LTC 8749 #4

June 6, 2013
Class: The Social Life of Art
10:00am - 12:45pm · Lecture

read Chapter 5 Freedman
Chapter 5 Eisner
A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change:

A summary with mind farts. (AKA... Thoughts, wonderings and such)

I am being deliberate in the lack of emphasis on digital, and really looking at the underlying principles, which can and should be considered whether a school/educational system values the digital world or not.

Brown and Thomas open their book immediately  hitting this idea: Cultivating citizenship.  With in the world (and the world of art) appropriation and remixing idea, imagery and sound are more or less a constant.  It is a reflection of the constant change, (which is already ever present and has been for all of time... But now at an extraordinary pace.)  As an educator (not isolated to art) we need to help students understand the differences between “copying” or as Sam talks about, remixing.   Isn't remixing really a concentrated version of evolution?  Haven not humans and mother nature been remixing for billions of years?

    Although I am not a big fan of gaming (in education for a litany of other reasons  I will not address right now), the examples about learning here are great. The example of the professor teaching a”in a virtual world, Star Wars Galaxies” class is wonderful.  Students have as much or more to teach each other (talk about ping!).  As educators, again, we need to step back and OUT OF OUR SAFE BOXES.  Allow room for the class dictate the pace and the place.  When students are afforded the room to explore an idea with out judgement,... They will.  As teachers we need to reframe what is failure, and look at it through the lens of curiosity.  EVERYTHING is a learning opportunity.  This new technology and interconnected resources makes a space for all idea.  As Brown and Thomas put it “ The new culture of learning gives us the freedom to make the general personal and then share our personal experience in a way that, in turn, adds to the general.” (pg. 31)  

   In chapter two, Brown and Thomas begin by comparing A mechanistic view to that of learning environments.  I would agree with their views that the environment sets the stage. “the context in which learning happens, the boundaries that define it, and the students, teachers, and information within it all coexist and shape each other in a mutually reinforcing way.,  Now, these fellows seem to stress continually that the digital world will be one of the major keys which transform learning environments into this magic new age.  While I agree that the digital age has its strengths, I will continue to say unless the environment is ALREADY a place which echoes the quote above, technology will NOT fix it.  

   The culture of course defines the environment.  The authors create an analogy between a culture which is established and slowly evolves over time to that of a “culture” in a petri dish.  This culture is allowed to organically emerge with out interference because it is interesting.  This I feel is a good analogy.  If schools could pair this idea with the quote above, schools might just have a chance.  This. However, requires the “adults” who oversee the said culture, to adapt to a totally new way of operating within that culture.  It requires them to give up control.  To surrender to the idea they just might not know, and maybe the students do.... Students and teachers need to work together to functionally create. Everyone and everything grows together. Everyone learning in real time, about real things, that have direct impact on the individuals involved.

Chapter 3:

“ The belief that most of what we know will remain relatively unchanged for a long enough period of time to be worth the effort of transferring it.” (pg.40)  Seriously....  How many if us remain unchanged?  How many of us value the toy we had in second grade compared to what ever it is that has out attention right now? (That toy probably isn't even made anymore if you're my age) NOTHING remains relatively unchanged other than perhaps basic skills like changing a tire or how to put carpet in... (Im sure there are others but you get my point)  A good deal of current education is an antiquated system.  We used to work on a 32 rpm record player (and that worked then)and now its GB to the max... It went from slow to VERY FAST ... Well, VERY FAST.  Its a challenge to keep up and adapt.  But is it?  Think about how quickly the growing human changes and adapts from birth to 18.  How the heck do they go through such profound fundamental change with out going insane?  Play, imagination, flexibility,  curiosity.  These qualities are key to making sense of the experiences they encounter.  If educators make room for play in there own teaching, it sets the grounds for the same response from students....

Chapter 4: Collective learning.  Yes, the internet is a fantastic example of this, but I will say again, unless there is a strong pre-existing community of real people in real time who actually functionally relate on a day to day basis, then the virtual collective will only draw out of an individual what that individual encounters.

Chapter 5: Begins by addressing really, the ideas and concerns around social media.  The authors point out the concerns about lives (and Id add relationships) becoming too transparent.  While I do agree and see this, what concerns me more is the inability to relate and communicate on a deeper level.  In my opinion, social media is suffocating our ability to empathize. When we loose that, narcissism rears its ugly ego domineering head.  

     The authors do point out the advantages of “educational sites” or places where people can explore interests.   Meshing with the collective.  “meshing, when it occurs, is likely to transform both the individual and the collective he or she is interacting with” (pg. 58)... Hmmmm not sure I agree.  I agree IF the people the person is interacting with is a REAL person.  That they bring back the information from their investigations and integrate it into the real time community.  There are of course variations in both directions, this is not meant to bask the internet and the learning opportunities there.  I am not sure how the authors are connecting this to play and admit I will have to step out my box and consider this further. Follow your passion and interest .

