[iDC] Which programs address the challenges of participatory cultures?

[John Hopkins]

>The idea of a del.icio.us link collection of new media programs will 
>be welcomed by many,
>I'm sure. The goal of my short survey, however, was not to list 
>every single new media
>program in existence but to create a filter.

yes, I gathered that -- my mail server was down for a week, so I 
missed last week's previous posts & the context... sorry for the 
dross...

the idea of creating a filter is interesting -- isn't the student 
essentially that?  The student is one through whom the energies of 
the teacher and the situation are filtered, literally.  By 
subtracting (de-convolving) the student's own "system response" from 
the result, one might see what input actually occurred during the 
learning experience...  How to do that?  An in-depth dialogue before 
and after the learning experience with a student may suggest the 
system response and what transpired from outside influence.  What a 
nice idea -- to have archived a set of such dialogues -- I find that 
as a very attractive strategy for dealing with incoming & graduating 
students.  Why not!  The teacher would stand to learn a lot.  (but as 
another measure of the social pressures on learning/living -- who has 
the time to do such a thing?)

>Which programs teach these core competencies and how do they do it?

How much accurate information does one get from the banner 
introductions that a program frames on its home page?  (IMHO) there 
is often a distinct gap and oft-times a yawning abyss between the 
rhetoric which was drummed up at the initiation of a program (for 
institutional funding and recognition) and the actual on-the-ground 
learning that goes on.

I don't think one can make an appraisal of different programs without 
lived experience.  Observing a program as an outsider is one way to 
do this; spending a semester teaching there is another; getting a 
position immediately upon graduating with an MFA or PhD and staying 
in it for 30 years yet another.  All three give different takes on 
the vitality and efficacy of a program.

Having a collaborative website which drew in current faculty and 
students, former faculty and students, for honest and in-depth 
commentary would be really interesting (it would probably have to be 
anonymous to some degree), but that seems to be the only way of 
getting after the real situation...

If there is enough interest, I could open a web forum for such a set 
of topics...  or maybe you should under the iDC site...   because, 
how can one have a discussion about the subject without involving 
students as well... as part of a *participatory culture* ;-)

**And indeed, a bottom line -- unless there IS a participatory 
culture in the institution / classroom, few will be taught much 
worthwhile about participatory culture!**

My experience has taught me that coherent programs are most often the 
result of a 'cult of personality' -- and I don't mean this in a 
perjorative sense -- but mostly in the sense that there is an 
individual who has sensibilities that extend beyond the immediate 
contingencies of in-your-face survival (tenure, funding, facilities 
struggles, teaching loads, etc).  Sensibilities and, indeed, 
energies, that move institution barriers to create a space for more 
open inquiry.

Often, however, the problematic side of this concept is manifest in 
the proclivity for the hiring of 'big names' to kick-start a program, 
without any sensible research into the way that individual relates to 
others in the program -- and zero sensitivity to whether the 'big 
name' has a working ethic that is egocentric or that is able to 
handle distributed creative situations.

Relevancy is something that every teacher strives for -- but there is 
often a struggle between short-term relevancy and long-term goals for 
learning.  This is the framework in which 'learning' a software 
package sits -- students feel cheated if they can 'do' something with 
a chunk of software at the end of a digital arts class -- but where 
does that feeling of being cheated come from?  Expectations impressed 
from the social system...

okay, at any rate, that's an other discussion altogether.  I guess my 
point would be: how does one gauge the efficacy of a program?

Can't the "how do they do it?" question can be discussed and answered 
independent of the discipline or department name under which the 
teaching is happening.  It's more about the energy of the teaching 
and the quality of the learning situation itself...  IS there a 
relationship between the material characteristics of a disciplinary 
space and the quality of the learning experience?

cheers,
John