The University of Google

241 Pages·2007·1.505 MB·English

by  Tara Brabazon

THE UNIVERSITY OF GOOGLE
Dedicated to those who have taught with me, and those who have taught me.
Mostly, they are the same people.
Special thanks to Kevin Brabazon, Doris Brabazon, Steve Redhead, Leanne McRae,
Mike Kent, Debbie Hindley, Angela Thomas-Jones and the Popular Culture Collective.
The University of Google
Education in the (Post) Information Age
TARA BRABAZON
University of Brighton, UK
© Tara Brabazon 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Tara Brabazon has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Brabazon, Tara
The university of Google : education in the
(post) information age
1. Google (Firm) 2. Internet in education 3. Internet
research 4. Learning and scholarship 5. Web search engines
I. Title
371.3'344678
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brabazon, Tara.
The University of Google : education in the (post) information age / by Tara Brabazon.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical re ferences and index.
ISBN 978-0-7546-7097-1 (alk. paper)
1. Education, Higher--Effect of technological innovations on. 2. Internet in higher education.
3. Teaching. I. Title.
LB2395.7.B73 2007
378.1'7344678--dc22
2007025289
ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-7097-1
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.
Contents
Introduction Living (in the) post 1
Section One – Literacy
1 BA (Google): graduating to information literacy 15
2 Digital Eloi and analogue Morlocks 51
Section Two – Culture
3 Stretching flexible learning 71
4 An i-diots guide to i-lectures 103
5 Popular culture and the sensuality of education 131
Section Three – Critique
6 Exploiting knowledge? 155

7 Deglobalizing education 179
8 Burning towers and smouldering truth: September 11 and the
changes to critical literacy 193
Conclusion The gift: why education matters 215
Select bibliography 223
Index 225
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Introduction
Living (in the) post
With the public sector, education, the welfare state – all the big, ‘safe’ institutions – up against
the wall, there’s nothing good or clever or heroic about going under. When all is said and
done, why bother to think ‘deeply’ when you’re not being paid to think deeply?1
Dick Hebdige
Face it: You’re always just a breath away from a job in telemarketing.2
Douglas Coupland
University teaching is a special job. It is a joy to wake up in the morning knowing that
during each working day, an extraordinary event or experience will jut out from the
banal rhythms of administration, answering emails and endlessly buzzing telephones.
Students, in these ruthless times, desperately want to feel something – anything – beyond
the repetitive and pointless patterns of the casualized workplace and the selection of
mobile phone ring tones. This cutting consumerism subtly corrodes the self. These
students follow anyone who makes them feel more than a number, more than labour
fodder for fast food outlets. I believe in these students, and I need to believe that the
future they create will be better than the intellectual shambles we have bequeathed them.
Being a teacher is a privilege to never take for granted. The bond between students and
educators is not severed when a certificate is presented. We share a memory of change,
of difference, of feeling that we can change the world, one person at a time.

