Paul's Paper 2

From Mizzou Wiki

E. D. Hirsch said, “We have ignored cultural literacy in thinking about education… We ignore the air we breathe until it is thin or foul. Cultural literacy is the oxygen of social intercourse.”(Quoteworld) Cultural literacy is background knowledge that writers may assume their audience already knows. Cultural literacy is related to another term: cultural competence. Cultural competency can be defined as the ability to interact with people of other cultures. Cultural competence has four components: awareness of one’s cultural views, and one’s reactions to other cultures; Attitude towards cultural differences; knowledge of the beliefs and practices of other cultures and skills to facilitate cross-cultural interaction. In the past, it has fallen on the education system to teach students both cultural literacy and cultural competence. Michael Wesch, a professor at Kansas State University, made a video with the help of two hundred of his students. The video discusses issues facing college students, using statistics gathered from his class. In addition to discussing issues college students face, Wesch also brings up issues of culture. He shows that college students are still better off than people in other countries financially. One of the main points of his video is the effect technology has had on education, which he seems to believe is negative. This is not the only video Wesch has made. Two of his other videos cover issues that result from digital information and Web 2.0. An important aspect of all of his videos appears to be dealing with technology in an educational environment. As a result of the development of technology and the ease of information retrieval because of the Internet, educators must revise their methods of teaching both cultural literacy and cultural competence.

Wesch’s video brings up many points. The first issue the video brings up is the large size of classes. Almost all of my classes have been large lectures, so I can understand why some students feel this is a problem. The video also points out that very few teachers actually know students’ names. When an average class size is over a hundred, teachers can’t be expected to learn their students’ names. However, in my experience, having little personal interaction with teachers hasn’t been detrimental to my learning. As long as a teacher is able to teach the material they need to cover, not getting to know students doesn’t seem like an issue to me. The video then brings up the relevance of course material. One student says, “I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me. Only 26% are relevant to my life”. The video also brings up the issue of attendance. I know what it’s like to skip class and not do assignments. It can be difficult to motivate oneself to attend class when the class is about something that doesn’t seem relevant to life or one’s major. The issues and experiences of Wesch’s student’s are similar to mine, but the video isn’t necessarily a reflection of the experiences of all college students.

Wesch seems to have created the video with people who don’t know what it is currently like to be a college student in mind. However, the video doesn’t represent all college students’ experiences. The video does a poor job of illustrating the life of a college student. Some of the issues it brought up were similar to my experiences, but offered a very simplistic view of college life. After watching the video, someone unfamiliar with student life might be led to believe that most students skip class and don’t do assignments. In the video, Wesch focuses on the negative aspects of technology. The video claims that students who bring laptops to class often browse the Internet or read Facebook. Again, this is only true of a small portion of students in my experience. Most students don’t use laptops during class, and of those that do, not all use them to do things unrelated to the class. If the video really was created with the intention of improving its viewers’ understanding of college student ecology, it does a poor job. However, there are other ways to look at Wesch’s video. Wesch’s video is rhetoric, so it would seem logical to analyze it using a rhetorical method.

Rhetoric is the art of speaking or writing effectively or persuasively. Wesch appears to use rhetoric to make his point in his video, so it makes sense to analyze his video rhetorically. While there are many ways rhetoric could be used to analyze the video, the purpose of the video is to make a point, and there are rhetorical models that focus on arguments. Toulmin’s argument model has six parts: the claim; grounds, data that supports the claim; a warrant, linking grounds to the claim; backing, additional support for the argument; a qualifier, which indicates how universally the claim is true; and the rebuttal, which deals with potential counter arguments. Wesch’s claim appears to be that the modern system of education is outdated. To support his claim, Wesch offers statistics gathered from two hundred students. The students cite large classes, irrelevant work and classes, and the distraction posed by technology as reasons the education system is not as effective as it could be. The students presumably have first hand experience with the inadequacies of the education system, making them a warrant for the claim. The students experience the education system, and are the ones it is attempting to educate, so it follows that they are probably its best judges. The video doesn’t offer any explicit qualifiers, which makes many of the statistics used as evidence potentially inaccurate because they may only apply to the students who Wesch used to gather data. The only rebuttal Wesch addresses is in regard to technology’s usefulness. While talking about the blackboard Wesch does mention that technology has some advantages that the blackboard does not, however, he fails to address any other potential arguments against his claim. Because Wesch’s video seems to be trying to persuade his audience, it can also be examined by analyzing its use of persuasive appeals.

There are three kinds of persuasive appeal that can be used in rhetoric. Logos appeals to one’s reason, usually through statistics and facts. Pathos is an appeal to emotion. Ethos is the appeal of one’s character, and is used to convince the audience that the speaker or author is a credible source. Wesch’s video includes all three types of persuasive appeal. The statistics gathered from Wesch’s students are an example of both logos and ethos. The fact that the statistics are gathered from students represents ethos. No one knows what it is like to be a student more than the students themselves, so they should be an accurate source of information about student ecology. The students also present information as statistics, which should appeal to the viewers’ reason. Pathos is also demonstrated in the video. One student mentions that she will be twenty thousand dollars in debt when she graduates, but the video also points out that people in some other countries make very little, both statements seem to have been included in the video to elicit an emotional response. One of Wesch’s best uses of persuasive appeal is in the video’s discussion of relevance of material to student’s lives. He presents statistics about the amount of work students must do, an obvious example of logos. But in demonstrating that students feel they are doing irrelevant work, he also invokes an emotional response.

