tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post4750256014073391379..comments2024-03-28T11:36:22.391-04:00Comments on Half an Hour: Review: The Edupunks' Guide, by Anya KamenetzStephen Downeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-1096492922473281852011-08-19T10:20:27.148-04:002011-08-19T10:20:27.148-04:00Interesting and thoughtful comments. I am working ...Interesting and thoughtful comments. I am working in the education policy world and in a time where we are looking at alternatives to the traditional higher education model and the increasing cost of it, I find the guide thought provoking. <br /><br />Your premise that the guide is missing the heart and soul of what a postsecondary education should be is helpful. But I also feel like in many cases traditional higher education has lost its way as well. Arum's Academically Adrift provides hard evidence that your vision of higher education is not being realized at many of our nation's institutions and students are going thousands of dollars into debt to boot.<br /><br />From my perspective, the guide is helping move the issues she raises into the mainstream, which ultimately enables your views to be heard as well. <br /><br />I would grant that the Edupunk guide is not the end all-beat all, but I do think it moves our thinking about the future of higher education forward.Bruce Vandalhttp://boostingcollegecompletion.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-58918249481865902972011-08-15T11:50:25.525-04:002011-08-15T11:50:25.525-04:00Frances Bell has left a new comment on your post &...Frances Bell has left a new comment on your post "Review: The Edupunks' Guide, by Anya Kamenetz":<br /><br />@Stephen I think you make a valuable distinction in your first paragraph between learning by doing and DIY learning that is useful to anyone learning or trying to help others learn.<br />I found myself wondering why Anya Kemenetz didn't refer to the provenance of the term Edupunk or FWIW cited OLDaily as a resource but then I checked out the comments thread here http://bavatuesdays.com/dear-edupunk/comment-page-1/#comments and began to think that maybe Anya would be damned if she did try to acknowledge the 'origins' of Edupunk just as she has been damned for not doing so.<br />I think Ed Webb made a good point on the same comments thread.<br />Ed Webb says:<br />February 27, 2011 at 12:54 pm<br />I can’t be doing with all this movement theology. The spirit of the thing seems to be the most important. If it’s no fun any more, if the thrill is gone, then the breakup makes sense.<br />Also, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkdqCTcDkbc<br />I do wonder about the value of trying to pin down and own the term Edupunk see http://bavatuesdays.com/edupunk-or-on-becoming-a-useful-idiot/<br /><br />I agree with @David that it is quite a useful booklet. I would think that if I directed two resources - Anya's booklet and your Future of Online Learning article- to new students thinking about how be effective learners in a changing sociotech landscape, they would find hers much more useful. Whereas learners researching online learning would find yours useful at a much deeper level.<br /><br />As an idea Edupunk is clearly inspirational and motivating but it's not a completely fixed thing where you need to check all the boxes. If it were, you couldn't really 'claim' your (excellent) MOOCs as part of it. I remember in CCK08, you and George clearly positioned yourselves on occasions as 'teachers' teaching a 'theory' despite the rhetoric of teaching by modelling practice<br />Being a teacher myself I felt a mixture of sympathy and amusement when you were moved to reply to a participant "I'm sorry to be snippy - but I'm getting very tired of students in this course saying "I disagree" or "You're wrong" without giving me even the faintest clue about what it is that seems wrong much less concrete evidence that they've read the work they're disagreeing with).<br /><br />This isn't a confessional course. You do not need to profess your faith one way or another. I don't care whether or not you agreee or disagree with me or anyone else. What I do care about is that you have understood the theory sufficiently as to have some reason for disagreeing." http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=956#p5802 (scroll down)<br /><br />What I suspect is at the bottom of this is captured in @David's last 2 paras how do we critique ideas and practice of learning (like MOOCs , connectivism and Edupunk) in this changing socio-technical landscape. As I commented here http://francesbell.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/knowledge-transfer-old-wine-in-new-bottles-or-how-many-contentious-statements-can-i-make-in-one-blog-post/ , I don't find the occasionally tetchy tone very helpful. Also, I think we should guard against the premature stabilisation of ideas http://francesbell.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/premature-stabilisation-of-moocs-and-other-things/.<br /><br />Stephen's has also been valuable to my networked learning as it has helped me to find David Jenning's blog http://alchemi.co.uk/ - so thanks to both of you for that.Stephen Downeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-47287503734963275462011-08-15T02:32:23.393-04:002011-08-15T02:32:23.393-04:00Nevermind. I am now understanding that you're ...Nevermind. I am now understanding that you're saying that learning on your own is more experiential that Kamenetz explains. So your argument is that Kamenetz's approach involves picking information from the Internet and not surrounding herself with peers to aid in the process. Do it yourself learning involves reaching out to others for help and collaboration, publicly displaying work, and working on concrete projects as practice and skill building. (?)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-88214922936621643892011-08-14T13:44:29.661-04:002011-08-14T13:44:29.661-04:00What I get from your post is that it's a mista...What I get from your post is that it's a mistake to leave school for self-directed learning if you have the outlook that it's easier and faster. Can you let me know if that is what you mean?