Presentasjonen under inneholder informasjon hentet fra engelskspråklige kilder som tar opp noen problemstillinger knyttet til forbindelsen mellom læringsprosess og det å spille dataspill.

Presentasjonen ble utformet for å inspirere IKT og læring studenter ved Høgskolen i Nesna til å analysere det  pedagogiske potensialet som ligger i dataspill ment for underholdning.

This presentation is the outcome of an endeavor to summarise an initiative of joining students from various countries (Norway, Poland and Spain) to explore socio-cultural aspects of ICT. Through such exploration students were supposed to find out what it feels like to be ‘a voice in infosphere’ and what it possibly means to be a member of Information Society. The initiative was realized in the academic year 2009/10 within the framework of the e-course ICT in Society and Work Life, ITL 103 (IKT og læring , Nesna University College, Norway).

The main working tool for students was blog. Blog was to be used in corelation with another social media (Content Sharing Sites)   to develop and share reflection on course (ITL103)-related issues.

This presentation is the result of en endeavor to put Norwegian concept of ‘IKT og læring’ into a broader perspective of Media Pedagogy. It was meant to support my guest lecture in Mosjøen videregående skole. The objective of the lecture was to inspire the teachers to use ICT in their professional practice (teaching practice).  I decided to put an emphasis on the ‘content-side’ of ICT not the’ tool-side’. And here it is – ‘IKT  og læring in the perspective of Media Pedagogy’.

This presentation stems from the belief that visual perception is a cognitive activity. It is a side-effect of my work in the project “Moodle” som verktøy for læring tilknyttet pedagogikkundervisningen” (Nesna University College),  meant to be an example of how we may process information by translating a message from one set of symbols to another set of symbols (from verbal language to visual language). The idea is presented in the post Utilizing Simple Media to Develop Deep Approach to Learning.

Is position of media in cultural and political life central? ….. Yes

Is media presence in everyday life ever-increasing? ….. Yes

Is media landscape changing rapidly? ….. Yes

Does the presence, or rather context, of these hard facts create the need to study media in a critical way (at all levels of education)? …………………. Yes (I would say)

The concept of MEDIA EDUCATION has been disscussed for quite a number of years. To revisit its ideas, and find out how they can be put into practice, I wholeheartedly recommend clicking the following links:

Media Awareness Education,

Alliance of Civilizations,

EuroMeduc,

MediaShift

Media Education Foundation

Nothing is in the intellect  which was not previously in the senses (the Sensualist philosophers say) yet the educational status of senses seems to be underestimated. Educational system continues to require “productive” thinking, neglecting the importance of strengthtening perceptual component and seemingly excluding the activity of the senses from cognition (eh, those antagonisms). Yet perception is judgement and judgement is thinking (or not?). Recommended “homework”: a)  Gestalt psychology, b)  Visual Thinking by Rudolf Arnheim, c)  A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink (the concept of six essential senses provokes thinking).

What is driving “progress” forward? Technology. What is the most “hard-working” technology of our times? Information technology. What is the side-effect of this “hard work”? Information smog.

Information technology is revolutionizing our lives on regular basis. As revolutions tend to be burdened with “paradoxes”, the information one has also brought some. Let’s consider two results of IT: access to information (which has been made truly immediate), and amount of information (which has been made truly “laaaarge”).  Immediate access to information makes us (somehow) have less time, although, by definition, time-saving technologies should provide us with more time. Loads of available information  make us (somehow) know less, although loads would rather connote multiplication. As a result of these results some tend to be confused, some tend to be overwhelmed, some just do not care, and some seem to manage quite well. Every change in cultural ecosystem (and particularly in the domain of symbolic universum) triggers implications of educational nature. Information overload creates a change that belongs to the category of disturbances. Can we qualify it as a pedagogical problem of media? Well, the term disturbance smells “problematic” so we may assume the presence of some potential for generating (also) pedagogical problems (though problems happen to be “constructive”). Of course, again, it’s only up to us (read: our media literacy) whether infosphere will be providing us with utopic or dystopic contexts. Recommended reading: Tyranny of the Moment. Fast and Slow Time in Information Age, by Thomas Hylland Eriksen.

The idea of utilizing blogging for educational purposes seems to be not a bad idea. But, … there are always some “BUTS”. I’d like to refer to the “but” related to “social” factors that could create “barriers” for blogging. Some claim they are not social enough to expose their ideas to “public”. And I have a bit of a problem with this particular problem. I have a problem working out if we’ve got here a problem with social interaction or a problem with the content we are supposed to put into the messages expected from us (e.g. with reference to educational tasks). Social interaction is one thing and creation of meaning to solve a problem (whether socially or not) is another thing. I do agree with the opinion that teachers to be should be developing social skills in the course of their studies so that they make true professionals (and I expand on that belief in the post Utilizing Simple Media to Develop Deep Approach to Learning), blogging will only help develop these skills. Social skills are  practical in their nature (by the very definition of the term skills), and blogging is “PURE” practice (social practice of communication), and this “challenge” shouldn’t be avoided by teacher students.  I’d like to attract your attention to the notion of semiosphere and provoke reflection on how it relates to social functioning.

Educational qualities of blogs, or rather BLOGGING I should say, are numerous (and unquestionable). They are mostly related to, and stemming from the fact that blogging is both a process and communication. Due to that characteristics the outcome of blogging, which is a blog, is an ALIVE and INTERACTIVE construct. Having the potential of enhancing research activities (helping exploring, monitoring and registering), blogging equips the ones who are involved in it with the possibility of receiving feedback from the others (MANY others, and VARIOUS others), which makes it a “collaborative mind technology“. Display of reasoning (which a blog makes) together with social interaction (which a blog entails) gives the activity of blogging the quality of social semantic networking and makes learning a truly social adventure. (Isn’t it so?)

On studying the comment on my Media Ecology post I couldn’t stop the develoment of my undisciplined thoughts towards the issue of media content. Due to my natural inclinations over which I have no control, I cannot help raising ethical questions related to rapid development of media “messaging” and commercialization of communication being a “NATURAL” consequence of that (“commerce” truly contributed to the development of human civilisations thus epithet natural seems to be natural in this context).  Coming back to the point, reflecting on the issue of orality versus literacy (oral culture versus writing culture, considerations triggered by Walter Ong), as well the issue of translocation (in terms of time and space) being the quality of registered messages (though not only), I’d like to point out to the characteristics of contemporary media. Contemporary media are mobile, interactive and highly integrated (multimedia) – which makes them not only written and oral at the same time (e.g communication in Internet chat environment), but also visual and dialogical (at the same time). I want to focus on the last quality mentioned. To what extent are contemporary media dialogical in fact, and to what extent they are dialogical because they create such possibilities in technical terms? The simple answer could be: media are dialogical to the extent  we make them dialogical. And that is obvious (and logical). The only problem is whether we’ve got the competence to convert our contact with messages brought by media to a dialog. Today I’d like to attract your attention to the issue of content analysis, and wake up your reflection on the ability to interract with media content as part of media literacy.