Tag: digital literacy

Now, maybe it is time to reconsider "Cult of the Amateur”

Back in June, I read “Cult of the Amateur” and made the prediction that this book would set off a heated commentary from some of the visible supporters of educational blogging. The book did not generate the level of response that I expected. Perhaps the individuals I had expected to respond chose to ignore the book in the hopes the issues raised would go away. In October, I offered my own analysis, partly based on some positions I was familiar from social psychology. I think the book is still sitting in one of the piles on my desk, but I had pretty much forgotten the issue.

Out of the blue this week, I read a post from Andy Carvin bringing the topic back into focus. Andy offers a nice summary, links to others who have commented (perhaps I ignored these posts), AND links to a new blog – Why we like web 2.0 … promising a more positive and negative evaluation of web 2.0 apps and activities (we will see). So far, I do not see much pro and con type analysis.

It is the give and take on issues, including the value of “web 2.0” learning, I was encouraging in my analysis. As I argued in my earlier post (I should have titled it CNN or FOX), if we read more and more of the same arguments we are not necessarily improving our understanding, we are typically just radicalizing our positions. This is what I would call a digital literacy issue.

BTW, in my earlier posts on this topic, I note that the debate format may have some value. The example I offer is a debate hosted by The Economist. I see that the Economist has another currently active debate on the value of social networking in education. Funny how these convenient examples just pop up.

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What if blogs only tell us what we want to hear?

There is considerable literature one can access that bears on the question of how and if we might benefit from web 2.0 tools (excuse this phrase if it annoys you – this is not about 1.0 vs. 2.0).On one side, there is Cult of the Amateur arguing that shared free knowledge is likely to be flawed. On the other side, you have Wikinomics; Small Pieces, Loosely Joined; Smart Mobs; parts of The World is Flat; etc. arguing that online information sharing is better than sliced bread, fresh bagels, or chocolate. I bounce between being depressed and elated depending on which book I happen to be reading.While I do not really feel I am closer to the answers I am looking for, I keep buying these books.My most recent trip to Barnes and Noble led to the purchase of Infotopia. The author examines the question of how (and if, I guess) many minds produce knowledge. Many minds in this case do not necessarily have to express their wisdom via a computer and the Internet, but blogs, wikis, online prediction markets, etc. figure prominately in the author’s agenda. The book draws on what seems a literature from social psychology or management investigating “deliberating” groups and the question of whether a group will be able to surface and integrate collective knowledge.Many times it appears that deliberation – open sharing and discussion – does more harm than good. I did pick up a couple of useful phrases. At least, if I don’t have answers it may now appear like I understand the problems. Cocoon and echo chamber – we tend to read those who think like us and we tend to repeat similar messages in follow-up interactions. I used to call this the “CNN vs. Fox effect”, but now I have some new terms. As applied to blogs, the blogs we select to inform us may tell us what we want to hear rather than challenging us to consider different perspectices. The result is a radicalization of beliefs and values and possibly the perception that we have become educated. It is true, I have not read a pro NCLB blog lately.I have been following a different kind of approach that on the surface may offer a remedy. The Economist has been sponsoring debates for the benefit of readers for some time (at least as I understand the background). The publication is now attempting to adapt this tradition to the Internet with some twists (viewer voting). The readers were even allowed to vote on questions and the questions selected for “debate” involve technology and education. After reading Infotopia, this makes some sense. No matter what positions readers bring to process, they will encounter reasoned argument on both sides of an issue. This is worth following (note – registration is free).

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Essential Skills for Knowledge Workers

Miguel Guhlin, in an techLearning article (registration may be required for free access), proposes that knowledge workers will need to develop new skills to be competitive in a read/write world. This is an interesting article because of the effort to argue for the development of specific skills (a combination of higher order thinking and design skills in my opinion) and links to open source and free options for developing/applying these aptitudes. I tend to focus on Mac multimedia tools so those who follow this blog may appreciate the attendtion to Windows apps (e.g., Photostory and MovieMaker).

Note to semi-techie-types – this article ends with suggestions for adding MySQL and PHP capabilities to both Mac (MAMP) and Windows (WAMP) platforms. Over the years, I have found that setting up a new server with PHP and MySQL capabilities (actually it is mostly MySQL that causes me problems) requires that I relearn a bunch of things that I then promptly forget until the next time. Efforts to automate such installations is worth a look.

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Graze, Dive, Talk Back

John Palfrey offers a model of how digital natives process the news. The idea is to describe the difference between those of us who get up in the morning and read the Times (or Grand Forks Herald) cover to cover and those of us who go online and take a different approach. I really like the model (graze, dive, talk back) and I would really like to think it was true of high school and college students today.

However, I would really like to see the data on this one. I think the way Palfrey describes the habits of 21st century learners (if present high school and college students are considered 21st century learners) is idealistic and probably inaccurate. My students are more likely to IM and use a cell phone that I am, but I would bet very few of them followed up on what I could consider a legit news story today. I did – this is how I located the link used in this post. So, I am saying I think educators are more likely to at least “dive” and possibly “talk back” than their students. What I would like to see is educators extending this practice to include their students. As I read the research on teacher technology skills, the most frequent limitation that characterizes new teachers is that they apply skills to benefit their own learning and do not extend these same advantages to their students. So, I think a more appropriate criticism, since this piece seems to be about who is out of date, out of touch, etc., is that educators don’t involve their students in the practices they employ for their own information needs.

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