Stephen Downes picked up on a recent post of mine (Guerrilla Education: Teaching and Learning at the Speed of News [OLDaily] with the response:
“[S]hould we as academics be engaging with the news cycle in order to deliver informal, opportunistic ‘teaching’ at the point of need?” My answer: no. Not when ‘need’ is defined as ‘powerful’ or ‘influential’. Because then it’s not teaching, it’s just lobbying, or worse, pandering.
Okay – so here’s slightly more worked out example of one of the approaches I have in mind. In the original post, I mentioned “[a] sleeper podcast from John Naughton [that] picked up significant amounts of traffic … from the 40th anniversary of the internet.”
Here’s what John wrote (The Internet at 40)
From ‘Hot News’ on the Apple site this morning:
The Internet turns 40, June 9, 2009
You’re so used to paying bills, getting your news and weather, and doing more and more of your purchasing online, you probably think the Internet has been around forever. But it hasn’t. As you’ll learn from this program on Open University, the Internet turns 40 this year. How did it get started? Where is it taking us next? Find out by listening to these Internet pioneers on iTunes U…
It seems that the recording of my interview is #4 in the top 100 downloads
(I would embed the podcast here – John links to the version of it on the OU podcast site – but the site doesn’t currently support embed codes. As this is a hosted WordPress blog, if it supportd custom OU flashplayer embed codes, that wouldn’t be much good either: WordPress is quite restricted in the embed codes it supports [that is: WordPress blogs hosted on WordPress.com are limited in what you can embed – self-hosted WordPress installations can be configured to let you embed what you like…]. (In a meeting last week, my question as to whether we should offer Youtube embed codes (which are accepted in WordPress) as well as OU podcast player codes was not met with much support… Which means if an OU player embed code had been available, I couldn’t have *easily* used it anyway…(The workaround would be to grab the OU embed code into Vodpod, which is accepted by WordPress…. which gives me an idea – I couldn’t get Vodpod to work with the OU podcast site, but it does work with the nascent UK HE Steeple Podcast Portal:-))
Vodpod videos no longer available.
So what I am suggesting, in part, is not that necessarily that we pander to the news cycle (what would that mean, anyway, pander to it?), but that we do make content available that allows news readers to learn more about a topic.
[Hmmm… it seems like this video has disappeared from the Steeple site… ho hum, must be a Steeple thing… will try to see if i can get Vodpod to embed directly from OU podcasts site if i get a chance, assuming the KMi folks don’t block it, of course….]
Another example might be come from the rise in interest in news media making raw data available. Surely there is an opportunity here for educational institutions to provide educational material that explains how news readers can engage with this data (and conversely, how educators might make use of such data)? (This is actually something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot lately…)
Argghhhh – time to go: day 2 of the Isle of Wight Festival beckons… I would have written more but got distracted by the embed sidetrack… ;-)
OUseful.Info, the blog... 
A good example of something worth linking to from the law world is,
Lawcast 141: The House of Lords judgment on control orders and similar.
This sort of thing certainly enriches the ‘news cycle’. It also rises above it and shows the inadequacy of the ‘news’ media.
So that people aren’t misled Tony, could you clarify that you are talking about the embed limitations imposed by wordpress.com which don’t apply to wordpress itself or self-hosted installations.
I’m surprised to see you say something can’t be done. As in “I would embed the podcast here – John links to the version of it on the OU podcast site – but the site doesn’t currently support embed codes.”
I went to the site, opened the RSS, copied the mp3 URL from the enclosure, pasted it into my odeo account, here http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24702488-The-Internet-at-40 and created the embed player, which I posted into my Blogger account, here http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/06/internet-at-40.html . Odeo also supports WordPress embeds, see here. http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2006/09/27/odeo-support/
As to the comment, you write: “what I am suggesting, in part, is not that necessarily that we pander to the news cycle (what would that mean, anyway, pander to it?)…”
I think the meaning of ‘pander to it’ is clear enough, but I could expand on my meaning by suggeting that it means taking special account of the needs and interests of something, to defer to those needs and interests, to assume a service position to those needs and interests, and especially, to treat those needs and interests as more important than those of, say, average people.
Moreover, you depersonalize by referring to the ‘news cycle’ – this news cycle is composed of specific and nameable pundits, commentators and writers, and pandering to them entails treating *them* as special people. These pundits are people selected and promoted by publishers and traditional news agencies; they are marketed and sold as brands. Attending to their needs and interests is very specifically to attend to the needs and interests of traditional media.
“…but that we do make content available that allows news readers to learn more about a topic.”
This is what we’re already doing, isn’t it? But you are suggesting something over and above that – to shape and market our content specifically for *them*.
“Another example might be come from the rise in interest in news media making raw data available.”
This is another example of who you mean by the ‘news cycle’.
But let me point out, the news media doesn’t have raw data to make available. This raw data is made available by data sources – researchers, scientists, pollsters, etc. It would be helpful if *they* made the raw data available.
I know, what you mean is, we should convince news media to link to that raw data. Fair enough – but implicit in this is the suggestion that there should be some effort over and above simply making the raw data available in such a way as to make the raw data available to media in such a way as to convince them to link to it.
