Special Edition of E-Learning Journal
Guest Editor:
Angela Thomas
University of Sydney
a.thomas@edfac.usyd.edu.au

Theme of the Issue:  Digital Inter-Faces

Description:

The focus of this special edition of E-Learning is ‘Digital Inter-Faces’. The articles in the edition will examine the issue of identity in and around digital contexts.  As our lives become increasingly more technologically inclusive, we face new opportunities to e-xplore, e-xamine, e-xtend, e-xperiment, and e-volve.  Technology is changing the ways we think about the world and the ways we position ourselves in the world.  Our involvement in and around digital contexts has opened up a place for living within a multiplicity of identities and through this, we can act out our fantasies, become the Other of our desire, and just as importantly, in the words of Eowyn, a 15 year old girl, “It's not becoming your own hero that's the point-- it's allowing what's inside of you to show
through”.

And yet online our selves can be conveniently edited, we can be kinder and funnier and more intelligent.  In the same series of posts about her online life, Eowyn told me, “The person I show to others online is outgoing, different, and not afraid to be herself”, and Shadow, a 14 year old boy, revealed, “I am sort of a persona, me but minus the things I don’t like about myself”.  Other children revealed to me that rather than edited selves, they become fused selves with their online role-playing characters.  The faces shown to others online may be masks of other personae or characters, yet underneath are intimately fused with the self.

What are the consequences and implications of these new faces?  The faces of our cyborg self, our edited self, our hybrid self, our fused and blended self into another character, and the Other of our desire.  What can we actually learn in this masquerading of fragmentedness that has become a hallmark of post-modern identity?  In this issue of E-Learning, our contributors discuss aspects of these issues, drawing from a range of theoretical, sociological and political perspectives.  Thoughts about gender, race, youth, politics, power, trust, and authenticity are critically discussed with respect to the many faces and inter-faces of the digital world.

Submission Deadline: January 18th, 2006
Submit to: Angela Thomas, a.thomas@edfac.usyd.edu.au

Information about the journal and papers: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/elea/?.

Posted by prolurkr at September 26, 2005 11:49 PM

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