The Architecture of Learning
The world’s most influential Professor of Digital Anthropology, Michael Wesch has a new lecture video online called “A Portal to Media Literacy”:
Basically it’s an extension of his ‘A Vision of Students Today’ video that describes the limitations of current educational paradigms (and therefore institutions) and the potential for Web 2.0 tools to radically change these paradigms. His analysis of the architectural constraints to learning inherent in a traditional classroom is really quite impressive IMHO.
Here’s a viewer testimonial from Prof Wesch’s blog:
“Michael Wesch … describes how he so naturally incorporates emerging technologies into his courses from the smallest seminar type class to the largest lecture theatre filled class.
More importantly he not only talks about the technologies but how he encourages extraordinary participation and collaboration from his students by engaging them in meaningful learning activities.
I think Prof Wesch is one of a handful of people out there who really ‘get’ the potential of Web 2.0, but don’t have any financial or political interests undermining their work. Even better, he’s a fantastic communicator with an impressive command of new ’social media’ tools of communication (he’s a real Youtube star).
If you haven’t come across Prof Wesch before, do yourself a favour and check out some of his previous (much shorter!) videos:
- “The Machine is Us/ing Us” – The Anthropological Implications of Web 2.0 in under five minutes
- “A Vision of Students Today” – The difference between educational institutions and learning and the ability for Web 2.0 to bridge this gap.