‘taking back’ of education
There is a very prominent DIY (do it yourself) approach to this online community. Our society treats education as a “you must”; whereas in reality, it should be an act of free will. It’s an innate ability humans have to want to learn more about the world surrounding them. Due to the stifling neglect of creativity in the school space,young students find the most joy during their playtime with friends. This is because of their ability to create their own space with like minded people. As we get older we simply don’t lose that creative exuberance towards the world. Its a combination of academia and our surrounding world, that expects the rules and procedures to be followed in such a way it deters us from being creative.
With communities such as DS106 emerging, and becoming increasingly popular; the idea of ‘taking back’ education begins to come into fruition. The pace at which our society operates, and how effectively we can work remotely, lay the foundation for our future. Massive open online courses that are free and open to the public lay the framework for the taking back of education. In this specific case, the community strives to produce new media through collabration. All collaborating is down on items that can be successfully manipulated and “re-mixed”, under creative commons licensing. The idea of being able to take someone else’s work and adding your own personal touch visualizes the power That fair use can have. Adding your own touch to someone else’s work could prove successful in building on new ideas and being able to gain perspective of the picture from an entirely different viewpoint.
I agree with the creativity part, I don’t think school are necessarily stifling, would you consider Profs. Harbison and Waltzer stifling? 🙂 I think DS106 is definitely less hierarchical in the structure of learning, but it does seem to have rules.
What are the rules?
Needing to have a domain, webhost using LAMP, expecting students to complete 2-4 assignments each week, creating tutorials, sounds like rules to me. 🙂
Domain and web hosting are the pencils and paper for crafting your digital identity. And given that you have the opportunity to create your own assignments and then complete them if you don’t like the ones given to you, I find that a bit mor anarchic than rule bound compared to most ‘classrooms.’
I strongly agree with the presentation of a “do it yourself” approach. I found that aspect very cool. Any chance you misspelled your title?
Indeed I did. Thanks for the heads up Robert!
Really nice post Cary. You do a great job of filtering your observations into an argument about role of creativity in learning, and then you unpack the roles of collaboration and remix in fueling the work of this community.
If you’re interested, you might look into the various models for MOOC’s that are emerging… ds106 is unique among these models, especially because of the relationship between its understandings of the commons, of IP, of the network, of the role of connection (read up on “connectivism”) and the core belief that many involved in building ds106 that we really need to “take back education.”
But, from whom? What does this mean?
Cary read, Three Kinds of MOOCs by Lisa M. Lane, and the dozens of comments that follow. Great stuff.
Taking education away from the world of tuition, loans, and the traditional classroom, and into the world of the people in an open space that is accessible by anyone interested. With putting a price tag on higher education, it makes it impossible for certain people to continue their pursuit of knowledge in an academic setting. These open courses take education back from these institutions and gives them back to the interested; not only those able to pay tuition.
I totally agree with Cary – if this was a Facebook post, I would “like” it.
There are so many obstacles blocking true learning that the internet has the ability to overcome due to the issue of who owns what. In the case of Education, I can totally see how Copyrights can have a strangle-hold on those who wish to use content to teach and use it without having to wave the “fair use” flag.
I agree that the feeling of education in DS106, is free will. Its incredible how there is such a positive outcome to an online class with at-will participation.
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