Ultimately the most disconcerting aspect of the three videos presented the week 2 resources is centered around the concept of control: “Sight, from Sight Systems,” “Charlie 13,” and “Plurality.”
Actually, it’s not the technology that creates this frightening Dystopian View of The Future. The three videos really do not address educational issues. The videos portray broader cultural, social, and political aspects of the potential application of technology in manipulative and pervasive ways.
So let’s examine the concept of control related to education. Thinking about the continuum of “Teacher Centered” versus “Student Centered” Learning; becomes a good dialectic to examine the concept of control, the use of technology, and the future of Higher Education.
The 1988 Isaac Asimov interview with Bill Moyers defines and presents the concept of Personalized Learning:
Those of us who have been overwhelmed and enjoyed the cognitive dissonance of finding our way through the E-Learning and Digital Culture MOOC; now have a good understanding of the concepts Asimov introduced in the 1988 interview. In an earlier FaceBook post, I described a similar experience that I enjoyed in my academic career at Indiana University. A course where graduate students had the opportunity to navigate and design their pathway through massive amounts of content in a Educational Psychology course. This learning theory course was one of the most significant experiences of my formal academic career. Until my experience with this MOOC, I have not observed or participated in courses with similar methodology.
Navigating and Designing your own Personal Learning experience through massive amounts of information, experiences, and discussions creates a very “Student Centered,” experience. Who then, is in control here…….???
Nicholas Negroponte, in his seminal work Being Digital, writes, “In the post information age, we often have an audience the size of one.” Internet technology creates an environment and channel of communication where significant digital content can be created specifically for an audience of one. Seeking and designing a Personal Learning Experience from the massive content presented in a Massive Online Open Course becomes an exercise in crafting content for an audience of one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_Digital
Think how different this is from the television era of 1964 when all of America was Tuned-In to the Ed Sullivan show Sunday February 9, 1964 and to the Beatles broadcast. Seventy three million viewers watched content from a single point of origination “Live” from CBS-TV Studio 50 in New York City. Mass Media transformed Mass Culture in a single evening.
From the Ed Sullivan WebSite:
http://www.edsullivan.com/artists/the-beatles/
“A record setting 73 million people tuned in that evening making it one of the seminal moments in television history. Nearly fifty years later, people still remember exactly where they were the night The Beatles stepped onto Ed Sullivan’s stage.”
Contrast that single point to mass point distribution to the multipoint distribution channels available over the Internet through: Facebook, Google +, MySpace, SoundCloud, Twitter, and the numerous social networking configurations.
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites
This E-Learning and Digital Culture MOOC has minimal locus of control and creates an incredible opportunity for participants to design a very Personal Learning Experience.
After all, the opportunity to enjoy the freedom of following our own Personal Learning Experiences may create cultural, social, and political forces that prevent the potential application of technology in manipulative and pervasive ways.
Henry J. Burnett 