Tryangulation

TED establishes foundation for a new university

The Turkish Education Association (known for its Turkish acronym TED), which is an umbrella for 21 schools across Turkey with total current enrollment at about 16,000 students, has established a university foundation. According to the news article from the Turkish newspaper Milliyet,the foundation aims to create a university which will begin admitting students for the 2008-2009 academic year.

I have written before about the problem of an excessive focus on a single national university qualifying examination that creates a teach-to-the-test mentality that pervades high school education here, and how the Turkish Education Association has campaigned for reform. I believe one of the roots to this problem is too few places at universities for new students, which results in many otherwise intelligent and creative young people being stifled and redirected from their preferred career choices because of that single exam. Increasing the number of private universities is a step in the right direction.

Spokespersons for TED say that the establishment of a foundation university according to TED's principles will bring more diversity. We can also hope that it will provide educational opportunities more suited to graduates of Turkey's IB programs (two TED schools currently offer IB) who have already begun to learn a different approach to life long learning. In the long run this could give all of us a chance to benefit.

Click here for the original Turkish news article from Milliyet.

Language and identity: diverse ways of knowing

This is part three of a series of discussion questions related to the presentation on language and identity in our Theory of Knowledge class. See the end of this post for related links.

Indigenous languages, indigenous knowledge

Anthropologists apply indigenous knowledge from different cultures to other sciences, and have created new cross-disciplinary fields like ethnobotany, ethnozoology and ethnoastronomy. By studying the ways that indigenous people groups gather and organize their knowledge about the environment, scientists have identified "new" species of useful plants and animals, discovered useful chemical compounds in traditional medicines (including antibiotics and cancer treatments), and studied cognitive processes through linguistic analysis.

Case study 1

The ancient Maya used a base-twenty numbering system for public works, astronomy and calendar making. They invented the zero independently of ancient mathematicians in Mesopotamia, and their long-count calendar still works today without the need for regular adjustments like our Leap Year.

The image at the right (source)  is of Stela C, found at Tres Zapotes, a pre-Maya site in Mexico. The stela is one of the oldest artifacts that uses the Long Count calendar system used by many peoples in Mesoamerica. The numerals inscribed on the left column read: 7.16.6.16.18, which corresponds to the date 3 September 32 BC in the Julian calendar, around the time when Caesar Augustus defeated Mark Antony.   
The zero date for this calendar corresponds to 3114 BC in our calendar. The long count calendar will reset when it reaches the date 13.0.0.0.0.0, which will occur in December 2012.

What if Western Civilization had developed mathematics based on twenty instead of ten? How would technology be different? How would the sciences be different? Or language?

Case study 2

2. Surveyors in Brazil recently found evidence of 67 previously unidentified people groups living in the Amazon rain forest. Because of extensive mining and the harvesting of tropical hardwoods and other forest products, these people groups may become extinct soon.

What would be the best way to retrieve and protect the knowledge of these people groups? 

What if they believe that sharing their "secrets" would bring danger to them? How do you weigh the importance of protecting their culture versus learning from it?

Related links

Language and identity, part one: The sound of a vanishing language

Language and identity, part two: Geography 

For more on the problem of indigenous knowledge and intellectual property rights, see these Wikipedia articles on indigenous peoples,  traditional knowledge,  biopiracy.  See also the UN's Decade of the World's Indigeous Peoples.
 

Language and identity: geography

This is part two of a series of discussion questions related to the presentation on language and identity in our Theory of Knowledge class. See the end of this post for related links.

Map comparison

This map shows the topography of Guatemala and neighboring regions, with international boundaries. The red circle indicates the  area where traditionally Mam of Tacaná has been spoken.

The next map, taken from the Atlás Lingüístico de Guatemala (Michael Richards, et al. 2003), shows the municipios of Guatemala (secondary administrative divisions, like the ilçeler of Turkey). Each municipio is color coded according to the survival risk of the local indigenous languages. Red denotes the highest risk, and blue denotes minimum risk. The areas in white have no significant indigenous population for the purpose of the study. Notice that Tacaná is coded red.  

Discussion

1. Compare the topographical map with the language risk map. (You can click on the images to enlarge them.) Do you see a pattern in the distribution of risk levels? What hypotheses can you make about the relationship between geographic location and the level of risk?

2. Why do you think geographic location would be a factor? Can you think of any intermediate factors, that is, are there any ways that geography creates a certain effect which in turn affects language (like a chain reaction)? Read The sound of a vanishing language again to see if you can find an important clue that I left there.

3. What kind of research could you design to test your ideas about the relationship between geography and language?

Related links

Language and identity, part one: The sound of a vanishing language

Language and identity, part three: Diverse ways of knowing

To see the location of specific languages of Guatemala, you can look at this map from the Ethnologue.

 

The sound of a vanishing language

This is part one of a series based on the presentation on language and identity in our Theory of Knowledge class. See the end of this post for related links.

