ?teachers changing from a traditional pedagogical orientation to an inquiry-based, student centered approach? (Owston, 2009, p. 272). Teachers need to develop their knowledge through Web 2.0 practices. They also need to model these practices in the classroom (Greenhow et al., 2009b).
This article is based on reflexive action research on such usage of wikis in teaching journalism, in part as a response to these and other calls for more research on web 2.0 and higher education. It reports on how a wiki was introduced in the teaching of Development and Environmental Studies to students in the fourth semester of the Bachelor?s degree in Journalism at Oslo University College, Norway. It explains the problem-oriented pedagogy and the specific context of wiki usage.
Social media and Web 2.0 are often used interchangeably and have been defined or used in a number of different ways. The terms are generally used with reference to groups of technologies, for instance blogs, wikis, podcasts and RSS feeds, ?which facilitate a more socially connected Web where everyone is able to add to and edit the information space? (Anderson, 2007, p. 5). The employment of more participatory technologies in education has already been explored by researchers from a variety of perspectives (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009a, 2009b; Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009a; Greenhow, et al., 2009b; Luckin et al., 2009; Owston, 2009). Wiki technology can thus be understood as a particular form of communication technology enabling a more participatory form of online communication. A wiki is a page, or a collection of Web pages, designed to enable users to contribute or modify content (Catalina, 2009). Wiki technology shares many of its collaborative practices with other Web 2.0 technologies, but is mostly employed to facilitate the collaborative production of texts, as, for instance, on Wikipedia. It is precisely the process of collaborative production of texts in a formal educational setting that is the focus of this article.
The article intends to contribute to the understanding of how students use wiki technology to produce knowledge. It takes an exploratory approach, reflecting on a number of issues as they appear as part of the experience of employing wiki technology as a pedagogical tool. How do journalism students use wikis to produce knowledge in the context of their course? What is the nature of the knowledge produced? What can course instructors learn about their students? knowledge-building process by using wikis in their teaching? In addition, the article also reflects on the quality of the knowledge produced. To what extent are the students able to summarise and re-present what textbooks and lecturers say in a way that reflects an understanding of what the textbooks or lecturers are trying to convey? This second category of research questions deals with the quality of the knowledge produced by the students.
Existing literature on Wikis and participatory forms of learning and teaching
The article is based on critical realism as a basis for research (Banfield, 2004), a basis which permits a diversity of methodologies and multiplicity of epistemologies. However, critical realism stands out from other philosophies of science by prioritising ontology (Hammersley, 2007) and this means that critical realism argues against reducing statements about the world to statements about our knowledge of the world (Bhaskar, 2010, abstract). From a critical realist point of view all claims about natural and social reality are fallible, but not equally fallible, and it is thus also necessary to attempt to evaluate the validity of statements about the world in relation to a notion of social or natural ontology (Bhaskar, 1997, 2010). Learning is about producing knowledge, but also about the quality of knowledge. I will not attempt to define the contentious term ?knowledge? here. From a critical realist perspective, however, ?knowledge-producing fields? comprise both ?relational structures of concepts and methods for relating these to the empirical world and actors positioned in institutions within specific social and historical contexts? (Maton & Moore, 2010, p. 5). According to Maton and Moore, some forms of knowledge are ?more epistemologically (or aesthetically) powerful than others? (2010, p. 7). Pedagogy should take account of this. In this article, I have evaluated the knowledge produced by the learners by employing Arne N?ss?s concept ?depth of intention?. I will return to this aspect of learning shortly, after first making a few comments on the social and collaborative aspects of using wikis as a pedagogical tool.
Wikis can help students to attain skills in collaborative work and to develop critical and reflexive practices (Bruns & Humphreys, 2005, pp. 25-32). Wikis can also help to engage students in collaborative writing activities, thereby developing collaborative skills (Forte & Bruckman, 2006). Collaborating with other students on solving a task or a problem, for instance, means exchanging information and perspectives with other members of the team. This helps to develop understandings of how one standpoint or perspective is related to other possible perspectives, thereby facilitating a reflexive understanding of knowledge.
One investigation showed that the most noteworthy benefit of employing Wikipedia in classrooms was the sense of personal achievement and ongoing engagement in the learning process (Pollard, 2008). According to McLoughlin and Lee (2007), wikis and collaborative writing and editing tools are useful because they improve and extend conventional writing approaches. Some have suggested other arguments for student cooperation in learning processes. McLoughlin and Lee (2007) claim that working in groups which cooperate is a more effective learning strategy than working individually, for a number of reasons. Using wikis, the students themselves can play an active role in producing knowledge, thereby improving motivation (Heafner & Friedman, 2008). According to Surowiecki, large groups exhibit more intelligence than smaller, more elite groups (Surowiecki, 2004). Teachers may therefore ?restrain themselves from direct action, in order to promote free and democratic production of content according to the principles embodied in the ?wisdom of the masses?? (Wheeler, Yeomans, & Wheeler, 2008, p. 994).
