DML 2011: Novel Content Sourcing

As promised, in this post are my slides for the Novel Content Sourcing panel from the March 4th session at the Digital Media and Learning Conference (New Collectives track). After the jump, you'll find both my slides as well as Dani's, Jill's, & Rovy's, as well as some notes I took during the session. Thanks to all who attended!

The following were some emergent themes/resilient questions from the panel:

• Linkages between infrastructure and content are increasingly important, particularly in light of advancing capacities to utilize learner data.
• Novel Content Sourcing seems to be an approach that only a small segment of educators can afford both now and as we move forward.
• A lot of new media is working its way in to teaching and learning, but it isn't necessarily doing so through the new collectives.
• Digital platforms can be used for good or ill to force a shift in the structure of instruction.
• Both coverage issues and assessment issues can stand in the way of teachers working to integrate more diverse content into their curricula.
• We are likely to see a subscription model of educational content provision become increasingly evident. We have yet to see what all of the implications of such a model will be.
• We are seeing a powerful tension arise in relation to the use of new media based on who has control over it. Thus far this has predominantly played out as a tension between student and teacher control.
• Blending digital and analog modes of instruction ultimately seems to be the most powerful approach, however at present it is also incredibly difficult to implement at any kind of scale. 

Comments

[Jeremy Richardson]

So, in terms of teacher vs. student control, my query is thus: could competitive gaming become a way of regaining "the rod" of discipline? If students reject various forms of artificial authority complexes, could the consistent lack of user bias in the games world, and then performance therein, become some sort of merit badge by which teachers gained "street cred?" What about game authorship? Avatar design!?

[Moses]

Hmm, interesting question. One key lies in the curriculum. Credibility an instructor gets from other activities can only be actualized as capital in the classroom if the curriculum provides room for the instructor to mobilize those resources. In other words, for the time being schools have to swim against the grain if they want to take advantage of those sorts of resources because the normalizing trends largely support a standardized traditional curriculum that doesn't really encourage the injection of authentic digital experiences into the classroom.