These are two video advertisements - one from Corning, and one from Microsoft - setting out these companies’ visions of how their products will evolve and be used in the future. In both cases, the companies position their information technologies as completely integrated with daily life.
Sight explores how the ubiquity of data and the increasingly blurry line between the digital and the material might play out in the sphere of human relationships. The focus on the emerging social and educational use of game-based ‘badging’ is particularly interesting.
Charlie 13 (14:20)
In this film, a young boy is about to reach the age where, in his society, he will be permanently ‘tagged’ by having a tracking device implanted in his body. A futuristic angle on a ‘coming of age’ story, the boy has to choose whether to submit to the requirements of his society, or seek a different life. By suggesting a degree of personal autonomy, the film diverges considerably from some of last week’s (new media, bendito machine III).
Sharing the broad theme of surveillance with the previous film, Plurality throws some time travel into the mix and asks us to imagine a future where the population is monitored through their DNA, and resistance takes the shape of attempting to ‘jam’ the surveillance systems by inserting multiple selves into the grid (those who are familiar with the concept of the panopticon will find the name of the system, and of one main character, amusing - and there is also reference to George Orwell’s 1984 in the name of the other main character). The grid can only function if absolute visibility of the movements and identities of the city’s inhabitants is maintained, and therefore practices of hacking become the ultimate threat.
Ideas and interpretation
Johnston, R (2009) Salvation or destruction: metaphors of the internet. First Monday, 14(4). http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2370/2158
Bleecker, J. (2006). A manifesto for networked objects — Cohabiting with pigeons, arphids and Aibos in the Internet of Things.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14748019/Why-Things-Matter
This article looks ahead to the increasing potential for objects connected to the Internet, the so- called Internet of Things, to interact with each other and with humans by blogging (Bleecker calls these objects ‘blogjects’). The paper looks forward to a cacophony of inanimate objects murmuring in cyberspace or getting lost in their own private conversations. Bleecker stresses that it is the networked, communicative nature of Things that is important - what they say, and to whom - not their technical ability to store and transmit data:
The significance of the Internet of Things is not at all about instrumented machine-to-machine communication, or sensors that spew reams of data credit card transactions, or quantities of water flows, or records of how many vehicles passed a particular checkpoint along a highway. Those sensor-based things are lifeless, asocial recording instruments when placed alongside of the Blogject. (p.15)While Bleecker sees this future in largely utopian terms, you might consider it in light of this week’s films, and sketch out some of the ways that a future of blogjects might present some complex ethical and practical problems.
Perspectives on education
Shirky, C. (2012). Napster, Udacity and the academy. shirky.com, 12 November 2012. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2012/11/napster-udacity-and-the-academy/
Bady, A. (2012). Questioning Clay Shirky. Inside Higher Ed, 6 December 2012. http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/12/06/essay-critiques-ideas-clay-shirky-and-others-advocating-higher-ed-disruption
These two pieces fit together as an initial opinion piece (Shirky) and a critical response (Bady). Together, they provide a good overview of current debates about MOOCs, expressing hopes and fears about what a digital revolution in higher education might be like.
Shirky embraces the perspective that higher education is broken (expensive, limiting, elitist), and suggests that the MP3 (the most common file format for digital music) is a good metaphor for the MOOC. Telling a story of the music industry as surprised, then overcome by the emergence of the MP3, Shirky frames the narrative of higher education in similar terms, warning that institutions are not prepared for the revolution that MOOCs will bring. Dismissing one MOOC critic’s focus on quality, Shirky argues that openness will lead to improved quality: ‘open courses, even in their nascent state, will be able to raise quality and improve certification faster than traditional institutions can lower cost or increase enrollment’.
Bady (along with claiming that Shirky sets up his argument so that academics cannot respond without looking defensive) wonders whether the music metaphor, and Shirky’s emphasis on openness, obscure a massive, profit-driven business underpinning MOOC development. He argues that ‘open vs. closed is a useful conceptual distinction, but when it comes down to specific cases, these kinds of grand narratives can mislead us’. He asks, of Shirky’s claim that most higher education is expensive and mediocre, ‘would it be any less mediocre if it were free?’.
Audrey Watters’ Storify notes: http://storify.com/audreywatters/ecologies-of-yearning-and-the-future-of-open-educa
Richard Sebastian’s blog post: http://edtech.vccs.edu/openness-the-double-bind-and-ecologies-of-yearning/
And there’s more....
If you want to dig deeper into how the media is representing the emergence of MOOCs, and continue your hunt for metaphors, we recommend these two pieces. The comments on both are also worth exploring. What metaphors can you identify in these, and how are they operating to position MOOCs?
Anderson, N. (2012). Elite education for the masses. The Washington Post, 4 November 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/elite-education-for-the-masses/2012/11/03/c2ac8144-121b-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_story.html
Carr, N. (2012). The Crisis in Higher Education. MIT Technology Review, http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/429376/the-crisis-in-higher-education/
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