{"id":56,"date":"2012-02-22T19:29:26","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T19:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edublog.me\/shapingmedia\/?page_id=56"},"modified":"2012-03-14T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T07:00:00","slug":"pedagogical-media-theory","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/edublog.me\/shapingmedia\/starting-points\/pedagogical-media-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"1. Ped. Media Theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

“We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us.”
\n<\/strong>\u2013 Andrew Ryan (2007), “Intro to Rapture”,
\nfictional character from the game “Bioshock”, 2K Games 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n

We, our society and our education, depend on media. We are connected to each other and other generations by thin strands of ‘natural’ or artificial\/technical media – the differentiation is not an easy one – which may change in their use, usability and prominence over time. Media are in a complex way interwoven educationally, socially, culturally, economically, politically; they enable and establish important ideas of what knowledge, society, culture etc. would, could or should be (see e.g. the Technological Singularity<\/a> proponents, or the german Post Privacy Movement<\/a>).
\nEach established medium stands at any specific moment for a space of possibilities of understanding and acting, defined by ‘soft’ expectations (e.g. genres, usability traditions, clich\u00e9s, cultural needs) and ‘hard’ technical restrictions. Media, culture and society are interconnected in their evolutionary development, and, like in a branching evolutionary tree, show extinctions<\/a>, endemic constancy or epidemic spread – with a subtle impact on how we treat information; on how we generate, archive, order or exchange it through the ages.<\/p>\n

Pedagogical Media Theory is a (german) approach to connect education and “Bildung” (a specific german concept of ‘maturity’, see the ‘talk’ for its background<\/a>) with technological developments and\u00a0a broad concept of medium. Since an ongoing discussion about education and ‘new’ media (e.g. “Scripture”, “Print”, “Language Labs”, “TV” or “Internet”) seem to suggest that these two areas could be cleanly separated, Pedagogical Media Theory argues that education, media use and culture are inseparably connected, and that media itself would shape education, even to the hidden curriculum of how, why and what should be learned, known or transfered.
\nA society based on oral communications would differ from one with scripture, which differ from one with letter printing, which differ from one with electronic data processing. So, how is the media in use today influencing our culture and our education, and vice versa? Does the introduction of the ‘new’ digital-networked medium differ from former medial revolutions and evolutions? What would be the role of the teacher, if her task is to prepare pupils for an extremely fast changing (medial) world ten years in their<\/em> future, while her<\/em> own edcuation happened ten years in the past? Is there something when we ‘observe’ media that does not change over time – including the possible conceptual instruments for observations?<\/p>\n

Pedagogical Media Theory, as being part of our culture, thus resembles this:<\/p>\n

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Pedagogical Media Theory takes – from my personal point of view – a comparative look at ‘new’, ‘old’ and ‘future’ media as part of the human environment, try to assess their similarities; their influence on learning, teaching, archiving, communication and transmission of inter-generational knowledge; and how we can perceive and shape<\/em> this process. This is no easy task, since we are in “prisons without walls” (McLuhan (1964), 28): Well established media are usually invisible\u00a0 – you could say they have a 100% usability, or that we are ‘made’ out of media. They shape the instruments, which are for social sciences and humanities mostly language-based ones, the very instruments by which we try to take a look at media.
\nSo, for practice and theory, we need more than one perspective on media and education, provided by historic views, by art, by medium<\/em> design, by transferring (content) between media.<\/p>\n

“(…) to someone, whose only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
\n– Edsger Dijkstra (1976) “The pragmatic engineer versus the scientific designer.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The practical side of Pedagogical Media Theory may look like this:<\/p>\n

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Text to read:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heinz von Foerster’s text will set the mood for this course. He briefly explains the rationale behind any mode of cognition, any preoccupation on how individuals or societies handle knowledge and its legitimation: Playing by the rules as best, efficient and innovative as we can; and\/or perceive the rules as something man-made and potentially changeable\/changing, something that determines the way we play.<\/p>\n