In the next class I'd like to talk about what changes people think will be made in the future to incorporate the media in the higher education system. Does changing the "system" provoke changing the world at large? How can the higher education system change when it is so stuck in its ways? Isn't it selfish to think that because students have IPhones and Macbooks, we have to suddenly throw out the "old-school" way of learning and adapt to the future? WHAT ABOUT THE POOR KIDS?! They certainly can't afford to have this shit. Will they be weeded out in a survival of the fittest kind of way?
-Mary, TED Talk: Wesch (Argument)
Croteau: Before I allow Wesch to take the wheel here, I just want to address your question about whether or not "changing the system" can incite a larger change of the world. If you mean system to be the education system then I would have to say no. Because our society operates under specific dominant ideologies if we want a true change on the macro level we must set our aims on a much larger target. In order to disrupt the current dominant ideologies we must radically change the system. Some would even make the argument that we cannot simply change the system, that we must tear down what is currently in place and build something new with completely new parts and new tools. For, if we don't, we will simply be rebuilding the same structure.
Wesch: Wonderfully stated Croteau, and a lovely paraphrasing of ideas put forth in Audre Lorde's "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House". To answer your question, Mary, it is only selfish to expect those with less means to adapt to a new way of learning if that new way of learning were simply centered around technology. Indeed, my usage of media in my TED talk, and my references to new-media in my essay, might make it seem as though my main argument is about a need to incorporate technology in the classroom. However, we can have all of the smart-phones, tablets, and laptops we want in a classroom but if we do not incorporate a new epistemology then we will simply have the same structure that we had before. The new epistemological framework is not centered on technology but something far more holistic. We need to teach students how to become producers instead of simply consumers. We cannot just throw information at them, we must teach them how to critically analyze, deconstruct, and synthesize the information they are learning and the information that they have already learned. We must teach them that they have the ability to produce great thought from that information. And we don't need a smart-phone or laptop to do it.