Hi class,
I thought it would be a fun exercise to write this blog entry in letter form. I looked up the word "epistolary" (of or pertaining to letters, according to Oxford English Dictionary), which was used to describe the novel Emilia, one of our readings, and decided, hey, why not, since this post is unstructured, I'll make this an epistolary blog entry.
Firstly, regarding Deibert, I was intrigued by his elucidation of the study of transformations of world order; I have heard of international studies, certainly, but not world order studies. Do institutes in "World Order Studies" exist, and is this a new discipline? His project of examining several periods of technological development on a global order, and using medium theory interpreted through an ecological, holist lens, is certainly an ambitious one. I like his thinking about technology (material as well as cognitive/perceptual/symbolic aspects) and lived, dynamic culture vis-a-vis Darwinian ideas of change and "descent with modification". I too believe that ideas grow stronger or weaker in certain environments; that these environments are constantly changing, and that our responses and attractions to technology are located in a complex, very often unpredictable matrix that can extend from the (relatively) small, individualized scale (for example, my decision to buy an iphone or to stop texting friends, or to purchase a book online or teach an e-course) to phenomena with more global reaching developments (twitter getting nailed by a DOS attack.)
About Emilia: I found myself simultaneously agreeing with and getting frustrated with Rob's points. Unfortunately I think that many adults have to go to back out of necessity, because jobs in this day and age require retooling of existing skill sets, or the acquisition of entirely new skill sets. "Permanent education" is a necessity for many to improve their socioeconomic lot, and I think that attitude is in some ways more historicist and historically accurate than asserting or trying to convince policymakers and educators that everyone wants to learn because they have the time and money and desire to do so. I also think that it is important to offer a myriad of ways of learning, and not to oust one form (let us not throw away the textbooks entirely!) for another. At the same time I understand his point about not trying to reinvent the wheel- maybe what we should be doing instead is addressing the needs of this day and age.
What comes to my mind, personally speaking, is the need overall for a "media management" or information organization class, some workshop where students are taught the basics of organizing files and media assets, naming them properly, citing them...these are all things that I wish I had learned properly and are extremely useful in graduate school and professional life. What might come naturally to others came to me only after many years of stumbling around, reading informational texts here and there, and receiving training from a professional web developer. I was taught the absolute importance of organizing media files, and thereafter acquired my own way of organizing my desktop and files. This is, IMHO, an important skill set for students, teachers, media makers, editors, and producers, administrators, virtually anyone working with digital assets. One practice in media/information organization and blogs that I have learned over the years is to first write entries in a text editor, save them, and then paste them in the blog interface, after having lost material in previous years...yikes!)
I would like to close by saying that I am eager to respond to focused questions in the future. I find these open-ended responses a bit overwhelming, but that's just the kind of learner/student that I am! I like questions to respond to and discursive flexibility around that.
Hope you'll take the time to write back!
Best of luck in this new school year,
Sophie
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I like your idea of a "media management course" as a way to use education to address the needs of the day and age, but I think the need is further reaching than that (although perhaps not necessarily as far-reaching as the model of continuous education proposed in Emilia).
ReplyDeleteThere is a clear need for schools to better address the problems of living in an information-rich world, but in addition to organization there's room for other life skills. There are a number of ways in which the traditional American school could better address the need for job and life skills that arises after graduation. Students need to learn have to effectively manage not just digital property, but social connections, professional appearance on online networks, digital finance, and application literacy.
I could not be more sympathetic to your preference for focused questions, but might that defeat the purpose of the blog, which is to let YOU decide what is most important to you about the reading? From the point of view of getting students to engage critically with the readings, which approach do you think is better-teachers asking you specific questions or their letting you do the questioning and answering yourself (this is a genuine question, not necessarily one to which I know the answer, although I have an opinion!)
ReplyDeleteTo Dan: your suggestions are excellent! I would take all of those classes in a minute, especially digital finance (like setting up a store online and doing e-commerce, etc.) One could even offer them as a workshop.
ReplyDeleteI really like the computing workshops options that are offered to us at TC; it would be phenomenal if such workshops on software skills and computing-life skills were offered to high school students every semester.
Hi Ruthie, to respond to your comment:
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on many things: the reading, the class, subject matter and the assignment. Sometimes when I read philosophy, I get bogged down in technical details or have problems understanding concepts. Having a professor or teacher give me some points to think about can be extremely helpful. At the graduate level, however, I know we are trying to build upon prior knowledge, and that we are also trying to search for what interests us to help ourselves as researchers and teachers/learners/"studiers"(to use Rob's term)- so I guess I am trying to convince myself that this teasing out of questions and answers might be more difficult, but ultimately more rewarding.