If using wikis motivates students and facilitates critical, reflective practices, we might expect to find that the active participation and engagement with the wiki introduced in the teaching of Development and Environmental Studies (as discussed in this article) somehow resulted in improved learning. Many authors, however, have also warned of the dangers involved in using wikis in teaching, especially regarding problems concerning the accuracy of the information (Denning et al., 2005), and this makes it necessary to return to the issue I raised earlier of how to evaluate the quality of the knowledge produced by learners in a collaborative process.
One recent study found that the accuracy of Wikipedia is high (Chesney, 2006). Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries (Giles, 2005). However, while many have believed that the accuracy of wikis will continue to improve over time, another study found that ?roughly 20 per cent of errors can be attributed to surviving text added by the first edit, which confirmed the existence of a ?first-mover? effect ? the results do not provide support for the idea of trusting surviving segments attributed to older edits? (Luyt et al., 2008, p. 318). When choosing a wiki for teaching purposes, it is therefore important to include features such as authentication and tracking (Augar, Raitman, & Zhou, 2004). By including features for tracking it should be possible to learn more about how possible mistakes or misunderstandings by ?first-movers? are corrected by other students or incorporated into the emerging corpus of knowledge.
As indicated earlier, I will build on Arne N?ss?s work to evaluate the quality of the knowledge produced by the learners. The concept ?depth of intention? was developed by N?ss and used to describe the quality of a statement (Gullv?g, 1983; N?ss, 1953) because a statement can be misunderstood. Put simply, ?depth of intention? means that the quality of communication improves when the speaker is aware of other possible interpretations of what is being stated. It is believed that the possibility of misunderstanding decreases when the speaker has such ?depth of intention?. Discussing and debating with other students should help to develop depth of intention, resulting in fewer mistakes and misunderstandings. Depth of intention is seen as being developed when students are stimulated to discuss different or alternative perspectives and interpretations with other students. Inspired by N?ss, many critical realists have also found Wright?s definition of realism useful, as it understands learning as a process in search of deeper insights into reality: ?A way of describing the process of ?knowing? that acknowledges the reality of the thing known, as something other than the knower (hence ?realism?), while also acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiralling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known (hence ?critical?)? (Wright, quoted in Lynch, 2007, p. 6). In Journalism Studies both Lynch and Wright have argued for critical realism as a foundation for science, in line with the perspective proposed by N?ss (Lynch, 2008; Wright, 2010).
N?ss argued that we should always strive for quality in representing the views and statements of the other. According to N?ss, the goal should be to represent the other in a way that the other would find acceptable. Students should therefore strive towards representing what is said during a lecture in a way that the lecturer finds acceptable, in addition, of course, to developing their own perspectives on the issue being discussed. By following the development of the process of collaborative production of knowledge on the wiki, I hope to be able to contribute to the existing knowledge on this particular aspect of learning.
Methodology
Seventy-four students participated in the course ?Development and Environment Studies for Journalists? from March to June 2009.1 Seventy-two participated a year later. All were second year students of the Bachelor of Journalism degree at Oslo University College in Norway preparing for upcoming individual fieldwork of at least four weeks in the global South. A number of writing assignments were given to prepare the students for the fieldwork by stimulating research on the site and topic of the individual fieldwork, hopefully fostering further reading, reflection and finally production of the knowledge necessary for successful fieldwork. During the course, each student had to contribute at least seven short texts on themes related to lectures. The students were free to decide for themselves which topics to choose for their articles, as long as the topic was based on a lecture or a textbook. The texts were then discussed in groups of approximately seven students and one teacher, before being published on a closed wiki (jbi.wikidot.com). All articles were published on the wiki after group sessions. After publication, other students were invited to edit, add information or contribute fresh perspectives to already published articles, in the same way as on Wikipedia. The project resulted in a total of more than 300 articles, mostly co-written by three to seven students. The collaborative writing on the wiki was not organised by the teachers, but was left to be decided by the interests and motivation of the students themselves. The articles covered major aspects of the lectures given during the course and the curriculum, and were later made available for the students in their preparation for written and oral exams.
