KSU Digital Ethnography Project – An Analysis of How Students Learn Today

by Dylan Staley

My average class size is 115.

18% of my teachers know my name.

I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me.
Only 26% . . . relative to my life.

I will read 8 books this year, 2300 web pages, and 1281 Facebook profiles.

I will write 42 pages for class this semester,
And over 500 pages of email.

Such is the disheartening tale of student life portrayed in 2008 Professor of the year Michael Wesch’s short film entitled “A Vision of Students Today.” Wesch leads a Kansas State University working group dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital ethnography. The video was created by surveying 200 students from Kansas State University about their daily lives as students. The video is powerful and thought-envoking, but, is it really this bad? Is this really how we are trying to teach our students?

If we want to achieve true education, there are going to have to be radical changes within “the system.” Thanks to Dr. Wesch, students are beginning to realize that this is not the only way to be taught, and that for true education to be achieved, both teachers and students are going to have to take several steps back and analyze how they are learning and teaching.

I love learning . . . but I HATE school. – 2007 Professor of the Year Christopher M. Sorensen

While writing a blog post isn’t going to change how students are educated, and neither is a video, we cannot hope to change a problem that we don’t know exists. The first step to change is knowing what needs to be changed. And if we want to bring up the next generation of great minds that are going to preserve our history and carry us on into the future, we cannot feed them age old information. Our history is important, we must preserve it. But it is a degradation of our culture and heritage if we allow it to be taught in this way.

Voices of the Past seeks new and innovative ways to bring education to the masses. It is not a class, it does not have an instructor. It is created by normal people, inviting others to join in their work. This blog could be one of the best examples of the way education can evolve: into something that is both by and for the community.

We are not teachers. We are not students.

We are all learners.

We invite you to post your comments on this blog post, education, and whatever else you see fit.