Such as… well, what? Generally, what this means is reshaping the presentation in such a way that the media are *uniquely* able to link to it. Sort of a scientist’s equivalent of the embargo, which gives media exclusive access, and thereby convinces them to cover the story by granting them privledged access. That’s what I mean by ‘pander’.
“Surely there is an opportunity here for educational institutions to provide educational material that explains how news readers can engage with this data…” Sure. Fine. I think this is a good idea. It’s only when we start treating certain groups of already greatly privileged individuals as ‘special’ that I express a concern.
(All of this isn’t meant to be arguing with you, I’m just trying to be very clear about what I meant in my original remark).
Anyhow, enjoy the Isle of Wight Festival – which is, as you correctly perceive, of greater importance than this discussion. :)
@stephen
“I went to the site, opened the RSS, copied the mp3 URL from the enclosure, pasted it into my odeo account, here http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24702488-The-Internet-at-40 and created the embed player”
I should have though about using the RSS as a crib!
That said, like my solution (using vodpod), how many people would know how to do that? I suspect that knowing what to do with an embed code, even when it is provided, is still far from being a universal skill, let alone having to problem solve a way of generating the embed code yourself via other means?
“Attending to their needs and interests is very specifically to attend to the needs and interests of traditional media.”
Two things: 1) trad news media, even in online form, is still a source of news for many people. If news media start listing ‘related links’ next to articles (e.g. BBC news posts often do this), I think it is in our interest to have content that they can link to. In the limiting case, at the OU we produce commissioned web content on open2.net to support OU/BBC programmes. This approach can also be used to support predicted news events – anniversaries, scheduled events and so so. 2) I think one way of getting people to engage with (open) educational content is “by stealth” – that’s what gets returned when they Google it (or Bing it, maybe?!;-). I don’t think I’d go so far as to say the OER project teams should be watching Google trends and releasing content optimised for whatever’s hot at the moment, in an attempt to grab some of the traffic – that’s what spambloggers are for, after all – but if we want people to read our content, we have to make it findable (different issue from the news thing, I know, but some search intent is driven by people searching around news topics.
And when you consider that Wikipedia content has apparently started appearing in Google News results [ http://mashable.com/2009/06/09/wikipedia-google-news/ ] then the next step is ponder what sort of supporting educational materials might appropriately appear there? “Timeless” background supporting material (science stories are amenable to this), or more timely analysis – comment on a news story from an academic, or a timely debunking of a particular story on sites such as “Bad Science” [ http://www.badscience.net/ ]
“But let me point out, the news media doesn’t have raw data to make available. This raw data is made available by data sources – researchers, scientists, pollsters, etc. It would be helpful if *they* made the raw data available.”
Yes, very true. Cf. “Data Is A Dish Best Served Raw” [ http://eagereyes.org/data/dish-best-served-raw.html ] which makes the point that a lot of what is published as data are actually summary data tables that represent one particular analysis of an actual raw data set. (I have to admit, though,that I’m a pragmatist at heart and believe that one way of getting to there (raw data) from here is to start exposing people to tabulated data so that they know it exists; then w can start getting them to question how it comes to exist in that form from raw data, and then start to question what else the raw data might be able to tell them.)
“Generally, what this means is reshaping the presentation in such a way that the media are *uniquely* able to link to it. Sort of a scientist’s equivalent of the embargo, which gives media exclusive access, and thereby convinces them to cover the story by granting them privledged access. That’s what I mean by pander’.”
Ok – I don’t think we should do that, unless there is a very good reason for managing the release of a story of our own. My comments were more on the way we can engage with news in order to provide ‘learn more about this story/the issues raised in this story’. Ideally, of course, this would be through non-exclusive agreements. Pragmatically, I can see some organisational political reasons for institutions partnering with media organisations as a way of extending the reach of their content (e.g. OU partnership with BBC and Sky Learning [ http://explorer.jointhebiggerpicture.com/ ]
“Anyhow, enjoy the Isle of Wight Festival – which is, as you correctly perceive, of greater importance than this discussion. :)”
:-) I tried to find some bootleg clips on Youtube to link to here, but there aren’t any up yet, so here’s the man from a gig last week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYXVjHg5FHA
Also related:
Alan Rusbridger on the future of journalism and media commentators [ http://www.joannageary.com/2009/06/12/alan-rusbridger-blurring-the-distinction-between-journalist-and-reader/ ]
So should academics tried to get recruited as ‘house commentators’?
I suspect Stephen would say not, going by this comment [ http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=49275 ]: “Of course, to me that just feeds into the culture of branding and celebrity, which is so pervasive it should not be fed. But Hirst responds that that’s where people still get a lot of their news. Maybe so – but nothing we do is going to change in any great measure the toxic stew traditional media serves as information, and feeding them simply gives them a credibility they don’t deserve. Just my view.”
As well as enriching it, it’s also making HE more relvant to a broader environment. Not just those people who pay the money for a qualification, or even those who seek and use OER materials, but your . In these economic times – which will last for years – I think HE has to prove it’s relevance