Today we are going to explore the relationship between identity and community in a very specific context - intellectual and creative work. To do this we will first start with you and your intellectual world and then we will try and place the academic language game into the context of the social movement around mashups, copyright and creative commons.
My digital intellectual life:
- Scott's talk
- Building searches
- Subscribe
- Bookmark on delicious
Video: Rip! A remix manifesto (segment)
Guiding Question:
- Is there such a thing as shared identity?
- How is it different than community?
- What does it mean to be an intellectual mash-up artist?
The second half of class will focus on some of the questions that emerged from the readings and blog posts this week. Specifically:
- Is there a "core" identity that we have that is somehow community independent? How easy is it to change your identity?
- Brokering is something that makes us valuable from one community to another. We are all brokers to some degree. Is one of the ways we recognize boundaries (and communities) by their reaction (interaction) to/with us around the same information (boundary objects)?
- If we (as teacher) ask students to participate in ways that are in conflict with their "core" identity in order to become part of a community of practice is that ethical?
- Often Wenger's notions of communties of practice are interpreted as a theory that indicates some kind of reform of classrooms as they are not "authentic" communities of practice. If not, then what are they?
- [Related to the above are the issues with the apprenticeship model - teachers are not practitioners of the field they are teaching to their students, we may want students to have learnings and experiences that are in areas that they will not be direct participating members in so that they can make other civically important decisions (not all school needs to be something that students will "use" directly).]
Teams will be leading discussions on the following schedule:
- Team 1 - March 3
- Team 2 - March 30
- Team 3 - April 6
- Team 4 - April 13
Readings:
Don Norman - The Design of Everyday Things
Everett Rogers - Diffusion of Innovation
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