Darknet Classroom
TIPPINST -- No amount of legal constraints will roll back the way an entire generation leverages the broadband they use to connect their worlds. JD Lasica often draws the same conclusion in several chapters of his book Darknet, a collection of examples from all corners of society that shows how people use their digital devices to play or record things. Their behaviour--now firmly part of the mindset of a generation--upsets the content industry and many lawmakers.
As a third level lecturer, I have encountered a creeping erosion to the "fair use" granted in the service of culture. Today, if I use more than 500 words from a source, I am expected to get permission. Since I do not have a research assistant who can plod after permissions, I now use "jump lists" and bibliographies. Test results show the students don't follow the lists. The end result is they don't read required material and the overall quality of essays and classroom discussion suffers. In my small classroom, a protectionist blanket has eroded the quality of academic materials. I won't stand for it. I have put some technologies explained in Darknet on our multimedia curriculum in order to future proof students.
Nearly half of my first year students carry connected, always-on devices. They can share photos, videos, music and assigned texts in the classroom, on the bus or in the canteen. By the end of their third year, they are creating and distributing video shorts and mashing up music, photos and graphics from their "skunkworks sandbox". Some of their stuff is edgy, often demented, and with generous helpings of originality.
In Lasica's mind, the established entertainment interests would frown upon this kind of development. Hollywood wants a status quo that "relies on formulaic broadcast content sent along one-way pipes to a passive, narcotized audience".¹
Not in our space. We educate multimedia students to creatively develop a richer world. Lasica's Darknet explains our strategic philosophy better than this short blog post.
J.D. Lasica -- Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation, John Wiley, 2005. ISBN 0471683345
¹Harold Rheingold in the Foreword of Darknet.
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