The thoughts of collective vs. Personal will take me ten pages to elaborate on..

Chapter 6

Explicit knowledge... An (assumed) correct answer to a question... Facts. Our educational system seems to be heavily rooted in explicit knowledge. “The twenty-first century, however belongs to the tacit.  In the digital world, we learn by doing, watching and experiencing” (pg.76).  OK.  While that is true of the digital world, is also true of every child from the beginning of time.  The digital world does not have property rights to this idea.  The issue is that the digital world is forcing the structure of acquired knowledge to shift in the methods of gathering. Dewey understood a long time ago that learning through doing was rooted in experience.  The problem is, adults have forgotten how to play.  “The problem is that almost every technique and practice we have for understanding how we learn has been about the explicit-in a stable world” True enough, but is it not THRILLING to be able to let that go and create in the moment? Utilize ALL the senses?  Relate, exchange,  share, combine ... Soak it in.  Are we willing to let go of all the thoughts we’ve inherited to live and create within the learning environment (which is loosely defined as LIFE)?  I love the statement “Different people, when presented with exactly the same information in exactly the same way, will learn different things.” (pg. 79) yes. Again.... A mirror to life.  Three children in one family presented with the same lesson, expectation etc.... ALL THREE will make it their own and translate it in a way that makes sense to them in that moment. What if all education happened that way?  (This freaks out people who love assessment). What if the question mattered more than the answer? What if discovery was more values that mastery, what if kids could connect lessons to their lives and what matters to them?

Chapter 7

Knowing:  Fact, provable (although I might argue that a little since what we have decided is a fact was at one point based in a belief...which we then worked through based on some curiosity or wonder... We probably had to make some stuff to prove our idea so it could become something we KNOW) Therefore we need to be careful about all that belief vs. Knowing stuff... What came first, the chicken or the egg.  Still, yea, I know, we’ve all acceptable this knowing to be true.  It defines things for us and provides a sense of stability.

Making: Implies a certain degree of linking ideas together to create something.Introduces concrete context. Context in past education was a source of stability.  Something fixed in time.  However, if we jump to real time now, we go back the chapter ones issues around remixing, it takes what was stable and static in terms of context and destabilizes it, thought the “collective” process. We alter meaning and context.

Playing.  “Play creates culture” (pg.97)  First off, I think we need to step out of the box in regards to our ideas about “play”  The idea that it is not serious, that it is frivolous, is absurd. Play is one of the only serious worthwhile  learning endeavors. When we play, challenge is embraced, mysteries are devoured, fear is released, we become explorer’s, turning corners where we saw none,.  We color outside the lines, heck, we get rid of them!  I love the the way the authors state “in play we may best express the sense of becoming.” (pg.99)

Chapter 8:

Hanging Out:  Although hanging out does indeed acquaint  kids with digital tools, I disagree that it  provides “meaningful social interaction” (pg.101) The extensions alluded too, become obsessions, with no thought to time or situation.  Texts beeping at all hours of the night because the need to know NOW is so intense, that anxiety results if the text is not sent or responded too. Sorry, not seeing this as a healthy relationship wit digital media, not this part of it anyway. The social experience really could use some guidance from the adult world (pre-digital OR healthy digital adults)  

Messing around: In understanding their definition, it seems to be that moment when a person goes beyond the egocentric social aspect of connecting in the virtual world to putting their two in the water (or foot or leg) to see just what all this stuff can really do. This connects to play in that it they must venture out, take a risk, charter new territory.

Geeking Out: There were two aspects which were poignant to this but “Geeking out involves learning to navigate esoteric domains of knowledge and practice and participating in communities  that traffic in these forms of expertise”  (pg. 104) This speaks to the power of collaboration, but I cant help but wonder if the “geeker” has an awareness of this as a collaboration.  DO the students who “geek out”  have the tools to check their information?  DO they know what is valid information and what is not, does the internet world render the difference irrelevant if we are indeed redefining what is known and what is tacit?  Who gets to say what information is worth while and isn't.  Are we reinvention reality?

Chapter 9:

Maybe we also need to redefine the ideas behind digital learning, interface, collective etc.  DO these concepts require technology to manifest in a group of learners?  The world of digital games may be one possible venue for this BUT it can and should be created FIRST in real time in relationship in school communities. Re-define the environment like this book states but do not make it dependent on technology, make it student centered,m relationship centered, collectively centered, and use technology as one of MANY tools to engage the learning process.