When I consider how fast my own perception of digitalculture has changed over the last three weeks, it is hardly surprising to come across institutional barriers from the experiences of classmates. The Skype discussion was littered with comments of how Web 2.0 platforms had been banned by colleges and academic staff dismissing digital content as being secondary to text.
My readings of the principle texts this week – Carpenter, Kress and Thomas, each illustrate significant change for academic culture. Use of digital media, including visual artefacts such as photography, video and audio, offer significant scope for imagination and creativity. However, the complete openness of digital media and its capacity for its liberal production and delivery, challenges the order and stability of academia.
The established access point to being enrolled as an academic scholar is to having personal studies published as text in a journal or book. University lecturers often identify their credibility with their published research ahead of teaching experience.
Web 2.0 offers such complete open access to creating and sharing information, anybody can publish their work now. The kudos of seeing your name in print is diminishing. (As soon as I click the publish button beneath this text box, that’s this piece of study out there in the wide world.)
With this in mind, this leads me to conclude the most significant issues raised within the class discussion was conservatism, power and control.
I have been enthused by the creative opportunities, digital media have opened up to me. I am attracted by developing new and exciting programmes for learners in the future. But I can already identify the factors that will inhibit the success of any innovative development.
Apologies for ending with a question, but right now my understanding of digital culture centres upon a cultural barrier – academic power. So when will digitive natives seize control of their own learning?
#1 by Damien DeBarra on October 8th, 2009
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I guess it depends where you are Andy. I’ve noticed a lot of institutions introducing social media tools and then crushing them under the weight of a series of rules which come from a older model of learning measurement, assesment and paranoia baout levels of control.
To go back to Wesch (again) he points to the classic example of the YouTube debates during the 2008 primaries – where the 30 second response format of TV debates dictated the format of a totally different medium.
#2 by Henry on October 8th, 2009
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The digital natives I’m coming across use their digital skills outside the classroom – inside they are traditionalists.
However they are often not aware of their learning skills residing outside a text-based instructional model (please write another essay/report on this and that) and instead just accept the main stream.
Unless teachers empower them by letting them choose to do their work using their preferred skill set and platform there will be little change.
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#3 by John on October 14th, 2009
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I can identify with what you are saying Andy.
At our institution, there are a number of academics who are eager to use some of the new tools with students- every academic conference I’ve/they’ve attended mentions twitter/ web 2 etc and the benefits they have for learning. But while they are genuinely concerned with improving students learning with these tools, most would probably baulk at the idea of publishing their own research or work online, to share with others, as opposed to in print journals etc. so even though students might in some way seize control of their learning, there will still be an issue with credibility and print.
Plus the issue of staff/student work floating somewhere in cyberspace on some open-source software platform which is very scary indeed for some people!!