Participation vs. Web 2.0

I keep learning new ideas from Henry Jenkins. In a recent note about DIY (Do it yourself) Media, Jenkins makes two important points that are critical to how we think about models of learning on the web.

First, he critiques the use of the term "DIY" noting that the emphasis is not on "oneself," but on a group of people, he writes,

"what may be radical about the DIY ethos is that learning relies on these mutual support networks, creativity is understood as a trait of communities, and expression occurs through collaboration. Given these circumstances, phrases like "Do It Ourselves" or "Do It Together" better capture collective enterprises within networked publics."

I think his emphasis is right. I have the same difficulty with "personalized learning environments" that seem to emphasize the idea that each of us is some type of autonomous learner rather than emphasizing platforms and processes that engage people in the pursuit of a common understanding and learning.

Later in this article he comments on ideas from Gee (2007) saying,

"Unlike schools, where everyone is expected to do (and be good at) the same things, these participatory cultures allow each person to set their own goals, learn at their own pace, come and go as they please, and yet they are also motivated by the responses of others, often spending more time engaged with the activities because of a sense of responsibility to their guild or fandom. They enable a balance between self-expression and collaborative learning which may be the sweet spot for DIY learning."

Again this emphasizes the idea of learning communities rather than individual learning.

The last point in this article is his idea about differences between the Web 2.0 model and "participatory" culture. He writes,

"Despite a rhetoric of collaboration and community, they often still conceive of their users as autonomous individuals whose primary relationship is to the company that provides them services and not to each other. There is a real danger in mapping the Web 2.0 business model onto educational practices, thus seeing students as "consumers" rather than "participants" within the educational process."

I have often used terms like "Education 2.0," etc. but Jenkins makes an important distinction that may be missed as we talk about these ideas. He notes a big difference in these models is the extent to which mentoring and scaffolding is emphasized versus service to the business enterprise. Jenkins is reminding us of an important distinction that is critical to the structure of learning communities.

Is "Convergence Education" a better term than "Open Education"?

Many educators are exploring the conceptual foundations that would build a model for "open education." The emphasis in open education is on the elements of participation and collective intelligence. I have begun to wonder if it may be useful to build on Henry Jenkin's "convergence culture" model as a basis for education. In his book, Convergence Culture (2006), Jenkins writes,

"This book is about the relationship between three concepts-- media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence" (p. 2).

He places alot of emphasis on the breakdown between movies, television, books, blogs and other forms of media that have traditionally been discrete methods of transmitting culture and explores the ways in which creators have begun to merge, blend or "converge" these methods of entertainment.

He writes, "In a world of media convergence, every important story gets told, every brand gets sold, and every consumer gets courted across multiple media platforms" (p. 3).

So how does this sound--

"In a world of educational convergence, every important intellectual story gets told, every teacher/institution gets sold, and every student gets courted across multiple media platforms."

A central idea in Jenkins book is the idea the breakdown of viewing cultural products and activities as discrete entities, but beginning to view these a part of a larger, more integrated fabric. Also, Jenkins suggests that rather than seeing video vs. books, or text vs. video, or amateur vs. expert, that the future lies in the development of models that are designed across platforms.

In education there is still too much discussion of the online vs. F2F teaching, informal vs. formal learning, open vs. closed education. Rather than continues these disputes, the idea of "convergence" helps us to recognize that the future is not a mater of "either/or," but a matter of "convergence."

For education, the simple version of this convergence would be thinking in these terms-- linking formal and informal learning, linking courses across semesters, departments, institutions; linking blogs, video, lectures, study groups; and building classrooms across age, gender, social class, states, regions, and countries.

This a not a brand new idea, but it may increasingly be a point of emphasis in the ways in which we structure the development of educational enterprises.

Can Universities Become Networked Publics?

Writing about youth and new media, Ito and colleagues use the term "networked publics" to
"describe participation in public culture that is supported by online networks" (Ito et al., Living and Learning with New Media, 2008, p. 10). The authors note,

Rather than conceptualize everyday media engagement as “consumption” by “audiences,” the term “networked publics” places the active participation of a distributed social network in producing and circulating culture and knowledge in the foreground. The growing salience of networked publics in young people’s everyday lives is an important change in what constitutes the social groups and publics that structure young people’s learning and identity" (p.10)

So I find myself asking, "are universities places in which young people (those not attending the university) can "participate in producing and circulating culture and knowledge?" There are some examples of individual faculty who are engaged with young people and with the public in culture and knowledge. Henry Jenkins immediately comes to mind with his work on fan culture and various media analyses. However, his scholarly interests coincide with popular culture so that seems too obvious. I am particularly interested in natural and social scientists. Are there chemists, biologists, psychologists, family scientists, adolescent developmental scientists who are developing ways to engage young people?

