Miles, Adrian. “Networked Knowledge Objects.” Association of Internet Researchers Annual Conference, Internet Research 7.0. Brisbane. 2006. Conference Paper.

1. networked knowledge
objects
videographic pedagogy for new knowledges

2. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
Online technologies have always been a
revolution in writing
• a publishing and a making
• a doing,‘designerly’ writing
• was never merely a revolution in consumption
• (an old fashioned notion of literacy)

3. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
I am in an institutional context where
• significant resources and infrastructure are provided to
staff to become proficient & functional in ‘e’ learning
within turn key systems
• staff are routinely empowered by this experience
• yet don’t imagine that their students would feel similarly
empowered by the same experience
• where all such work is locked behind firewalls
there is no nett contribution to knowledge by students
this fundamentally misunderstands emergent, peer contribution nature
of these networks
is still a classroom in a box

4. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
I am in an institutional context where
• significant resources and infrastructure is provided to
staff to become proficient & functional in ‘e’ learning
within turn key systems
• staff are routinely empowered by this experience
• yet don’t imagine that their students would feel similarly
empowered by the same experience
• where all such work is locked behind firewalls
there is no nett contribution to knowledge by students
this fundamentally misunderstands emergent, peer contribution nature
of these networks
is still a classroom in a box
When the point is that our students no longer
live, graduate into, nor will work in boxes
(neither do we as academics).

5. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
Within the RMIT media program we are
attempting a whole of program approach to
network literacies
• this includes the integration of individual student blogs
which are used throughout the three years of the
degree (and possibly as an alumni service)
• all students podcast and video blog
• all students contribute collaborative research to a
student wiki
• spend a great deal of their second year exploring and
using social software
• all work is public

6. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
within the RMIT media program we are
attempting a whole of program approach to
network literacies
• this includes the integration of individual student blogs
which are used throughout the three years of the
degree (and possibly as an alumni service)
• all students podcast and video blog
• all students contribute collaborative research to a
student wiki
• spend a great deal of their second year exploring and
using social software
• all work is public
To be network literate is to use existing
distributed, emergent technologies within and
as a part of your learning — this includes
participating as a peer within these systems.

7. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
By teaching students to be network literate
we are seeking to shift the ‘economy’ of
teaching from students being consumers
(containers, whatever metaphor works for
you) to peers within a learning community.
It should be noted that a process based
methodology is emphasised.

8. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
The use of video online begins with video
blogging.
• students use a variety of ‘to hand’ technologies, including
mobile phones, domestic digital cameras, and specialised
equipment provided by the university
• granular, personal and informal video is emphasised

9. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
This grounds a reconsideration of video in
exclusively digital & networked contexts
• a soft video practice
• helps to model the intersection and relationships of
theory and practice
• is grounded in a designerly cycle of making, reflecting,
documenting, and a new cycle of making

10. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
This lets the students then take these skills
as the basis for expressing their academic
learning. In conjunction with their developing
network literacies they are able to make
networked knowledge objects.

11. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge object
‘Knowledge object’ is a term I take from
Entwistle and Marton (1993).
• I remember reading this many years ago and it ‘sticking’.
I take it to be the artefact produced as the outcome or
consequence (the expression) of deep learning
• It recontextualises what is learnt into other contexts
• It can include experiential and reflective aspects

12. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge object
A networked knowledge object is the
artefact that is the expression of deep
learning that utilises the affordances of
networked, media rich hypertextual
practices.
• the networked aspect is a qualitative shift as links are
acts of connection between media, and nodes, that
support multiple learning styles and knowledge
structures
• a blog can be thought of as a networked knowledge
object

13. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
Networked time based media becomes the
basis for these networked knowledge
objects
• these are interactive video and/or audio pieces
• they combine text, image and time based media
• contain links to network based objects (created by
students and others)
• they generally are published and/or distributed publicly
via individual blogs
• they are situated within specific theoretical problems

14. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
The small number of examples I am going to
show pose questions
• what is being assessed?
technical ability and excellence?
creative excellence?
theoretical engagement?
• what constitutes size?
words aren’t a metric
how ‘big’ should they be?
• how do you distinguish technical achievement and
learning from knowledge gained and developed?

15. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
The aim of this work is not to produce new media artists,
or theorists. It intends to embed a variety of
literacies within a specific, situated problem. In
producing their responses students undertake research into
the theoretical issues and in translating their print literacies
into networked knowledge objects engage with a variety of
relevant technical, aesthetic, and theoretical activities.
These are media students and so we are attempting to
develop academic genres that engage with the knowledges
they are developing across media, and, to appropriate John
Hartley’s phrase from today’s keynote, let them make
reveries as creative, active knowledge workers. (Knowledge
lies in making and across media.)

16. Adrian Miles 2006http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au
networked knowledge objects
Entwistle, Noel, and Ference Marton. "Knowledge Objects: Understandings
Constituted through Intensive Academic Study." EQARD Occasional Paper
93.4 (1993).