FINISHED FILE

 

12TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE

INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2017

SHAPE YOUR DIGITAL FUTURE

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

 

17 DECEMBER, 2017

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY IN THE DIGITAL AGE

15:00 LOCAL TIME

SALLE 6

 

>> MODERATOR:  Good afternoon.  Now what happens with these delays, since one or plus Internet dominated our life and we cannot imagine our life beyond this technology.

So because of this intervention, now we are discussing our political, sociological, aspect of human view as well, from this perspective, how we teach these kind of things in the university.  Basically, (?), he has been teaching at the business school and he's teaching this digital philosophy, and he designed certain syllabus for this, where from Nepal, a very small economy and limited access to a city, and even in that case, we started teaching philosophy (?).

So, let's discuss how we can discuss these things at the academic level and non‑academic levels.  I thank you at a personal level and on behalf of Center for Law and Technology in Nepal, I'd like to thank all of you joining this important discussion here, and I'd like to request for aligning, developing this cause in this business school from his perspective.

>> SPEAKER:  Thank you.  Welcome, everyone.  Actually, this presentation goes ‑‑ I have a background why this course come in, and then after the anthology, how this course came and then I will describe the syllabus very briefly and a little bit if there is time on experience also.

And I welcome all the participation and feedback and (?) also, because this is just ‑‑ I've tried to make this last year, I admit.  A little bit of background, I'll just read.  Teaching philosophy and in digital ‑‑ what is teaching and philosophy?  This two are mean for the business school.  How are advancements of the technology (?) at the digital, the whole philosophy of teaching, and why do they have our card.

What are the mechanisms to incorporate such changes in the teaching methodology?  How could this with good (?).  We live in a technological age and things are changing in each and every field, including how we love and live as well.

Technology has certainly brought pointable changes in our life.  In addition to this, our (?) enjoys more sophisticated benefit provided by the technology.  No others in the past have enjoyed, and it's not quite sure whether the up‑coming generation will also enjoy the same level of benefit, or will it enjoy more?

We simply can't prophecy now, what we can consider is now even the knowledge (?), and the concept of knowledge and change for good are bad reasons, and with this past pace of change, we need to make adjustment in many areas that impact us in one way or another one is teaching methods, the little gadget in many level has opened many ways in the teaching sector.

Integrated more (?) in technology.  Furthermore, the rate of technology changes and there is no sign of slowing down.  Technology is leading two massive changes in the economy in the way we communicate and relate to each other.

And increasingly in the way we learn.  Our educational institutions were built on different philosophies and were in a different timeframe, mostly in the industrial rather than the digital leader.

Plus, teachers and instructors are faced with the massive challenge of change.  The teaching materials are really (?) where students can learn without consulting, and this will certainly have an impact on the way we think.

This certainly will have an impact on the formation of the whole teaching philosophy as well.  Against this background, we can say that the whole learning process is changing for good or bad reasons, per example.  How do we prepare curriculum?  Part of the teaching, when experience are already exposed to the wider areas of learn, and this is important because primarily you try to develop curriculum without using the students and it certainly will not be taken so easily because the technology has transferred the particular approach of developing curriculum to the horizontal one.

The technological advancement will also in the technological revolution, but also learning, where people are learning without going to school.  This has also raised a question as what is there to learn and why should people go to school and college, online, mostly free courses by many other universities and other learning centers around the world including the Ivy League and the philosophy of the teaching is also imagining all these issues, and this is more a philosophical question relating to the teaching in the digital age.  Keeping all this in mind, the course has been developed but there is certainly more room to develop it.

So, this is the background, why this came to ‑‑ on this background, if you have any questions ‑‑ (Speaking off mic). 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Actually, the main issue is how we develop teaching philosophy into digital (?).  Our student come with gadgets, our student comes with ample inference of the Internet, online persons are there, but they develop their own ideas differently, and if there is another teacher or some university is there, and if their syllabus is not that much in relation with their desire.

So, to bridge that gap because of that created bit of this digital intervention, we need to bring their interests into the syllabus, their interest into the learning pedagogy.  So, we developed this course for business school, and you can say some of your experience while teaching this during classroom?  What was the approach of when we launched this course?

>> SPEAKER:  This here is the syllabus because I have designed like this way.  Basically, in same university, the course is in there.  This is taught one.  Previously the other teacher design like a class like I did.  Like I call myself like a digital immigrant, but now the students, those who are teaching, are the digital natives.

And so now I can articulate the idea of the philosophy to the digital natives?  So, what I updated, a little bit design like this way.  The basic concept on the philosophy, very simple introduction, and what should we live and how do we live?

Everyone is philosophical.  Everyone has their own way of living and how should they live and how should they think, so I have designed just like these basic books.  And as was said earlier, how we can teach with them, the digital natives, what I like is digital immigrant, so (?), so this kind of reading I put on Google (?), and so the older classical text and the (?).  So, this is linking and so I tried to link these kind of things.

On the second one is the public intellectual in India, so in the public intellectual, it is described like, especially the human, (?) and ethical issue.  And the culture of the (?) and discourse in that part of the content, so I put this public intellectual in there so that it is reading for that next one.

