The Decentring of the Traditional University: The Future of (Self) Education in Virtually Figured Worlds

The Decentring of the Traditional University provides a unique perspective on the implications of media change for learning that allows us to peer into the future of (self) education. Each chapter investigates how resourceful post-graduate students are breaking away from traditional modes of instruction and educating themselves through engagement with a globally interconnected web-based culture.

The argument is developed with reference to the findings of a cognitive ethnography that explores students' informal uses of social media. For example, Francis explores how students are cultivating globally distributed funds of living knowledge and learning through serious play in virtually figured worlds that transcend institutional and geographical boundaries. These stories also highlight the challenges and choices learners confront as they struggle to negotiate the fault-lines of media convergence and master a rich repertoire of new media literacies.

Overall, this compelling argument proposes that we are witnessing an historic period of systemic change in the culture of university learning as an emergent web-based participatory culture starts to disrupt a top-down culture industry model of education that has evolved around the medium of the book.