Qualitative investigation of participation and collaboration on the wiki
The methodology for this article was designed to answer the two categories of research questions presented in the introduction. First, how did the journalism students use wikis to produce knowledge in the context of their course? The investigation of the production and publication of articles builds on information from the wiki and from the discussion in the groups. The wiki contains a function (?history?) which makes it possible to follow the development of each of the 300 articles as students participated and contributed. Each new contribution was automatically forwarded to the teacher (me), so that the contribution of each individual student could be evaluated. I also investigated the later usage of the wiki in the period leading up to written and oral exams. This investigation was mainly made by using Google Analytics, which made it possible to evaluate patterns of use. When did the students use the wiki? How often? To which articles did they contribute? What themes did they find particularly interesting? This part of the investigation followed an explorative approach (Stebbins, 2001). I will provide more detail of this in my discussion of the findings.
Interviewing lecturers on the quality of articles published on the wiki
The second category of research questions deals with the ability to summarise and re-formulate what textbooks and lecturers say. The majority of articles on the wiki worked with statements made by lecturers. According to N?ss, the students should strive to represent the lecturer in a way the lecturer would find acceptable. This is a very difficult task. First, it requires the student to try to understand what the lecturer is trying to say ? which can be difficult in itself, as the topics are by definition mostly new to the students. There are therefore numerous possibilities for making factual mistakes or for misunderstanding the meaning of a statement made by the lecturer. In addition, the lectures are too long to be presented in their original form. The students therefore need to synthesise and thus re-formulate in their own words what they believe is the meaning, or the most important meanings, of the lecture. In so doing, the students ?frame? their representations of the lectures. Framing necessarily means ?selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text? (Entman, 1993, p. 5). A frame suggests what the controversy is about and involves implicit information that gives meaning to an issue to and provide a context for the interpretation of the message. Framing was made more difficult by the fact that many students participated in the process of representing the statements made by the same lecturer. The students would each have had their own particular framing in mind, based on their individual backgrounds, cultures or embedded worldviews. The resulting article with its specific framing was therefore the outcome of a chaotic process in which no individual had the editorial responsibility.
Thirteen lecturers participated in the experiment. Each lecturer read and evaluated the articles that represented their statements and then commented on the reliability of the representations on several levels. First, they commented on possible factual errors found in the articles. Second, they looked for statements in the articles that indicated that the students had misunderstood what they had said or had intended to say. Third, the lecturers evaluated the framing of the article. Did the students manage to make important themes salient in their representation? Or did they choose to make other themes visible, while what the lecturer judged as most important was relegated to a less important status? How could this then be interpreted? The lecturers were then finally asked to evaluate the experience of being represented by the students. Six lecturers were interviewed. Seven, for various practical reasons, gave written answers to the questions.
A survey of the students after finishing the course
Finally, the students in the second year were invited to answer an online questionnaire (QuestBack) on issues that had come up during the first parts of the study. The students were asked to give their opinion (anonymously) on the quality of the course, the quality of lectures, and the overall work-load, to assess their own degree of participation and (voluntarily and anonymously) reveal the grade received after written and oral exams. Fifty-three out of sixty-five students finishing the course participated. All the students voluntarily (and anonymously) agreed to reveal their final grades, thus making it possible to evaluate how different combinations of variables combines and correlates with specific outcomes (grades). The questionnaire consisted of questions designed for quantitative analysis and open questions inviting further comments and reflections designed to facilitate further qualitative analysis.
Research ethics
Since the researcher is also the teacher of the course, a brief comment on the research ethics is warranted. As a teacher, I participate in all the individual activities described in the methodology chapter, including the final evaluation, oral exams and setting the final grades for many of the students. Teachers at Oslo and Akershus University College for Applied Sciences are also asked to involve students in evaluation of the course itself, employing discussions, interviews, reference groups and/or surveys. As such, this research is an attempt to extend and improve an already ongoing process of improving teaching and learning. However, combining information from different sources could potentially lead to ethical problems such as, for instance, concerning the identification of individual students, so before undertaking the research I asked permission to use input from the exam results in the research. The request was discussed and accepted by the dean and the officers in charge of exam-related questions. Before publishing the results I asked for a second opinion from the Faculty of Social Sciences, as since the research started we have merged with Akershus University College and now belong to a newly created Faculty of Social Sciences. Again, the relevant authorities found the research to be a potentially valuable contribution to the process of improving the quality of education in the Faculty, but also underlined the importance of making sure that no single student could be identified in the article.
Results: Producing knowledge
A large number of articles were produced during the two years of the investigation. Between 300 and 500 articles relevant could have been included in the study, but many of those did not develop and were not much used. This was often the case when three or four students simultaneously began reporting on a lecture they had attended; typically, these articles would be merged into one article which then went on to develop further, while the others were abandoned.
