[iDC] Discussion: The Edupunks' Guide

Simon Biggs simon at littlepig.org.uk
Mon Aug 8 18:34:03 UTC 2011 

I agree that Anya's comments reflect the ideals that should underpin education. I also accept that the academy has much to explain, as it has lost its way. However, I will sustain my question concerning how the model Anya proposes goes beyond the instrumental (satisfying the immediate learning needs of the student) and offers a means to build the sophisticated and large scale knowledge making platform we require on a planet as large and diverse as ours. I do not see this in her argument. If Anya's model was generally implemented I think we would be looking at a regressive situation. In this respect I think her proposal is well motivated but naive.

best

Simon


On 8 Aug 2011, at 17:53, Philipp Schmidt wrote:

> 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
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity
>> (distributedcreativity.org)
>> iDC at mailman.thing.net
>> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc
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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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>> (distributedcreativity.org)
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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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