20.451 technological progress & de-skilling practice

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 451.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
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         Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 08:25:58 +0000
         From: lachance_at_chass.utoronto.ca
         Subject: getting and going was [Re: 20.440 technological
progress & de-skilling practice]

Willard and Lynda,

I'm intrigued by a turn in the de-skilling thread. Lynda wrote:

> Investigating 2nd Life recently, and thinking about the rush to figure
> out how to teach university courses over cell phones, I wondered if we
> aren't merely "moving where the students are" and then figuring out
> how to set up shop in the new venues simply because it is only in
> these new venues that we can re-capture their attention.

Has attention been lost? There is likely a rich store of anecdotal
evidence to suggest otherwise. There is sustained attention and there is
fleeting fascination.

Is the task at hand one of joining the buzz or one of cultivating niches?
There is a worthy metaphorics of "bringing the students to ..." that does
not involve competing to capture market share of venues.

Popularity and longivity are not synonymous [Lynda did not suggest this,
if anything her musings bring the distinctions to the fore].

Institutions of higher learning are not just about teaching: they are also
about broadcasting. How many institutions currently use webcasting to
retrieve old and venerable practices such as public defences of
dissertations? It may well serve the institutions to contemplate not
outreach into novel venues but to re-invest in access to the theatre of
scholarship. Journalists embedded with academics, anyone?
Received on Thu Feb 15 2007 - 07:04:40 EST