Page 133 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015133assessment systems because the latter do not take into account the huge quantity and quality of skills that are innate and/or acquired in process- es chosen and designed by them in accordance with what they need to learn to perform their work more effectively.Audio and video tutorials, textbooks, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), participatory encyclopaedias, books, educational videos, virtual visits to museums, and open and specialised social networks have becomemuch more than educational resources that complement users’ formal academic education. Gradually, without necessarily being designed for that purpose, they have become spaces of materialisation that make it possible for a large number of imaginative and creative people, owing to their divergent thinking, to discover and realise personal talents that are not envisaged in the student profiles of the large majority of schools and universities. Although they do not aim to replace actual teaching, MOOCs, for example, offer the possibility of contacting and learning with eminent teachers anywhere in the world and at a price that is very often affordable.Sharing the results of this learning on specialised networks has proved to open doors to this pro- file of young people with undervalued talents, such as Jordi Muñoz,4 a boy from the city of Tijuana who was rejected twice as a formal student of the Instituto Politécnico Nacionalin Mexico and, teaching himself through free online tutorials and courses, began to build drones in the garage of his home. His models attracted the attention of Chris Anderson, the founder of Wired Magazine, when Jordi sharedthem on the DIY Drones blog. Shortly after- wards the two of them founded a million-dollar corporation in San Diego: 3D Robotics. Jordi was twenty-one and by no means a professional by the standards of the institutions from which engineers graduate. Jordi had no idea who Chris was; their disinterested connection came about thanks to the informality of the blog and its principle of providing a space where people can get together to share and exchange discoveries and ideas.MOOCs offer the possibility of contacting and learning with eminent teachers anywhere in the world.Stories like those of Jordi and Uzochukwu are made possible by the fact that we have created and provided networks with knowledge and talent. Semi-anonymity in collaborative blogs allows humans to relate to each other through symbols that unite us, creating territories with significant logics that know no socio-political, geographical or meritocratic boundaries.Producer consumerA key factor in the professionalisation of net- works is users’ awareness of their role as consum- ers and as producers. Nowadays Internet users are both audiences and creators. In my field of action, which is culture and art, I deal daily with artists who both read and write, watch films and make videos; look up things on Wikipedia and contribute with articles, take selfies, produce chronicles of everyday stories that range fromGrace Quintanilla