On user generated content:
I'm bouncing this around a few places because I think it unifies a few aspects of my life. At work (Paideia) we recently had a seminar/lecture led by Dr. Alan November regarding the use of the internet/technology/your mom in the classroom. He was an interesting lecture that seemed a bit on the extreme side for me (by the way, books are dead so stop reading them) but that might have been a stance chosen to instigate more discussion.
One of Dr. November's points was that we could change our classrooms to global learning centers through Skype and social sites, and generate real content using podcasts and youtube. Much of the time was spent convincing us (the teachers) that there was nothing that we could do to stop this massive paradigm shift (that was our "english" class at Tech freshman year) and that it was really better for us anyway. His go to defense of the new paradigm was the ability for the student to be a part of something greater either through communication with more people or by unique content generation (videos, blogs, podcasts, etc.).
The idea of user created content has been talked about in the video gaming press for the past few years. Sure there are all the old quake mods, but things slowly started moving forward through leaderboards, the ability to upload your Halo 3 footage, and then it hit the fan with the big marketing of Little Big Planet and a push in MMORPGs. Up to a year ago people have been drooling over the prospect the internet offered for getting "work" done through multiple users. Remember when we were all playing with the google images tag "game?" I loved that game, and Google was getting me to tag their images for them.
Last tangent before I tie all this together. For those that haven't read the book Tipping Point it centers around the ideas of Mavens and Salespeople. Maven's are those people that are always up on the latest shit and want to tell you about it, and Salespeople are the ones with the connection to popular culture that can push something into the forefront. I want to add another class to the structure, Creators. These are the people that generate the idea/product/content that Mavens latch on to and Salespeople then push.
Now to try and fuse these ideas together. Dr. November wants teachers to use the POWER OF THE INTERNET to connect learners and create new content. But 90% of the content created on the internet is crap. This type of learning is valuable because it will teach people the tools they need to be a Creator. Sure, only some of them will go on to create valid content, but only a small number of the people I teach calculus will end up using it anyway. But, without a valid curriculum for what creation tools need to be taught (and that is fucking hard to generate in an ever evolving landscape) it can often lack direction. Not to mention that this doesn't teach people how to be Mavens, or perhaps better Creators. Then what about salesmen? Based on many of the discussion on my podcasts (and common sense) it only takes a few Creators to generate quality content, but it disappears in the pile of shit that is the web unless people push it to the top (iPhone top 10 list, the reason I follow PA, etc.). So it seems like a good thing for everyone to be at least a decent Maven. In the end, most people don't even want to be Creators, and they don't want to be Mavens, they just want to use cool shit that is easy and watch. This has been the failing of Little Big Planet. Sure it is cool that I can create my own board, but that takes time and I would rather play a board generated by someone who knows what they are doing. Same with youTube, I don't want to post a video, I want to see "On a Boat" one more time. So, while Dr. November is pushing the idea of making Creators out of our students, which while valuable doesn't seem as valuable as making more Mavens.
Based on my argument earlier, no one will read this because it will get lost in the usual shit of the internets. Word.
I'm bouncing this around a few places because I think it unifies a few aspects of my life. At work (Paideia) we recently had a seminar/lecture led by Dr. Alan November regarding the use of the internet/technology/your mom in the classroom. He was an interesting lecture that seemed a bit on the extreme side for me (by the way, books are dead so stop reading them) but that might have been a stance chosen to instigate more discussion.
One of Dr. November's points was that we could change our classrooms to global learning centers through Skype and social sites, and generate real content using podcasts and youtube. Much of the time was spent convincing us (the teachers) that there was nothing that we could do to stop this massive paradigm shift (that was our "english" class at Tech freshman year) and that it was really better for us anyway. His go to defense of the new paradigm was the ability for the student to be a part of something greater either through communication with more people or by unique content generation (videos, blogs, podcasts, etc.).
The idea of user created content has been talked about in the video gaming press for the past few years. Sure there are all the old quake mods, but things slowly started moving forward through leaderboards, the ability to upload your Halo 3 footage, and then it hit the fan with the big marketing of Little Big Planet and a push in MMORPGs. Up to a year ago people have been drooling over the prospect the internet offered for getting "work" done through multiple users. Remember when we were all playing with the google images tag "game?" I loved that game, and Google was getting me to tag their images for them.
Last tangent before I tie all this together. For those that haven't read the book Tipping Point it centers around the ideas of Mavens and Salespeople. Maven's are those people that are always up on the latest shit and want to tell you about it, and Salespeople are the ones with the connection to popular culture that can push something into the forefront. I want to add another class to the structure, Creators. These are the people that generate the idea/product/content that Mavens latch on to and Salespeople then push.
Now to try and fuse these ideas together. Dr. November wants teachers to use the POWER OF THE INTERNET to connect learners and create new content. But 90% of the content created on the internet is crap. This type of learning is valuable because it will teach people the tools they need to be a Creator. Sure, only some of them will go on to create valid content, but only a small number of the people I teach calculus will end up using it anyway. But, without a valid curriculum for what creation tools need to be taught (and that is fucking hard to generate in an ever evolving landscape) it can often lack direction. Not to mention that this doesn't teach people how to be Mavens, or perhaps better Creators. Then what about salesmen? Based on many of the discussion on my podcasts (and common sense) it only takes a few Creators to generate quality content, but it disappears in the pile of shit that is the web unless people push it to the top (iPhone top 10 list, the reason I follow PA, etc.). So it seems like a good thing for everyone to be at least a decent Maven. In the end, most people don't even want to be Creators, and they don't want to be Mavens, they just want to use cool shit that is easy and watch. This has been the failing of Little Big Planet. Sure it is cool that I can create my own board, but that takes time and I would rather play a board generated by someone who knows what they are doing. Same with youTube, I don't want to post a video, I want to see "On a Boat" one more time. So, while Dr. November is pushing the idea of making Creators out of our students, which while valuable doesn't seem as valuable as making more Mavens.
Based on my argument earlier, no one will read this because it will get lost in the usual shit of the internets. Word.
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