Posts Tagged wesch

Radical experiment in teaching – World Simulation, Twitter, and media literacy

April 28, 2008 at 7:06 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Last week Dr. Wesch and his class ran the 5th(?) successful World Simulation for Intro to Cultural Anthropology here at K-State. I was there helping get things set up and video taping the action. Every year the World Sim always proves to be an awesome experience. Having taught for Dr. Wesch twice and guided more than 60 students in creating their own culture to let loose at the simulation, I can attest for the simulation’s effectiveness. Afterwards, students always give it rave reviews. It’s valuable to be able to roughly simulate world history and get the feeling that you are a part of something rather than a casual observer (having taken the class back in 2004 and participated in the simulation, I can attest to that as well).

To get a better idea of what happens during the simulation, this year Dr. Wesch introduced Twitter and Jott to the class which they used to post updates on the status of their cultures as the simulation unfolded. I was amazed at how quickly the students adopted it. Anyone who has tried to explain any type of social media to someone who isn’t familiar with them knows how difficult it can be (if anyone has tips on how to do this effectively, please let me know!). I’m always surprised by the lack of (new) media literacy among my peers here at K-State. So to see a class of 300 students or so really take in a new technology and use it so effectively was great! Granted not all 300 of them were tweeting but Twitter was integrated into the simulation in such a way as to promote media literacy (IMO) through various levels of interaction; some were tweeting, some were reading, others were being told what was being twittered, and the stream was displayed on a huge projection screen in the front of the room thus you couldn’t miss it even if you wanted to.

Integrating social media into the simulation seems like a move in the next direction of taking it completely mobile and outside the walls of the classroom. I can’t wait to visit in the next few years and see students running around campus using their mobile phones to communicate that their culture has just been colonized or that they are forging a rebellion against their colonizer.

Dr. Wesch just released a quick recap of the simulation roughly synced with the Twitter stream, you can check it out here, or you can watch it below. Also, I think he’s still editing the footage, but the final video which will be shown in class should be up sometime soon, so keep an eye out.

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Crisis of significance and the future of education

April 8, 2008 at 4:58 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , ,

My adviser, Michael Wesch, just published an insightful article about the state of education. I won’t go into terrible detail about it here. I’ll let you all read it for yourselves – it’s definitely worth it. He makes a poignant critique about the lack of vision and the overwhelming myopia that characterizes education today. Of course, I agree with him.

He introduced the provocative book Teaching as a Subversive Activity to me a couple of years ago and from there I’ve jumped head first into the world of media ecology. It couples very nicely with anthropology. Not to shamelessly inflate Wesch (he is deserving of it though), but the environment he creates in his classes is so effective in helping educe the potential in his students that I measure every class I take against his.

It amazes me when I enter a classroom environment that gives no indication of having changed in the past, hmm, decade? The addition of PowerPoint is hardly an exception when the professor reads from the slides; it’s just a visual representation of the notes she/he would use anyways. It in no way adds positively to the learning environment other than reducing spelling errors in the students’ notes. The emphasis here is heavily on content rather than form. Multimedia learning environments, in my experience and when used appropriately and effectively, are much better.

However, there is a continuum. Just using videos to use them doesn’t fly. Teachers should ask themselves “Can I express what I want to express better with video than by just saying it?” Each medium used in the classroom is better at conveying certain messages than others. For example, visual media are better at conveying emotions. They are more expressive. Text media are better at conveying information, facts, the raw material most teachers focus the most on. They are more informative (but this doesn’t mean they are the most important). This isn’t to mention the medium of the spoken word between not only the students and teacher but between the students themselves. I am a strong advocate of Wesch’s definition of teachers as co-learners. Teachers should be moderators, leaders, students; not lecturers. I think when teachers see themselves this way and begin practicing this behavior we will see a gradual flattening of the master/slave relationship that is implicit in many learning environments.

There is some great conversation going on about this topic over at mediatedcultures.net. Come share your thoughts!

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