The main focus of the current article will be 63 articles that were each viewed at least fifty times during the last four months of the research period. Typically, these articles would be subjected to between seven and fifteen revisions between being initiated until the end of the period. In more than seventy-five per cent of the cases between four and ten students participated in the writing and editing of the articles.
The articles dealt with most of the themes covered in the curriculum and the lectures, for instance:
- Journalism, skills, ethics, genres and narratives;
- Environment, environmental movements, climate change issues and environmental ethics;
- Development aid, development theory, critical perspectives on development and alternative perspectives and perspectives from the South on development;
- Articles on specific issues in specific countries or districts.
Typically, an article would be initiated by one student who, after finishing the first revision and logging out, would usually return to do a second and a third revision ? possibly after remembering more topics that should have been included in the article. The second or third student to join in would normally begin by searching for articles related to a specific lecture or a topic from the curriculum. This is when the existence of more than one article related to a lecture or a specific topic would be discovered. In most cases, this student would then choose to continue working on the best of the ?competing? articles, cutting and pasting the most valuable parts of the other articles into the chosen one. This cut and paste work would almost always end with the student adding a few lines of his or her own and, often, deleting a few elements to make the article more accessible. At this point it should be mentioned that these students have systematically developed their skills in writing and editing over the first two years of the journalism education. Most of them do not find it difficult to express themselves in writing and to participate in a semi-public process of content production in full view of their peers. It should be noted that other students could very likely have reacted differently if asked to participate in the same way.
At this point, all the other students would have been automatically notified by email about the ongoing writing and revising process. The most curious would access the page to check out the content, some adding a few lines themselves in the process. Those who had already submitted a few lines on the topic in question would be curious to see what others might have done to their input. Each process of editing required the student to read and reflect on what the others had already written; thus the wiki seems to have functioned as a ?architecture of participation? (O?Reilly, 2004). It stimulated what McLoughlin and Lee described as a ?less hierarchical form of learning based on small teams, sharing, content creation, and the use of ICT to access, create, share and continually improve ideas? (McLoughlin & Lee, 2007, p. 48). The results also seems to verify Bruns and Humphreys? claim that Wikis can help students to develop critical, reflective practices (Bruns & Humphreys, 2005).
Interestingly, the research did not uncover any instances of what some researchers have dubbed ?Wiki Wars?, heated conflict over definitions or perspectives explicitly or implicitly expressed in Wikipedia articles on contentious issues (see for instance Shah, 2009). The intimate collective writing and revising process described above could very well be expected to lead to heated arguments over definitions or perspectives on issues such an climate change, indigenous peoples, war and peace and many more. I propose that this absence of WikiWars is due to the fact that these students, in contrast to many of those participating on Wikipedia, interact on a daily basis. The online cooperation is grounded in day to day social interaction, which makes the participants more likely to show each other respect when editing and producing articles (Enli & Skogerb?, 2008). It also means that the students have a number of other channels for communication and for deliberation on issues of potential disagreement. Disagreement and misunderstandings can be discussed and possibly cleared up outside the virtual world. It might also be that the students, who participate as part of an assignment, are less likely to have strong opinions on certain issues than those who participate voluntarily in writing and editing on Wikipedia. Finally, the group of students is a much more homogeneous group than the groups of people participating in writing and editing on Wikipedia. The students are more likely to have similar views, or at least some sort of common ground on many issues that might have become contentious on Wikipedia. Using similar views or common ground to produce an article on what was said in a lecture proved to be effective in most cases. In some instances, though, building consensus and avoiding conflict, might be seen as a problem, especially when the topics called for deeper reflection or fresh alternative perspectives. I will return to one such example later.
Findings
Participation and collaboration on the wiki
The usage of the wiki went through four distinctive phases, each with its typical pattern. First, in October, approximately six months before the fieldwork, the students were engaged in the first exercises to define where to go (for example, country or region) and what to investigate. They were encouraged to make use of a number of different sources of information at this stage of the process, including books, newspapers, journals, resources on the Internet and the Wiki-site where the previous batch of students had published articles related to the research they had conducted a year earlier. The hypothesis was that the new batch of students would be particularly interested in learning from the last year?s students, and therefore particularly interested in the Wiki site. This was not verified by the research. Only 6 per cent of the respondents agreed with the statement ?it was very useful to see what the other students had done last year?. The largest group of students (43 per cent) had found the wiki ?a little useful? at this stage of the process. Nonetheless, the wiki received a total of 188 visits on the most active day (19 October) during this period. More importantly, each visit lasted on average more than thirteen minutes, and the students visited on average eight different pages during each visit. The visits were relatively longer and ?deeper? (more pages viewed) than later in the research process, indicating that the students were usually surfing from one page to another in search of ideas and inspiration. The results indicate that at this stage most students found other sources of inspiration more useful than the wiki. This type of usage continued to dominate in December and January, when the students moved on to the next phase in the preparations of the fieldwork: buying tickets, reserving accommodation snd so on.