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-41564586044613962242011-08-12T08:30:50.222-04:002011-08-12T08:30:50.222-04:00@Stephen - it was weird - each time the comment wo...@Stephen - it was weird - each time the comment would flash up then disappear. Glad I put them in my blog post anyway. You could reply there.Frances Bellhttp://www.francesbell.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-35079251136715696752011-08-11T11:03:46.313-04:002011-08-11T11:03:46.313-04:00Francis, I am receiving your comments by email, bu...Francis, I am receiving your comments by email, but have ni idea why they are not showing up here. I will make sure they appear somehow because it is valuable and useful.Stephen Downeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-15685130321216775972011-08-11T10:06:42.015-04:002011-08-11T10:06:42.015-04:00I forgot to post the link to the blog post http://...I forgot to post the link to the blog post http://francesbell.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/its-mine-or-rather-its-his-other-ways-to-talk-about-changing-practice/Frances Bellhttp://www.francesbell.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-90207073486422238712011-08-09T12:34:54.295-04:002011-08-09T12:34:54.295-04:00Hi Stephen,
I'm only half way through The Edu...Hi Stephen,<br /><br />I'm only half way through The Edupunks' Guide, so not yet in a position to give it as thorough a going over as you have done here.<br /><br />Already, though, I share of some of your frustrations. Never mind the finer distinctions of what Edupunk and DIY are really about, the guide appears to flit between some form of taking control over your own learning at one end, and just "doing college on a tight budget with a savvy attitude" at the other.<br /><br />A fair bit of your critique seems to me to fall into a regular trope in the development of all countercultural movements. You know: the bit where some of the hippy/punk/etc ideas start to attract mainstream attention, sparking a bit of an identity issue in the hippy/punk/etc movement. This leads to some considered reflection but also some finger pointing of the "So-and-so's not a *proper* hippy/punk/etc, they've missed the point... they're just a sell-out"<br /><br />That seems to be part of the natural cycle of how change happens: how radical ideas gain traction, get absorbed into the mainstream, but lose some of their radicalism in the process.<br /><br />So in making that observation/interpretation, I'm not diminishing your critique in any way. Every movement needs someone to be its conscience, to honour the original spark and intent -- and I guess you've been doing that across much of edtech for decades, more power to you.<br /><br />Still, let's not turn this into an ad feminam attack. If Anya hadn't written this guide, someone else would have had to, possibly with a different spin, but likely making many of the same "mistakes".<br /><br />What I like about the Guide is that it's plainly accessible to readers who haven't a clue who Fodor and Searle and Pylyshyn are, and would run a mile if they found out. There's a sense of the original "here's three chords, now go form a band" punk ethos in this.<br /><br />Of course there's more to a band than three chords -- as you've shown here and many other places -- but it's a start. There are parts of your critique above that could be caricatured as "the only true DIY is DIY my way (or me and George and Jim's way)". Maybe that way is the best, but the finer points of the distinctions you make would be lost of the wide, beginner audience that I guess Anya's Guide is aimed at.<br /><br />I suppose I'm just saying that the spread of Edupunk, or whatever we want to call it, depends on contributions like yours AND like Anya's. It's a mixed up world, hold purity in mind, surrender to the inevitability of dilution.David Jenningshttp://alchemi.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-81556826531424310032011-08-09T11:09:22.987-04:002011-08-09T11:09:22.987-04:00Too bad she neglected her research steps and misse...Too bad she neglected her research steps and missed on even giving credit to Jim Groom for edupunk, it is if she created it herself.<br /><br />Thanks for a brilliant and cutting analysis, cutting through this BS with a sharp knife. A reading of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (rather than a passing reference) gets to Pirsig's delineation of "romantic" (surface) views vs "classic" (functional) views- this guide is totally the former<br /><br />"A classical understanding sees the world primarily as underlying form itself. A romantic understanding sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance... This is the source of the trouble. Persons tend to think and feel exclusively in one mode or the other and in doing so tend to misunderstand and underestimate what the other mode is all about. But no one is willing to give up the truth as he sees it, and as far as I know, no one now living has any real reconciliation of these truths or modes. There is no point at which these visions of reality are unified.<br /><br />And so in recent times we have seen a huge split develop between a classic culture and a romantic counterculture...two worlds growingly alienated and hateful toward each other with everyone wondering if it will always be this way, a house divided against itself. No one wants it really...despite what his antagonists in the other dimension might think."Alanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02980801837743251948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-53389452987500831212011-08-08T22:41:55.114-04:002011-08-08T22:41:55.114-04:00wow...Just. Wow. This is a pretty devastating ta...wow...Just. Wow. This is a pretty devastating takedown and and a punch-to-the-gut of her entire "brand". <br /><br />"She is free to hold her views, but that's not edupunk - it's not punk of any sort. It's establishment thinking combined with a good dose of offloading costs." It's worth noting that as a child of two university professors and a Yale grad herself, she sits firmly entrenched within the milieu she makes such a fetish of criticizing ...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com