I haven't done an in-depth search, but I don't see this work. Am I missing this? Are we missing ways to engage young people in developing their thinking about math and science by not presenting this world in ways that allow their active participation?

What is the purpose of higher education?

What is the purpose of learning on the web? Is it a reference source or is it a "space for investigation, deliberation, and discussion where there are ongoing conversations about the value of different content being circulated." This is how Henry Jenkins frames the questions being asked about the whether or not university websites should be open platforms that allow students and the public to contribute or closed processes in which experts (university professors) provide credible information.

Jenkins notes that if we adopt the open model then

"Everyone in the university would need to have a stake in insuring the integrity of the process and that means being highly critical and skeptical of anything that gets submitted, whether by a student or a teacher."

This is a different model.

A central question in this model is what do you do when bad or wrong information is presented in a university-based website? Jenkins writes,

"It depends on what the university is trying to sanctify: is it seeking to guarantee the integrity of the product (in which case, every bit of content needs to be vetted) or the integrity of the process (in which case, the university is creating a space where people learn through vetting each other's content.) Is the reputation of a university based on the fact that they gather together lots of people who know things or is it based on the fact that they create a context where the ongoing questioning of information takes place?"

In short, are we teaching the content (only the facts) or are we teaching how to think critically about issues and ideas, how to make a persuasive argument and so forth? As teachers we often like to have the last word and to be the best source of information, but in quiet reflection we know that we have often been wrong and that the history of knowledge and science is always about the development of new ideas and throwing away earlier notions that don't hold up. Although we often do have good ideas that are worth consideration, there is still much room for improvement. Likewise, rather than teaching the basic facts wouldn't we be better off teaching people how to think more carefully about ideas in our fields of study?

Youtube University?

What are the possibilities for YouTube content? We have seen some interesting entertainment emerge out of this work. What about teaching and learning?

If you are a skateboarder trying to learn a new trick, this is very hard to communicate in words. It is more possible with video. Here are some example of a fakie kickflip and frontside noseslide with fakie.

These are quite good instructional videos. The skaters provide a good explanation of the trick, how it is done and how it may fit with other skating tricks. They have also broken up the content into small, useful chunks-- one trick at a time rather than all the tricks packaged together. I can watch the one trick over and over until I think I have it, then try it out... watch again, see what I am doing wrong and keep practicing. The bad news of course is that you don't have a coach on hand to diagnosis what you are doing wrong. So could I upload video of my inability to do a trick in order to get feedback from a "skateboard coach?"

Here are some thoughts from Henry Jenkins on YouTube.

"While most people can read, very few publish in print. Hence active contribution to science, journalism and even fictional storytelling has been restricted to expert elites, while most of the general population makes do with ready-made entertainment. But the internet does not distinguish between literacy and publication. So now we are entering a new kind of digital literacy, where everyone is a publisher and whole populations have the chance to contribute as well as consume.

We can certainly use the internet for daydreaming, mischief and time-wasting, but it is equally possible to move on to other levels of functionality, and other purposes, including science, journalism and works of the imagination. You can already find all this on YouTube.....

As they say in The Matrix: `I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.'"

Henry Jenkins on Why Academics should Blog

Henry Jenkins, professor of Comparative Media Studies at MIT offered these ideas in a recent keynote address to the Chronicle of Higher Education's Technology Forum. He gives examples of ways in which blogging impacts students, alumni, faculty, and the public. I find his ideas about the influence on the public particularly relevant to open education and open science. Here are some highlights:

"blogs offered a chance to witness the instructional process [at MIT]. Day by day the blogs unfold, offering a glimpse into the research culture and the ways we think about current issues in our field."

In this next comment I shifts from research to the public and back to undergraduates:

"The blog posts represent which might be called 'just-in-time scholarship," offering thoughtful responses to contemporary developments in the field. Because they are written for a general rather than a specialized readership, these short pieces prove useful for teaching undergraduate subjects."

Referring to the media, he notes:

"Historically, academics have been in a reactive position, responding to questions from reporters. Blogging places academics in a more proactive position, intervening more effectively in popular debates around the topics they research."

Finally he ends by noting that as scholars from many disciplines can adopt various blogging strategies as they make a

"greater commitment to circulate their findings more broadly and to respond to contemporary issues in a thoughtful and timely manner."