Learning, Creative Col(labor)ation, and Knowledge Cultures

• In Event: Learning in the Age of Digital Reason: Reinventing Dialogue

Abstract

This presentation consists of three parts. The first part of the presentation analyses social transformation towards the network society and links digital technologies to the making of the society of control (Peters, 2012; Peters and Olssen, 2011). It analyses the dynamics between openness, capitalism, and anti-capitalism, and uses various recent examples to link that dynamics to democracy.
The second part of the presentation links cybernetic capitalism to learning and knowledge production, and elaborates the movement of open education (Turner, 2006 and 2013; Assange, Appelbaum, Müller, Maguhn and Zimmermann, 2012). Based on work of Paulo Freire it develops the notion of openness as an (educational) virtue (Peters, Liu and Ondercin, 2012; Peters and Roberts, 2012). It links openness and creativity, analyzes the importance of editing for learning and knowledge production, and briefly introduces the concept of knowledge cultures (Peters and Besley, 2006).
The third part of the presentation shows practical applications of these theoretical insights using the examples of two academic journals: Knowledge Cultures (Addleton), and The Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy (Springer). It explores epistemic consequences of peer-to-peer and wisdom-of-the-group approaches, introduces the notions of collective intelligence and col-(labor)ation, and outlines the main features of the new collective imagination. Finally, it shows that doing science is a privilege and a responsibility, points towards transformation of academic labor from perpetuation of capitalism towards subversion, and identifies dialogue as one of the most important building blocks within this transformation.

References
Assange, J., Appelbaum, J., Müller-Maguhn, A., and Zimmermann, J. (2012). Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet. New York: OR Books.
Peters, M. A. (2012). Obama and the End of the American Dream: Essays in Political and Economic Philosophy. Rotterdam: Sense.
Peters, M. A., and Besley, T. (2006). Building Knowledge Cultures. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield.
Peters, M. A., and Roberts, P. (2012). The Virtues of Openness: Education, Science and Scholarship in the Digital Age. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
Peters, M. A., Liu, T. C., and Ondercin, D. J. (2012). The Pedagogy of the Open Society: Knowledge and the Governance of Higher Education. Rotterdam: Sense.
Peters, M., and Olssen, M. (2011). Neoliberalism, Higher Education and Knowledge Capitalism. In M. A. Peters (Ed.), Neoliberalism and After?: Education, Social Policy, and the Crisis of Western Capitalism. New York: Peter Lang, 42–74.
Turner, F. (2006). From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Turner, F. (2013). The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to The Psychedelic Sixties. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Author

• Michael A. Peters, The University of Waikato