The lectures and group sessions began in earnest in March. This is also when the students were asked to publish articles on the wiki on themes from the curriculum and the lectures. The pattern of use changed noticeably. The number of daily visits increased, reaching 420 on 26 March, approximately six daily visits per registered student at this time. Each visit was shorter than in October, lasting on average three to four minutes. During such a visit each student would visit three pages, where the first page visited would normally be the welcome page, the second would be ?search? or ?recent changes? and the third would be a page dedicated to a topic the student was participating in writing or editing. The usage of the wiki was much more focused on articles on topics of particular interest for the student than earlier in the process. This is also when the contribution of one student became interwoven and integrated into the contributions of other students. Each student needed to formulate his or her thoughts in relation to what others had already said. Building on McLoughlin and Lee, we could expect that working cooperatively and sharing ideas would stimulate? a more productive learning process than asking the students to work in isolation (McLoughlin & Lee, 2007). This was clearly the case for many students, but definitely not for all.
The largest group of students (41 per cent) did not see any substantial difference between the wiki-based form of cooperative writing and more traditional forms of written assignments, or did not have any opinion. A slightly smaller group, 39 per cent, felt that this method improved the learning process. Twenty per cent had a negative perception of the experience. The attitudes towards this type of learning process will become more interesting when, later in the article, I discuss how these attitudes correlate with the quality of the final exams, as measured by a team of sensors.
The usage of the wiki dropped when the students travelled to do their fieldwork and it continued at a relatively low level as they began preparing for written exams. In May, the students handed in a reportage, produced during the fieldwork, in addition to one analytical essay on the topic for the reportage and the sources of information the student had made use of. The usage of the wiki continued to be noticeably lower than in March, reaching a maximum of 195 visits on 20 May. The majority of students later reported that they had made little use of the information on the wiki during this phase of the learning process. This changed markedly as the oral exams approached in June. The number of visits rose to new heights, reaching a zenith of 425 visits and a total of 817 page views on 14 June. These visits were typically quick, lasting little more than a minute, going directly to the pages of interest, reading a few lines before signing out ? a pattern of use one might reasonably expect in preparation for oral exams.
We observe that the usage of the wiki went through several distinctive phases, each best understood in relation to where the students were in the learning process. During the whole process, the wiki generated a total of 7,900 visits and 26,559 page views. Each visitor this visited an average of three to four pages during a visit. The average visit lasted for four minutes and five seconds.
Is there a correlation between usage of the wiki and the outcome of the learning process?
An interesting correlation can be observed between the evaluation the students make of the wiki and the grades they are given as a result of the whole process. Those who see working jointly on the wiki as useful score significantly higher than those who did not find the wiki useful (see table. 1). Twenty per cent of those who felt that using the wiki had enhanced their learning process got an ?A?. Among those who did not see any point in using the wiki, none scored an ?A?. The average for those without strong opinions on using the wiki was 14 per cent. The same pattern can also be observed at the other end of the spectrum: 20 per cent of those who did not find the wiki useful scored ?D? or worse (4, 5, or 6), that is,? below average. Only 10 per cent in the group that had found the wiki useful scored ?D? or less. At this end of the spectrum the numbers of students are too small to draw strong conclusions. The results only indicate that the pattern found among the top scorers is also present among those who were not as successful in their exams.
Table 1. Attitudes towards the Wiki: Mean, standard deviation, sample variance and confidence intervals of final grades.
A ? Excellent. B ? Very Good. C ? Good. D ? Satisfactory. E ? Sufficient. F ? Insufficient/Fail
(A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F=6)
a. Group 1 (those who found working on the wiki useful) 20 students.
| Mean | 2.3 |
| Standard deviation | 0.9 |
| Sample variance | 0.9 |
| 90% | 1.959 to 2.673 |
| 95% | 1.890 to 2.741 |
| (assuming Gaussian distributio | |
b. Group 2 (those who did not find working on the wiki useful) 10 students.
| Mean | 3.1 |
| Standard deviation | 1.3 |
| Sample variance | 1.7 |
| 90% | 2.431 to 3.769 |
| 95% | 2.303 to 3.897 |
| (assuming Gaussian distribution) | |
While a pattern of correlations has been observed, it is nonetheless important to note that correlation is not the same as a causal explanation. First, there are many reasons to question how suitable the final grades are as indicators of the quality of a learning process. It is indeed difficult, possibly impossible, to agree upon a methodology for measuring the outcome of a complex learning process, especially when it involves cross cultural learning. In this case it is well worth noting that learning from cross cultural experiences develops gradually, often as the student looks back and reflects on the experience. Measuring at the end of the semester probably means that important elements of the learning process are not captured.
