ia play

This month’s FUMSI included Derek’s Law introduction to Digital Natives but not everyone is taking the concept of ‘digital natives’ at face value. Academic Sue Bennett of the University of Wollongong, Australia is trying to take a scientific approach:

“The idea that a new generation of students is entering the education system has excited recent attention among educators and education commentators. Termed ‘digital natives’ or the ‘Net generation’, these young people are said to have been immersed in technology all their lives, imbuing them with sophisticated technical skills and learning preferences for which traditional education is unprepared. Grand claims are being made about the nature of this generational change and about the urgent necessity for educational reform in response. A sense of impending crisis pervades this debate. However, the actual situation is far from clear. In this paper, the authors draw on the fields of education and sociology to analyse the digital natives debate. The paper presents and questions the main claims made about digital natives and analyses the nature of the debate itself. We argue that rather than being empirically and theoretically informed, the debate can be likened to an academic form of a ‘moral panic’. We propose that a more measured and disinterested approach is now required to investigate ‘digital natives’ and their implications for education.”

The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence

Further reading :

• Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants by Marc Prensky
• Washington Times article covering the Library of Congress lecture series
• Digital Natives research project from Harvard Law School and University of St. Gallen in Switzerland
• Pew Internet’s Teens & Social Media

I read about the Secret Garden Outdoor Nursery in an article in the Sunday Herald. There’s coverage in the Guardian too.

When the Secret Garden nursery opens next autumn, the children will have none of the games and equipment seen in a normal suburban nursery: plastic see-saws, cushioned vinyl floors and sterilised building blocks. Their curriculum will be devoted to nature walks, rearing chickens, climbing trees, “mud play” and vegetable gardening. Their playground will be the forest, and their shelter a wattle and daub “cob” building with outdoor toilets.

Pileswasp would obviously love it, as will nephew Woody if nomen et omen is true (not the Woody in the article, that’s just coincidence).

Reading the Science of Lego Serious Play brought back many memories of school.

“constructivist learning happens especially well when people are engaged in constructing a product, something external to themselves”

I remember lots of making stuff: making clay birds & fruit pictures in art lessons; designing stamps and fruit boxes in product design; a bag in home economics; and a mirror, a chess box and a candlestick in CDT.

But it wasn’t just in the obvious classes. I also remember making a seed packet for rice in geography, making paper chains in an economics class, making models of roman bath houses in history. I’ve still got all that stuff - except the paper chains.

The odd thing is I was a science and maths geek. I don’t really remember those classes. I haven’t kept any things from them.

With all this fussing about professional identity at work, starting my archaeology course, and reading this…

“Prolific artists don’t question their artistic identities. They own the title of artist, writer, musician, etc. This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s important. Prolific people aren’t shy about what they do, or about their love of art. When they have corporate jobs they tend to view themselves as writers with desk jobs rather than a corporate employees who also write. “

…I realised I couldn’t pin down that sort of identity.

Somehow this morphed into writing down a list of everything I have formally studied over the years. As one angle on trying to see if there is a picture:

GCSEs
physics, chemistry, biology, maths, english lit + lang, french, geography, graphic product design.

A-Levels
physics, maths, english (and more maths)

BA Communications with Philosophy

(by year and then in descending grade order)

• reason and argument
• history of science B
• technology and society
• history of science A
• intro to practical philosophy
• intro to theoretical philosophy
• the mind
• communications in the modern world
• philosophy of science
• audio-visual communications

(sucked at my major, ok in my minor, excelled in my electives - doesn’t bode well for judgement)

• political communications
• modern political philosophy
• social communications
• communications arts
• meaning and truth
• theories of meaning
• modern moral philosophy
• communications sciences and technologies

• technology and society
• film theory and aesthetics
• media ethics
• advanced topics in political philosophy
• communications theory
• matters of life and death 1
• matters of life and death 2
• philosophy of science 3

MSc Information Science

• dissertatation - organisation of newspaper websites
• fundamentals of information science
• principles of knowledge organisation
• media information
• information retrieval systems and applications
• data representation and management
• research and communication skills
• information resources and users
• advanced online retrieval
• information law and policy
• information management and records

Open University

• fossils and the history of life
• life in the oceans
• studying mammals
• starting with psychology
• archaeology

Any themes? Well I’m good at logic, maths & organising stuff. I like science, but particularly the history and sociology of it. I find politics interesting enough to get good grades.

There are always some random courses in there: graphic product design, english, film theory. And film theory was one of my best grades ever.

Perhaps I’m just a serial student.