This is a little belated, but nonetheless sincere.

The last week of the reading was focused on cyborg pedagogy (Angus, Cook, Evans et al, 2001; McWilliam and Palmer, 1995). Cyborg pedagogy with its three cornerstones of border pedagogy, cyborg ontology and situated knowledge takes us further down the line, across the continuum, of [...]]]>

Producer and Process

This is a little belated, but nonetheless sincere.

The last week of the reading was focused on cyborg pedagogy (Angus, Cook, Evans et al, 2001; McWilliam and Palmer, 1995). Cyborg pedagogy with its three cornerstones of border pedagogy, cyborg ontology and situated knowledge takes us further down the line, across the continuum, of resituating the pseudo-binaries of  learning – teaching and learner – teacher positions. What I mean to say is that it seems to be a further weakening of the student as ‘empty vessel’ and teacher as ’sage on the stage’ models.

It appears to me that learner centred pedagogies and the affordances of digital technologies, not to mention the influences of post modernism and posthumanism, have come together in cyborg pedagogy. This is because this new pedagogy gives us the tools to further shift our views and to change our outlooks on what teaching and learning are about. It encourages a real focus on the way knowledge can be formed, acquired and reckoned with once it has been made ‘public’.

And this is where this course, this learning experience,  leaves me. This lifestream is a, I would suggest, a cyborg pedagogic  artefact. It is a product of learning, but also a process of learning and acquisition. When I started out, the lifestream seemed something akin to a noticeboard onto which I could pin my ideas (and wait for someone else to pin theirs). However, having gone back into the lifestream and read over my posts, it is clear that rather than being a platform or a product  (a display of learning and acquisition) it is the representation of the process of that learning. The lifestream is a textual, audio and visual representation of my own learning process and progress.

Once put on ‘display’ there is the responsibility one has to take for one’s views – for the knowledge that one has formed and chosen to publish. The lifestream can form a conversation with a reader, but it is a conversation that remains open over time (as long as it remains hosted online). As a result, something that I may have posted yesterday and which I may stand by today, I may find that I no longer stand by  sometime in the future,  should a reader take me to task or choose to engage with me on that topic. Having posted, therefore, one has to be ready to either defend or concede and change points should the need arise in the future. The writer has to take responsibility for whatever they believed at any one time once that belief or knowledge, challenge or suggestion, has been unleashed.