New Knowledge Economy
In August 2005, Canada’s primary granting council for the social sciences and humanities, SSHRC, announced its intent to transform itself from a “granting council” to a “knowledge council” with a view to engaging Canadians “in building knowledge through research and in using that knowledge to create a just, free, prosperous and culturally vibrant world” (SSHRC, 2005, p. 9). Fundamental to the council’s shift in perspective is the understanding that developments in information and communications technologies have lead to a new knowledge economy in which it is important that research results are disseminated beyond the academy to the public at large: “we need to do a much better job of getting humanities and social sciences knowledge out into the world where it can make a difference, where it can inspire ideas and debate, where it can galvanize individuals, communities, businesses and governments into action” (SSHRC, 2005, p. 23). This statement echoes the position of Willinsky, who notes that electronic “publishing systems that provide greater public access are likely to help us to better understand and extend Dewey’s democratic theory of education, while enhancing the prospects of creating a more deliberative democratic state; and that they are in a good position to expand education’s role within democracy, as well as increase the impact that education research has on practice, and provide an alternative source of information to the media’s coverage of such issues as education” (Willinsky, 2002, p. 6).
While the democratizing effect of new publication technologies is clearly beneficial, many have expressed concerns about “information overload.” Ted Koppel’s discussion of the challenges facing archivists offered in the context of the 1990 television documentary, Memory & Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress, constitutes an older (and gendered) iteration of this issue.
In light of the above and the week’s readings, what do you perceive to be the primary challenges facing present-day learners and educators? More fundamentally, what does it mean to be an “educated” participant in the new knowledge economy? There are two posts for this week you may wish to consider: this one and one on intentional fallacy below.
6 comments
1 Heidi { 11.19.09 at 8:40 pm }
I’m not sure how closely the interview below ties in with this week’s readings, but it’s definitely related to the course. I haven’t had time to listen to it myself…
CBC: Spark Plus
Full Interview: Jenna McWilliams on New Media Literacy
Posted: 19 Nov 2009 09:05 AM PST
Nowadays, we have access to a huge amount of information, credible and otherwise. And for better or worse, traditional media gatekeepers and filters are disappearing. So how do we become our own filters? How do we learn to spot the difference between quality info and crackpot conspiracy theories? According to Jenna McWilliams, part of the answer is something called new media literacy.
Jenna is a doctoral student in the Learning Sciences Program at Indiana University, and the former curriculum specialist for Project New Media Literacies (http://newmedialiteracies.org/).
This morning, Nora interviewed Jenna via Skype. A shorter version of this interview will air on Spark 92, but you can hear the full, uncut interview here (http://www.cbc.ca/spark/), or download the MP3 here (http://podcast.cbc.ca/spark/spark_20091119_jennamcwilliams.mp3). [runs 13:32]
2 Melanie Wong { 11.20.09 at 10:23 am }
Hi Everyone,
There were so many comments in Lam’s (2006) article that I agreed with. First, I am really excited about Lam’s work especially her work with ESL students and their online experiences. As an ESL and technology teacher, I am fascinated to read about students and how technology is changing the way they learn English. The discussion on transnationalism and this notion of individuals going beyond national borders is the reality here in North America. As Lam (2006) indicates in her article, “young people are developing affiliative identities and shared practices that cut across national, ethnic and linguistic lines and simultaneously involve them in multiple attachments at the global and local levels” (p.222). As an educator, I see this as being very significant especially when it comes to teaching the youth. Students are getting more access to knowledge, ideas, different cultures etc..
The point that I found most interesting in Lam’s article was actually her discussion about collective identity, which is associated to Gee’s work. Specifically her comments about how these collective identity groups, lead to a “tendency to cross traditional lines of “race”/ethnicity, class, gender, ability and other institutional classifications” (p.219). As I thought about this section of the article and my reflected on my own personal experiences online, I started to understand how significant this was to my ESL students. The internet is as neutral ground for them. In their present communities, they are often not legitimate speakers. There are so many stigmas associated with being ESL. Many of my students use to resist being ESL. Yet, in these online communities, as long as they have a common interest with someone else, they are a member. Pop culture is truly changing the way the youth are interacting. I think about for example the current Twilight movies craze. There are Facebook groups, blogs, websites, etc.. on the topic. There are so many youth from around the world who are participating in this collective identity. Interesting, I am still thinking about this. It’s exciting actually!
