5 posts tagged “learning”
By Chris A. Heidelberg III, Ph.D.
As Apple CEO Steve Jobs presented the new iPhone yesterday in San Francisco, I had a "eureka moment" where the impact of the iPhone has really impacted two of my favorite things higher education and entertainment. For the purposes of being contrarian I will deliberately start with the field of entertainment.
Despite the fact that there is a real fight between Apple and NBC, the iPhone and the iPod Touch have enabled television viewers to view NBC, MSNBC, and USA Networks programming for free. NBC willingly gave up $15 million dollars in iTunes revenues from Apple because they wanted variable pricing from Apple which insisted on the old $1.99 download model (Apple, 2008; NBC, 2008). Ironically, Apple has begun offering variable pricing to the movie industry now, so maybe the two companies should mend fences for the sake of consumers. For NBC, this is really a lose-lose proposition because NBC and Fox just started the HULU network online to distribute their television and cable shows online (Apple, 2008; Hulu, 2008; Fox, 2008; NBC, 2008; Newscorp, 2008).
The iPhone changed the debate in favor of Apple because even iPodTouch owners can view NBC content for free rather than downloading. NBC may have created more iPhone and iPodTouch owners who can view NBC content and save money during tough economic times. The fact that many young viewers of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann are becoming very politically active and are tech savvy has benefited the Obama Campaign which has relied heavily on podcasts, blogs, YouTube and the Internet to campaign and to raise record campaign donations from ordinary Americans. The fact that the new iPhone will operate on AT&T's 3G network which will make the device a fully functional convergence device with less problems than its predecessor which operated on the notoriously slow EDGE network.
The iPhone and competing devices will make it possible for new entertainment content that can air on iTunes,
Amazon, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and the Zune Marketplace. Smaller content creators now have outlets for their program offerings, and major networks can also air programming on the third screen first and wait for programs to get popular before airing them on USA, MSNBC or NBC. The iPhone and the iPod have been critical to transforming the political process and the entertainment business from a revenue generating and a pure entertainment perspective.
However, the iPhone and the iPodTouch has already impacted the biggest entertainment business of them all: higher education. If higher education can extend the best parts of its NCAA model to the academic side, it will create a business that will rival the major networks, publishers, and music content providers. Furthermore, this organization would also be a major online player too, since most of the people from the tech world have higher edudational roots.
Finally, the most important reason that higher education will change higher education is the delivery of content. Apple delivers more digital content than anyone in the world, and the company has created a future gold mine with its free podcasts which inevitably will be branded with ads from NCAA corporate sponsors on the academic side. The day will come when Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon will all benefit from residuals of ads placed strategically within podcasts. Apple's new iTunesU has been extremely successful in its first full year of operation.
Did you hear that sucking sound? That is the
sound of big media publishers screaming when colleges begin to create
their own digital publishing outlets that will enable professors to
teach and publish online simultaneously.
Administrators are going to
have problems with the whole tenure process since they love hiring
adjuncts on the cheap! The real question becomes this: what will they
do when the first academic rockstar professors are born! Even if they
win the intellectual property war, which is not a given, many
professors will simply jump ship and sign better deals with
universities because of the new crop of intellectual property
attorneys. Stay tuned because I hear a storm coming!
Now that's edutainment!
For the past five years I have been researching, writing about and speaking about edutainment and convergence. Somewhere around 2005, I began to find that edutainment and convergence is all about creating a learner-centered environment (Heidelberg, 2007, 2008; McCombs, 2003, 2005). I may sound like my colleagues Dr. Bill Spady (2001), Dr. Barbara McCombs (2003, 2005) and Dr. Reid Cornwell (2008) but they are absolutely correct in their assessments that the currrent educational system from K-20 is n ot learner-centered.
Why does the military utilize gaming? Because they are relevant to young people and they work! Video games are relevant to young people because the y are interactive, exploratory, competitive and fun. Young people are digital natives with a natural affinity for all things digital (Gee, 2004, 2005; Prensky, 2001, 2006). Video games create relationships between the players, the game and the knowledge embedded in the game (Gee, 2004, 2005, 2007; Prensky, 2001, 2006). Finally, video games are full of the rigor that increases as the learner advances through the game, and video games can be played online and updated for the gifted students (Gee, 2001, 2006; Prensky, 2001, 2006). Video games of every stripe have the ability to digitally access students (Wisher, 2000).
