Vivek Venkatesh

Theoretical reflections on dystopian consumer culture: Black metal

This article examines aspects related to the dystopic consumption and production of the musical and performance art form known as black metal. Steeped in anti-Christian motifs, surrounded by a history of violence and brutal imagery, black metal is an extreme metal art form that has been growing steadily in popularity throughout Europe, South America, and the United States. We first examine black metal culture through the eyes of both artists and consumers, using mixed qualitative methodologies. Thereafter, we derive specific theoretical interpretations from the black metal subculture that are predicated on the emerging themes of signification, identity transformation, xenophobia, and a reconstructed mythology that all point to what we present as a dystopian consumption model. The model demonstrates how dystopia, in context, is at the heart of the symbiotic relationship between consumers and producers and is encapsulated by a specific set of processes and overarching conditions. Implications and relationships to utopian models are discussed.

Uncovering Relationships between Task Understanding and MonitoringProficiencies in Postsecondary Learners: Comparing Work Task andLearner as Statistical Units of Analyses

Educational psychologists have researched the generality and specificity of metacognitive monitoring in the context of college-level multiple-choice tests, but fairly little is known as to how learners monitor their performance on more complex academic tasks. Even lesser is known about how monitoring proficiencies such as discrimination and bias might be related to key self-regulatory processes associated with task understanding. This quantitative study explores the relationship between monitoring proficiencies and task understanding in 39 adult learners tackling ill-structured writing tasks for a graduate “theories of e-learning” course. Using learner as unit of analysis, the generality of monitoring is confirmed through intra-measure correlation analyses while facets of its specificity stand out due to the absence of inter-measure correlations. Unsurprisingly, learner-based correlational and repeated measures analyses did not reveal how monitoring proficiencies and task understanding might be related. However, using essay as unit of analysis, ordinal and multinomial regressions reveal how monitoring influences different levels of task understanding. Results are interpreted not only in light of novel procedures undertaken in calculating performance prediction capability but also in the application of essay-based, intra-sample statistical analysis that reveal heretofore unseen relationships between academic self-regulatory constructs.

An empirical evaluation of topic map search capabilities in an educational context

This paper reports on an investigation focusing on improving the reliability and efficiency in current database-oriented search-and-retrieval mechanisms in e-learning applications through the use of topic map technology (ISO/IEC 13250). The development of our topic maps is grounded in a theory of cognitive information-processing and information retrieval. We outline the development, implementation and evaluation of a Web-based topic map designed to help graduate educational technology students search for online resources in preparation for an essay assignment. Sources of data include (a) hard data drawn from observations, tracking of search-related steps, and results of searches; and (b) soft data concerning judgments of utility of information and users understandings of the search process. The results indicate that, in comparison to search engines, topic maps enable students to provide more precise answers to questions. In addition, the topic map produced higher recall than the search engine employed in our study.

Topic Maps as Indexing Tools in the Educational Sphere: Theoretical Foundations, Review of Empirical Research and Future Challenges

Topic Maps (International Organization of Standardization [ISO 13250], 1999; 2002) are a form of indexing that describe the relationships between concepts within a domain of knowledge and link these concepts to descriptive resources. Topic maps are malleable – the concept and relationship creation process is dynamic and user-driven. In addition, topic maps are scalable and can hence be conjoined and merged. Perhaps, most impressively, topic maps provide a distinct separation between resources and concepts, thereby facilitating migration of the data models therein (Garshol, 2004). Topic map technologies are extensively employed to navigate databases of information in the fields of medicine, military, and corporations. Many of these proprietary topic maps are machine-generated through the use of context-specific algorithms which read a corpus of text, and automatically produce a set of topics along with the relationships among them. However, there has been little, if any, research on how to use cognitive notions of mental models, knowledge representation and decision-making processes employed in problemsolving situations as a basis for the design of ontologies for topic maps. This chapter will first outline the theoretical foundations in educational psychology and cognitive information retrieval that should underlie the development of ontologies that describe topic maps. The conjectural analyses presented will reveal how various modes of online interaction between key stakeholders (e.g., instructors, learners, content and graphical user interfaces), as well as the classic information processing model, mental models and related research on problem representation must be integrated into our current understanding of how the design of topic maps can better reflect the relationships between concepts in any given domain. Next, the chapter outlines a selective review of empirical research conducted on the use of topic maps in educational contexts, with a focus on learner perceptions and cognitions. Finally, the chapter provides comments on what the future holds for researchers who are committed to the development, implementation, and evaluation of topic map indexes in educational contexts.

Technological Transparency in the Age of Web 2.0: A Case Study of Interactions in Internet-Based Forums

Whether computers can be of benefit to the learning process has been a topic of discussion in the realm of educational technology research since the 1950s (Weigel, 2002). Computer technology has promised to revolutionize both teaching and learning in higher education (Slack & Wise, 2005). With the popularization of the Internet in the early 1990s, programs dedicated to the democratization of information technology have assisted the general public to become members of electronic communities (Albernaz, 2002). Online communications were quickly adopted in education – course management systems have long been using bulletin boards and online forums to facilitate various types of interactions, including learner-learner, learner-teacher, teacher-teacher, teacher-content, and learner-content (Shaw & Venkatesh, 2005). However, in the first decade of the 21st century, with the advent of Web 2.0, the shape of online electronic communities began to change drastically. Online social interactions have seen an exponential growth since the increased adoption of technologies such as wikis and blogs. In this new age of the Web, users are given the power to control what content is displayed on their personal websites, and visitors to these websites are able to provide commentary using media as varied as text, audio and video. Since 2004, commercial social networking applications such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have gained popularity across a variety of users, regardless of gender, culture, geographical regions and age. Facebook alone boasts more than 750 million active users worldwide (as of July 2011), and is ranked as the second most-visited site on the Internet after Google3. It is, therefore, rather disheartening to observe how theories of online learning have failed to take into account the paradigm shift we are seeing in the nature of social interactions through the Internet. Furthermore, existing theories have largely failed to account for the role online communities play in building and sustaining specialised forms of

