PETER BRYANT
Higher Education. Creative Industries. Thoughts. Opinions. You get the drift!
Introduction
In part 1 I started to explore some of the darker aspects of online engagement, particularly the process of disinhibition, which can be facilitated by the anonymity, fantasy, openness and freedom that engaging online affords. In this post, I want to take that analysis a little further and perhaps a little deeper into our practices as both digital citizens and academics. More specifically, I am going to unpack some of the notions around authenticity and realness. Lying at the heart of an educational experience is the ability to understand why something is authentic or real. Without that, we are left with a bunch of words sans context. Repeated, spoken but not contextualised or understood. Remembered, resourced but without meaning or resonance.
The use of e-learning as an instrument of replication and repetition is a theme I have explored in a number of earlier blog posts. The concept of the digital stranger throws a specific light on why using web 2.0 platforms and social media specifically as didactic, broadcast-led instruments firstly may isolate learners who have been moved significant components of their interactions and relationships to an on-line environment and secondly miss an opportunity to explore different modes of authenticity and realness, facilitated by a learners disinhibited to varying degrees, being interactive and collaborative.
Read more:
http://peterbryant.smegradio.com/?p=266