so we were finally getting the hang of the unlecture symposium only to have it stripped away from us. yes, hopefully the strike will lead us to a good outcome for students and teachers, but it was cold and raining and i spent around 2 hours trying to film the protest while shielding the camera from the rain under other peoples umbrellas. safe to say, i couldn’t feel my hands when i came back inside which made transferring the footage onto the computer a much harder task.

but, onto the the lecture that never happened. instead we got some pretty interesting youtube videos to look at. the problem was that watching these videos on youtube of course led my mind to wander so after watching one i’d be led onto something completely random and irrelevant (like the new honest trailer for star trek into darkness or what if star wars episode 1 was good or more info about the new pokemon mega evolutions – megakangaskhan anyone?!?!) so it really took me a lot longer than it should have to get through the videos. but i did. and they were pretty good. and here are some interesting points i took away from them.

the first video asked us if schools kill creativity. this comes from us learning and creating through making mistakes and being wrong however the current construction of the school system puts great emphasis on being right and never making mistakes. kids aren’t afraid to be wrong but as we grow older we become more afraid of being wrong because the institutions around us push us to be right.  if you’re not prepared to be wrong then you’re not gonna come up with anything original. education system restricts creativity by not allowing being wrong at all. we grow out of our creativity. again this relates back to design fiction. we need to be able to think ahead, to speculate and not just live in the present where we are told what to do and whats right and wrong. nothing can ever be created in an environment where creation is inhibited.

next came the description of the hierarchy of subjects in school: maths at the top, then humanities, then arts (and within arts is art and music then drama and dance). and all these relies on academic ability – aimed at creating the university professor. in this model, most useful things (subjects) for work are classed as more important. we need science and we need doctors and lawyers and maths. but the problem with this system is that highly talented people don’t realise they are because what they are good as is not classed as important during school. kids who are brilliant at music or dancing or acting are forced into those horrid methods or physics classes and are told that they are not learning right. and so the actual talent is suppressed. who knows what these kids could create? and now we might never know and the whole world has missed out.

the second video emphasised the difference between knowledgable and knowledge-able and the importance of the latter. Wesch describes knowledge-able as “being able to find, sort, criticise and create new info.” again this is similar to what we were hearing from adrian back on day 1 of Networked media, we want the “know-how” not the “know-what”. anything can tell us the know what or give us the knowledge but we need to know what to do with that, how to use it or even how to create our own.

there was also a lot of talk about the impact of media on communication and the world in the recent years. how “media has mediated our relationships” for example us changing the layout of our living rooms to be situated around the tv. our programs and conversations have been shortened and are punctuated by commercials. tv and media is a one-way conversation. you have to be on tv to have a voice or be significant. in the classroom, the students are trying to finding meaning in the word and find their significance in the huge world online. media is a global conversation, and now, even though it is easier to connect and share than it ever was before, it is also know eve harder to actually get out there.

Welsch also discussed the video he made with his students. check it out below if you haven’t already because it was actually brilliant and describes how most students feel at uni or even high school.

just so interesting, it’s like what’s been discussed previously in the lectures and classes. we need to create our futures. what we are learning right now isn’t necessarily the best or most conducive way to learn what we need. problems with technology now, we all have our fancy laptops open in class but are we always working? sit at the back of a lecture theatre and at least half of the screens will be showing facebook or some other social networking site. the sentences i found the most interesting in the video were about how much reading and writing would be done for their classes compared to their online life. which is why i have found keeping this blog is so great. it encourages us to contribute in a way that we are familiar with. i feel i’ve written more in this blog for the subject than i would have for any other class this year so far. and that’s the importance of creating and introducing these new modes of learning that better suits the way society and students function today. the current education system is practically archaic and students tune it out purely because most cannot focus for that long. we are used to 6 second videos, not 2 hour lectures.