Dec
11
Week 12: Where is my Lifestream going…..?
December 11, 2011 | 1 Comment
Thinking back over the weeks of the course and the way my Lifestream has developed, I was suddenly struck by the word ‘lifestream’. As with many terms now used within digital media, titles for applications and so on wash over us and yet the idea of a Lifestream is quite a profound one. It suggests a representation of something more than just an activity for a course, with implications of representing some kind of onward digital journey. Not only that, but it suggests that this digital journey somehow represents our real life or that our digital and real lives have been blurred, again on top of the Lifestream’s ‘gathering’ implications, revealing the creation of a Lifestream as a posthuman pedagogy.
Daniel interestingly referred to the implications for education of the Lifestream as an everlasting memory. Using the Lifestream to record our online activity has revealed patterns where there might have seemed to be none, but it also functions as a kind of record to refer back to or even an uncanny memory of our activity. It has also been interesting to see how two distinct elements have made up my lifestream; those sites I have bookmarked, meaning that I have controlled when they enter my lifestream; and those which have come from RSS feeds and turn up without my knowledge but often provide timely pieces of information that keep bringing me back to themes of the course. One such this week has been some updates from Inanimate Alice. Called ‘School Reports’, one talked about this digital resource’s growing profile in teaching literacy, digital and otherwise, and in its use as a cross-curricular tool. Given my own role advising Primary Education students, this has kept me up to date with developments and provided a resource that I can pass onto students.
As far as sites that I have bookmarked this week, I have tended to concentrate on anything of relevance to my assignment. I found an interesting article on ‘The Politics of Pedagogy’ (2003) by Beverly M. John. She contends that ‘classroom dynamics, as well as the dynamics in higher education at-large, are a microcosm of the same conditions and factors present in the wider American society’. Although talking about the US, John’s statement reflects my own thinking in looking at politics, education and e-learning. Aside from worries over cuts in HE and rising fees, there is also a continuing worry about the commodification of education, where learning has become something that provides what the state wants rather than the individual.
Today I will be finishing up editing my Lifestream and writing my overall summary; all in all it will reflect how much I’ve enjoyed the process and how valuable it has been in getting me to think about how I access digital information. My Lifestream will keep going, although its course may be redirected, carrying with it new studies and work interests…