Video

From Sandbox

A vision of students today (Michael Wesch video)

Rough transcript with comments from UCT Masters class added.

Notes: The idea is to use the Wesch video as a reference, but show how different the situation is for students in other parts of the world. The original video is a vision of students IN KANSAS. In South Africa, the problems and challenges are much larger, but there is also a lot of diversity and vibrant culture that needs to be showcased, for example students ability to speak multiple languages, the important social work many students do besides their studies, their work ethics, etc...

[Overlay text] "Today's child is bewildered when he enters the 19th century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns subjects, and schedules." Marshall McLuhan 1967

• no bewilderment coz it is normal from elementary to high school. Instead: "Wow! at least enough furniture"

[Camera films writing on wall]

• If these walls could talk
• what would they say?
• SA: "used to the walls (nothing to marvel)"
• SA: "Lecturers outdated & frustrated/contradict to personal experience in real life"

[... and empty chairs:]

• If students learn what they do ...
• What do the learn sitting here?
• SA: "establishing lecturer falling asleep"

[Camera zooms to blackboard]

• The information is up here
• Follow along
  • SA: Quite obvious- sit up looking at the board
  • SA: lecturer needs a mirror should help to look once & understand how students see him

[Camera zooms back to empty chairs]

• Of course walls and desks cannot talk
• But student can
  • SA: "No, the teacher can!"

[Google Docs insert]

[Camera zooms onto signs held up by students]

• My average class size is 115
  • SA: much larger in undergrad.(depends on classroom size capacity)
  • SA: depends on discipline

• 18% of my teachers know my name
  • SA: Lower than this by far
  • SA: 18% of my teachers does not show up
  • SA: percentage is less

• I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me; only 26% are relevant to my life
  • SA: Do everything diligently and to the dot.(as instructed/no choice).want to appear clued up and dominate
  • SA: percentage is less

• I buy 100 dollar textbooks that never open
  • SA: No money to buy all they want to read/but inherit from previous learners and read all of them.
  • One person buys a textbook and all of us photo-copy.
  • I inherit a hundred dollar texbook and share it with the entire class.

• My neighbor paid for class but never comes.
  • SA: Rare
  • show the contrast (one person has the technology/ the other passed away)
  • One chair with digital recorder <just recording> / Other chair with an HIV/AIDS ribbon
  • Segregation history: 20 years ago, my university accepted only people with study permits. Non-whites needed special permits.
  • SA:Poor person next to me has digital recordings on it.
  • SA:My neighbor paid for class but never comes, 2nd chair has hiv/aids ribbon.
  • SA: lecturers don't show up
  • SA: those ones who are reached at home and have textbooks do not come to class

• I will read 8 books this year;
• 2300 web pages
  • SA: 50% cause of connectivity

• and 1281 Facebook profiles
  • SA: Library and paper based take 80% of what students read.

• I will write 42 pages for class this semester
• and over 500 pages of e-mail
  • SA: Vice Versa (SMS sized emails)
  • SA: I will write 200 pages for class by hand
  • SA: I will write 42 pages for class by hand
  • SA: If i can afford to buy a pen.
  • SA: SMS
  • SA: i will write 150 pages for class this semester and over 100 of email

• I get 7 hours of sleep each night
  • SA: 3 hours

• I spend 11.2 hours watching TV every night
  • SA: News Maybe
  • SA: I spend 11.2 hours waiting for a document downloads
  • SA: i get to watch whenever it is available

• I spend 3.5 hours a day online
  • SA: Strictly on academic stuff and where there is access

• I listen to music 2.5 hours a day
  • SA: If I can walk around with it(in between lectures)
  • SA: If queue in the computer line
  • SA: 5 hours a day

• I spend two hours on my cellphone
  • SA: Expensive and excessive and time consuming(early and late hours of the night)
  • SA: Too expensive to spend two hours on phone.

• Spend 3 hours in class
  • SA: As scheduled
  • SA: 6 hrs i spend in class

• I eat 2 hours
  • SA: usually one proper meal a day.

• I work 2 hours a day
  • SA: 12+ hours
  • SA: no room to do extra work as i wish to make more money

• I spend 3 hours studying
  • SA: 8+ hours studying
  • 'SA: less

• SA: I spend X hours per day caring for friends and family that need help. Looking after children, tending sick.

• That's a total of 26.5 hours
• I am a multitasker
• (I have to be)
  • SA: I have to be (relationships + study + Home//work)
  • Stands up and shows pregnancy
  • Reaches over and places her child on her lap, which cries maybe.
  • % of students in this course are parents.
  • Avg age of students in this class is X years
  • 'SA: socially

IMPACT OF EMPLOYMENT ISSUES

• I will be $ 20000 in debt after graduation
  • SA: Debt questions NB for UWC and Africa
  • SA: After my graduation, my family's entire wealth will be gone (invested in education).
  • SA: i will be R50 000 in debt after graduation
  • SA: Bursaries, family, distance, income/job

• I am one of the lucky ones
• Over one 1 billion people make less than $1 a day
  • SA: Many South Africans earn less than R1000
• This laptop costs more than some people in the world make in a year
  • SA: I do not have a computer
  • SA: NO Laptop in class, An education utopia-In African context non existent.
  • SA: I do not have a computer or a laptop for my studies
  • SA: i earn more than R 1 in a day
  • SA: only if my family is wealthy
  • SA: i live in a situation like that

• When I graduate I will probably have a job that doesn't exist today
  • SA: New jobs for students at current economic problems impact on students.
  • SA: I am not certain to get a job after my graduation. (% of graduates get jobs)
  • SA: i will be R50 000 in debt after graduation
  • SA: i am not certain I'll get a job after graduation
  • SA: will i have a job
  • SA: i might get a job & it might not exist today

[Holds up multiple choice test]

• Filling this out wont help me get there either, or deal with...[arrows to lots of other signs, incl. ethnic conflict, hunger,war, health care, gender equality, etc]
  • SA: epistemological and physical access
  • SA: other problems ... crime, HIV/AIDS, affirmation action, drug abuse ...
  • SA: curriculum does not deal with the ways of solving our fundamental needs (mutual economy, ethnic conflict, hunger etc)

• I did not create the problems
• but they are my problems
  • SA: I did not create the problems but I was born into the problem, which has been part of my life.
  • SA: i was born into these problems, which have been a part of my life.
  • SA: are outside my door

[Overlay text]

• Some have suggested that technology can save us...
• Some have suggested that technology can save us...
  • SA: application of technology for us is very expensive
  • SA: Some have suggested that funding can save us ... funding alone ...
  • SA: application of technology to our situation, technology for us is very expensive. we wish to have technology, only if its affordable
  • SA: we need technology

[Back to students holding cards]

• I Facebook through most of my classes
• I bring my laptop to class, but I'm not working on class stuff
  • SA: couldn't have a laptop neither my colleagues
  • SA: phone to work on other stuff
  • SA: to hungry to concentrate

• • SA: Authentic assessment
  • SA: I come to class, but I am too hungry to concentrate

[Overlay text:]"The inventor of the system deserves to be ranked among the best cotributors to learning and science, if not the greatest benafactor of mankind."-Josiah F.Bumstead 1841 on the benefits of the chalkboard

• • SA: Education doesn't relate to experience (prior) and real world.

[Camera zooms onto lecturer in front of the chalkboard] writing on a chalkboard...what is missing? -photos -videos -animations -network -bandwidth

• • SA: technology doesn't change things and bandwidth does not work for us
  • I want to engage with the media, but I am still waiting for it to download ... since yesterday