Theresa M. Senft

From Media Abstinence to Media Production: Sexting, Young People and Education

‘Safe Sexting: There’s No Such Thing’. Or so says a 2009 information brochure produced by the New South Wales (Australia) Department of Education. Just as decades of research demonstrates that abstinence-only sex education is at best ineffective and at worst results in negative health outcomes (Alford 2007), there is no reason to suspect that policies and pedagogies that focus on sexting abstinence will be any more effective. But what are the alternatives? This chapter draws on recent research and pedagogical practice to move away from ‘just say no’ approaches to sexting and toward a contextualized understanding of young people’s media practices. The authors draw on recent research on representations of sexting in mass media, educational campaigns, and the law (Hasinoff 2015); empirical research seeking young people’s responses to ‘sext education’ (Albury et al. 2013); and new media pedagogies (Senft et al. 2014a) to recommend alternative approaches to shame and fear-based sexting education. Throughout, we maintain that an educator’s goal should not be to eliminate sexting practices, but instead to teach young people to promote the same affirmative consent standard for picture sharing that they would for other forms of sexual behavior. In the pages that follow, we offer some new pedagogical practices for teaching these principles, based on student-image production exercises and case study assignments, and drawing on research traditions such as photovoice.

MOOCs for credit: Making the idea work

Since the first MOOC was launched at the University of Manitoba in 2008, this new form of the massification of higher education has been a rollercoaster ride for the university sector. The New York Times famously declared 2012 to be the year of the MOOC. However, by 2014, the number of academic leaders who believed the model was unsustainable doubled to more than 50%. While the MOOC hype has somewhat subsided, the attitudes and anxieties of this peak time can still be seen influencing universities and their administrations.　 This is the first volume that addresses Massive Open Online Courses from a post-MOOC perspective. We move beyond the initial hype and revolutionary promises of the peak-MOOC period and take a sober look at what endures in an area that is still rapidly growing, albeit without the headlines. This book explores the future of the MOOC in higher education by examining what went right, what went wrong and where to next for the massification of higher education and online learning and teaching. The chapters in this collection address these questions from a wide variety of different backgrounds, methodologies and regional perspectives. They explore learner experiences, the move towards course for credit, innovative design, transformations and implications of the MOOC in turn. This book is valuable reading for students and academics interested in education, eLearning, globalisation and information services.