Presentation at the Emerging Technologies and Authentic Learning in Vocational Education conference, 31st August - 3rd of September 2015, Cape Town, South Africa

1. Kristian Stewart, University of Michigan- Dearborn,
USA (kdstew@umich.edu)
Daniela Gachago, Cape Peninsula University of
Technology, SA (gachagod@gmail.com)
Being Human Today:
Transcontental Border
Crossing in the Times of
Facebook and YouTube

2. Introduction

3. University of
Michigan-Dearborn
• Satellite campus of the University of
Michigan
• Located in the Metro Detroit Area
• Largely a commuter campus
• 24% students of color from 108
countries
• 48% first-generation college students
• Cross- cultural writing course; n=25,
IRB approved.

4. * Merged institution
* Range of campuses across Western Cape
* Faculty of Education and Social Sciences
* Fourth year pre-service teacher
education students
* Professional Studies course

5. Research Questions
Question 1:
To what extent can technology become a bridge to
understanding ‘Otherness’ on a global scale?
Question 2:
How might student-driven cross-cultural dialogue and
digital storywork reveal our students’ perception of
what it means to be human today?

6. Methodology, Data Collection,
& Analysis
* Qualitative
* Case study format (Stake, 1995)
* Coded and triangulated data (Saldaña, 2013)
* Engagement on Facebook
Written essays (US students)
Online survey (SA students)
Participant observation

7. The Single Story
SA perspective USA perspective
American interference Poverty
Obesity Corrupt everything
Materialistic, celebrity culture AIDS
Only care about themselves No White People
Sports culture Hunger
Wealthy Genocide, War, Separate

8. The Tree of Life: Connecting in Class

9. Facebook

10. Theoretical Frame
* DS as a genre, mode, and social pedagogy
for engaging differently positioned learners
(Benmayor, 2008; Lambert, 2010; Vasudevan, 2006).
* Border Pedagogy - decenters as it remaps
hegemonic discourses with diverse learners (Giroux,
1988, 1992, 1996).
* Critical Media Literacy (Kellner & Share, 2007)

11. Student Feedback
* “I’m starting to change my single story - the U S of A has
beautiful, wise and compassionate humans - OMW, what
truly inspirational stories!”
* “Down to the bone, we are essentially the same.”
* “We all bleed red.”
* “Just being a part of this course has opened my eyes. It has
softened my heart also.”
* “I learned that I am not the only one with challenges. I felt
that I was on top of a hill, alone, left to figure out the world.
I was completely wrong.”

12. Findings
* The other is the self
* Co-teaching
* The Power of Global Media
* On Being Human
* Overcoming obstacles and rising
* Being vulnerable
* Being connected--both in local and global
contexts. Isolation was a key theme.

13. Analysis
* The other was demystified and is not
longer ‘distant’ (Truong-White & McLean, 2015).
* Sharing stories across continents
connected our students across the lines
of race and language.
* Start of an understanding of ‘shared
responsibility’ (Young, 2011).
* Equity of Access?
* “We are all the same” mentality can be
dangerous (Zembylas, 2013).

14. Conclusions

15. *Questions?
Kristi:
kdstew@umich.edu
http://umdearborn.edu/writ_prog/
Daniela:
gachagod@gmail.com
Twitter: @dgachago17
http://www.youtube.com/user/cputstories
www.cput.ac.za/blogs/edutech

16. Benmayor, R. (2008). Digital storytelling as a signature pedagogy for the new humanities. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 7, 188–204. doi:10.1177/1474022208
Stake, R. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Giroux, H.A. (1998). Border pedagogy in the age of the postmodern. The Journal of Education, 170(3), 162-181. Retreived from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42748653
Giroux, H. A. (1992). Post- colonial ruptures and democratic possibilities: Multiculturalism as anti-racist pedagogy, Cultural Critique, (21), 5-39. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1354115
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*References

17. Saldaña, J. (2013). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
TEDtalksDirector. (2009, July). Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of the single story [Video file].
Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html
Truong-White, H., & McLean, L. (2015). Digital Storytelling for transformative global citizenship education. Canadian Journal of Education, 38(2), 1–28. Retrieved from
file:///home/chronos/u-c3386ec4d35354f82567ae46c65324165a1e78c6/Downloads/1756-7563-1-PB.pdf
Vasudevan, L. (2006). Making known differently: Engaging visual modalities as spaces to author new selves. E-Learning, 3(2), 207-215, doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.2.207
Young, I. M. (2011). Responsibility for justice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Zembylas, M. (2013). The “crisis of pity” and the radicalization of solidarity: Toward critical pedagogies of compassion. Educational Studies, 49(6), 504–521.
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