Will Richardson

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So What About Education? (I-Law Con't)

May 14, 2004 By Will Richardson

I’m glad Frank Field types fast as he “transcribed” this exchange:

Will Richardson, high school IT: This is an education issue for me. How to teach this to kids? What sort of strategic teaching is needed to get these ideas across. The freedom/information literacy/information creativity thing – how to sort it, filter it and teach it

Larry Lessig: This is about bringing together the producer and the consumer. Learning how, in the context of a film, is show how presentation changes the meaning of the facts presented. Teaching kids how to understand the content of media in new ways

“By participating, they get to see what’s “inside” of creativity; learning how this stuff really works. It’s not truth, it’s what is presented. That teaches something crucially important for participating in modern society; how to tell the truth; how to acculturate what the truth is.
”
—Larry Lessig

By participating, they get to see what’s “inside” of creativity; learning how this stuff really works. It’s not truth, it’s what is presented. That teaches something crucially important for participating in modern society; how to tell the truth; how to acculturate what the truth is.

Participation in the construction of the truth.

Right now, most of what kids do in blogs and other things, people will say it’s illegal – and that’s a problem

Terry Fisher: I agree, but I have another point.

The primary way that educational materials are distributed to kids is in the form of hardbound books made by major publishers; established by school boards/districts. There are disadvantages to this mechanism – expensive, and a disincentive to update; got to buy the expensive update – finally, it’s poor for disabled students

There exists a narrow provision that allows for conversion into media suitable for students with handicaps (braille, read aloud, etc). And there are companies that capitalize on this – they buy the textbook, and convert –usually with a digital intermediate form

SO there’s an initiative afoot to facilitate the more rapid distribution by standardizing and liberalizing the digitizing of the material – via a standard XML markup system.

OK – sounds good; but if you’re doing that, why doesn’t everyone get the advantages of digital formats? In digital form, the upgrades are now available; other advantages.

Income problem for hardware, but can be overcome. Will the publishers go along?

They see some advantages, but some threats. Unencrypted content, p2p corrosion. Not so bad; but a bigger one is this. Once the idea that books should be digital, the idea that a SINGLE book is the way to learn a subject weakens – a collection of several pieces would be a better way to assemble the necessary pieces. Publishers fear this

Why? Because of the collapse of the idea that a single source is the way to teach – educationally liberating, but upsets the industry.

Will: WikiText is a site that let’s teachers do this kind of thing (Note: I meant to say WikiBooks.)

Yochai Benckler: Turning this into a teaching tool, the teachers will learn this technology; and possibly this way of working

Celebrating free software is no more a criticism of writing software, than blogging is a criticism of professions journalism

Filed Under: General, Weblog Theory

Comments

  1. Terry Elliott says

    May 15, 2004 at 5:55 pm

    Yochai Benckler: Turning this into a teaching tool, the teachers will learn this technology; and possibly this way of working

    When will teachers be able to do this? Now? No, not for most. If not now, when? Helluva tough question because it gets at the institutional inertia that is essential for stability. It’s like people who wonder why the obese don’t just lose weight. All they have to do is change. That’s right, they have to change. Begging the question, “How do they change?” and of course this prompts the next one, “Why should they?” The tools exist now for a revolution in education, one where we don’t just push out the metaphorical classroom walls into the real world, but one where we tear down the walls we have built ourselves and invite the world in. I wish Terry F. hadn’t interrupted because I think Lessig saw what the problem was: students are discouraged from participating in the construction of the truth or if you prefer the re-construction of truth.

  2. Will R. says

    May 16, 2004 at 7:36 am

    I’m not sure Lessig thinks kids are discouraged to construct the truth. It’s more like the construction of the truth is perhaps now more accessible than ever before but teachers don’t know how to facilitate it. They don’t know the tools. You’re right Terry, the revolution is at hand. And after this weekend, I see myself more as a revolutionary. More on this later…

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