A new paper argues that introducing activities associated with leisure—such as iPods and online discussion forums—into education corrupts the learning process.
The paper, “Learning to Leisure? Failure, Flame, Blame, Shame, Homophobia and Other Everyday Practices in Online Education” by Juliet Eve and Tara Brabazon at the University of Brighton, argues that the “blurring of leisure and learning has corroded the respect that is necessary to commence a scholarly journey.”
Much of the research is drawn from Ms. Eve’s instruction of a virtual seminar course, where she struggled to control students who mocked the lesson plans, “flamed” each other in online discussions, and drew pictures of male genitalia on the site’s virtual blackboard.
“The normative behavior of the group was dictated by their self-characterisation as socializing students rather than learning students,” the authors write.
The paper was published in the Journal of Literacy and Technology.—Catherine Rampell
