(4) Michael Wesch and the Future of Education: Form(at) or Content?

Thanks to the Digital Literacy Leadership Seminar (Module 2 - http://moodle.abel.yorku.ca/login/index.php), created by York University and York Region District School Board, I had the opportunity to listen to Michael Wesch and the Future of Education, a podcast from The University of Manitoba. Do yourself a HUGE favour and listen to it: http://umanitoba.ca/ist/production/streaming/podcast_wesch.html. Michael Wesch is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University.

And then spread the word.

What I found revealing, or interesting, is that Wesch mentions the word information all the way throughout his talk but, for whatever reason, doesn't mention the word knowledge.

I came to understand the distinction between the two (information as opposed to knowledge), in the context of the Internet information explosion, after attending The Couchiching Conference - The Power of Knowledge: The New Global Currency, August 7-10, 2008: http://www.couch.ca/history/index.html. Take a look; spread the word.

The opening keynote address, The Uncertain Path from Noise to Wisdom was given by Canadian musician Bill Buxton, University of Toronto Professor, Microsoft CEO (www.billbuxton.com) - There, among other gems, you'll find: The blackboard fundamentally changed the social and physical organization of classroom education, by better supporting teaching and demonstrating to the group, rather than the individual, and by enabling timely support material to be displayed in the visible periphery, while the students worked on their personal slates. No, Buxton doesn't stop at the blackboard...), and author of Sketching Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design.

In his opening address at the Conference, August 7, Buxton stated, "If we accomplish nothing else here tonight, when you hear the words Information Revolution, you'll be able to say, 'Hogwash'."

Yes, I took notes. Had to dig them up, though.

Buxton went on to say that what we're experiencing right now with the Internet is not the same as the changes started by the Gutenberg Press, or the Copernicus Encyclopedia, or the Industrial Revolution. "Who said technology is informing us better than before?"

And: "If you're going to be good at one technology, don't pick hardware or software, but wetware, as in the human brain, which is 92% water." How revolutionary and refreshing is that?

Even before hearing Buxton speak, I strongly felt that we've always had too much information to consume and digest, with or without the Internet, but the issues get more complicated when we don't make the distinction between data or information gathering, as contrasted with our pursuit of knowledge and wisdom (knowledge without wisdom = evil - they say that even in Russian).

The Internet, a great tool, provides us with speedy, easy access to information, any kind of information, created by anyone at all. However, into the debate we must be aware of questions raised by authors such as, among others, Bill Buxton and Andrew Keen, English critic and writer of The Cult of the Amateur: How The Internet Is Killing Our Culture (Doubleday, 2007 - a great read, and well-reviewed by The New York Times).

Keen also spoke at the 2008 Couchiching Conference, as well as at the Ontario Library Association Superconference last year. I heard him on both occasions, read his book, and I think he has a few good points we should keep in our wetware, although he sometimes comes across as being a bit of a whiner:

"What’s wrong with Web 2.0? Sure, it’s great at creating space for self-expression, Keen said, one of his few points of clear agreement with Web 2.0 supporters. There’s no question, he said, that 'when you go to YouTube, or to MySpace, there’s an awful lot of content.'"

Despite his distrust of the Internet, Keen does have a blog, surprisingly enough: http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/ (Andrew Keen: On Media, Culture and Politics: the future with a twist - take a look).

In his view, though, "'most of that content is worthless' because it is published without going through traditional gatekeepers: the record labels, newspaper editors, magazine and book publishers, scholars, and other cultural producers who are paid to sort good from bad and truth from lies." Source:
http://www.ridhwansyah.com/how-the-internet-is-killing-our-culture.php

When I spoke to Mr. Keen very briefly, as he was autographing my book at The Couchiching Conference, he admitted that he might have exaggerated a little. Fine. Many authors do in order to make their points.

One of the reasons I think the Internet has gained so much popularity, besides its ease-of-access and "content craziness," is because we've lost faith and confidence in these "traditional gatekeepers", as Keen calls them. Whether it's politics, religion, education, advertising, the medical or psychiatric professions, etc., the public knows it has been lied to and manipulated so many times in the past that we now have a problem believing anything we hear from "the authorities" in this age of scepticism. (See my blog Post No. 10 for another explanation provided by the authors of Wikinomics)

Even our school textbooks cannot be trusted (because they can't be updated fast enough) if you read Gavin Menzies' book, 1434: How China Changed the World (Harper Collins, 2008).

You've got to take a look at Menzies' site: http://www.gavinmenzies.net/index.asp.
He's gathered a lot of convincing evidence, leading to knowledge and perhaps wisdom, that the Chinese were actually in North America (no, I didn't say, "discovered" North America), thanks to their huge fleets of ships carrying volumes of encyclopedias, well before the Europeans, and were responsible for the Italian Renaissance. I know it sounds pretty crazy, but Menzies' evidence sure made me challenge everything I was taught about the early Portuguese, Spanish and Italian explorers. I read the book over the summer - I highly recommend it. This knowledge has yet to trickle down to our school system and teaching, and the public in general.

We, as educators, cannot "un-ring the bell" - in other words, get rid of the Internet as a source of information. That's clear. But many people are concerned that an exclusive dependence on this way of "learning"(?) might be detrimental to our critical thinking skills. Maggie Jackson writes about this in her book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (Prometheus, 2008), as do Alison Armstrong and Charles Casement, Canadian co-authors of The Child and the Machine: Why Computers May Put Our Children's Education at Risk (Key Porter Books, 1999).

Wow! I've really digressed from Wesch's Future of Education seminar. Alright, sorry.

I agree with Wesch. A person must be engaged in his/her learning, but I would also add, must be committed to his/her pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. However, if you put a computer in front of someone who's sitting in a lecture hall, myself included, where the main focus is supposed to be an instructor or a professor, it's not surprising that the person's attention will be drawn to the computer, no matter who the person is at the front of the amphitheatre. There's really no competition. It's a "no wetwarer."

I think there also must be a distinction between content and form. When our attention is so overwhelmed by form, to the detriment or exclusion of content, then there's a problem (people were seduced by Hitler's charisma in the 1930s, and really didn't listen closely to the actual message, the content of his speeches), we have to rethink what we are doing, what we want to learn and what we're pursuing in our quest for knowledge, not just raw information. Wesch fortunately does address some of this in his presentation. Glad I watched it.

To find out more about Wesch, use these URLs:
http://umanitoba.ca/ist/production/streaming/podcast_wesch.html
http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/anthro/wesch.htm

Also, check out the 2009 Couchiching Conference, just north of Orillia. This year's topic is The Global Politics of Food: http://www.couch.ca/conference/ It's well worth attending. See you there.






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