I’m not sure if I agree with Paul Allison’s statement that maybe there’s a new discipline lurking in the work that we’re engaged in online:
Like composition teachers at the 1966 conference at Dartmouth College, like social studies
teachers carving out a unique discipline alongside history and
sociology–”the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities
to promote civic competence”– perhaps those of us using digital
photography, podcasts, Google maps, webcasts, wikis, video, del.icio.us, tags, blogs, Bloglines, Google Reader, online
word processors, digital stories and poetry, and other Web 2.0
technologies need our own department, our own discipline, our own field
of study. Perhaps we need our own interdisciplinary inquiry out of
which to build curriculum and to reorganize the subjects that are
taught in secondary schools. “Web Studies” would address new literacies that are not presently being taught in the traditional, core subjects. Web Studies needs to become more central in schools.
I’m not able to simply dismiss the idea, either. It’s an honest question, but I’m not sure that the best answer to all of the change that we’re facing is to splinter off in a new direction. I’d like to join the webcast where he and the rest of the Teachers Teaching Teachers gang will be discussing the issue of a new discipline. But I’ll be in an airplane, headed for Nashville. What’s an hour or so of AirPhone time running for these days? Someone want to loan me a credit card?
Go and participate in the show for me, okay?