Willinsky’s discussion on Open access, is interesting. I think I am still wrapping my mind around the ideas he talked about. However, I think he makes some really strong arguments. His discussion on how open access “may open the [doors] to new worlds of learning for readers as citizens, policymakers, professionals, activists, patients, clients, dedicated amateurs, and simply curious individuals who have always wondered about the psychology of reading” (p.4). Providing access to information like this is powerful. However, my question is, with open access will people necessarily take the initiatives to access the information available?
Okay, I am going to think more about the readings and post more later.
Melanie
3 JD { 11.20.09 at 3:56 pm }
Hi everyone,
I had the good fortune to be in John Willinsky’s class on Open Knowledge this last summer. In that class, our focus was on the impact of open access in domains ranging from scientific research (and the articles that are a product of that research), data and educational resources. Willinsky makes quite a compelling argument for the benefits of an open access to knowledge, and in other work traces the development of scientific research publications going back to public dialogues (Philosophical Exchanges) going back to the Seventeenth century. He also traces the development of an economic model up to the present day that has seen the research universities (largely funded by the public purse), contract out the publication of academic journals to private enterprises who then turn around and resell this work back at increasingly exorbitant prices. As Willinsky makes clear in our assigned reading, this state of affairs leaves many people disenfranchised from what he defines as a Public Good: the knowledge base produced by the research exchanges of the scientific community.
The argument put forward in “Democracy and Education: The Missing Link May Be Ours” addresses the potential benefit of the knowledge base produced by those who research in Education (and I think it would be reasonable to extend this address to those in the Social Sciences and Humanities, too). It was useful, too, to see how Willinsky drew upon Dewey’s democratic theory of education in the context of the communicative extensions that mark our current technological spaces within which public discourse circulates. Drawing from Dewey, too, the central role that education plays in social participation just provides added importance to the question of how our research activities within the Academy interact with (and are themselves influenced by) the outside world.
I liked the reformulation of “Research Improves Education,” the motto of the American Educational Research Association to “Research Informs Education,” as it suggests the reciprocity that Willinsky calls for relating to teaching practice and broader social forces than activities that take place within educational institutions. I couldn’t help but think of this, too, in the context of Inquiry-based learning, or the focus to more constructivist centred approaches to teaching, where students are put into positions where they have to more actively construct knowledge in authentic contexts. It seems to me that the disposition to have students more actively engaged as researchers in the development of their own knowledge nicely aligns with Willinsky’s call for participation in society in support of democracy.
Teresa raised an interesting point at our last class concerning the difference between the Sciences and Social Sciences and the Humanities in terms of the potential impact of openness on, in particular, citation (and by extension reputation or motivation for individual scholars). One of the issues here is that within the Humanities, the monograph far moreso than the research article, is the preferred currency for academic promotion and tenure. It is worthwhile to consider how one might respond to Willinksy’s call to take the research in the Humanities “more thoroughly into the public domain” (14). It is worth considering the conclusion that Willinsky reaches about the impact of such an engagement:
We have also to realize that going public with our research will gradually change how we conduct our studies in and outside of schools, how we write about and connect our work to other studies, as well as to larger and local worlds of information. In this way, new publishing and broadcasting systems seem bound to reshape both democracy and education, strengthening the link between them.
I must admit that I can’t see any downside to such a reshaping, as it will certainly help to redefine the boundaries of educational institutions and the roles of those who work within them.
Cheers,
Jeff
4 Super G { 11.21.09 at 2:55 pm }
So I really wanted to start a new post for this, but at this moment the task is beyond me, so I’ll just stick it in here. It takes social media/ gaming to a whole new? level! This is a mail out I received from the PuSh festival:
The PuSh Festival needs your help! We are looking for 80 to 100 volunteers to be a part of the development and testing of a brand new work entitled Best Before that the PuSh Festival has commissioned from the renowned German theatre company Rimini Protokoll. This show will premiere in January 2010 as part of the PuSh Festival.
A large part of this show involves an interactive video game, with each of the 200 audience members participating with their own game controller. In these early stages of development we need YOU to help us test this complex gaming system prior to the opening of the show.
WHEN: December 11th from 6:30pm – 8:30pm
WHERE: Vancity Cultural Lab at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre (Venables @ Victoria)
WHY: Because you will be one of the first people in Vancouver to experience exciting, ground breaking theatre as it continues to move towards production. And because I promise to hug everyone there like I did last time.
About the project:
Best Before pulls the multi-player video game out of the virtual realm and plugs it into an intimate theatre setting. A simulated city evolves as each of 200 spectators add their personal touch, game controller in hand. At first you are an anonymous avatar but then you take on human dimensions as audience members clash, collaborate and negotiate the forces that shape reality here in the third millennium.