Nevertheless, the marks are given by two experienced journalists and academics and are based on two written assignments and an oral exam. In order to make sure that the students understand what they are expected to learn and how it will be evaluated, the examiners use a guideline for evaluating the exams which has been developed in cooperation with the students themselves. While the final grading is not a perfect indicator of a learning process, I would argue that it is, in this case, the best we have to inform systematic reflection on the quality of the learning process in relation to possible causal explanations.
Second, other causal explanations could lie behind the observed correlation between grades and perceptions of the wiki. A closer look at correlations between other factors can shed some light on this possibility. For example, both groups (those who found wiki useful as a tool for learning and those who did not) show very similar degrees of participation elsewhere, for instance participation in lectures. A clear majority claims to have participated in more than half of the lectures (60 per cent in both cases), but the reasons given for not being present during a lecture vary: by far the most common explanation (40 per cent) from those who found the wiki useful was ?I had to work?, while only a few (15 per cent) responded ?I did not find the topic interesting?. For the other group ? those who did not find the wiki useful ? it was the other way around: 30 per cent responded ?I did not find the topic interesting?, while only 10 per cent responded ?I had to work?. It should be mentioned here that many of the students actually work as freelance journalists for newspapers, television or radio. That some students have problems finding enough time to follow lectures and to work is well known among students and teachers alike at Oslo University College. The important message here is related to the interests of the students. The evaluation also indicates that those who did not find the wiki useful are also more likely to be less interested in the type of lectures given in this course: history, area studies, anthropology, environmental studies and similar topics. Conversely, they are more likely than the average student to recommend less focus on such topics and more on ?journalism? in the future.
This and other results indicate that many in this particular group (those who did not find the wiki useful) see journalism first and foremost as something to be learned by practising journalism. The debate on whether journalism is best learned by practice or by studying at an academic institution is closely related to the debate on the status and importance of knowledge in journalism (Josephi, 2009; Schudson & Anderson, 2009; Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, 2009). The largest group of students, in this case, typically also contend that more academics should give lectures to students of journalism, while a second group typically claims that journalists should be given preference. In this particular case those students who say they want more focus on ?knowledge? in journalism education are significantly more likely to score top marks than those who say they would prefer more emphasis put on ?knowledge? (see Table 2). One possible explanation for this might be that producing journalism in an unknown environment is different from the type of experience that the students have when practising journalism in Oslo. Having a solid base of knowledge about the society in which the student is doing fieldwork makes it easier for the student to identify good sources of information and thereby to improve his or her ability to interpret what is experienced and the information given by different sources. More investigation is needed before final conclusion can be drawn on the reasons for this finding.
Table 2. Attitudes towards knowledge in journalism education: Mean, standard deviation, sample variance and confidence intervals of final grades.
A ? Excellent. B ? Very Good. C ? Good. D ? Satisfactory. E ? Sufficient. F ? Insufficient/Fail
(A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F=6)
c. Group 1 (those who would prefer less focus on knowledge) 13 students.
| Mean | 3.0 |
| Standard deviation | 0.6 |
| Sample variance | 0.4 |
| 90% | 2.785 to 3.369 |
| 95% | 2.729 to 3.425 |
| (assuming Gaussian distribution) | |
d. Group 2 (those who support increased focus on knowledge) 33 students.
| Mean | 2.2 |
| Standard deviation | 0.9 |
| Sample variance | 0.8 |
| 90% | 1.904 to 2.429 |
| 95% | 1.854 to 2.480 |
| (assuming Gaussian distribution) | |
Nonetheless, to produce more robust knowledge on the learning process the quantitative questions were followed by open fields inviting individual comments and reflections from the students. The comments shed some light on the relationship between the learning process, interests and the wiki. Many of those who expressed a positive attitude towards the wiki at the end of the semester say that they initially did not understand why they were asked to publish on the wiki. Only gradually did they change their opinions. According to the responses given in the questionnaire, a majority of these students seems to have changed their minds during the phase initiated in March. Many explicitly state that adding something to an article to which several others had already contributed was difficult and valuable at the same time. It was difficult because the students had to ?fit? their contributions to what others had already said and the style used by the others, and helpful because reflecting on how to do this stimulated insight into other perspectives, thereby deepening the understanding of the topic in question (N?ss, 1953).
