I am trying some live blogging from the NMC Online Conference. Now up is a keynote…
Personal Broadcasting, Education, and the Remix Culture
Laura Blankenship, Bryn Mawr College (blogs as Geeky Mom)
Wired Magazine feature– not new, there is a history that goes back even to Shakespeare.
Now- Writer’s Duel (harry potter Fanfiction)
Sampling, remixing, mashing up- done as a critique of our culture.
Playing remix of John Lennon’s Imagine and George Bush’s speech… http://www.thepartyparty.com/
“Today’s audience isn’t listening at all – it’s participating” — William Gibson
Remixing Education
Microlevel
** (individual students and faculty)
** Class Level
Macrolevel
** Lifelong Learning
At Micro-level implemented examples of recorded class lectures, student presentations as podcasts/vodcasts, videos of lectures, hybrid courses
not there yet = building on others’ work- piecing together lecture/class materials from multiple sources, open source and multimedia textbooks, having students build on class materials using other media
At macro-level, implemented are creating a major, taking both online and f2f courses at multiple institutions
Not there yet- creating your own degree (hybrid degrees), open courseware, outsourcing courses
Ways get distributed between official channels and unofficial channels-
Official channels include iTunes, Podcast directories, video lectures, webcasts -powerpoints, podcasts by faculty, lectures by series, special guests- mostly digitizing the classroom
Unofficial channels – Google Video, YouTube, Broad view of education (look at education category in YouTube) often irreverent, some practical in scope– how to, pushing the limits
Some Examples:
* Anthropology Lecture (Official channel) – dry voice, slow paced, reading from overhead. A “recorded lecture” has not changed anything, just recorded it.
* Diet Coke and Mentos (YouTube video) (Unofficial channel) – guys in street putting mentos in diet coke that explodes, “if it is on the internet, it must be true”. People willing to video themselves doing things and publish/share them.
Issues
* Access: Does everyone have broadband, a computer? Accessibility issues
* Finding: How do you find the material? It is not catalogued– “there’s a lotta junk in YouTube”. Institutions not moving quickly
* Copyright: If we ask students to remix and broadcast, what are the copyright implications? How do we manage our own IP? Law is not keeping up. DRM is being built into the hardware- likely to be restrictive
Potential
* Building on and creating new knowledge in multiple media (not just text)
* Developing a critical eye toward audio and video
* Lifelong learning
* Learning beyond the walls — very important
