The digitisation of knowledge produces hybrids

THE DIGITISATION OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCES HYBRIDSCARLO PERROTTAANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITYCARLO.PERROTTA@ANGLIA.AC.UK

Networked Learning Conference – 7/8/9 April, Edinburgh

(ps. obscure internet meme reference)

WATCHING MOOCS IS, FOR MANY PEOPLE, LIKE WATCHING TV

“Seriously, you’d better tune in fast if you don’t want to be ostracised by white people… it’s pretty much all they ever talk about” (Honest Trailers, YouTube)

YOU MEAN YOU NEVER WATCHED…?

“interactive” digital TV and changing viewing patterns “Choice” rather than passive consumptionGRAZING: moving between TV shows TV watching as HOBBY that enlarges the viewers’ identities

Barkhuus and Brown 2009

CONSUMPTION, POPULAR CULTURE & IDENTITY

CONSUMPTION AND SUBJECTIVITY

Consumption is enlisted to articulate…

“a response to the social deficits of contemporary society itself, and in a personal desire to transcend those deficits through an illusory production of a more meaningful and better socialized sense of self (Giddens 1991, pp. 3570, Bauman 2000, pp. 5391)” Binkley, 2008: 618.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MOOCS?

‘given the amount of time that people spend on activities such as watching television, 'wasting' time on education, even by non-completing students, seems inoffensive’ (Koller at al., 2013, para.4).

AND NOW… LET’S TALK ABOUT ANT

THE DVR TEACHER

A DISCLAIMER

I am talking about the “X-MOOC” phenomenon during 2011-2013 when “performative acts” (Austin) were trying to assert a particular version of what MOOCs are – with intended and unintended consequences.

THREE “HYPOTHESES”The assimilation of academic instruction into the ontological space of digital TV watching.

The DVR teacher as a hybrid artefact serving a neoliberal project of commoditised, pick-and-mix self-improvement.

Non-committal engagement with “open education” as a form of “liquid” (Bauman) identity work: frantic eclecticism, ambivalence and flip-flopping as existential strategies. “nothing is truly, or can remain for long, indifferent to anything else – untouched and untouching” (Bauman, 2007)

Barkhuus, L., & Brown, B. (2009). Unpacking the television: User practices around a changing technology. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 16(3), 15 (Sep 2009), 22 pages.

Bauman, Z. (2013). Liquid times: Living in an age of uncertainty. London: Polity.

Binkley, S. (2008) Liquid Consumption, Cultural Studies, 22(5), 599-623.

Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

THANK YOU!