Nice post from Dominic about this week. btw I agree with Elliot that education is a transaction, and with how he characterised it. My point was the terms of that transaction. What you are ‘buying’ is an experience (for instance how to think the future as Elliot described), which is quite a different ‘product’ than what I was describing. And yes, as many in education (and industry and media) recognise, education follows an industrial model all they way up and down – hierarchy of authority, ‘subjects’ in time slots, scheduled regular hours, and so on. It was a good model for the rise of mass literacy, it is less clear that it still is, and certainly the most interesting, and enriching, educational models don’t follow this.

Memphis returns to the boat story to think about where we are. That’s useful. It’s been in an eddie this week. Sometimes things get paused, sometimes they race along. Again, how you experience this, or have experienced this first three weeks – that IS the content of the subject. The disorientation, excitement, anxiety. The same experience that heritage, big, industrial media is having right now about itself and its future. Same you should have about the sort of world you will enter and what you want to make it into.

Jackie didn’t’ get much but thinks it was her, Edward too. Unlikely. I hit pause and the boat sat in an eddie just to answer one question, that was specifically intended for, at most, 10% of you. But that 10% were still there, and if you wonder that question, then you will stop coming and then there is no possibility to poke the possum as I tried to. I spent a lot for a few, that’s the way it is sometimes. Holly’s another ready to move on. Absolutely. Time to stop flogging a dead horse. Denham agrees. Imogen is ready for what’s next.

Torika speculates that isn’t a lecture to hear the lecture and the tute to talk about it? Once, yes. But just as you’re identifying gaps all by yourself, why think that having a single authoritative source is a good model of teaching? It is a good way to distribute information. It is a very hard way to distribute knowledge (and yes we’ve all seen inspirational TedTalks, but, you know, you can’t do that every week, those people have 1 thing, 1 idea, that they inspire about, in a few minutes, not 12 x 50 minutes). And this is the knowledge business now. Information does not equal teaching or learning. Turning information into knowledge is. You do that, not your lecturer or tutor. If information is now near to hand (the internet and digitised books, articles, commentators, etc) then why waste 50 minutes doing what a google link can do? So then the problem becomes what can we do in that 50 minutes that offers the possibility of making a difference to your understanding? Your understanding. Understanding is not the same as hearing someone explain something for 50 minutes.

Tamrin, on the other hand, is perceptive as they’ve been on the other side, too.