There are other convergence tools with edutainment capabilities that can also be utilized by learners. For example, i
Specific Findings
By Chris A. Heidelberg, III
The official report of findings for my dissertation has been released today. The study was a eleven month national qualitative study of eight entertainment professionals from New York City, Hollywood, and the San Antonio/Austin, Texas, area. The study was conducted entirely through the Internet and with new media on location throughout the country. It was open-sourced research, and all eight media professionals agreed to reveal their identities and they fully collaborated with me on this study and the electronic web sites that were created as a result of this research with the guidance and support of the participants.The research obtained was utilized in the design of this site and the official research site at http://edutainmentconvergenceresearch.vox.com is the official study site.
The participants found that edutainment and convergence can be utilized in higher education through a variety of sensory-based entertainment techniques such as the following: role playing, drama, music, art, dance, song, spoken word, poetry, rap, the Internet, iPods, iPhones, Blackberry’s, Treos, cell phones, blogs, websites, social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, online software; video sharing sites, podcasting, vlogging, and video games.
The literature supported this finding by participants (Apple, 2007; Blackboard, 2007; Bonk & Dennen, 2005; Bonk & Wisher, 2000; Farkas, 2006, 2007; Gates, 1995, 1998; Gee, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2005; Microsoft, 2007; Prensky, 2001, 2006; Tapscott & Williams, 2006; Vise & Malseed, 2005; YouTube, 2007). They were prone to use the word, socialization in many of their conversations: the meaning of this word was face-to-face interaction.
The research also has supported this finding, and several elite universities such as Duke University, MIT, Stanford, and Cal-Berkeley are now utilizing iTunesU, iPods, iPhones, Blackboard, blogs, websites, podcasting, cell phones, and YouTube to distribute classes and other educational content on-demand via streaming, downloading, surfing the web, or direct viewing (Apple, 2007; Blackboard, 2007; Bonk & Dennen, 2005; Bonk & Wisher, 2000; Duke University, 2007; Farkas, 2006, 2007; Gates, 1995, 1998; Gee, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2005; Microsoft, 2007; MIT, 2007; Prensky, 2001, 2006; Stanford, 2007; Tapscott & Williams, 2006; University of California at Berkeley, 2007; Vise & Malseed, 2005; YouTube, 2007).
The participants
focused many of their comments on the military, which has spent
billions of dollars in research dollars on video gaming and simulation
technology to transform military and civilian government agencies into
digital entities. They contended these technologies are effective
learning and training tools that have worked on the battlefield,
civilian agencies, and government and corporate classrooms.
Welcome back to Edutainment & Convergence: The Internet Edition. I am your host Chris Heidelberg and with me again for our third interview is professional makeup artist and hairstylist Erin Doyle.
Chris:
Welcome back ! In the past we have conducted our interviews in person with video tape; however, this interview and the previous two have been utilizing the Internet as our means of communicating since we already have a level of comfort.
I want to briefly discuss what you think of some of the changes in the entertainment field that have resulted from convergence like the new video gaming platforms like the Wii, the Sony PS3 and the XBox Elite?
But first, I would like to ask you what do you think about the recent announcement by Apple and EMI to release their music without technology restrictions, known as DRM –digital rights management, that prevents interoperability or sharing of music content, or even video or print content?
Erin:
I think eliminating all restrictions will affect the revenue stream for artists, so I'm not sure how good of a thing it is. So far as gaming platforms go…don't know a thing about it other than what my husband tells me. He's very into all the new technology…he and his best friend are definitely techno-nerds.
Chris:
What do you think of the concept of iTunesU enabling participating universities to distribute their classes and intellectual properties for free?
What do you think of universities like MIT placing their classes on the Internet for anyone to take for free?
Erin:
It's awesome because of the rising cost of education. That's what holds so many people back.
