I have just finished reading the term papers written by students in my "Issues in ICTs" course. This course is a smorgasbord of new media and information technology concepts/issues from the viewpoint of communication studies. We begin with developing an understanding of the digital landscape and its history, throwing in ideas from scholars like Manuel Castells, Martin Lister, Neil Postman and others. We then go on to discuss the impact of new media technologies on our social, economic and cultural formations, from the digital divide to attempts to address it, from the problematics of identity and community online to the hope offered by mobile applications and the democratising potential of such technologies. The endeavor is to constantly examine theorizing about new media and its social impact through a variety of lenses including those of our personal experiences and beliefs, while also debating the macro-level flows of capital, power, and culture as they are shaped by and in turn shape these technologies.
As with all courses, this one too draws its character and energy from the peculiarities of a cohort: their interest in the course and their interests outside it, their interactions with technology and with each other, and their level of participation and engagement with the ideas that we bounce around. I've had varying class sizes over the years, from 9 to 23 to 28 (last year) and 10 (this year). Smaller classes of course allow for more sustained and involved discussion. But there are often good days in large classes too, when the discussion is sparked by a collective energy that suddenly animates the room.
But after thirteen weeks of hard reading, presentations, new terminology and sometimes obscure concepts, it's finally time for the term paper. Something that has been bandied about in name but held at arm's length until week 11 of the semester when I walk into the class and say, "I hope you're all working on your papers, remember, they're due in two weeks." Suddenly, the air crackles with nervous uncertainty. Questions ranging from "how long?" to "how many references?" begin to pop into my cellphone inbox and my g-mail. Confusions about topic and level of detail surface and need to be addressed. About a week before the due date, we sit around the table and talk through our topics, getting feedback from the group and helping each other refine arguments or extend them. At this point, I can't help thinking, "A week left and they are still talking in outline! Are they ever going to get it done?"
The term paper can be a strange animal. It generates fear and extreme anxiety in most, and very rarely, excitement in a few. There is the firm belief that if it is left till the very end, it will somehow grow its own wings and fly into the professor's "in" tray. That on the last weekend, over fevered cups of coffee and expletives shared on facebook and elsewhere, the half-formed thoughts will write themselves into sentences with citations at appropriate pauses and dance in intellectually polished movements over the whiteness of bond paper as it emerges from the printer in the computer lab. I receive phone calls and text messages until fifteen minutes before deadline.
But somehow, between the eleventh hour and that proverbial stroke of midnight, it all falls into place (well, almost--there is still the printer to struggle with!) and the final key is hit with a definitive jab of the index finger. Done.
When I come in on deadline day the papers are handed to me without comment. The tired faces and bleary eyes certainly do not invite conversation or question. I take them and file them away, thinking, tired already, that I have ten thousand words to plough--sorry--read through now.
So here I am, having turned the last page of the tenth essay. And I must say it's happened again. Somehow, the thoughts have been pulled together. Somehow, the ideas have coalesced into a meaningful formation. And somehow, the disparate threads of a course that sometimes seems to have no centre, have come together in a sensible weave.
This year, I've had some fascinating essays, and I've learned from each one of them. They've taken me into spaces of my chosen discipline that I would never have the time or the energy to explore on my own. They have opened my mind to new juxtapositions of concepts and ways of viewing them. And they've affirmed, once again, that this is why I do what I do. Apurva's fascinating journey into transhumanism; Gautami's earnest foray into cyberspirituality; Aditya's enthusiasm for gaming coming through in his explication of fuzzy logic; Divya's exploration of travel in the digital age; Meena's careful outlining of how women's empowerment has been helped by mobile technology; Vamshi's explication of how the game of cricket now depends on high technology; KC's wondering about artificial intelligence and the human mind; Amulya's excitement about the possibilities of online feminist activism; Rajesh's measured examination of e-governance initiatives, and finally Abinaya's questioning of learning in virtual universities. The ideas are of course still formative; the papers could do with a great deal of revising and polishing. But they represent an effort to make meaning of a body of knowledge that is continuously growing and shifting.