And the next one is what I find something is this is another book like Move Up, why some cultures are advanced and why others?  Just like what that book said is that the France culture is two‑thing culture, and American culture is to‑do culture.  So, there is cultural difference, also.  And so in the eastern, just like Indian continent, culture is discussing discourse culture from the previous ‑‑ and so why if some culture advance while others don't even if they're doing from their side, so these are the differences and the country and the countries moving up on the development and other things.  So, this is what I find interesting and I put this slide.

Another reading is just like Adam Grant (?), and so that in that story we can find these people like this is on the ethics part, and so giver, taker, and matchmaker.  Students are other ‑‑ so we can say that, okay, you have this kind of thing so you are a giver, and you are like taker, and the between one is matchmaker, and so I put like this syllabus on that.

And another thing, so how I connect with them is cyber (?), the topic chapter, and so there is ethical issue ‑‑ so in the moral part, I put this like this, collateral damage.

And also, the sociological part of this agenda, so cyber (?), there is a book called ‑‑ not sociological, this is like in the philosophy, there is like basically five things, and so in the aesthetics part I put the cyber romance, so how ‑‑ and another is the digital divide, love online, and so them and also, I gave a reference book, (?) and other is ‑‑ the book name.  (Speaking off mic).  And another this is (?) and what is the right thing to do, this is Michael Sander's syllabus document.  (Speaking off mic).  This is the documented part.

Next one is the Post-Industrial Revolution, so that introductory part, how the world is changing and what will happen in the 2025 and all these things in this book, there you can find this kind of thing.  So for the future perspective also, they can learn from this.

So, this is part of the logical ‑‑ the course name is Philosophy and Logic, so logical because of the business school, I put this advertising, which is advertising also carries people's culture, belief, and all these things.  So, I put like this logical self‑defense kind of things.

And another is, (?), think differently kind of things.  And this is a little bit about the knowledge, and knowledgehood.  In the eastern philosophy there is a concept of not only knowledge, but knowledgehood also, what is knowledge and what is knowledgehood, so I put for this these readings.

And another one is the rethinking group thinking, where the authors Adam Grant said that group thinking is some ‑‑ some of the group thinking is disaster because you have no power to articulate ‑‑ so the result might be ‑‑ so he wrote about the rethinking group thinking.

And next one is the New Digital Age, how the new scenario is changing and how boundaries are changing of this world and all these things.

Another is From the Digital Divide, Learning to Think in a Digital World.  Do they really think differently?  So how to think in the digital world, so these are the readings.

And next one is psychological ‑‑ this is the cyber effect in human and technological light.  And next there is a famous article of the Nicholas (?) is Google making a distributer or not, like this view of this.

And next one is I put just like super forecasting ‑‑ super forecasting the art and science of the prediction.

And the next is the tipping point, the law of the (?).  And other is Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman. and the next one is think like a (?), like thinking differently this is all put contexts and for us this is.  So, these are my syllabus and there are some details, and so I put this slide on philosophy and logic course, and so ‑‑

>> MODERATOR:  Any questions on these things from participants?  Yes, please?  Can you introduce for the record?

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Speaking off mic).  Yes.  And so, how does the actual teaching proceed?  There are obviously a lot of materials, and do the students discuss these ideas in the classroom, or are there lectures?  Like, how do the actual classes happen?

>> SPEAKER:  Yeah, this is just like ‑‑ because our room is not like full tables, so this method is two‑way method.  Actually, this is all two‑hour class and so I mostly speak like as a teacher, just like 20 to 30 minutes, so there is a big discussion.  Not  discussion, sometimes they write solution also, and if they have any idea or some new things, so they will also share with the classroom, so we can learn.

And sometimes I do some document, but there is another one just adding the value of that, so two or three minutes we'll see that document here also and we'll discuss on that things, so these are the methods.

And some time we're seeing documents of all these kind of two‑way communication discussion.

>> MODERATOR:  Do you think this is really what heavily loaded for business school student?

>> SPEAKER:  So this is a ‑‑ this very much loaded but ‑‑

>> MODERATOR:  What exactly you want from assurance of teaching this kind of curriculum?

>> SPEAKER:  Because there are business students ‑‑ not really business students.  I call them digital native, so this would know what should they do in the future or what is changing in the world, not like only they day in the philosophy class or only classical philosophy.  So, this would link the classical as well as the current one, so that's why I put the example of the Digital Evolution and the ‑‑ how it can react while waiting on the Googleplex and how dealing with the plateau, the communication, so this will just make easy to understand.

So my philosophies, this would learn while doing their own things, so engaging with this (?) and learn philosophies and moral ethics as well.

>> MODERATOR:  Did you do some consultation among the students or other teachers before launching this course, or you just thought about all these things and sat it on the table and did some Google‑search type of thing and then ‑‑ can you share the process that you developed this?

>> SPEAKER:  Okay.  Actually, in that business school, I'm a lawyer by profession.  I teach (?) law and transitional justice, but at the business school previously, I teach political science, and the courses changes, and the previous principal requested ‑‑ the previous professor, he left and I said okay, why not teach this philosophy course?  I saw the philosophy course, and I find that this is not too much ethic and too much classical things only.  No linking between the things.

