In this post I will be responding to the final two readings for the CI 5472 course, Conversational Agents and Their Longitudinal Affordances on Communication and Interaction by Aaron Doering, George Veletsianos, and Theano Yerasimou, and When sex, drugs, and violence enter the classroom: Conversations between adolescents and a female pedagogical agent, by George Veletsianos, Cassandra Scharber, and Aaron Doering.
One statement from the second reading, When sex, drugs, and violence…, that I found surprising came at the end of the article. It said, “Even though we expected the students who took part in this study to exhibit some off-task behavior, we did not anticipate such a widespread abuse and misuse of the pedagogical agent. Likewise, we did not expect to find that more than 40% of student social comments would be sexually explicit, flirtatious, expletive, or referencing drugs and violence.” REALLY? You give 59 middle school students, ages 14 to 15 (as referenced in the reading), a chance to talk to a computerized “person” who can’t defend herself, WITHOUT any supervision (again, as referenced in the article), and you’re surprised that the students were off-task and abusive? REALLY? Maybe you should’ve done a bit of pre-research on middle school students!
From personal experience I can say that middle school students in a computer lab, without supervision, are a bad idea. Colleagues of mine have had students who have stolen parts from computers during class. I have had students attempt to use the Microsoft voice software for less-than-savory purposes. They’ve also tried to reformat computers, erase items off of other students’ server files (if not their entire server identity), and ask the Microsoft “paperclip” some illicit questions. And all of that came with me walking around the lab for the entire period, watching the students!
I did find it interesting, though, that the adults from the other article did practically the same thing with their computerized agents. They used their agents more as social connections for small talk instead of using them to answer questions about their assignment. It was also interesting that, once in a small group of friends, some of the adults treated their agent in the same manner that the middle schoolers did. Each group wanted to test the limits of the technology instead of use it for its designed purpose. I think that this would be true of any new technology; people are going to want to test it before they actually use it for its intended purpose. It is similar to trying out a new video game without reading the instruction manual.
I also related to the adults’ frustrations with the technology in the article Conversational Agents… For example, they were frustrated when they know the agent would know the answer to their question if the human could just think of another way to ask it. Haven’t we all had similar issues with various Help programs and over-the-phone voices? I get very frustrated when I’ve enunciated something as clearly as possible and the disembodied voice doesn’t get it for the third time. As stated in both readings, this type of educational tool is still in its infancy. There is a lot of work yet to be done to make it better and more accessible.
On a semi-related note, I am somewhat uncomfortable with having a Gizmoz version of me online. I don’t like that my information, even as basic as my name and e-mail address, is now stored on another database somewhere, for something that I wouldn’t have done had it not been an assignment. I am a firm believer in privacy; it took many months of convincing to get me to sign up for FaceBook. I have my account set to the highest privacy setting, and I do not like that each action you take needs to access your information and your friends’ information in order to work. That’s a lot of information being spread around that could, some day, be stolen off a database. With all the identity theft that’s been occurring over the last few years I feel the less information about me in cyberspace the better. Also, as a teacher I do not want students to be able to access my personal information without my knowledge. I am very open in class and in person because I know what’s being said (and asked). I don’t want someone else sharing information about me, or worse, creating it. This probably sounds like a technophobe rant, but I just don’t think it’s prudent to allow your personal information out of your control. I get that in today’s technology-driven world it may be inevitable, but I would invite caution. I haven’t yet decided, as of the time of this posting, if I am going to continue keeping this blog, and the Gizmoz creation, active. Feel free to offer opinions and comments!
14 years ago
Cool post David. I totally hear you with the "technophobia" that you mention. I too am extremely hesitant to put my name, contact information, and / or any other details about myself online unless I absolutely HAVE to. For example, I'm so paranoid about this that if a website that I'm trying to get something done on asks for any personal information, I'll close it and go to a different site (for example, during my recent apartment search, rent.com requires your name and email before it even lets you search for apartment listings! I basically gave them the finger and found a different housing listing site that asks for no information).
ReplyDeleteHowever, when it comes to academic work such as our blogs, I have a pretty different attitude / outlook about the information that I post. Because I know not to slam 1.) students and / or 2.) other teachers / my colleagues on this space as it's public, I feel as though this is a space where my "best" stuff / material comes out. Where I make sure that my Facebook privacy settings are set so that job interviewers CAN'T find me on there, I would have no problem if they found me and my postings in this blog. However, I sense that you don't feel the same, and that you don't want any information posted about yourself, regardless of what the information is. Although I'm not saying you're right or wrong either way, I'm just curious, why exactly are you questioning deactivating the blog? What do you feel would be the actual repercussions if a student found your postings on here? If other teachers did?
-Rick
I really doubt that the researchers for this article had any interaction with middle school students in their social environment before completing this study. I can see how they were asking for trouble, and maybe they were going for the shock value. I wanted to say about your technophobia that I struggled with that a year ago when I first started my blog. I was surprised at how so many teacher bloggers put their names and schools on their profiles. I avoided it to a point, but then I realized, like Rick was saying, that I don't have anything to hide on my professional site. It is actually to my advantage for people I know including students to find my blog. I have a personal online identity of "Lisa" that I use on facebook and with my friends, and then I have a professional identity of "Ms. Hallberg" and I think this is as normal as entering my classroom and becoming the teacher. I use my own blogging as an example for my students of social interaction that is educational and essential to my teaching . They learn that the internet is not just for porn, it is a massive resource for intellect as well. I do think you are right to exercise caution because I don't think our society has been intentional enough about establishing morals, ethics and social codes online and unfortunately there is a lot of shit happening out there. I think leaders, like us, need to be taking risks online to promote its positive use, and not recoil due to the 'what ifs'.
ReplyDelete