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E-scholar, digital scholar, e-prof or e-reader?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 13 Oct 2013, 13:50

We'll have dropped the suffix 'e' with a year and the descriptors such as 'digital' sooner.

Learners should not be defined by the technology they use, whether books, TV, computers, or interactive web-content; they should be defined by the processes of myelination that is going on regardlessly, in it's most mysterious ways, under our thick skulls.

Who indeed is the 'digital scholar', an academic now an 'e-reader' in 'Enter Subject Specialisms Here'.

Some answers are offered in Martin Weller's book 'The Digital Scholar'.

My favoured observation post is to watch out for this slippery fish in the OU Student Blog Roll, more a stream of fish-fry commencing their online, 'electronically-enhanced' learning journey, than a mere list, more news feed, though refreshing from the perspective of the new, rather than the rehearsed and practises mind.

Once a fish, now a fisherman?

I have another 12 months in these waters, more if I postpone completing the MA (more by accident than design, I've not registered for the next module yet - whatever that might be).

The choices are bewildering, not least because I can drift off to do something with a different Faculty.

Part of the brilliance of The OU to enable such choices. Creativity and Innovation with the Business School is attractive.

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Design Museum

Four ways to be a 'Digital Scholar'

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 16 Oct 2011, 05:05

If Boyer's four main scholarly functions were research, application, integration and teaching, then I would propose that those of the digital scholar are engagement, experimentation, reflection and sharing'.

Weller (2011 in Chapter 4, 20% of the way through, Kindle Location 1005. Is there a page number related to a print version? Amazon say not in a polite, informative and lengthy e-mail. What therefore is the answer to this referencing conundrum?)

Does Weller's suggestion make anyone who keeps a student blog and shares it openly like this a scholar?

Making us all digital scholars?

(I love the term as a hundred years ago in Census Returns it was used to describe anyone attending an academic institution, whether school or university).

Goals of the Scholarly Activity

  • Provide students with an opportunity to employ their unique skills and talents to pursue a project of their choosing under the mentorship of an expert in the field.
  • Provide mentorship and guidance for students interested in careers that integrate research, teaching, and clinical service (academic medicine).
  • Foster development of analytical thinking skills, rational decision making, and attention to the scientific method.
  • Enhance communication skills.
  • Enhance self-directed learning.

 

Reference

Boyer, E.L. 1990. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton, NJ.

Weller, M., (2011) The Digital Scholar

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