I was discussing education with someone via email. And I finally hit on some of the issues I have. Maybe I should do this kind of verbal … blurt, more often.

So in the spirit of multimediated conversation, I post it here.

You know, it’s not about the financial worries. I think the whole purpose of being in academia is the lifestyle. The ability to work on things that you can get passionate about. Which is probably why I’m suffering so at the moment, because I just cannot get passionate about business, particularly the ‘corporate’ style of information systems that I will have to teach this year. I am passionate about how we use these things, but it’s more social, more artistic, more connective. I’m not even sure where I fit. But there’s this huge gap in our understanding of why and how these things become part of our lives. But is that really useful? I see all this writing about post-apocalyptic worlds and lives and wonder if there is really any point in understanding. But it fascinates me so.

The corporatisation (or is it copro-tisation?) of education has seen that quest for understanding marginalised. The real problems of human interaction with computers (and subsequently with others beyond the screenface) are being neglected for an emphasis on the monetary outcomes of desigining systems. Even the university sees the website as a ‘marketing’ opportunity rather than an interactive information system. It’s almost as if they don’t believe that people are the recipient of their work, rather they look for hits, for successful enrolments, for getting students in. Once here, who cares if it takes ages to find what we want. This is one of the central problems with the web, we don’t care about the people beyond the presentation of information. And it’s central to the problems of education. Each student is a bum on seat with a monetary value rather than a mind (well, some students do think through their arse so there maybe is a stronger link there).

I have no idea where I’m going with this. But I do know that I’m not searching for the truth. I’m searching for a truth, one that fits my knowledge, my history, my passions. And hopefully in amongst that, I will connect with others who share some of those, so I can interact in however small a way.