Pedagogy of Abundance Foreword
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Note on title: this is borrowed from Martin Weller. I will find my own!
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Web effects: what are the implications of the shift from a ‘cultural economy’ of scarcity to a ‘cultural economy’ of abundance.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 2 For example, look at how OER have proliferated to produce a huge and growing volume of high quality learning resources. Alongside that, too, a huge number of online teaching learning sites of all types and shades.
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 It is easy to take the view that learning, either for its own sake or on a need to know basis, is quickly accessible. (Some parts of the ‘Edgeless University’ thesis seem to have come pass). There is some intuitive truth in this view – my own experience as a teacher and a householder shows me daily that the web is a vast and rich source of assistance and knowledge (and of course shopping!).
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 But there may be only an apparent simplicity in that view.
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 For teachers – and teaching remains an important social practice – we cannot take it for granted that everyone gets the same value out of using the web. Indeed, even a relatively experienced and literate participant such as myself does not get all the possible value I can out of the web – I am, to use that cliche, still a learner.
¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 This simplistic notion harks back to a certain romanticism of the intrinsically motivated learner who will strive, work hard and seek new understanding as long as he/she is unconstrained by institutional or professional rules and procedures. It’s as if Illich’s world of learning webs has come to pass (see ‘Deschooling Society’).
¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 However, with abundance comes new kinds of social complexity that suggest that Illich’s image of the hopeful, intrinsically motivated individual seeking partners and collaborators in learning is far from complete.
¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 These notes on the pedagogy of abundance look at some of the issues arising from the sometimes paradoxical richness of that great global library that is the web.
What do you men by OER? Definitions seem to range from any artefact on the Web (eg an image) through to choose complex items with educational meta data.
Yes, It’s just a general label in these notes. Basically it means any artefact as you suggest … though it does not/should not carry any implications about the copyright standing of the object, although this would need to be made explicit in some way with some sort of licensing statement …. (e.g. CC licenses)