Recycling learning

"...making good use of the things that they find, things that the everyday folk leave behind..."

Yep, that's a blast from the past for those who grew up watching the children's programme The Wombles on television. Essentially, the Wombles were furry creatures who lived on Wimbledon Common and tidied up all the litter left behind by the 'everyday folk'. Not only did they tidy up, they also recycled the objects they found, into something useful. We could do with a few Wombles down our street, I can tell you.  

How does this fit into education? I hear you asking.... well, read on. 

A useful concept to aid the understanding of current web based learning practices is Bricolage (Levi-Strauss, 1996). Art students will recognise it as the technique of creating an image from a variety of materials that just happen to be available. In architecture, bricolage can refer to the seemingly chaotic proximity of buildings from various periods and styles. For Levi-Strauss, bricolage described any spontaneous action, espcially those that are steeped in personal meaning. The principal meaning of bricolage however, evokes a 'do it yourself'ethos, where each individual creates personal meaning through seemingly haphazard actions that draw together disparate objects to form new wholes.

In the UK punk movement of the late 1970s, chains, safety pins and dog collars were all appropriated as fashion items, eventually assuming additional meaning as statements of personal identity. In the context of learning, bricolage is a useful analytical lens. It was applied by Seymour Papert (1993) to explain a particular style of problem solving. He suggests that bricoleurs reject traditional, systematic analyses of problem spaces in favour of play, risk taking and testing out.  Younger users of technology tend to rely less on formal instruction or user manuals when they encounter new tools. Instead, they launch into an exploration of the device, to see what it can do. They learn to use it by testing it out, and also observing their peers. These sentiments are echoed by Shelly Turkle (1995) who argues that those working in digital spaces, such as programmers, often work in a bricoleur style, working through a 'step-by-step growth and re-evaluation process', regularly spending time standing back from their work to reflect.

Many of the above traits are desirable, transferable skills for 21st Century working, and can be witnessed in the daily activities of learning on the Web. As students develop their ideas, they create content, often drawn together through a variety of search and research methods that can be disparate and seemingly unconnected. Learners draw on a wide range of content, not only from the web, but also from other media and non-media sources as they construct personal meaning. Their personal learning environments (PLEs) tend to be a bricolage of free tools, handheld devices and a personal network of friends, family and peers. Haphazard their learning might appear, but over a period of time, the various sources of their content crystalise together into accessible, meaningful and personalised learning.

In essence, today's digital learners are finding content, recycling and repurposing it, organising and sharing it. They are creating their own spaces, developing and using their own tools and apps, and generally 'making good use of the things they find'. In so doing, I believe that this current generation of learners are developing into one of the most innovative, literate and knowledgeable generations this planet has ever seen.

References
Levi-Strauss, C. (1996) The Savage Mind. London: Orion Publishing Group
Papert, S. (1993)  Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas. New York: Basic Books.
Turkle, S. (1995) Life on Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Touchstone.

Photo by David Radcliffe


Recycling learning by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Theories for the digital age: Postmodern perspectives

Postmodernist views of society can be appropriated as lenses to analyse the personalised use of digital technology. Consumers of Web based content tend to search randomly and nomadically, due to the multi-layered, multi-directional nature of hyperlinked media and this aligns neatly with some post modern theory. The writings of Deleuze and Guattari (1980), for example, feature the nomadic thought processes that characterise contemporary perceptions, and portray the chaos of modern life. They employ the botanic metaphor of rhizomatic root systems to describe multiple, chaotic non-hierarchical interpretations of knowledge. Rhizomes resist chronology and organisational structures, thereby more accurately representing the unstructured but purposeful manner in which many people now use the Web.

Significantly, because rhizomes are open ended, the importance of Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome explanation is not invested in individual components, but rather in the direction of motion the entire organism can adopt at any given time. This is reminiscent of the participatory Web, which consists not so much of the insights and offerings of individuals, but rather of what Surowiecki (2009) has termed ‘the wisdom of the crowds’ – the seemingly random folksonomic directions chosen by entire communites of users as having meaning and importance. The community decides what is important to learn, so in effect, the community becomes the curriculum (Cormier, 2008).

According to Cormier (2008) a rhizomatic interpretation of education is useful because it embraces the ever changing nature of knowledge, is open ended, and is not driven by specific curricula whilst learning is ‘constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process.’  This form of negotiated meaning more clearly represents the knowledge acquisition processes that occur within the transient discussion threads and ephemeral collaborative spaces on the World Wide Web.

