More snow. I’ve learned now to get out early and clear as much as I can before the layer underneath freezes up, otherwise, it cures as hard as cement and can’t be shifted. The mercury dropped to -16˙C/3˙F and there was a delayed start so that kids didn’t have to navigate slippery sidewalks and arctic conditions on their way to school. I know I say this each week, but we’ve never lived anywhere with such extremes in temperature.
We inched a little further along our green card process with medical exams, and convoluted forms that included four signatures on one page alone. We are well looked after and have a huge amount of support to complete the process, but I can’t help thinking about those less fortunate who have to work on these forms when English isn’t their first language and their situation is perilous and fragile. To say it can’t be easy is to understate what must be a fraught and worrying time for many.
This week I was busy with work in my room, organizing schedules, and making sure everything is ready for those returning to face-to-face teaching which will start next week. I’ve lost some of the rhythm that I set at the start of my leave period, but I’m hoping once a few things are out of the way that I can get back to writing, making, reading, etc.
Stephan
Spaces to Connect
Following Facebook’s announcement of a name change and Zuckerberg’s pronouncements of the metaverse, a few people have asked me what this vision of a future for VR might look like, especially for those in teaching and learning, so here are a few thoughts.
The number of users visiting virtual spaces using headsets is increasing, and apps such as VRChat, AltSpacesVR, and meta’s Horizon offer opportunities for students in different locations to come together to learn in VR environments. These spaces are quite sterile with little to do, you can watch presentations, gather in groups, or chat 1:1. There is little or no interaction with the environment, and it all feels a little empty and strange. If you’re a teacher it is worthwhile creating private rooms within these apps as mixing with the general public is fraught with safety concerns and, let’s just say, decency issues.
These spaces are the start of what meta hope will become the metaverse, an infinitely customizable digital space that one day all of us might visit. No thank you. It’s not enough to say “if you build it they will come”, mostly because unlike much of the internet it isn’t accessible to everyone and there are still very few reasons to visit these spaces. No one company will be able to create a space for all, so there will be several metaverses, all disjointed and proprietary, competing with each other for your attention. Meta is in pole position because it sells what has become the break-through hardware used to access this technology, namely the Oculus Quest which is the best-selling headset on the market. Google, Apple, and a few others are behind in this respect and that isn’t good for the future of the industry. I can’t envisage a future where there will be one dominant VR portal; if there was a chance that meta could buy out the competition then that’s passed (I still hold out hope that some of the many companies that have been purchased will return to independent ownership, especially Oculus and Instagram), instead there will be different metaverse providers just as there are many streaming tv companies.
Setting aside the vision of a metaverse for a moment, there are still issues regarding language, representation of culture, and identity, namely the homogenization, monocultural, monolingual presentation of content. VR offers opportunity in terms of storytelling, and there are apps and experiences that explore a connection to place, ideas of immersion, and intimacy. These are the experiences that educators need to focus on, to help students examine the affordances of this technology. The best experiences are inclusive, turning the user into a creator, created to engage and take advantage of presence and embodied cognition. For me, it makes sense to separate the experience from the menu system or more probably marketplace, which ultimately is what a metaverse will end up being. There are a few recent articles in the Guardian talking about the metaverse, including this one by Keza MacDonald and an excellent episode of Today in Focus. I enjoyed this Wired article, perhaps the metaverse is already out there?
Life Lessons
There are so many false dichotomies in American politics, they’re often established as bad-faith arguments presented by bad actors. It seems that they are simple to create and easy to maintain, it’s not about supposed relativism, instead, you have to remove the complicated and detailed parts of an argument, including history, context, expert opinion, and reasoning so that you’re left with a binary choice. You can also just lie about stuff.
When you are either for or against something, and there is no nuance, even to hesitate is seen to be adopting a point of view. You either support the Police or you want to defund them, you are either pro-freedom or endorsing tyranny, pro or anti-guns, pro or anti-mask, etc, and it seems the position you hold is either patriotic or deeply un-American.
One of the most pernicious falsehoods is an opinion running currently that parents want schools to stay open while teachers want to keep kids at home. I’m reading this on an almost daily basis and it is total garbage, there is no constituency that wants to keep kids at home, rather there is concern for the safety and well-being of students and staff, and assurance as with any job, that going to work isn’t going to get you and the people you work with hospitalized or worse.
This episode of Citations Needed (thank you Mike for the recommendation) talks about why teachers are no longer being thought of as front-line workers and how the anti-teacher and union rhetoric is part of a strategy to establish a new normal where risking catching Covid is just part of any job. There’s still a huge amount of Covid relief money to be spent and many school districts just have not put in place air filters, provide medical-grade masks, and organize regular testing. These are reasonable demands, I’m sure you’ll agree, but remember by doing so you’re putting yourself on one side or the other, if you think teachers should be safe when doing their jobs, then clearly according to those making those threatening statements at school board meetings, you don’t care about students and their learning.
Lost and Found
Yesterday was Holocaust remembrance day and there were many articles to mark this solemn anniversary, timed to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945. Anti-semitism and Holocaust denial are on the rise and it is a challenge to make sure that history is told as it is and that learning and talking about this time continues. I was so shocked then by this story, that Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus has been removed by a Tennessee school district, that I had to check it on Snopes. I remember being introduced to this work when it was published back in the 1990s and being moved by its depiction of the holocaust. It is an incredibly powerful piece, at once accessible and complex as the writer comes to terms with understanding of the story that his father recounts. It should be on every required reading list.
A few other things that caught my eye, including an interesting use of immersive storytelling at the National Theater in London. It seems that there are some longer-term initiatives that have come from the past few years of remote performances and online shows.
British Sign Language might finally become of the UK’s legally recognised languages.
The copyright for the Aboriginal Flag has been purchased by the Australian Government, but it may not have been “freed” as originally stated.
Thank you
For the past two years, the campaign group Exeter Chiefs for Change has been working to end the use of American Indigenous imagery to promote Exeter Chiefs Rugby Team. The question has never been about the name which has a historical connection to the Celtic region that Exeter is situated in and used as the name of the first XV squad since the team’s inception, but the imagery. Finally yesterday, the club rebranded, and this must feel like an achievement for those who have campaigned and raised awareness over the years. There is no place in sport for the misuse of indigenous imagery. I hope that there will be more than a brand change, that Exeter Chiefs will put money back into native communities, and use this moment to recognize the harm of such appropriation.
I hope this issue isn’t too serious and somber, it is in keeping with the week, our water boiler is being replaced so we’re all layered up and only an electric radiator to keep us warm. I’m already looking forward to the weekend, everything will be fixed and hopefully I can get a few things off my list in the next couple of days so that I’m back doing what I need to do (of course I need to do it all).
There’s a long list of things I want to sketch and paint, calling them art projects seems too highfalutin for what I do. I have been enjoying painting with acrylics, especially the final stage when you run over the lines with a posca pen. I am stuck with people at the moment and I might draw a few objects, some of the plants maybe, that seem to be enjoying themselves on the radiator cover.
Thank you for your lovely comments and emails as always, more than happy to answer any questions that you might have about the work I do. Please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.
That’s all for this week, ‘til next time.
We are pretty jealous of that snow over here!!