We opened this week’s symposium with a few notes from last week’s symposium.
Elliott mentioned that a lot of what we are taught in school is “wrong”, which means our tertiary tutors have to “unpick” and deconstruct what we have learnt and re teach us to correct way. Slightly unrelated, but this made me think of the dance classes I took for 18 years. About 6 years in, I moved into a more advanced class. My new, more experienced teacher asserted that my former teachers had taught me the “wrong” way of doing things, and had let poor technique go unnoticed. We had to strip back my technique and return to the basics to rebuild my skills- this was, undoubtedly, for the best.
As we discussed network literacy, Adrian noted that most “networked” people are self taught. I couldn’t agree more.
Adrian also noted that “every media institution must pay service to the internet”. We discussed how schools block certain websites- Adrian argued that any any “network literate” person can filter information for themselves- would a library take certain books off the shelves? We come out of the school system “disempowered”. This made me think of George Orwell’s 1984. Are our teachers the “Big Brother” of our schools, telling us what we can and can’t learn? Good writing, dancing or music doesn’t follow a strict formula. We must learn for ourselves; learn what works for us, what doesn’t, and develop our own way our working creatively.
Adrian’s next point fell perfectly in line with my reading of Ted Nelson’s work. Although school children have access to an abundance of new and innovative technologies, they are not given the FREEDOM that comes with networked media. Children will teach themselves HOW to do things, however it is up to their parents and teachers to show them the WHYS.
