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Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.” -Why Socialism?, A. Einstein (1949)
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Liberty and freedom mean fighting for another’s right to live the way they wish even though you may find it morally objectionable and for others to fight for you to live the way you wish as well. As long as you are not keeping another from pursuing their own life, you must be left alone. It’s difficult to do, but that’s what freedom is all about. Popular things don’t need protected, but unpopular choices and speech do.
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I believe that while many focus primarily on video conferencing within the education context, the conclusions found can be applied to the broader social context as well. While video communication has become more available in recent years, the past three years have seen an explosion of this ability in nearly every personal device we carry. For example, Apple’s iOS devices (iPhone 4, 4S, iPad 2, and the new iPad) are all equipped with a FaceTime camera. Users can FaceTime each other or use Sykpe to communicate in a video environment. The use cases are cast, however the actualized use cases are few.
Many have stipulated that there are social constructs for communication that haven’t caught up to the video revolution. When we initiate a call, for example, the receiving party can simply decline or chose to participate. A text message or instant message are quickly becoming the preferred means of communication due to the ability to not “bother” the receiving party. This allows for them to respond when convenient. They are without the pressures of needing to respond immediately to an incoming call. When broadening this to the video communication revolution, it becomes even more complex. Not only does the party placing the request for the video call have to make an assumption as to the ability of the receiving party to agree to participation but they must also now consider the receiving party’s personal self-efficacy for appearing in a face-to-face context at any point based upon an unrelated party’s need to communicate. To put it simply, most individuals of both genders are uncomfortable appearing on screen face-to-face with someone in the same way that they may be hesitant to give a speech in front of an audience.
Google, for example, has constructed a means to an end of this inability to bridge the social gap in video conferencing. When they announced their Google+ platform, they brought to the public the idea of “Hangouts”. Hangouts in Google+ are video calls that can have up to 10 people participating at once. The difference between this construct and all prior, are that the initiator posts that they are “Hanging Out” on Google+ and the parties that are invited simply join the video call. The hangout can be set to be for a certain amount of hours. Think of it as having office hours for a video call. I may place a hangout notification and leave it on from 2pm-5pm on a Monday. Students that wish to speak with me, just literally drop in instead of having to coordinate a specific time. Creating a casual and more social-realistic atmosphere for video conferencing, allows for users to participate in a more natural way that they would not using Skype or FaceTime.
Relating this to education, the text/email construct and permissions would be analogous to the asynchronous course design. Participants do not have to struggle with the pressures of immediate social interaction and awareness, but rather can participant on their own terms. The voice call and most video call constructs are representative of the synchronous model. Participants must be willing to participate on the terms of the initiating party, and if they are not willing they will lose out on information or communication. The alternative, and that of which I believe this piece to be attempting to acknowledge, would be the blending of asynchronous and synchronous communications. I
In a traditional sense, this could mean message boards and scheduled Skype appointments. However, I would argue that Google’s approach to video office hours using their “Hangout” approach on Google+, provides the necessary compliment to the two differing online education approaches. We would maintain the entirely asynchronous approach of message board, and there will always be a place for single coordinated video call, but replicating the social-context in which we would meet face-to-face in person with Hangout’s will prove to be the what we have been looking for to bridge the gap between these two very different but essential online learning constructs.
