8: 21st Century Media (Technology) Education

Drawing on this (rather lengthy) piece of Jenkins' and the research, writing and reflections in this course on educational media forms, past and present, what do YOU think the education of a '21st century digital learner' should look like, aim for, and involve, and what specific media do you think would function well to advance those goals. Make sure to provide one or two substantive examples (what medium, to teach or learn what, and why that would be educationally valuable?). Length: 600 words max HINT: look back at paradigm chart activity, plus the history of media activity and the above readings. The is a REQUIRED entry for your digital portfolio.

Of all the things that Jenkin’s lengthy piece discusses, it was his discussion of appropriation that struck me as being by far, the most essential component of a ‘21^st century digital learner’. Jenkins describes appropriation as “a process by which students learn by taking culture apart and putting it back together” (32). In my experience as both a student and a teaching assistant, I feel that there is such a fear of plagiarism (or the fear of giving students the potential to be tempted into plagiarizing) that remixing is out of the question.

I feel that learning by taking things apart and then putting them back together is something that has a long history in education, but perhaps has been lost (or at least fallen out of favour) more recently. Instead of starting with a finished product and working backwards, we build upon things incrementally. Being married to a physicist and studying education, I have been asked at far too many parties what my feelings are about what physics education should look like (this sounds like a tangent but I am going somewhere with this, I promise). It seems like physics education is having a bit of a crisis, as it is difficult to get students excited about a subject that is so esoteric and (omg) math-heavy. Traditionally, the physics model of education has relied on teaching students things in baby steps, one piece of information at a time, building on things year after year until finally you get to the “cool stuff” in the 4^th year of your undergrad. However, up until this point you have been focusing on equations and seemingly pointless experiments to “prove” something that has already been proven a million times over. This is boring to students and boring to instructors, and despite promises of neat things coming later, undergraduate students are hard to keep enrolled in the physics major [1][2]

A new generation of physics educators has decided to turn the incremental model on its head: instead of building things up in baby steps, they start with the big concepts and work backwards. A more hands-on approach is taken in physics labs, where students are given a bit more flexibility. Instead of being required to produce x result, they are given dials to turn and buttons to press in order to “play” and see what actions cause what reactions. The rationale is that by allowing students to experiment at an earlier stage in their education, it will hopefully inspire them to continue on with physics. This new approach seems to be gaining a foothold in physics classrooms across the country... But why stop at just physics?

While my above example was about physics and Jenkins was talking about playing with culture, I don't really see them being all that different things. Sure, the actual materials are different, but who is to say that students can't learn about music by taking apart and putting songs back together? Art classes have used the "copy the masters" technique to great success, I mean didn't Bob Ross build his empire around the "copy me step by step" approach to painting?Sampling has a long history in contemporary music [3], and long before sampling technology there were variations on other people's melodies.

To me, sampling, modifying, deconstructing and re-constructing your own variation of a previously existing work should be a part of this 21st century digital learners education (and computer programming classes, and art classes, and creative writing classes...). By having assemblage and remix integrated right into the curriculum it will not only provide students with tools for self expression, it will also open up the room to discuss issues such as the nature of copyright and 'intellectual property'. Whether we agree to it or not, students of today will grow up to be members of tomorrow's knowledge economy. By having assemblage as part of the 'legitimized' curriculum, perhaps these students will go on to change the archaic intellectual property laws that (in my opinion) are holding back programmers, artists, musicians, and creativity in general.

So basically, I'm hoping that remix culture wins out, this generation of students goes on to change intellectual property laws, and a number 3 of this never needs to get made:

1. What to do with a degree in physics?

2. "Does it really matter that the number of students studying physics is falling?"

3. For example, a favourite band of mine from the 1990s was Pop Will Eat Itself, which was short for "popular culture will eat itself". Their entire musical production was based around samples and loops. Despite the fact that they have long since broken up, fans still maintain databases and lists to uncover where all there samples came from, such as this one.