Chris:
What do you think of creating the Digital Duke Initiative after successfully piloting a study and adopting it campus wide of distributing free iPods to students who register and take courses that digitally record, create and distribute podcasts to students who can then listen at their leisure?
Erin:
Awesome again! This is great, too, if a student is ill or even hospitalized, but still able to take advantage of educational opportunities.
Chris:
Are you aware that the military has been conducting research using interactive video games and simulation technology for nearly 40 years for educational and training purposes?
Erin:
Yes. The military complex is always light years ahead of everyone else.
Chris:
Can you explain how this research can be utilized to assist individual learners especially students who have not performed well in the traditional learning environment which is wedded heavily to the Socratic lecture and questioning method as a teaching style?
Erin:
Like I said, visual learning is the best technique. Learning differences are a lot more common than many think. It's not that we can't learn…the majority of us are very intelligent and creative…our brains just work differently. I think it's about time that technology caught up to us…what we've known all along!
Chris:
Can you explain the iPod, YouTube, and MySpace effects now that students, professors, public figures and ordinary citizens can now have their thoughts, words or actions instantly recorded, uploaded, disseminated and shared worldwide within minutes or even seconds?
Erin:
I think it's good and it's bad because sometimes there are images or words that you don't want posted on the Internet. Just ask that American Idol contestant or Paris Hilton. And, you may say something you regret, but it's out there forever.
Chris:
Is this a reason in your opinion that many professors fear losing their academic freedom for things they may say in the classroom?
Erin:
:
Possibly so.
Welcome to Edutainment and Convergence. This blog is part of a multi-portal effort that began in 2001 while studying convergence as part of my Master's degree coursework. I predicted in my final paper that a multi-media cell phone that combined ease of use, style and reliability would be the way that Americans could download course work and go to class. At the time I was making national films throughout the country for a large government agency and we had already made the successful transition from beta sp to digital beta, and linear digital editing to non-linear editing with the avid. This transition began in 1992 , and was in full bloom by 1998. I realized that cameras were getting smaller and smaller and so were the editing systems and the monitors.
While directing a location film shoot in Carmel, California featured a tiny handheld monitor about the size of Blackberry, and that is when I was totally convinced that someone would create a miniature device that would be a computer, a monitor, a television, a phone, a radio and an Internet device. I will never forget my professor initially dismissing me in class when I suggested in August 2001 that a device like this would arrive within five years. Once I saw the initial iPod, and later the Photo iPod a few years later, I knew that my prediction would come true, and that professor later came to me and admitted that I was right before I graduated. He then challenged me to get a doctorate degree and study this phenomenon, and of course I took the challenge in 2003.
However, this time I decided to pursue a PhD in Higher Education, and I decided that I would research how entertainment techniques and convergence technologies and how they could be utilized in higher education from the perspective of entertainment professionals since I was one. I had produced, written, directed and even host more than 100 films, television shows, instructional television shows, commercials, conferences and public service announcements and I wondered why higher education did not understand why so many children and adults were turned off by education.
So I decided to literally travel to Los Angeles, San Antonio, New York, Washington, DC and Palm Beach, Florida to interview several entertainment professionals. The title of my dissertation research is "Edutainment and Convergence: How Can Entertainment Techniques be Utilized in Higher Education from the Perspective of Entertainment Professionals. This blog will specifically provide the research interviews, and you will get a glimpse of the subjects. Each agreed to reveal their identity in effort to promote research transparency in a non-lethal qualitative research methodology.
Throughout this research there were three guiding research questions that drove this research.
- How can entertainment techniques and convergence technology be utilized in higher education from the perspective of entertainment professionals?
- Which entertainment techniques, gaming technology and convergence technology was transferable to higher education?
- Can edutainment and convergence assist in creating a learner-centered environment that can produce effective results?
This research was conducted as broadcast interview, and audio and video clips will be posted on this blog from initial interviews as well as a transcripted interview (Creswell, 2005).
The interviews are presented in a media style with follow up questions in a style reminscent of James Lipton. This blog differs from the wordpress blog because it is more multi-media. This research is advocacy based and encourages academia and media professionals to work together to promote learning, and to create entertainment based research with profit potential.
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