Podcast #001: Welcome to the Academic Evolution Podcast

The Academic Evolution Podcast has been launched! The inaugural episode includes my conversation about education and new media with Stephen Humphrey. Click the image to subscribe to the podcast feed if you like, or listen to it here. Please tell your friends! (Highlights and links from the episode follow below.)

Publish first, then perfect ideas socially

• 0:29 - "Am I ready for unvarnished thoughts?" (The virtue of getting your thoughts "out there" where others can help you develop them. Later he compares this to old school craftsmanship and the apprentice model.)
• 1:42 - Gideon describes the print paradigm of pre-publication perfection and how that is out of sync.
• 3:30 "I'm going to respect that the value I bring to my product is whatever skill set I have with the interpretive effect of the people who are going to use it...Those people bring to the table a critical eye." (Stephen)

Today's "Renaissance Student" constructs him/herself independent of academia (3:53)

• "Academia is no longer the game changer" (4:57)
• "Educated thought has started to bypass higher ed" (5:46)
• "whiplash effect as academic leaders...suddenly realize that students have bypassed the institution" (6:12)
• "I think I'm doing college as a back up plan." Story of student, Michael (6:28), whose digital skills are so marketable he wonders why he's finishing his BA.

Reputation systems now challenge academic credentialing (12:24)

• "An 18 year-old can develop a reputation and a track record and an audience for his thoughts and work" (12:44)
• A modern apprenticeship model: "I'll develop my talents at the feet of the consumer, of the people who will be critical of my work and show me through their attention whether I'm hitting the right notes." (13:20)
• "Digi-cred" coined to name online reputation. (14:24). Gideon references Phil Windley's work on reputation systems.
• "I'm not depending on others to determine for me what the reputation of someone is....What I'm looking for are those gateway people who can regularly feed me little tidbits until I can trust their judgments....It takes a history with them" (16:39)

New literacies and their chances in K-12 vs. Higher Ed

• "My kids are stuck with a model that says they need to learn PowerPoint, but that's the last thing they need. They need to be taught the social implications of technology" (18:40)
• Gideon more hopeful for K-12 because of progress made toward 21st Century Literacies (19:07).
• If raised to believe all their opinions matter, will students become sufficiently self critical? (20:52)
• "How can we teach crafstmanship in thought?" (22:35)

Does digital expression resist or assist critical thought? (24:47)

• "They and we express ourselves too well for the anemic level of thought we've brought to that expression" (24:55)
• "As students become more involved in the creative media...there is an evolution of critical thought that happens socially." (25:17)
• "The medium has a feedback mechanism, and when they hear the echo of their own silly voices, it gets amplified enough that they start self correcting." (27:45)
• Youth use of cell phones may seem inane, but in "pinging" each other, they are "establishing the synaptic routes of complex interaction essential to any high level order of intelligence" (31:10)

Comments

[Micah Humphreys]

Thanks for the podcast! An excellent discussion.