Digital Educational Communities – who and how
The notion of a global digital educational community is an aspirational falsehood that exemplifies the hidden curriculum. The subtext is that knowledge is not power, but that knowledge means money. The digital educational agenda is driven by innovators who have the requisite digital literacy skills, time and financial resources to make things happen. Innovators are seldom driven by the common good, and even when this is the case, financial investment is fundamental. The latter is built on the economic reality of return; this leads to efficiency, and the ultimate casualty is product quality and longevity. Furthermore, there is little space to allow content experts to be innovators; in complex arenas such as healthcare, experts need to drive the curriculum, and mechanisms of regular content rejuvination need to be built into career pathways. Finally, real communities have accountability as a core value; if I teach the wrong thing to five people in my department of 40, someone will find out and correct me. If I teach the wrong thing to 5 million people in my community of 1 billion, no-one will correct me. Even if they do, there is currently no mechanism to enforce change. Mechansims to create accountable digital clinical education communities that are firmly nested within situated clinical contexts, are sorely needed. These will need to include the professionalisation of data sourcing for pedagocial purposes, as well as accountability for data usage and clinical practice.
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Hi Gustav,
It seems, like Ellie, you are discussing data/ information curation?
Do you think regulation of information is possible? Or should it target the “educators” instead?
Perhaps a common thread that drew us all to this course within the MSc was our own desires to innovate our practice. Arguably, we did not get into this for selfless reasons and we hope that participating in this will help drive our careers forward. Personally speaking, I have learned a great deal that I did not expect to, purely by having these conversations about digital professionalism and our individual responsibilities within this context. Would the best way be to encourage all users of the internet, who wish to add information for the purposes of education, to participate in courses such as this in order to gain insight into the reach, power and potential impact of what they do? Rather than regulate, educate?
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, much appreciated! I think that data curation forms part of what I am thinking about, but more in the sense of managing the direction of the local learning culture; are people learning the same stuff together, or are they learning in silos, and then coming together with slightly different views of the world? Michael, note I said ‘global’ digital educational community; there are many enthusiasts who believe that they and their thousands of followers form a community. My contention is that we need to leverage the power of this community but in a local context. For example, can we agree together which global resources we will collectively access at a local level? And this is what I think I mean by regulation, Lynsey: should we, can we, at a local level, control what we all collectively access? If we can, who should decide? If we cannot, will this lead to long-term divergence on core understanding, and even practice? Or will the cream always rise? The film, the Social Dilemma, warns how AI internet can result in us all seeing slightly different versions of something; there is no universal truth. This already seems to affect how many of my patients behave. Education may help, but we better start ASAP! Michael, I think you are correct in that Digital Professionalism in Healthcare needs to have an increasing profile at all stages of learning; but how to get ahead of the curve?
All clinical learning is situated within community, and each community has its own culture. The growth of global digital educational communities based on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Whatsapp, poses a challenge to traditional notions of communities of learning. It could be argued that the notion of a ‘global’ digital educational community is an aspirational falsehood, as it cannot, by definition, be embedded in a local culture or community. To leverage the power of digital communities within local healthcare education cultures, many attempts have been made by commercial entities to develop learning management system/virtual learning environments. These often succeed as repositories of records of achievement, and sometimes as resource hubs, but seldom succeed in becoming effective platforms for knowledge exchange. The reasons for this are likely multiple and would include the lack of the ‘social’ aspect, concerns about professionalism, and ease of use (the probable reason for success). Innovation requires financial investment; depending on what motivates the innovators, and clinical expertise/technical proficiency mixology, the product may be less/more useful. Local ownership of digital platforms can also affect the degree to which a particular local solution may be ‘allowed’ to facilitate the building of a ocal digital educational culture.
Other concerns include the notions of accountability and belonging; a learner may identify more with the ‘global’ digital educational community as a result of local intransigence. Conversely, ‘fomo’ (and its cousin, ‘things are better over there’) may result in learners unconsciously minimizing the opportunities for local learning, with deference to what is done or known ‘better’ by the ‘others’. Innovative solutions to engaging global digital educational culture (the content of which must be peer-reviewed and regularly rejuvenated) should strengthen local learning cultures – how best to do both content curation at a local level and global-into-local digital culture,is yet to be determined.
“If I teach the wrong thing to 5 million people in my community of 1 billion, no-one will correct me.” Maybe, unless you are teaching via social media, in which case hundreds of people might correct you! Even if what you are teaching is correct, hundreds might “correct” you 🙂
On the economic stuff, have a look at
Ben Williamson (2021) Making markets through digital platforms: Pearson, edu-business, and the (e)valuation of higher education, Critical Studies in Education, 62:1, 50-66, DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2020.1737556 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17508487.2020.1737556