One of the key points of Wesch’s video was the relevance of material to students’ lives. Many general education classes seem like they don’t matter, but they actually teach cultural literacy and cultural competence. Cultural literacy is background knowledge that an author might assume the reader knows; a reader needs a wide range of knowledge in order to understand different material they may read. General education courses are an excellent opportunity to expand students’ cultural literacy. College is also an excellent place to develop cultural competence. Most college campuses are very diverse, with students and faculty from many cultures. Interacting with people from other cultures is an excellent opportunity to develop culture competence. Courses that cover other cultures are also an opportunity to learn about other cultures, and possibly to become more culturally literate. However, with the development of technology and the Internet, and the ease of finding information, colleges may need to rethink their teaching strategies.

The end of Wesch’s video focuses on the effect technology has had on the classroom. The video states that, “Some have suggested that technology can save us…” However, the video then states that students who do bring laptops to class often use them to browse the Internet and read Facebook. The video also quotes Josiah F. Bumstead, “The inventor of the system deserves to be ranked among the best contributors to learning and science, if not the greatest benefactors of mankind.” Bumstead is referring to the chalkboard. Wesch points out that using a chalkboard is more interactive. The teacher must move around and students must actively copy information. However, chalkboards are missing many features that technology can provide. There is no simple way to provide photos, images, or videos using a chalkboard. While PowerPoint can integrate all of the features missing from a chalkboard, used poorly it encourages students to simply copy information and then stop paying attention. Used well, technology can be beneficial to the learning process. Sites like Blackboard allow students to submit assignments online and make course documents easily available. Blackboard also has rudimentary features that facilitate communication between students and teachers. This networking is another aspect that is less evident in traditional education. Another aspect missing from traditional education is networking. Wesch’s video uses Facebook as an example of distractions caused by technology, but Facebook and websites like it can be beneficial.

Through the Internet, information is easily accessible. With search engines like Google and websites like Wikipedia, information is so easily accessible that someone who knows where to look can find information about almost anything they may be looking for. With information so easily accessible, it is easier than ever to develop cultural literacy and competence without formal teaching. The Internet has had a pervasive effect on our culture, but the education system hasn’t made many changes to adapt to it. Our culture’s reliance on technology and the Internet may not be a good thing, but it does allow us to experience other cultures more easily. Through social networking websites like Facebook and Myspace someone can interact with people from different cultures. Does someone who can simply Google something they don’t understand really need to have all of the relevant background knowledge memorized? It probably couldn’t hurt, but educators should consider that the information they are teaching may not be as relevant as it used to be, and attempt to present it in a way that students will find interesting. Michael Wesch also created two videos about technology in addition to his video about student ecology. The first video focuses on information, and the effect technology on information. One of the main points of this video is that digital information is very different than more traditional forms of information, like books. According to the video, “Digital information has no fixed material form.” Unlike information stored in a physical medium, digital information has the potential to be constantly changed and updated. The Internet is open for anyone to use and has become fundamental to our culture; through the Internet our culture is able to find and create information with unparalleled ease. This ease has, in part, been caused by the development of Web 2.0, the subject of Wesch’s second video about technology.

Anyone who is familiar with the internet has probably heard of Facebook, Myspace, and Youtube. These are all examples of Web 2.0. The main purpose of Web 2.0 is to allow the user to interact with the site and other users. Web 2.0 obviously includes social networking websites like Facebook, and websites that consist entirely of content contributed by users, like Youtube, but it also includes almost any website where users are able to directly interact with each other or the site itself. Wesch’s third video begins by explaining that virtual text is “more flexible” than written text. This argument is similar to the argument in Wesch’s second video about digital information being more mutable than physical text. The video goes on to explain the differences in the coding Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 are built on. With Web 2.0, users are able to add content to the internet without knowing complicated code. Wesch’s video about Web 2.0 is clearly related to his video about information. Many of the issues brought up in his information video are a result of Web 2.0. Content is easy to add to the Internet, but how can it be organized? If someone contributes information to something that already exists, who owns the information? These are both valid questions Wesch brings up in the video, and neither have a simple solution. Web 2.0 could also affect the classroom. While some people probably blame Web 2.0 for some students’ inattention in class, it isn’t the cause. There will always be students who are uninterested in class, and who will look for ways to waste time. If educators made use of Web 2.0 applications, students might have a more constructive way to spend time.

Wesch’s first video addresses many of the issues that college students face. The video focuses on technology as a distraction, however, Wesch does point out some of the positive aspects of technology. The blackboard he writes on has a list of things the blackboard is missing: photos, video, animations, and networking. These are all things that can be provided by technology. For the most part however, Wesch’s first video ignores these benefits and focuses on technology as a distraction. Most educators haven’t adapted their curriculum to make use of technology, which has led to technology’s use as a distraction by students. Wesch’s other videos present technology in a much more positive light. The Internet makes information easy to find; it also makes it possible to communicate with people from other cultures. The development of Web 2.0 has revolutionized the internet and the way people learn and communicate. If the development of cultural literacy and competence is the main goal of general education classes, but students can develop both on their own time through technology, then the classes should be changed to be more relevant. Technology is only the distraction Wesch presents it as because our system of education doesn’t use it effectively. If the education system were to use technology to its fullest, many of the problems that it appears to cause could potentially be avoided.

QuoteWorld. June 27 2008. <http://www.quoteworld.org/quotes/6587>