The best interpretation of these two correlations (between marks and perceptions of the wiki and marks and expressed interest in ?knowledge?) is to see interest in knowledge and usage of the wiki as variables mutually strengthening each other. Those who are interested in acquiring ?knowledge? are probably more likely to be willing to invest time and energy in writing articles on the wiki in the first place. And in the open fields for comments they write that the interest in, and understanding of, the potential of using the wiki came gradually, only after some initial confusion and negativity towards having to learn or use yet another web-based tool. Several lessons could be learnt from this:? first, it takes time and effort before using a wiki pays off for a student. Second, not all students are willing to invest the necessary time and energy. Third, those in this group of students who did invest the necessary time and energy did benefit, not only when writing analytical essays, but also when reporting journalistically.
Quality of the representation: factual mistakes and misunderstandings
The second part of the study deals with the quality of the articles and thus the knowledge produced by the students. Thirteen experienced lecturers participated in the project. All the relevant articles dealing with what the lecturers had allegedly said during the lectures were sent to the lecturers to be examined. A total of approximately 50 articles were examined in this way (the number of articles is only an estimate, since some articles dealt with issues covered both in lectures and in articles on the reading lists, and sometimes the students had not included the necessary references). The lecturers responded to the questions orally or by email. Using this methodology makes it possible to test whether or not the students and the lecturer understand each other. If the lecturer feel misunderstood, it does not necessarily means that the students have misunderstood what has been said. Most lecturers have had the experience that what we actually say is not always what we had intended to say. In addition, even when, as teachers, we manage to express ourselves as we intend, what we say will be open to interpretation based on the existing experience and knowledge of the students. Different students hear different things and find different meanings in what is being said in the classroom.
A large majority (more than 90 per cent) of the lecturers used words like ?impressive?, ?very good?, ?good? and ?acceptable? to describe the articles written on topics related to their lectures. This indicates that in general the quality of the articles was good, according to the judgment of those lecturers who were deemed to be experts in their respective fields. Most of the srudents succeeded in capturing the main points of the lectures and in satisfactorily representing what the lecturers had said. It is not very surprising to find that the quality in general was good, especially since these students of journalism had been trained in relevant skills such as reporting, quoting and summarising. Nonetheless, two lecturers found clear evidence of misunderstandings, and one of the two found ?many misunderstandings and misrepresentations?. It is therefore necessary to delve into the reasons, and possible consequences, for these misunderstandings. First, the articles based on the lecture of one particular lecturer were among the most-read articles on the site, and in addition this lecturer?s name was also the most-searched. It is therefore clear that the students deemed the perspectives of this lecturer to be very important while, at the same time, they found it difficult to understand the topics discussed in the lecture. Investigating the history of these articles, it is furthermore clear that many of the misunderstandings resulted from some of the first entries made on the topics and that, when adding new entries, later students seemed to build on the misunderstandings of earlier entries. While almost all of the students read the articles containing the misunderstandings, the misunderstandings were not corrected by later students. This casts doubt on the notion of the ?wisdom of the crowd? (Kittur & Kraut, 2008; Surowiecki, 2004; Wilkinson & Huberman, 2007). In this case ?the crowd? was not able to use its collective ?wisdom? to improve the quality of the representation of the topics discussed by this lecturer.
Doubt about the accuracy of the content on the wiki must lead us to reflect critically on the usage of the wiki as a tool for learning. The example described above seems to indicate that misunderstandings and mistakes can be reproduced and reinforced when students jointly contribute online to an understanding of what the lecturer said or intended to say. One hypothesis might be that the lecturer was unclear and did not succeed in expressing herself or himself accurately. But in this particular case I don?t believe this to be the reason for the misunderstandings. I was present during the lecture and observed both the lecturer and the communication with the students. For me, there was nothing unclear about what the lecturer said (but, then, I was familiar with his topic and argument from previous lectures elsewhere and from scientific articles and books). For the students, the situation was different. This was the first time that most students were exposed to a very complicated argument from someone who insisted on the need to develop a precise critique of the dominating Norwegian discourse on the topic. The students and I drew on distinctive and different backgrounds and knowledge in order to interpret and learn from the lecture ? and this was also, in my view, the reason for a number of misunderstandings in articles on the wiki related to this particular lecture.
