Week 4: September 27 – October 3, 2010
Theme: Many stories: A sociopolitical lens
The theme this week verges on disruptions to prescribed order when transformative technologies are brought to bear on traditional gatekeepers. Mark Pegrum's chapter this week is on sociopolitical issues, and the reading concern the concept of "edupunk."
We have in fact been viewing our topic through a sociopolitical lens all along, in Keen's suggestion for example that the "cult of the amateur" was creating a new elite that would rise to power by virtue of putting aside those who could not navigate the new folksonomies and identify with social networks; whereas Weinberger rejoiced in owners of content no longer owning the organization of that content.
To view such disruptions through a more pedagogical focus, take the ePorfolios that we hope participants here will create and/or develop as a record of their brief journey through this session. How would ePorfolios work as an assessment system where you teach, as opposed to the standardized testing and other exam-based criteria that might be driving your curriculum now? If you feel that ePortfolios are valid assessment tools and you have your students create them, you might be at odds with an entrenched system. If you use them anyway (because you think they are the best tool for the job as you perceive it), you would be 'edupunk'. (For interesting insights, see Ambrose's presentation on Googlios,
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=478.
When we interviewed Mark Pegrum recently he turned the tables and asked us this question: what key literacies should we be teaching students in a digital world? The recent K-12 Online Conference left a rich archive of video and podcast presentations, where many of the presenters addressed this very question thoroughly, in great detail and in many aspects, and with strikingly vivid illustrations. Listening to these presentations you might think that edupunk had gone mainstream, that everyone is teaching digital skills and using web 2.0 tools with students these days, and you would be very fortunate to be working in a place where this was the case. From the K-12 Online presentations, it's clear that educators have identified a broad set of multiliteracy skills needed for knowledge work in the 21st century, and that their own creativity and that of their students has blossomed as a result of ubiquitous access to tools leveraging these skills (see Valdez,
http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=443). .
Task for Week 4
Scan the annotated list and identify the presentations you think most interesting and then view them and feed back to the list your reflections and answers to Mark's questions, not only
-
What key literacies should we be teaching students in a digital world?, but also
-
To what extent is it the responsibility of educators to teach/coach these literacies?
-
Are there any drawbacks or dangers in teaching/coaching these literacies?
In conveying answers to your questions, try to utilize the tools and project formats mentioned in those sections below.
Seen on Twitter: "Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority."
- Thomas Huxley http://www.famousquotesandauthors.com/authors/thomas_huxley_quotes.html
And now for something complEATly different. The concept of edupunk suggests that there are issues regarding new technologies not being addressed by institutional learning, and it also suggests an 'in your face' approach to resolving some of these issues by stepping around the established authority and just doing it. This week we'll consider what some of these ill-addressed issues are, and we'll ask: when is it justified to simply take off on one's own tangent on the assumption that this is best for one's students? What are the up- and downsides to such an approach? In what way is this a multiliteracies issue? Participants should enjoy addressing the question: Do you feel that you, or anyone for that matter, is, are, or should be an edupunk?
- Content
- Jim Groom, The Glass Bees, http://bavatuesdays.com/the-glass-bees/ (with over 77 comments!)
- Stephen's Web, Introducing Edupunk, http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=44760
- Leslie Madsen Brooks, Introducing Edupunk, http://www.blogher.com/introducing-edupunk
- "Brian" Living in Binary, Edupunk: Redefining Ed Tech (September 20, 2008), http://binaryliving.blogspot.com/2008/09/edupunk-redefining-how-we-use.html
- Education Innovation: Rock-N-Roll High School and The Punk Rock Pirates, http://educationinnovation.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/10/rock-n-roll-high-school.html
- Projects
- Be moving your work here into something resembling a portal to an e-portfolio
- Podcasts
- Blog postings
- Wiki contributions
- Tools
- It's time now for participants to
- Help each other decide which tools introduced in this course are most useful to their own applications of multiliteracies concepts in their practice
- Suggest others not mentioned yet, new to the group
- Articulate findings in such a way that knowledge is spread efficiently throughout the network
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.