The work of Rimini Protokoll is a theatre of Münchausian escapades. Having created over 20 new works – all sharing a very distinct house style – the company has attracted attention throughout Europe for blurring the line between reality and fiction. With non-actors such as construction flaggers, game designers, professors of pathology, elderly women, unemployed air traffic controllers and retired miniature train enthusiasts, “experts in daily life” are the real protagonists for Rimini Protokoll. Find out more about Rimini Protokoll at:
http://www.rimini-protokoll.de
If you can help out please R.S.V.P. by December 7th to PuSh’s Associate Producer Dani Fecko at dani@pushfestival.ca
Hope to see you there!
Dani and the PuSh Festival Gang
5 Eva Ziltener { 11.21.09 at 5:12 pm }
Hi folks!
Wow, our last posts of the term… crazy…
I really enjoyed reading Wilinsky’s article on open learning and I think he has some pretty compelling arguments. I do, however, question the notion that readers will be able to read/work with scholarly articles with the ease Wilinsky suggests. Perhaps I’m being elitist, or perhaps I’m not yet as versed in the jargon as I one day hope to be… but it seems to me that academic speak is sometimes a language of it’s own, and perhaps not as accessible to the “common reader” (Samuel Johnson) as Wilinsky implies. His example of concerned parents coming across and using Theresa Rogers’ 2001 conference paper to improve their literary curriculum is a wonderful idea, I’m just not too sure if the majority of readers would be skilled (or patient enough) to use the paper to reference other articles and to then use those articles to better understand the Rogers paper. It’s a wonderful idea, and some readers may have the skill, time and patience to do this, but I wonder how many readers actually would (or could) go this route. That being said, I’m all for Open Access and I think Wilinsky’s work in this field is very important and will have a huge impact on our futures as academics, students and teachers.
Like Jeff, I, too, feel that a reshaping of roles and boundaries within educational institutions and research practices is a good thing. The more brain power is devoted to any subject, the more potential for discover, creativity and learning. I especially liked the notion of having laymen (amateurs) contribute to various fields of knowledge – new approaches often infuse research with fresh ideas and perspectives and open up new possibilities.
I’m still processing the Lam article, but like Melanie, I’m finding a lot of what she has to say resonates with me. Her discussion of collective identity certainly rings true, when I think of my various “selfs” and the groups I feel connected to via common interests, such as music and drama, or ethnicity (the Swiss-Canadian community) or via common languages. Lam’s comments also got me thinking about how I ground myself when I arrive in a new country, or new setting… with whom to do I connect/identify and why? I feel that my “selves” shift and adapt from group to group, and yet I feel quite at ease in each of these skins. Lots to think about…
Eva!
6 Chelsey Hauge { 11.21.09 at 11:43 pm }
Wow, Willinsky is really a believer in open access and its ability to well, change the world! He uses much more specific terms, about knowledge access and the like, but as I read I found myself nodding along, getting excited, seeing all these academics dancing in unison with non-academic, and holding hands in research…
But really. I enjoyed these two articles on open access and education and democracy, though I thought maybe they could use a bit of tempering in terms of other barriers to access. I am also not convinced that the larger public out there suddenly is going to start accessing academic journals simply because they are online and free- though I do recognize the potential in democratizing this knowledge so that it can be accessed by a broader range of academics and individuals in places in the world where they might not have easy access to scholarly work.
I found the Lam article very interesting and generative. I was especially interested in the hybridity, transnational online networks, and the idea that the reframing of the cultural and linguistic resources young people bring to the classroom could leverage ideas and work on how to produce young people who can operate within and throughout hybrid spaces, bridging countries, languages, worlds.
I found the idea of cross-border media spaces/relational spaces, and the resulting new sense of cosmopolitan consciousness very interesting, especially in relationship to the representations of migrants and immigrant populations. Lam discussed the third space, where meaningful participation and learning can only happen if there is the creation of a shared discourse and shared semiotic representation that are hybrid in nature—heavily linked to popular youth media and glocalized in nature.
I find the term glocalized to also be very generative, especially in thinking about the nature state. The way we exist is glocalized, a hybrid way of being that pulls from transnational discourse, language and production and makes sense of it in the local context. Youth, especially youth who identify with transnational cultures and being-ness, and reify this identity through digital networks that span the globe and center themselves locally, seem to exist outside of, or to transcend, national identity.
What then, of the nation-state, and of national identity? Will this notion soon become extinct? I would like to write about this in terms of the Appadurai’s Modernity at Large, but it’s late and I wanted to make sure I got at least one posting in before that deadline. So, tomorrow I may come back at this glocalization, and transnational networked identities in relationship to Appadurai.
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