The colonisation of knowledge spaces by communities is self sustaining, and in Deleuze and Guattari’s terms, we see individuals assuming the roles of nomads, maintaining a constant state of becoming and transformation. Again, this is reminiscent of the random searching, scanning and jumping around content through hyperlinking that learners participate in when they traverse the digital landscape. In effect, students participate as flâneurs, acting as individual agents, investigators and explorers of their own personal digital terrains. Their seemingly aimless behaviour belies their essentially purposeful wandering, as learners interrogate their environment in attempts to make sense of it, understand it, participate in it, and ultimately portray it (Baudelaire, 1964). 

[This is an excerpt from a forthcoming publication entitled: Personal Technologies in Education: Issues, Theories and Debates]  

References

Baudelaire, C. (1964) The Painter of Modern Life, New York, NY: Da Capo Press. (Originally published in Le Figaro, in 1863).

Cormier, D. (2008) Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum. 

Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1980) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum.

Surowiecki, J. (2009) The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few. London: Abacus. 

Photo by Steve Wheeler

Theories for the digital age: Postmodern perspectives by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Dialectical innit?

Well let's have a little New Year's fun shall we....? There is an absolutely hilarious app available called The Dialectizer which turns any web site text content into.... Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef (remember the Muppets?), Jive talk, Redneck or... yeah Cockney, innit? Below is a blog post of mine from New Year's day which has been dialectized into Cockney... It's particularly nice to 'ave anuvver pop' at the pomposity of some Post Modernist writers.... :-)

Have yer ever tried ter read a post-modernist paper by say, Lyotard, right, Derrida, or Foucault, and fought 'wot the chuffin' hell were that all about', isit?

Characteristically, post-modernist essays are verbose and full of dense vocabulary, but tend ter say right wee. I keep a copy of Foucault's 'Archaeology of Knowledge' on me shelf for one reason only - ter show me students 'ow not ter write if they want their reader ter understand. Below is an extract from a post-modernist essay. Right. Spot if yer can understand it:

"If yer examines the bloody capitalist paradigm of context, yer is faced wiv a choice: eever reject surrealism or conclude that consciousness is capable of intent. If prematerial sublimation 'olds, we 'ave ter choose between semantic theory and Derridaist readin'. In a sense, Debord uses the term ‘capitalist capitalism’ ter denote the dialectic, and therefore the failure, of postconstructive sexual identity. “Society is intrinsically dead,” says Lacan; 'owever, right, accordin' ter Hanfkopf, it ain't so much society wot is intrinsically dead, but ravver the stasis, right, and subsequent absurdity, of society. Lyotard’s analysis of semantic theory states that government is part of the bloomin' definin' characteristic of sexuality. It could be said that Sartre promotes the use of the bloomin' neocapitalist paradigm of discourse ter analyse and modify consciousness. If one examines semantic theory, one is faced wiv a choice: eever accept the neocapitalist paradigm of discourse or conclude that society, peraps surprisingly, 'as objective value, right, but only if reality is interchangeable wiv 'am sandwich; uvverwise, right, Lacan’s model of the materialist paradigm of narrative is one of “Debordist situation”, and so fundamentally used in the service of maintainin' the bloomin' status quo. The main theme of the works of Burroughs is the bloomin' bridge between class and sexuality. However, the bleedin' subject is contextualised involvin' reality as a paradox.

The bloomin' primary theme of McElwaine’s critique of Lyotardist narrative is not, right, in fact, right, discourse, right, but subdiscourse. In a sense, Foucault suggests the chuffin' use of the neocapitalist paradigm of discourse ter deconstruct 'ierarchy. The main theme of the bloody works of Burroughs is a self-supportin' totality, do wot guvnor! Therefore, right, the bloomin' subject is interpolated into a means ter include 'am sandwich as a reality.

The premise of structuralist deconstruction implies that the purpose of the observer is social comment. In a sense, the chuffin' subject is contextualised in that it includes consciousness as a totality. Well, did yer understand any of that, isit? If yer did, yor (in the words of the bloomin' post-modernist) 'dissemblin''.

Yer see, right, the bleedin' abstract above is completely meaningless and were generated by a French Tutor program called the chuffin' Post Modernism Generator. The program takes stock phrases and sentences at random and simply Emperor Mings them togeffer. Have a go yorself at generatin' yor own nonsense post-modernist essay. I guarantee yer won't be able ter tell it apart from the real fin'! Honest guv!