Learning to leisure? Failure, flame, blame, shame, homophobia and other everyday practices in online education

Publishers churn out teaching textbooks and warm celebrations of the education age. The affirmations of the value of online platforms to and for teaching and learning seem obvious and indisputable. Digital dissenters struggle to gain space on such lists. Rarely do educators hear about – and even more rarely do we read about – stories of e-failure in the classroom. Funding agencies do not like such talk. Neither do writers of university strategic and corporate plans. However, in this article, we disclose and discuss an e-teaching failure. The causes of this failure are complex but invoke a significant warning for those who write curriculum. We map a singular teaching hypothesis: when using platforms most frequently positioned in leisure-based environments, such as the iPod, text messaging and discussion fora, there are institutional and ideological blockages to creating a successful learning experience and scholarly environment. We are interested in how leisure platforms can translate into education and how to manage the residues of conversation, informality, blame and shame.