New Media Pedagogy?
Overheard in the student union this afternoon:
One student complains to another student about needing to get to class on time. "My professor takes pictures of the class with his digital camera. A few minutes after class begins, he says 'Time for attendance' and snaps the picture. Sometimes he also takes it a few minutes before class ends...you know, just in case anyone slips out early. I guess it's so if anyone challenges an absence, he can say, 'well, you weren't in the picture.'"
I love it. Digital pictures for attendance. Could you put these on Flickr? Students (and parents? friends?) could keep track of when they miss class. Students could even find out who to call for the homework.
Is this new media pedagogy???
3 Comments:
Pedagogical Paparrazi!!!
There is someting strange in this... Not only is taking a picture an uncomfortable experience for many -- "I hate having my picture taken!" is a commonplace, yes? -- but there is persumably the sense that it will be used as PROOF in some kind of court.
"I can prove you were there! Don't lie to me! Photographs don't lie!"
Yikes!!!!!!
And then, there is the creepy sense that one's head could be cropped-off and end up on, say, the shoulders of George W. Bush!
The horror of finding oneself standing in the Rose Garden standing next to Donald Rumsfeld!!! Ahhhhhhh!
(Even if such a practice is doubtful, might not a student have this nagging sense that an entire portfolio of photographs is being assembled in some strange scrapbook somewhere? Irrational, maybe... but then the problems photographs and photographers suggests themselves to is a vast psychology...)
Lady Di!!!!
...well...
Maurice Blanchot comes to mind as someone who eschewed the sense of photographs. There are only a couple of photographs of him known to exist... these are strange grocery store parking lot photographs... in Hillsdale, where I grew up, the Amish shield themselves with their umbrellas if you are a teenager trying to take a picture as they pass in their carriage... And, I have heard tell that there are some that even if you do manage to snap a photo that they do not show up on film anyway...
7:55 AM
The high school I taught at regularly posted student absences on line, sent out emails to parents, and was pushing to have teachers post all their homework assignments so parents could keep track...I don't find photo-attendence the least bit shocking.
Although Jeff raises a good point. Well, actually several, but I only want to deal with one. What would a teacher /prof do if the student had cultural objections to photography?
5:51 PM
I've been meaning to come back to this idea....here's my 2 cents.
This frightens the hell out of me. Yes, I am quite aware that my picture is probably being taken at any given moment somewhere out in public. I don't like that either. I'm probably being watched right now in the privacy of my own rented space. BUT, the idea of taking photos of students to "document" attendance leads me to questions of privacy, representation, and ethics. Do these students have a choice to be photo'd or not? As has been raised by others (Marc?) there may be students who object on a cultural basis to having their photos taken. In addition. every single photograph ever taken has been a lie of sorts. Each image is from a particular viewpoint of the photographer. Beyond that, an image is easily manipulated. Even before the days of Photoshop an image could be changed quite simply. Who is to stop a professor from representing particular students in particular light? Why does the photo/prof get that authority in naming and representing the student? I'm thinking too much to include all my thoughts in a blog post. Mostly, I'm going to Knoblauch and Brannon's (not from this class obviously) ideas about Naming. My position is that the camera is the dominant culture. It "records" us how it sees us not as how we see ourselves. Perhaps I'm going onverboard but I wonder what next? This photo shows you were late...THIS photo shows your bad posture and fashion sense.......
Why not install a video camera in the classroom that way you can see who's been aslepp for how long and who's passing notes and who's IMing on their little phone/cpmputers.
7:41 PM
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