[iDC] Discussion: The Edupunks' Guide

Mon Aug 8 16:53:48 UTC 2011

It might be useful to discuss what the academy delivers today rather
than the ideas behind it. My feeling is that a lot of what Anya speaks
about resonates with the original principles and values of the
university - and a culture of learning.

The university is a crucially important institution in our modern
history, but it has many challenges and resists change. I'd rather see
this change coming form self-learners and edupunks, than from
corporations trying to maximize revenue within the current structures.

P

On 8 August 2011 03:08, Simon Biggs <simon at littlepig.org.uk> wrote:
> Hi Anya
> Given that teaching is only a proportion of what education is about, and
> undergraduate teaching a small proportion of that, I wonder how you see the
> larger socio-economics of education working?
> The main work of higher education institutions is research, the making of
> knowledge. Most of the work involved in this is undertaken by academics and
> research students (who will be the next generation of academics). Whilst
> there are questions to be answered, as to how efficient universities are at
> doing this work, this is and will remain expensive work. In the US this work
> is paid for by a mixture of corporate and state funding. In Europe the
> investment overwhelmingly by the State.
> Research is done for is own sake but also contributes to the cultural,
> economic and industrial development of a society. It also provides the
> context for the teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate students. If you
> are an undergraduate at an institution that is not research focused you may
> not be aware of how central research is to higher education but even in
> teaching oriented institutions there is usually some research going on.
> Generally, although not always, the more research going on in a department
> the better the department. There are many factors involved in why this is
> so, a major one being the money that research brings in, paying for
> resources and the academics who will, when not doing research, do some
> teaching.
> For research focused institutions it is not unthinkable that teaching be
> removed from their activities. Undergraduate teaching, at least in the UK,
> is generally unprofitable, if not loss-making. Not having to spend resources
> on teaching could save some institutions a lot of money and allow them to
> get on with their main work, research. If self-education was to become a
> successful movement, that resulted in most students deciding to not attend
> university, many institutions would not find this a problem and some would
> financially benefit.
> However, to remove teaching from higher education is to miss the point of
> what higher education is about. The university is about creating a culture
> where the making and sharing of knowledge is the focus. Students benefit
> from studying in an environment where the people who develop and implement
> the infrastructure around them are the experts in their field - not just
> knowledgeable of the subject but determining the extent of that subject.
> Even when students have little direct contact with these people they are
> nevertheless benefiting from being in the same environment. Similarly,
> students bring new ideas and priorities into the institution, constantly
> renewing the environment, sometimes in very unexpected ways. Some of them
> will progress to be the next generation of academics.
> If one considers learning to be the only function of education then your key
> question could be reasonable and the sort of answers you propose might be
> viable. However, as education is about so much more I wonder how you propose
> to assure the future health of a sector of our culture that many would
> accept is essential to the overall health of our society. Your vision of
> education, focused on what's in it for the student and how what they learn
> can fulfil their needs, could, in this context, be considered dangerously
> instrumentalist, reducing education to simple training and skills
> acquisition.
> best
> Simon
>
> On 8 Aug 2011, at 00:00, Anya Kamenetz wrote:
>
> Hi Marco,
> Thanks for your response.
> My basic feeling is that the ideas contained in the word "edupunk" are too
> important to remain in the subculture indefinitely. I wrote the guide for a
> bright person of little means, at 17 or 25 or 35 years old, to help them
> answer the question, "What can I do RIGHT NOW to learn what I need to know,
> to accomplish the goals I set for myself, to take charge of my own destiny
> both educationally and personally?"
> For a large proportion of people right now--as for a large proportion, if
> not the entirety, of the people on this list--that journey will include
> earning a credential from a recognized institution. In the future, there
