Reading response: the internet as a cultural institution?

First off, let me start by saying that I haven’t forgotten about the report by Philip Candy in the “currently reading” section – the thing just turned out to be a lot longer than I expected (350 pages!), and it’s taking me a bit longer to get through it. Instead, I decided to tackle something a bit more manageable for this reading response.

In this article, Carr discusses some interesting ideas around learning in cultural institutions like libraries, museums and art galleries. This being a particular interest of mine, I decided to go for it.

Carr refers to cultural institutions as “invitational environments” – that is, they invite learners or users (depending on the type of learning undertaken) to visit. This is an important distinction from other types of institutions, particularly schools, which very rarely “invitational” (sometimes quite the opposite!). Instead, visitors to cultural institutions are offered a variety of resources (usually in one location) and varying degrees of support. Carr also discusses the conditions of learning in cultural institutions, which involves factors ranging from the tools and initiatives employed by institutions for self-directed learning, as well as the messages present in the institutions themselves. Carr states, “because cultural institutions are public places for private learning, the tasks and processes of learners in them is frequently invisible, undocumented, and unassisted. Learners depend on messages from the institution itself about use” (Carr, p. 58). If you stop to think about it, this makes sense. Museums present themselves as important sources and storehouses for information about the past, art galleries provide a window into current and past cultural events and objects, and libraries are a source of general knowledge (or lately, a source of information, a slightly different service). This makes me think: what kind of messages are other institutions sending out? Is there something we can do, at a very basic level, to make places more appealing to learners, to promote self-directed learning?

What interests me the most in this article is Carr’s discussion of the learning skills required to navigate and use the resources offered in cultural institutions. He talks about “museum literacy”, which he describes as follows: “As in other new environments, these skills involve the decoding of signs and the reading of maps. But, they also involve the ability to learn from objects, to generalize across experiences, and to pursue an interlocking chain of data” (Carr, p. 56). These are some very basic skills, which would be valuable in a variety of situations. Do institutions have an obligation to teach these basic learning skills? It seems to me that one of the first and most basic things people should learn is how to learn.

There’s more to the article than I will discuss here, but one thing kept coming up for me: how could this relate to other learning environments, particularly virtual ones – more specifically, would the internet fall under the category of “cultural institution”? I think if I asked, I would get a resounding “no” – simply because the internet is almost completely unregulated. Even so, I believe there is an equivalent “internet literacy” that allows people to make use of this resource for their own learning. Those skills may even be comparable to Carr’s museum literacy, particularly the ability to “pursue an interlocking chain of data” – after all, what is hyperlinking, but a chain of information? The reading of symbols and maps also plays an important role, though the skills would have to be suited to the environment. For example, most people know that blue underlined text denotes a link of some kind, as well as other common layouts and menus. This might be a worthwhile thing to figure out: what constitutes internet literacy skills? How can we use this in media literacy teaching? Can those skills be taught simply through internet use?

References:
Carr, David (1985). Self-Directed Learning in Cultural Institutions. In Brookfield, Stephen (Ed.) Self-Directed Learning: From Theory to Practice. New Directions for Continuing Education, no. 25. San Francisco: Josey-Bass, March 1985. pp. 51-61.