The iPod University: Can the classroom survive it?

1. The iPod University: Can the classroom survive it? Derrick de Kerckhove Facoltà di sociologia Università Federico II Napoli e McLuhan Program Università di Toronto

2. The iPod University

3. A scenario • Tomorrow all classes are given at-a-distance. The students stay at home or go on the road and download their courses. They consult visually as well as auditorily their professor at given appointment times over their mobile phone. They get together on line and via SMS and play games. Kids have access to Google. From G-Earth to G-Scholar via all G-services. From their cell phone.

4. Wi-Fi and the “Always On” culture • Web media • Mobile media • Podcast Media • Social Media (complex mix of networks human and technical) • Emergent, partly self-organizing patterning • Evolving cognitives architectures

5. Three Screens Profile Number in Home Share of Screens 30% 38% 23% 9% Q.1

6. Change in Time Spent with Three Screens versus 2-3 Years Ago Net Change: +33% -22% +47% Q.3

7. The Aural Society (Marco Susani) Total Surround

8. On the move • Outdoors and indoors • Night • Daytime • On the move • Outdoors • Indoors (away from the PC) • At the PC • Between PCs • Human to Human (H2H), not using a PC • Human to Thing (H2T), using generic equipment • Thing to Thing (T2T) Source: Adapted from NRI (Japan) … Any TIME connection Any PLACE connection Any THING connection

9. Screenology • The new cognitive arena • Multiplication of mind by software • Externalizing memory and intelligence Graphics: Peter Marshall

10. Emigration of the mind from the head to the screen • The screen is where physical, mental and virtual space coincide • Recovery of control from the zapper to the computer • Resensorialization of communications • Sharing the responsibility of making sense with the screen

11. Principal Characteristics of the electronic screen Connected Immersive Penetrable Interactive Tactile

12. Page Static Analogical Frontal Actualized Esplosive Abstract Desensorialed Icons as illustrations Screen Dynamic Digital Immersive Virtualized Implosive Concrete Multimedia Icons as verbs The a versus the e-principle

13. Connected intelligence • Connective not collective • Intersubejctve (Francisco Varela) • Embodied (face-to-face interactions) • Thought is not internalized speech, but speech is externalized thought

14. CONNECTED INTELLIGENCEON LINE • More human than technological • Multiplicative • Always in favour of more connections, but also more pertinence (hypertinence) • Always in favour of more autonomy • But without losing the connection • More collaborative than competitive

15. Broad trends in new media, which may be viewed as anything from flash-in-the-pan fads to society-changing paradigm shifts, have appeared almost yearly (Wikipedia) • ca. 1996 - Broad popularity of Internet, e-mail, web content • ca. 1997 - Video games start to gain mainstream media recognition • ca. 1998 - Mediaconglomerates embrace the Internet, streaming media, electronic commerce • ca. 2000 - instant messaging, broadband, digital photography, DVD • ca. 2002 - web logs, peer-to-peerfile sharing • ca. 2004 - Social software, GMail, del.icio.us, Flickr, tagging and folksonomies

16. What’s a “folksonomy” (Sergio Maistrello) • folks + taxonomy (Thomas Vander Wal 2004) • Popular taxonomies, ethnoclassification • Classification by keywords (tag) • Without base structure • Without predetermined relationships between elements • Spontaneous and collaborative classifications • Suitable for non hierarchical contexts • Work in progress, built on the go by its users • Reflects the conceptual models of its users

17. The great “folksciclopedia”

18. From the Trivium to the Quadrivium and beyond E. Britannica (11th edition): TRIVIUM (lat. For cross-road, i.e. where three roads meet, from tres, three, and via, road), in medieval educational systems, the curriculum which included grammar, rhetoric and logic. The trivium and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy) together made up what is known as the seven liberal arts

19. Humanities (Webster 1966) Pl: The branches of learning regarded as having literature, history, mathematics and philosophy

20. E.B. 1966 A group of educational disciplines distinguished in content and method from the physical and biological sciences and, if less decisively, from the social sciences. The group includes language and literature in each of their principal examples (ancient and modern), the fine arts other than literature, philosophy, at least in its more traditional divisions, and to a less clearly defined extent, history, where the boundary between the social sciences and the humanities is most debatable. These are the core of the humanities and are sometimes organized as a school or division in the modern university

21. Wikipedia

22. Wikiversity

23. Social bookmarking

24. Tagging • Dare un link specifico fra un oggetto digitale, qualunque esso sia, e un tag disponibile per tutti gli utenti o per gruppi ristretti • Tipo: <a href=“http://www.technorati.com/tag/[parola chiave]” rel=“tag”>parola chiave</a>) • Inserire dentro un navigatore aperto • Tipo: www.del.icio.us.org

25. del.icio.us: inserting a link

26. del.icio.us: Main Page

27. del.icio.us: Personal Links

28. Clustering information

29. A general shift from hierarchical to associative models of cognition Clay Shirky

30. Hierarchy with links Clay Shirky

31. With multilinks Clay Shirky

32. Loss of categories with tags Clay Shirky

33. Loss of boundaries in disciplines

34. Emigration of memory from libraries to networks

35. In an environment of ambient information, the job of the educator is to manage ignorance, not knowledge

36. Changing profile of students • User has changed and started being active and participative in a context of great technology maturity (and transparency). • User is not only a reader/user but also writer/inventor. • The “wreader” • User identifies himself in a community (not corresponding to the concept of Web community) and shares information and time into Social Networks, often “de-sctructured” and casual, but nonetheless efficient. • Users become “authors” • The main instrument of this “revolution” is the Weblog, born in 2000 and “boomed” in 2004.

37. A great change of mind Private Individual Internalized Narrative Causality Theory Linear Silent Reflexive Centered Connected Group Externalized Navigation Sampling Practical Hypertextualized Semi-oral Interactive Diffused

38. Google versus libraries • The “Net Gen” considers the open space of the Web as their privileged information universe” • “They prefer the open global search of Google to the richer but more labour intensive one of the library” • “Student find library resources harder to use and opt to find things via Google by themselves instead of asking for help”

39. Text, context and hypertext • Role of text: internalizing and silencing speech • Power of context in oral societies • Vectorial biases of text and context • Ambiguous status of hypertext: • silent but shared as speech • spontaneous but archived • private but made public

40. The next medium, whatever it is- it may be the extension of conciousness- will include television as it's content, not as it's environment, and will transform television into an art form. A computer as a research and communication instrument could enhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization, retrieve the individuals encyclopedic function and flip into a private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind. (Marshall McLuhan) Hypertext Tim-Berners Lee’s first elaboration for the WWW

41. INTERACTIVE “WREADING”

42. The typical “wreader” : “Net Gen” • Used to multimedia environment thanks to videogames and laptops • Prefers to find out things by trying them rather than refer to manuals • Used to work in groups • Multitasking • Sampling

43. Rethinking Education ? • From the page to the screen (new cognitive strategies) • Protection of reading • Understanding media • Ryerson Report on teamship and collaboration

44. Ryerson’s questionnaire • 75 criteria • Numero 1: teamwork (4.69/5) • Two:how to present oneself (3.87) • Three: how to make a working plan (3.54) • Ten: network experience

45. Progression in the complexity of on-line cognitive architectures E-mail, Chat, Forum MUD, MOO, Active Worlds Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn Slashdot, Blog, Wikipedia Tagging, del.icio.us, furl

46. For a new pedagogical model • Broadcast to networked • Memory to intelligence • “Contact hours” • On line competencies • Student-centered education

47. SMART LABSocial Media Application Research and Tagging LaboratoryContent & application for digital environment users