One of the sessions that I attended was about achieving learning outcomes by having students make use of the different technologies that are at our fingertips these days--videos, Twitter, ... This is something that I am always interested in, but unable to incorporate for the same reasons that I articulated during the Q/A which was something like this:
I think terms like "digital natives" to describe the youth who seem to be at ease using the gadgets is incorrect. They are merely consumers. And, by using terms like "digital natives" we assume that students can easily transition from being consumers of information to becoming producers of knowledge. But, that is not the case. In fact, it has become much harder for students to become producers of knowledge and education is quite a challenge to make them producers.The presenter agreed with me and explained why, therefore, he thinks training will be required. But, that is not what this blog-post is about.
After the session ended, one of the other presenters at the session walked across to me and expressed her pleasure in me having used those phrases of producers and consumers of knowledge. "Do you have any ongoing research on this, and have you published anything?"
"I don't have any formal research work into this issue" I replied.
Later at lunch, while conversing with another geographer, when she referred to Tanzania, I told her that I was there about three years ago. "I was in something like the south central part of the country" I said and described the location of Pommern and Iringa as best as I could without a map.
"I went there to better understand this whole idea of volunteer tourism because my feeling is that while it does the volunteer a great deal of good, it doesn't do much to the community in terms of building institutions that can generate self-sustained growth and development" I explained.
"That is exactly what one of my students wants to study" she said with excitement. "Have you published your findings?"
This time, I was not polite in my response; so, what's new!
"I think most of the academic publishing is crap" I replied. "I did write a few newspaper columns related to it."
In academia, it is all about publications. Even if nobody ever reads them. As I remarked in my essay from twelve years ago in The Chronicle Review, against this extreme fascination for everybody to talk even when nobody is listening, my dissertation adviser once commented that perhaps an average of six people read his articles, and that includes the peer editors!
It is a crazy world in which we publish articles for the sake of publishing articles. In that world, I simply do not exist. Sriram who? Because I don't publish.
Any day, I prefer cogito ergo sum.
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| A few of my fellow-volunteer tourists at work in Tanzania, 2009 |
2 comments:
Ha Ha. An eminent academic trashing one of the fundamental holy cows of academia - thou shalt publish.
Actually research publications are a secret, and as yet undiscovered, miracle cure for insomnia.
Here's a thought. All people who are jailed in prisons, should not be allowed to lead a life of idleness. They must be required to reach one research publication a day. I dare say, crime rates will drastically fall at the mere thought of such a punishment.
:)
:)
you mean to tell me that nobody has published anything on how publications are cure for insomnia????? ;)
about jail ... i often remark that most academics are in higher education institutions only because the mental and penal institutions refused to take them in :)
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