In 2002, I wrote about teaching in a rage. Digital Hemlock3 was an angry book, howling
at the economic decisions and choices made by our university administrators, prioritizing
technology over people, and applications over ideas. I was frustrated and amazed at the
ignorance and ineptitude that was dismissing the expertise of teachers, and ignoring the
outstanding range of educational literature urging caution in unstintingly embracing
technological change over more nuanced theories of learning. The response to this
embittered book from readers was immediate, powerful and embracing. Letters flooded
my mail box. Emails deluged my in-box. It was as if neglected and concerned teachers
had been seething with anger – waiting to express critique and ask the difficult questions
1 D. Hebdige, Hiding in the Light (London: Comedia, 1988) p. 167.
2 D. Coupland, Microserfs (London: Flamingo, 1996), p. 17.
3 T. Brabazon, Digital Hemlock (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2002).
THE UNIVERSITY OF GOOGLE
– but felt isolated and limited in their ability to counter the forces of managerialism and
technological determinism.
It felt good to be part of a group of educators again, a community concerned at the
economic neglect of our beautiful but crumbling universities. While Hemlock changed
my life, it did not change our universities. No book can. Since it was written, the sector
is in a worse state than when I finished the final proof. The imperative for flexible
learning, i-lectures and internet-mediated education continues, while staff are suffering
more than I have ever seen. A senior colleague, a man I looked up to enormously
through my teaching career, died just after Hemlock was published. Other university
friends have had minor strokes and heart attacks. Perhaps such attacks are more than
metaphorically appropriate: administrative decisions about hardware purchases and
software licences have cut the heart out of education.
Through the techno-celebrations, the failures of the e-ducation initiatives are
mounting. In 2000, the then Education Secretary in the Blair Government, David
Blunkett, launched UKeU, the British-based e-university. Only able to recruit 900 students
worldwide, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) closed it.
This failure occurred after an estimated £20 million had been spent on developing an
online platform with Sun Microsystems. The financial situation was so dire that, on 30
July 2004, the creditors voluntarily agreed to accept a settlement of 18p in the pound.
All the universities who had supported the scheme were treated as unsecured creditors.
The University of Central Lancashire was owed £117,500, Nottingham £82,250, Ulster
£61,437 and Leeds Metropolitan £7,050. Considering these losses and the inability of
UKeU to meet its student target of 5,600, it is a piquant footnote to this story that the
former Chief Executive of the organization, John Beaumont, collected a bonus of
£45,000 above his £186,000 salary.4 Such a narrative not only confirms the continual
failure of dot.com logic when applied to higher education, but that administrators
have neither the expertise nor knowledge to be making predictions about curricula
success. The morbid attract ion to this digital Medusa, even through the virtual deaths
and bloody bankruptcies, remains seductive. Even after this failure of UKeU, Liverpool
University announced – on April Fool’s Day 2004 – that it was entering a ten-year
deal to deliver online degrees. They justified this commitment because Liverpool is
not actually funding the scheme, with the money being provided by Sylvan Learning
Systems Inc, a company based in the United States that runs campuses through Latin
America and Europe. That an ‘Inc’ could so easily provide degrees is troubling. That
Liverpool University could so freely trade its reputation for the potential of a virtual
pound, with the digital carcasses lining the superhighway, is brave if not foolhardy. The
4 An outstanding review of the failure of UKeU is Donald MacLeod’s ‘E-university
creditors make net loss’, The Guardian, 2 August 2004, http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/
story/0,10577,1274438,00.html, accessed on 3 August 2004.
2
LIVING (IN THE) POST
siren’s call to e-learning is still heard by Manchester and Open Universities who aim to
use the digital environment to ‘sell’ their degrees overseas.5
There is one great absence from this story of e-failure. What of our students?
Through all the marketing plans, strategic initiatives, corporate capital and generic
competencies, no one seems to ask the students about their ideas and hopes for a
university education. Late in 2004, I received an email from one of my (ex) students
who shared a story. I started reading her words – inquisitive to see how she was faring
in life. She was a fine student when I taught her – working at a distinction level – and
I hoped, as we all do, that her life was happy, satisfying and productive. By the end of
the email, I was in tears.
To: [email protected]
From: Cheryl
Subject: Hi
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 05:54:32 +0800
Dear Tara,
I am an ex-international student of Murdoch university and I attended two
of your classes during my time there – namely Intro to Communications
Studies and Cultural Difference and Diversity.
I graduated in 2001 and returned to Singapore to work. I recently
landed a job as a ‘lecturer’ at a commercial school here offering
distance-education courses accredited by ‘High-end’ Universities such
as Monash, Deakin, and University of Oklahoma.
I’ve recently started r eading your book, ‘Digital Hemlock’ (I’m merely
at the first chapter) and I decided to drop everything and share my
story with you.
After two months teaching, I decided to quit as I had realised that I did
not agree with the entire educational system of the school I worked
for, and my efforts to change things were met with stern warnings and
evaluations which made me feel ambushed and even more stressed
than I already was.
5 D. MacLeod and L. Ford, ‘On the brink of a revolution’, Education Guardian, 28 February
2006, p. 12.
3