So it took me six months, actually, and I tried I went through all of these book, and all these things, because we have very few libraries and availability of books, even though some of my friends send me from the outside also.

And so I keep working on that, and this is (?) that's why I put behind here, so I put them and my past audience is students, so their feedback only for me.

>> MODERATOR:  So, did you feel any changes from principal perspective in (?)?

>> SPEAKER:  Because we have only access to the exam, and then after it is very (?) because last year I finished the (?) in that course and I don't know ‑‑ it's only to say maybe two or three years after I can see something or their feedback because it's only ‑‑ we have (?) so really only to see that kind of feedback.

And everyone is, if they read these things and become philosopher and think like this, because everybody is one philosopher, they have their own idea of living or thinking.  I just want to facilitate on this scenario.

>> MODERATOR:  Any comment?

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  Do you know which students take your class?  You said it's business‑focused university?  Do you have tech people there, or is it really diverse or who takes your classes?

>> SPEAKER:  Actually, this is business school and bachelor undergrad students, and this is one topic but complex topic, and so all are supposed to take this.  So, we have 40 to 50 classrooms for IT in three sections so almost like 100 people.

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER:  So, this is the mandatory philosophy class for the business graduation, but so you have decided that you would use only contemporary authors?  How did you get about that conclusion?

>> SPEAKER:  Actually, yeah.  Basically, all the readings are related to the content of authors, and in the first slide I have decided that there is a philosophy, short introduction book, so they can see in a characteristic way that there is a philosophic, pictorial book, so they can learn from the content, all of this from the philosophical things.  So, in the logical ‑‑ so I prescribe them that book, so from the cartoon perspective, why see lightly they're taking this.

So these two are the foundation, and one is simple Oxford Introduction to Philosophy so everything is there but very simple book, so they are relating on all these things, so I decided this way.  So (?) is already there, but very thin one, it seems very thin but very vast one so they can link these things there.

>> MODERATOR:  Did you discuss about this syllabus expanding beyond your school?

>> SPEAKER:  Not yet because nobody approaches, but some other university from the master university they know I made them, and so they approach me.  Impact of social media or something like that, this kind of course, they approached me but I have not decided yet whether I am able or not to make that kind of course.

>> MODERATOR:  Do you have any idea about similar kind of courses in other universities, not in Nepal, but in Europe or USA or other universities?

>> SPEAKER:  As for (?) I have not seen like this but there is some other digital culture, graduate diploma on digital culture graduate level course or something like that.  I'm happy to learn about that idea.

>> MODERATOR:  Anything you want to say because I think we covered the syllabus fairly, so if you have anything to share that we did not cover so far?

>> SPEAKER:  One thing is I'm also confused, why these works are not ‑‑ am I doing goods for them or I'm mixing ‑‑ I'm also in the state of confusion.  Am I delivering them the right thing or not because this is just like my own experience, so I'm confused on that.

>> MODERATOR:  In that sense, you are making this part of testing it ‑‑

>> SPEAKER:  You can say this is not my testing it, but I think this confusion is always in the teaching and everything is in, so I need solution on that part.  But I feel that some of the ‑‑ I have some of the students’ perception throughout the course also, so it seems that they are enjoying on the discourse.

>> MODERATOR:  What exactly is the response of your students?  Can you share those student responses?

>> SPEAKER:  There is one, what is philosophy?  One student wrote like ‑‑ philosophy is a subject where one tries to find, interrelate, and reflect on answer to question that we don't really speak out like what or how do we know, and so on and learning where propose this on (?) basis.  Everyone is philosophy while everyone has a slight knowledge of what the world is and have their own views on how it all might have been started based on some evidence, and this is the first (?) because all knowledge we are in connected and one thing will lead to one another, so this is one experience or perspective.

>> MODERATOR:  (Speaking off mic).

>> SPEAKER:  Because what I have seen from their examination or their tests, they are writing from themselves.  But it's a little bit hard to relate them also, all the readings, because maybe it's too much.  Maybe I have to reduce the readings list a little bit.  So, they're writing philosophy part as well these things, but linking is they are missing a little.

>> MODERATOR:  While going through all these books and references, one questions come in my mind, all of these are available in your library, or in (?)?

>> SPEAKER:  Actually, some of them are not available, but I give them to the college centers so they can Xerox it.  Due to the copy, the copyright is less so they can make readings because available ‑‑ there are less availability some of the books.

>> MODERATOR:  There is no copyright issue?

>> SPEAKER:  It is there, but college students it's negligent.

>> MODERATOR:  This is philosophy, teaching of philosophy, and (?), if you have any further questions or inquiries you can contact us or (?) and thank you very much for ‑‑ if you have any questions, please provide.

Thank you very much.  This is the Chair of Center for Law in Technology.  We have been focusing on policy advocacy, policy design, and have been working on various issues of Internet audience issues and Internet audience as well.  We're a partner of Nepal (?) school and also partner of Internet Governance Forum of Nepal as well.

With this we conclude this session.  Thank you very much for listening to us.  Thank you.

(Applause).

(session completed the 8:38 a.m. CST)