pedagogy and Students

Via Axel Bruns, via Howard Rheingold, comes this post from DIY Media Weblog, which reports on a recent attempt by Todd Richmond to model the changing roles of producer-consumer and teacher-student in the digital economy.

Richmond is Adjunct Professor in the Interactive Media Division of the USC School of Cinema-Television, and a Fellow at USC's Annenberg Center and its Center for Creative Technologies. The DIY Media post highlighted a recent presentation of his on October 19, at an Annenberg seminar.

Richmond's presentation highlighted the phenomenon of convergence, and its implications for the future of education, comparing "the future technology-triggered transformation of educational institutions" to "the 'perfect storm' that hit the music industry when several different factors intersected to disrupt the existing institutions for making, distributing, and monetizing music". It's a familiar argument -- and, to a degree, a self-interested one. After all, we're all in the business these days of promoting our own "disruptiveness".

So, the PLE bit of the JISC's e-learning programme has nearly finished its reference model work.

I hope this doesn't mean that it's already too late to respond to some of the issues raised, and hopefully, to contribute to the direction it takes. Regular readers of my blog will know I'm not entirely happy with the PLE concept as it seems to be developing -- all the more reason for me to engage.

The Discussion notes from the JISC/CETIS PLE Event raise four key issues.

To try and focus my discussion, I'll restrict comments to the first three of these.

...There were opposing views on current institutional systems

Ie., we can't agree on whether existing systems enhance or detract from learning. Good. This debate is important, because it focuses on pedagogy and how best to support learner engagement - ground-up, first-principles stuff. May it flourish. But we've been sidetracked! Instead of discussing the benefits and constraints of existing support systems, there appears to be an emerging consensus that VLEs are Just Not Good, Mmmmkaaaaay. Instead, there's a battle going on between those for whom the PLE is really a VLE in sheep's clothing, versus those who believe the PLE is its antithesis.