“I find it odd that we’re still using 19th and 20th century forms as a way of disseminating what we do.”
Professor Roger Burrows, head of sociology at the University of York. The Wire HBO TV series is the subject of a new final year sociology subject there.
Other interesting quotes from Professor Burrows:
“We look at The Wire as a form of entertainment that does the job some of the social sciences have been failing to do.”
“It’s a contrast to dry, dull, hugely expensive studies that people carry out on the same issues.
“We spend an enormous amount of our time trying to craft books and articles that are read by so few people and it could challenge how we represent the work that we do in the academe.”
“It’s easier to get students to use The Wire as a way of looking at the current political system than it is to get them to read a dull book on it.”
Which begs the question – Will students have to write a “19th and 20th century-style long dull essay” to evaluate The Wire??
Interestingly, there was an academic conference on The Wire of criminologists, sociologists, historians and cultural theorists in the UK last year.
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CBC Radio’s technology show Spark recently looked at the use of mobile phones in the classrooms, specifically a maths classroom in an American high school in the K-Nect project.
The interview with Maths Teacher Homer Spring is really interesting – A teacher for over 30 years, he encourages students to bring in video and photos to the classroom so they can “find the maths” in it, and does the same for his students, creating videos for his class of someone laying carpet and other real-life situations to see the maths at work.
Network Literacies 2010 