> will be more alternatives, which is why I include a tutorial and sections on
> "demonstrating value to a network" of practitioners, aka joining a community
> of practice, which I represent as being as important as any diploma.
> As for the "wider field of power relations." I'm not naive about this. Let
> me break it down from experience. People in the for-profit higher ed world
> have been cordial, but back off when I state in no uncertain terms that I
> think their models are rife with fraud, corruption, and exploitation; The
> Edupunks' Guide explains that for-profit and online education are not
> synonymous, which many students don't understand, and warns students off the
> former.
> Independent innovators in the open education world I largely count as allies
> and I believe the feeling is mutual.
> The folks representing and supporting public higher education in this
> country, like the American Association of State Colleges and Universities,
> and some people in the Department of Ed, and not a few community college
> leaders across the country, have been quite friendly to what I'm saying.
> They want to figure out ways to use technology to give students more
> options, better learning experiences, and of course to cut down on runaway
> costs. Government cuts to higher education are the reality of the world we
> live in, and DIY approaches can help maximize the resources that remain. The
> people on this list have been lamenting the state of the humanities; I
> believe that the DIY approach can also help heal the rift that has opened
> between mainstream society and the academy because it connects students'
> experience in the classroom more closely to the broader world.
> So who's really uncomfortable with what I'm saying and how I'm saying it? A
> small subset of academics. People whose paychecks are currently signed by
> the academy. People for whom the transformation of education is a matter of
> academic interest in the narrow sense--you may be interested in informal,
> uncodable and untranslatable forms of self-learning, Marco, but there is no
> indication on RateMyProfessor.com that you refuse to give grades or
> credits.
> http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=865558
> So let me ask all of you who play by the academic rules whilst researching
> and theorizing the transformation of the academy--is that really punk rock?
> a
>
> On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Marco Deseriis <deseriim at newschool.edu>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> When I read the title of the book, I immediately thought this was yet
>> another example of how (formerly radical) subcultures are put to work to
>> valorize and bring the practices of everyday life under capital.
>>
>> It would be interesting to know whether and how the author of this book
>> addresses this potential contradiction. Personally, I see punk and other
>> oppositional subcultures as expressing and disclosing forms of life and
>> self-learning that are powerful precisely because they are informal,
>> uncodified and untranslatable into student credits.
>>
>> In this case, there is also the additional risk that the DIY attitude may
>> be mobilized as a form of endorsement "from below" of the rising online
>> education industry sponsored by Republican governors such as Tim Pawlenty
>> and Rick Perry. Or even worst to justify government cuts to spending in
>> lower and higher education. After all, if we no longer need schools to learn
>> why should we use taxpayers money for education? I am sure Anya has all the
>> best intentions, but every reform movement falls into a wider field of power
>> relations that should not be overlooked or underestimated, IMHO.
>>
>> This could be an interesting conversation and I am looking forward to
>> hearing what Anya and other iDCers have to say.
>>
>> Marco Deseriis
>>
>> Marco Deseriis, PhD
>> Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow
>> Department of Culture and Media
>> Eugene Lang | The New School
>> 65 West 11th Street
>> New York, NY 10011
>> Email: deseriim at newschool.edu
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 8/5/11 12:36 PM, Stephen Downes wrote:
>>
>> It would be better to quote Jim quoting Jim.
>>
>> In any case, the use of the term is probably still wrong.
>>
>> And those of us actually working in the field now talk about someone
>> coming along and "pulling a Kamenetz" - appropriating our work and making it
>> some kind of pro-business thing.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- Sent from my Palm Pre
>> ________________________________
>> On 4 Aug 2011 11:15 p.m., Anya Kamenetz <anyaanya at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Quoting Mike Caulfield, quoting Jim:
>>
>> "I often take credit... for this concept of Edupunk. I put out a term. And
>> within 24 hours Mike Caulfield had theoretically made that term relevant,