I won't deny that reading student papers can be a drudge. It often leaves you hitting your head in despair and wondering whether you've made any sense to anyone all semester. But within all that frustration there are moments when you feel the pleasure of connections made, the sense that maybe--underneath all the cut-paste and copying--there has been engagement with ideas, that thinking has been sparked, or at the very least, you've left a dormant flint stone that can be struck at the right moment to produce understanding.
As with all courses, this one too draws its character and energy from the peculiarities of a cohort: their interest in the course and their interests outside it, their interactions with technology and with each other, and their level of participation and engagement with the ideas that we bounce around. I've had varying class sizes over the years, from 9 to 23 to 28 (last year) and 10 (this year). Smaller classes of course allow for more sustained and involved discussion. But there are often good days in large classes too, when the discussion is sparked by a collective energy that suddenly animates the room.
But after thirteen weeks of hard reading, presentations, new terminology and sometimes obscure concepts, it's finally time for the term paper. Something that has been bandied about in name but held at arm's length until week 11 of the semester when I walk into the class and say, "I hope you're all working on your papers, remember, they're due in two weeks." Suddenly, the air crackles with nervous uncertainty. Questions ranging from "how long?" to "how many references?" begin to pop into my cellphone inbox and my g-mail. Confusions about topic and level of detail surface and need to be addressed. About a week before the due date, we sit around the table and talk through our topics, getting feedback from the group and helping each other refine arguments or extend them. At this point, I can't help thinking, "A week left and they are still talking in outline! Are they ever going to get it done?"
The term paper can be a strange animal. It generates fear and extreme anxiety in most, and very rarely, excitement in a few. There is the firm belief that if it is left till the very end, it will somehow grow its own wings and fly into the professor's "in" tray. That on the last weekend, over fevered cups of coffee and expletives shared on facebook and elsewhere, the half-formed thoughts will write themselves into sentences with citations at appropriate pauses and dance in intellectually polished movements over the whiteness of bond paper as it emerges from the printer in the computer lab. I receive phone calls and text messages until fifteen minutes before deadline.
But somehow, between the eleventh hour and that proverbial stroke of midnight, it all falls into place (well, almost--there is still the printer to struggle with!) and the final key is hit with a definitive jab of the index finger. Done.
When I come in on deadline day the papers are handed to me without comment. The tired faces and bleary eyes certainly do not invite conversation or question. I take them and file them away, thinking, tired already, that I have ten thousand words to plough--sorry--read through now.
So here I am, having turned the last page of the tenth essay. And I must say it's happened again. Somehow, the thoughts have been pulled together. Somehow, the ideas have coalesced into a meaningful formation. And somehow, the disparate threads of a course that sometimes seems to have no centre, have come together in a sensible weave.
This year, I've had some fascinating essays, and I've learned from each one of them. They've taken me into spaces of my chosen discipline that I would never have the time or the energy to explore on my own. They have opened my mind to new juxtapositions of concepts and ways of viewing them. And they've affirmed, once again, that this is why I do what I do. Apurva's fascinating journey into transhumanism; Gautami's earnest foray into cyberspirituality; Aditya's enthusiasm for gaming coming through in his explication of fuzzy logic; Divya's exploration of travel in the digital age; Meena's careful outlining of how women's empowerment has been helped by mobile technology; Vamshi's explication of how the game of cricket now depends on high technology; KC's wondering about artificial intelligence and the human mind; Amulya's excitement about the possibilities of online feminist activism; Rajesh's measured examination of e-governance initiatives, and finally Abinaya's questioning of learning in virtual universities. The ideas are of course still formative; the papers could do with a great deal of revising and polishing. But they represent an effort to make meaning of a body of knowledge that is continuously growing and shifting.
I won't deny that reading student papers can be a drudge. It often leaves you hitting your head in despair and wondering whether you've made any sense to anyone all semester. But within all that frustration there are moments when you feel the pleasure of connections made, the sense that maybe--underneath all the cut-paste and copying--there has been engagement with ideas, that thinking has been sparked, or at the very least, you've left a dormant flint stone that can be struck at the right moment to produce understanding.