Consuming abjection: an examination of death and disgust in the black metal scene

ABSTRACT This paper examines abjection in the context of the extreme (black) metal scene. Moving beyond the ritual-heavy, community work that dominates much of the death-related consumption literature, our study pieces together death, violence, misanthropy, blood and social tensions to create novel insights into the consumption of disgust. Based on our interview and participant observation methodologies, we present work that explains how death-oriented consumption and abjection is manifested for some consumers and actually plays a role as an affront to mainstream orientations and the greater social order. Additionally, our work indicates that the use of abjection can be seen as a boundary and source of delineation between the “acceptable” and the “unacceptable” in society.

Addressing the Effects of Reciprocal Teaching on the Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary of 1st-Grade Students

This study evaluated the effects of Adapted Reciprocal Teaching (ART) on the receptive and expressive flight-word vocabulary of 1st-grade students. During ART, classroom interactions produced narrative contexts within which students assumed responsibility for applying new flight words in personally meaningful ways. Students in the control group also received interactive storybook instruction, but classroom interactions were led primarily by the teacher and focused only on the meanings of unfamiliar flight words. Students were assessed using the Receptive Flight Word Vocabulary Test (RFVT) and the Expressive Flight Word Vocabulary Test (EFVT). The data demonstrated that after the instructional intervention, the students in the ART group acquired significantly more target words (as measured by performance on the RFVT and the EFVT) than students in the control group. Results are interpreted in light of generative learning theory, and practical implications for introducing vocabulary in the early school years are addressed.

Grade 1 Students’ Out-of-School Play and Its Relationship to School-Based Academic, Behavior, and Creativity Outcomes

Research Findings: This study explored the relationship between play and child development at the Grade 1 level. As previous research has noted a sudden curtailment of classroom play during this period, the relationship between play at home and childrens school grades, behavior, and creativity scores was examined using correlational and regression analyses. In particular, this study sought to assess whether particular types of play (pretend play, active physical play, construction play, etc.) and social arrangements during play (play with siblings, with parents, alone, with friends) predicted any of the outcome measures. A total of 56 children ages 6 and 7 from suburban areas outside of Montreal, as well as their parents and teachers, participated in the study. Practice or Policy: Findings indicated that children spent between 1 and 2 hr playing after school each day and that the most common form of play was active physical play. The most common social arrangement during play was play with siblings. Childrens free time in the morning and freedom to choose their play activities in the afternoon were predictive of childrens academic progress. Watching others play and the ability to choose their own activities in the afternoon predicted positive adaptive behaviors at school. Play with commercial toys and playing alone were predictive of creativity scores.

Second wave true Norwegian black metal: an ideologically evil music scene?

Purpose The second wave (true Norwegian) black metal music scene has garnered attention for its ostensible negative impact upon contemporary consumption. Producers and consumers of the scene, as potential heretics, have been associated with acts of church burning, Satanism, murder, and violence. Such actions have circulated under the signifier of evil, and have been associated with anti-Christian semiotics and pagan practices. Contemporary media has positioned such acts of evil beyond rational comprehension via the deployment of a rhetoric of evil. This enframement has evaded the psychoanalytic question of evil and the significant role of negative ethics in theorizing the allure and potential impact of black metal music. The purpose of this paper is to examine the evil in the music scene, its relation to ID evil, and its consumption and production practices. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon Zizek’s (2006) development of evil through Lacan’s three registers, this paper examines evil production and consumption through a detailed analysis of true Norwegian black metal. The authors rehabilitate the complex corridors of evil against its conceptual collapse as merely the ontological absence of good. Via Zizek, the authors offer a reconsideration of the anti-establishment violent activities enacted by some proponents of black metal ideology. Herein, the authors deploy a reading of ideological evil in order to interrogate the role of enjoyment and desire at work in the black metal scene. Findings After extensive immersion in the true Norwegian black metal scene, the authors elucidate on the key issues surrounding good, evil and Satanism, and their relationships to production and consumption. What many might term as “evil” is far more complex than what appears on the surface-level aesthetics. Originality/value While there have been examinations of the black metal scene, there has been scant literature that delves deep into the symbolism of the Satanic and the evil beyond the surface. This paper sheds light on the value of exploring evil in a scene as something that is much more than the mere absence of what is considered good.

Electronic Portfolio Encouraging Active and Reflective Learning

At the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance we have developed, tested, and disseminated to schools without charge, an Electronic Portfolio Encouraging Active and Reflective Learning (ePEARL). ePEARL is designed to be faithful to predominant models of self-regulation, scaffolding and supporting learners and their educators from grade one (level one) through grade twelve and beyond (level four). ePEARL encourages learners to engage in the cyclical phases and sub-phases of forethought, performance, and self-reflection. In a series of studies, including two longitudinal quasi-experiments, we have explored the positive impacts of ePEARL on the enhancement of students’ self-regulated learning skills, their literacy skills and changes in teaching, while simultaneously researching classroom implementation fidelity and teacher professional development. This chapter briefly explains the development of ePEARL, our research program, and issues in the scalability and sustainability of knowledge tools.