>>  and [he] actually exploded it. I took all the credit, but actually
>> Mike Caulfield made it sensible." -- Jim Groom, May 12, 2010, in his
>> introduction to my plenary at UMW Faculty Academy.
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 5:58 PM, Stephen Downes <stephen at downes.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>> For the record, Jim Groom didn't "help" coin the term 'edupunk', he
>>> coined it, pure and simple, by himself, not "helping" some undesignated
>>> other.
>>>
>>> The major popularizers of the term were probably Gardner Campbell and
>>> myself, which is why we were the ones on the SXSW edupunk panel eith Jim.
>>>
>>> We have our disagreements, but I think we'd all agree that if Jim says a
>>> use of the term is incorrect, it probably is.
>>>
>>> -- Stephen
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -- Sent from my Palm Pre
>>> ________________________________
>>> On 3 Aug 2011 9:09 a.m., Anya Kamenetz <anyaanya at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hello all!
>>> I was asked to try to start up a discussion for this week. This happens
>>> to be the week that my new e-book is being released, titled The Edupunks'
>>> Guide to a DIY Credential. It's the first-ever book underwritten by the
>>> Gates Foundation, and a follow-up to my 2010 book DIY U. Where DIY U made
>>> historical, economic and political arguments about the future of education,
>>> this is a guidebook. The premise is that learners who are curious and
>>> lacking in resources (money, time, physical access to a campus) can use the
>>> guide to create the future of education for themselves right now, by writing
>>> a personal learning plan, recruiting mentors and a personal learning network
>>> of peers, participating in online communities, and using open courseware.
>>> There are also profiles of a variety of institutions, organizations, and
>>> networks that specialize in catering to the needs of learners who are
>>> nontraditional in some way, and helping them to do all of the above and in
>>> many cases receive accreditation for learning done in nontraditional ways
>>> and contexts. The writing style is simple and assumes little prior knowledge
>>> of anything, even Google.
>>>
>>> As a guidebook, the arguments made by this book are implicit. One is that
>>> anyone can be an edupunk, as long as they feel their needs are not being met
>>> by the current education system. Among those who have objected to this
>>> appropriation of the term is Jim Groom, who helped coin it (although Mike
>>> Caulfield, another person instrumental in popularizing the term, agrees with
>>> my usage).
>>> Another is that rather than engage directly with reforming the system,
>>> change can be made by learners pursuing their own goals with the resources
>>> available to them now. One of the more prosaic changes I'd like to see is
>>> for colleges to review their prior learning, portfolio credit, and transfer
>>> credit policies to allow more students to receive credit for learning
>>> achieved in open environments. I believe this might happen if more students
>>> were aware of the options and petitioned their colleges to accept these
>>> credits.
>>>
>>> You can download the PDF here:
>>> http://www.scribd.com/doc/60954896/EdupunksGuide and an e-reader compatible
>>> plain-text version here http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77938. In a
>>> couple weeks there will be a better-looking Kindle version and an
>>> EdupunksGuide.org site with community features launches in September.
>>>
>>> I'd love to hear what people think about the implicit arguments I've
>>> articulated here and anything else you find worthy of note in the book
>>> itself.
>>> Thanks so much,
>>> Anya
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> New ebook! The Edupunks' Guide
>>> Fast Company column Life In Beta
>>> Tribune Media column The Savings Game
>>> Book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of
>>> Higher Education
>>> Blog DIYUbook.com
>>> Twitter @Anya1anya
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> New ebook! The Edupunks' Guide
>> Fast Company column Life In Beta
>> Tribune Media column The Savings Game
>> Book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of  Higher
>> Education
>> Blog DIYUbook.com
>> Twitter @Anya1anya
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> New ebook! The Edupunks' Guide
> Fast Company column Life In Beta
> Tribune Media column The Savings Game
> Book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of  Higher
> Education
> Blog DIYUbook.com
> Twitter @Anya1anya
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Simon Biggs | simon at littlepig.org.uk | www.littlepig.org.uk
> s.biggs at ed.ac.uk | Edinburgh College of Art | University of Edinburgh
> www.eca.ac.uk/circle | www.elmcip.net | www.movingtargets.co.uk
>
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