I’m jealous of the students at Kansas State University.
In their class “Introduction to Cultural Anthropology”, assistant professor/cultural anthropologist/media ecologist/student of the world Dr. Michael Wesch has put together some amazing videos derived from what must have been some very interesting discussions in his classes.
He’s known most for his award-winning video The Machine is Us/ing Us which made its rounds in the blogosphere a few months ago. His site, mediatedcultures.net, houses all of his digital ethnography projects.
A recent project, which began as a brainstorming exercise about “how students learn, what they need to learn for their future, and how our current educational system fits in”, culminated in the stirring video A Vision of Students Today:
Here are some of the statistics shown in the video:
- My average class size is 115.
- 18% of my teachers know my name.
- I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me. Only 26%… relative to my life.
- I will read 8 books this year, 2300 web pages, and 1281 facebook profiles.
- I will write 42 pages for class this semester. And over 500 pages of email.
These numbers come from the collaborative effort of his 200 students, a shared Google Document, 367 edits, and a student-created survey that 133 of them answered. While not entirely scientific, it’s a fascinating snapshot.
And it sounds like a fun class too!
Via: Scobleizer