Nonetheless, the examiners of the oral exams reported that the students had, in general, a satisfactory understanding of this particular lecturer?s topics and perspectives, indicating that the students had made use of other sources of information (for instance, text books) in addition to the wiki, to clear up misunderstandings resulting from misrepresentation on the wiki site.
This example, representative for three or four instances of misunderstandings and misrepresentations found on the wiki, points towards more putting more emphasis on the pedagogical perspective when communicating complex arguments. Lecturers should engage? in dialogue with the students in order to understand how they students interpret and understand what the lecturers are trying to communicate. The examples also illustrate how important existing knowledge and experience are when students use new information acquired in the classroom to produce knowledge. In the case cited above, the students simply incorporated what they heard in the lecture into existing and familiar bodies of knowledge and experience, while the lecturer had intended to present new arguments that required the students to be able to view the dominating existing discourse on the topic from outside the discourse. To describe the phenomenon experienced by this particular lecturer, it might be useful to employ terminology from the field of hermeneutics, using the term ?horizon of understanding?, as it is understood by Gadamer, instead of ?frame? as understood by Entman (Entman, 1993; Gadamer, 1989). A horizon is not static, it changes as we move, as we learn and experience. The lecturer wanted to make the students see or understand the topic from a different perspective, to develop their horizon of understanding. But the lecture did not provoke the intended effect of broadening or developing the horizons of understanding ? instead, existing knowledge and experience seemed to exert a ?gravitational pull? on the new information, sending it into orbit around what the students believed to know already about the topic. When lecturers did not succeed in making the students reflect on a topic from a different perspective, it often resulted in some frustration later, when the lecturers read what the students reported they had said.
Conclusion
This paper contributes towards a shared corpus of experience on using wikis in teaching (Potts, 2009). The results show that less than 10 per cent of the articles contained factual mistakes, which was better than the results from previous studies. Nonetheless, in almost all of these cases, having other students read and comment on the articles did not eliminate the mistakes. Peer review is not sufficient to guarantee accuracy in representation and quality in ?depth of intention?; a system of feedback from lecturers is necessary to improve the quality of the articles. Moreover, as the students use the articles as a guide when entering a new field of knowledge, mistakes tend to influence other students, and are reproduced.
Factual mistakes are a relatively small problem, though, in comparison to mistakes in the interpretation of new information. Some lecturers found serious framing problems in articles regarding lectures they had given, especially when they had been introducing new terms or new perspectives on complex issues. This type of mistake is more difficult to measure than the factual mistake. Students process and interpret new information in light of their existing knowledge and experience. Mistakes in interpretation lead to misrepresentations of what a lecturer has said, seriously affecting the quality of the articles (Denning, et al., 2005). This type of misrepresentation is not easily corrected by other students. On the contrary, other students accept the mistakes in interpretation made by the ?first-movers? and build on them. To avoid a process where students repeat and mutually reinforce each other?s misrepresentations, it is necessary to construct a scheme of systematic feedback, including perspectives from lecturers and teachers.
These results should stimulate critical reflection on some of the more optimistic statements on the possibilities of wikis and web 2.0 for learning. Notions of the ?wisdom of the crowd? must be critically evaluated because ?the crowd? sometimes produces knowledge based less on critical reflection on various possible interpretations of statements than on judgments based on previous knowledge (?prejudice?). While ?prejudice? is necessary in any hermeneutical process of interpretation, the learning process must seek to reach beyond that which is visible from the perspective of previous knowledge (?prejudice?).
Nonetheless, this research has indicated that using wikis stimulates cooperation between students and strengthens collective processes of learning. Even more importantly, the investigation shows that using wikis can improve the teacher?s understanding of the process of learning. The wiki, in this case, helped the teachers to understand how the students learn and how they produce knowledge based on previous knowledge. This knowledge can be used by the teacher to reflect on how to communicate difficult topics in order to facilitate a good learning process for the students, even in cases where the students have little or no background knowledge. At the same time, the results indicate that using the wiki was most beneficial most for those students who invested substantial time and energy in it whereas other groups of students did not benefit as much.
Note
[1] Seventy-four students participated in the preparations for fieldwork and published articles on the wiki in 2009. For personal reasons nine students did not complete the fieldwork that year. A few of those returned a year later to complete the course.
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Biographical Statement
Roy Kr?vel, PhD, currently teaches journalism at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences in Norway. Outside academia Kr?vel has published several books on journalism and conflict. He has also lived and worked for solidarity organizations in Nicaragua, El Salvador and elsewhere.
Email: roy.krovel@hioa.no
Source: http://www.digitalcultureandeducation.com/uncategorized/dce_1055_krovel/
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