In January I had the opportunity to give presentations and lead discussions on language and identity for our IB Theory of Knowledge classes. I shared some of the field research I did in the Guatemalan highlands several years ago, among an indigenous Mayan group whose language was in the last stages of displacement by Spanish.  In the course of that ethnolinguistic research I collected tape recordings of the language for analysis and intelligibility testing, and I played one of those tapes for my students last month.

Listening to that tape over and over after so many years has created a strange melancholy and nostalgia for the nearly three years that my wife and I lived in Tacaná. I remember the day in 1989 when I visited Fortino Ortiz and his wife Delfina (seen in the image above), along with Fortino's cousin Mariano, and recorded nearly an hour of conversation with them as we sat next to the kitchen fire and talked about their farm, their children, and the annual trek down to the Mexican coast to work in the coffee plantations. I would later use some clips from that recording as part of a survey to assess whether their language would survive another generation. Our research later showed that no one under the age of 21 could speak Tacaneco , and that was 17 years ago.   

The classroom presentation and discussion focused on some of the causes of the disappearance of Tacaneco and what lessons we can learn about language as a key to identity and as a vehicle for learning culture. Several students asked to listen to the recording again, so I have edited a brief segment of the one tape I have with me, and posted it here. This is my first attempt to use Audacity, and I'm afraid the quality was compromised a bit in the conversion from magnetic to digital, and then from one digital format to another.  As I get more proficient I'll replace this with a better clip.  I'll share some of the discussion questions as well later this week. 

Click on this link to listen:

Download tacaneco_track_3a.mp3

Related links

Language and identity, part two: Geography

Language and identity, part three: Diverse ways of knowing

To see the location of specific languages of Guatemala, you can look at this map from the Ethnologue.

Teachers caution about Wikipedia; Wikipedia agrees

Andy Carvin at learning.now reports on a decision by the History Department at Middlebury College to bar students from using Wikipedia in research.  Andy gives a great summary of the discussion going on about Wikipedia's realibility, which on average is very good, but since it's open to editing by just about anyone, it's difficult to know at any given moment how reliable any particular article might be.

The interesting twist here is that Wikipedia agrees. Wikipedia, since it's a wiki, is easy to edit. In fact, school blogging guru Will Richardson just this week boasted about his son's first contribution to the online encyclopedia. I'm not saying at all that reliability has anything to do with the age of contributors, but Will's post does celebrate (since it's generally a good thing) the fact that Wikipedia is the result of the collaboration and vigilance of many different kinds of people.

While a complete ban of Wikipedia might be controversial, I agree with Andy's assessment that Wikipedia is still very useful for getting into a subject quickly (the word 'wiki' is Hawaiian pidgin for 'quick' by the way). If the article is done well, it will include a bibliography pointing the reader to just those resources that will pass muster on a university research paper. I've advised my own students that responsible use of Wikipedia should include a review of the discussion and history tabs to see whether the content has benefited from broad collaboration and whether anyone considers the article to be biased. That's something that even the Encyclopedia Britannica won't give you.

In the end, Wikipedia, like any other media, should be approached with a critical eye. With the proliferation of web based resources, it seems that a lot of teachers are naturally suspicious of the web. However, there's no reason why we shouldn't teach students to be cautious of print media as well. Just check out Regret the Error to see how our most reputable sources get it wrong all the time.

Click here to read Andy Carvin's article, and click here to see more resources on information literacy that I've tagged at del.icio.us.

Rubrics for web 2.0

Back in December I wrote a post asking if anyone had created a rubric for assessing students' use del.icio.us. I still haven't found any specifically for del.icio.us, but I have run across a growing number of rubrics that different people are developing for assessing student websites, blogs, PowerPoint presentations, and other uses of information technology.

A great place to start is this page of Teacher Created Rubrics for Assessment, in the Online Professional Development section of the website of the University of Wisconsin-Stout. They include some rubrics for websites and project presentations, and a great one for assessing student podcasts,  but also some for assessing group work and collaborative learning.

Another promising source is Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators. She's got links to several rubric repositories, and also points you to sites that help you build your own rubrics. 

And Barbara, if you're reading this, I've even found some teachers who are figuring out how to assess Flickr assignments, like this project by Darren Kuropatwa,  discussed in a great write-up at Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

In spite of all this, I still have this nagging feeling that as we assign grades to blogs, photo sharing, social bookmarking and other tools that help students connect and create, that we might end up losing the spark that connects the technology with the imagined possibilities that inspired teachers to bring these tools into the classroom in the first place.  Am I alone?

Almost back...

Most of the semester break is over, but I'm working to make the best of what's left.  Last week we enjoyed the company of good friends from the US and Germany, who gave us an excuse to visit nearby Cappadocia again. This was our first wintertime visit to the region, and we had lots of snow!  You can see some of my photos here.

Being the good friends they are, they came bearing some cool new books for me to read.  Check out the What I'm Reading Now section on the left under my photo.  Thanks, guys!