[iDC] blurb

[David Theo Goldberg]

Over the past two decades, the way we learn has changed dramatically. We
have new sources of information and at least in principle and increasingly
in practice novel ways to exchange and to interact with information. But
our institutions of "higher" learning and the way we teach have remained
largely the same for years, one could say even centuries and across many
different national sites.

So it is increasingly crucial to ask, as Cathy Davidson and I did in The
Future of Learning,  what  happens to traditional educational institutions
when learning also takes place in the new ways now available,
participatorily, in genuinely transformative connected ways, peer-to-peer,
virtually and incessantly? In the book we investigate how traditional
learning institutions are challenged to become increasingly innovative,
flexible, robust, and collaborative as well as what this means for
reconceiving the very nature of the "institution" as a "mobilizing
network" and how it operates, what it affords us anew in terms of learning
engagements, practices, and possibilities.

The questions raised about existing institutional structures of "higher"
learning link directly to the possibilities and challenges as a
consequence of DIY learning, at all levels.  Learning is now being
challenged to be less hierarchical and authoritative or expert-driven.
More horizontal, shared, connected, participatory and peer-to-peer, the
conference DIY track will examine the variety of possibilities,
experiments, and practices now being unleashed to promote, assess, and
certify these new learning modalities.


David Theo Goldberg
Director and Professor
University of California
Humanities Research Institute/
Executive Director,
MacArthur Digital Media and Learning
Research Hub
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