Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus

Shirky, Clay.   Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.  New York: Penguin Press, 2010.  213+ pages.

I finished Shirky's second book (for the longest time, his first book - Here Comes Everybody - was my constant recommendation to anyone who would listen).  This book is not as eye-opening as the first book, but Here Comes Everybody is a tough act for anyone to follow.  That said, Cognitive Surplus is now at the top of my recommendation list.

One of Shirky's most effective rhetorical strategies is his use of stories to tell a larger story.  This is true in Cognitive Surplus, which begins with a wonderful story about the Gin Craze of London in the 1720s and ends with a delightful tale of a friend's child watching a DVD movie and then suddenly leaping from the couch because she was "looking for the mouse" (212).  In between are many anecdotes that Shirky brings to life so that the reader might understand how the read/write web (Web 2.0) has provided us a space for our cognitive surplus.

Shirky does not look kindly on television, even as he admits to his own voracious viewing habits as a young person.  He asserts that for much of the second half of the twentieth century, we spent our cognitive surplus watching television.  He writes amusingly of his own television viewing habits, describing them variously as a "job" and an "obligation."  In a section titled "More is Different" from the first chapter, Shirky muses:

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and they don't?  I saw that one a lot when I was growing up.  And every half hour I watched it was a half hour in which I wasn't sharing photos or uploading video or conversing on a mailing list.  (21)

He commits the bulk of the book to analyzing and critiquing the elements of cognitive surplus - means, motive, opportunity, and culture -  and he devotes entire chapters to each.  Throughout, he weaves the primary motives for participating: autonomy and creativity, sharing and generosity.

The final two chapters explore the potential of collaborative uses of our individual cognitive surplus, and I am particularly interested in his chapter devoted to "Personal, Communal, Public, Civic" uses. 

Read the book.  If this posting doesn't convince you, take fourteen minutes to watch this video on youtube:

Clay Shirky, "How cognitive surplus will change the world."

'The Disaggregation of Higher Education'

Will Richardson, whose Weblogg-ed is a must-read for anyone thinking about that Texas-sized intersection of technology and education, recently wrote about a New York Times Magazine article titled "An Open Mind" by Kate Hafner. I won't repeat Richardson's analysis, other than to recommend it to all of you reading this blog. 

Instead, I want to draw some attention to some of Hafner's points that ring more loudly and true for me as a community college instructor.  Hafner writes,

But just 9 percent of those who use M.I.T. OpenCourseWare are educators. Forty-two percent are students enrolled at other institutions, while another 43 percent are independent learners like Mr. Gates. Yale, which began putting free courses online just four years ago, is seeing similar proportions: 25 percent are students, a majority of them enrolled at Yale or prospective students; just 6 percent are educators; and 69 percent are independent learners.

Think about those numbers:  43% of MIT OpenCourseWare users are independent learners - people not necessarily associated with an institution of higher education, people who . . . just . . .  want . . . to . . . learn!  IN certain circles, I have been accused of being a pie-eyed optimist, but I'll admit that I find this number incredibly heartening.   The other big number - 42% of MIT OpenCourseWare users are students at other higher ed. institutions - strikes me as remarkable as well.  These users want to learn as well, but they are using the resource to enrich the learning that they are experiencing elsewhere (one with a grade attached to it).  These could be the students that I teach (if I do my job well).  Hafner describes some of the work being done with the Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative,where the learning is shaped for"'someone with limited prior knowledge in a college subject and with little or no experience in successfully directing his or her own learning,'" These resources are exactly the kind that can benefit many of the students whom I teach.

The title of this posting comes from a David Wiley quote within Hafner's article.  I invoke it here because it captures what I have been thinking about for some time now, which is the morphing of higher education.  There is a part of me that embraces this change, the part that applauds collaborative learning and a different kind of economics for learning.  There's another part of me that wonders how I'll keep up with the changes, how the morphing of higher education will morph me. 

I encourage you to check out Richardson's blog (bookmark it, RSS it, make it your home page) and read Hafner's article. 

Speaking of Social Media and Isolation (or Connection)

Photo by rikrak

Flickr Creative Commons

After we spoke about social media, it was fortuitous that the StarTribune published "Circle of Friends," which is a brief summary and commentary on new Pew Internet and American Life Project findings regarding techology and how people are using it.  Both the article and the findings are worth a few minutes of your time.  The Pew web site, if you are interested in this topic, is really a great resource.

I do not want to be misconstrued as someone who believes wholesale in the possiblities of technology to solve all the ills (including social) of the world.  However, I am really interested in how technology shapes the way that our students experience the world and - more fundamentally - how those experiences shape the way that they learn.  It's a Brave New World, folks.