About

This blog is part of my course requirements for an Interactive Media Studies and Rhetoric course. It has a dual purpose:

The first to is to record various class activities relating to technology and rhetoric. The second is as a record of a ongoing research project of a subject of my choosing.

For my research blog I have chosen to explore the connection between the debate over freedom of information, specifically digital information, and education. I will be researching the various mediums that people, both professional and amateur, have used to produce and share educational content. I would like to explore the arguments over who “deserves” access to information and why.

Historically it has been those who could afford it. In ancient Greece only the sons of the aristocracy could spare the time and money it took to attend the gymnasium. As a result, philosophers and thinkers were the products of the upper tiers of society.

I believe that this trend has continued into modern society. A college education is required for any white collar profession. However, the cost of such an education is beyond the means of most people. Even so, as technology progresses the idea that Matt Damon’s character in “Good Will Hunting” epitomized is slowly becoming truer than ever.  We drop thousands of dollars for information we could get “for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”

I would like to address the way technology has changed education, the modes educators use and the relationship between education and freedom of education.