Creative work makes for slippery private property online: "What the Internet has done is wrest away from a few producers the ability to sell scarce goods to a large group of consumers through expensive and highly controlled channels, he adds, such as when three commercial networks controlled what TV viewers saw in the 1960s. Now everyone with access to a computer has "the tools to produce as much media - if not more - than they consume.""
Comment: Short article tackling a difficult issue: how to upgrade the copyright system to reflect the dynamics of a digital era. Lessig has proposed Creative Commons...others still are strongly oppossed to any model that isn't rooted in traditional copyright. Technology makes it possible for anyone to create and distribute content. It's both a cultural and a capabilities clash. Several decades ago, a content producer had to follow the path of established publishers. Today the doors are wide open. The content creator has control to publish. The legal aspects of content reuse, however, haven't caught up with the capabilities of our tools. Personally, I don't trade music online...and if I really want digital music, I'll pay. Content creators should be able to decide their terms of use (a point of control current held by content distributors). I respect someone's claim to copyright. However, I also appreciate someone's willingness to open up their work for others to extend (particularly in the field of education).
The SideBars March issue focuses on storyboarding and multimedia.
Extreme Learning: Decision Games : "What separates novices from experts is the way they size things up. Experts assess a situation with less information than novices...Exposing novices to multiple ways of seeing and sizing up situations is how expertise is built. Switching the focus from teaching content to challenging contexts intensifies learning." (Also mentions Maish's new company: Pebble Road).
An interesting application of information representation - 10 X 10: "Every hour, 10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. After this process, conclusions are automatically drawn about the hour's most important words."
Perceiving the intentions of others: "Psychologists and neuroscientists can be said to be working on the same problem, but they tend to approach it from opposite directions. Psychologists generally look at behavior and then try to understand the mental processes that might cause that behavior. Neuroscientists look at brain activity and see how it corresponds to behavior."
Comment: Psychology has played a dominant role in defining and understanding learning over the past century. Early indications (in terms of research papers and "best sellers") suggest that neuroscience will shape and define much of our future view of learning.
Exploding Radio: "Music, TV, film, news and even advertising are being transformed by an explosion of variety and availability as the traditional bottlenecks of distribution fall. This month in Wired we focused on radio, where the combination of satellite, streaming, digital broadcast, radio TiVo, and podcasting is doing the same."
Comment: I'm intrigued by the occurrences in radio, music, movies, and media industries. The field of education will eventually (is already experiencing?) experience many of the same pressures these industries are facing. I'm not convinced that those who ring the death bell for those traditional fields are correct. I think we'll see a progressive transformation as new leaders emerge in music and media...transforming themselves to meet the opportunities of a new environment.
I've been following online discussions on what is happening to the newspaper industry. Consumers are finding alternative sources of information, classified ads are dwindling. While answers haven't been found yet, the industry is at least starting to awaken to the new reality that surrounds them. Why didn't they notice it sooner (there was certainly enough online dialogue predicting the current state)? Why is the field of education making the same mistakes made by music, movie, and media?
A few recent posts by Dave Pollard:
Virtual Collaboration: "Collaboration entails finding the right group of people (skills, personalities, knowledge, work-styles, and chemistry), ensuring they share commitment to the collaboration task at hand, and providing them with an environment, tools, knowledge, training, process and facilitation to ensure they work together effectively."
Will That Be Coordination, Cooperation, or Collaboration?: "Coordination, Cooperation, and Collaboration, are often used interchangeably. They shouldn't be."
Appreciative Inquiry: "Principal author of 'AI' David Cooperrider describes it as nothing less than "the end of problem-solving"."
Appropriate Technology Applied to Online and Distance Military Education: "...the term "appropriate technology" refers to the need to align technology options with the real infrastructure, user abilities, and desired outcomes of a place or situation."
Personal Learning: "The key to learning is not the medium nor the message, it is the quality of the dialog with your peers that really matters."
Comment: I've long valued Denham Grey's thoughts and views (his wiki on knowledge management is excellent). With a bit of reluctance, I find myself disagreeing with the scope of his view on personal learning. The points made in this post (that learning is moving in constructivist directions, with greater emphasis on community and cohorts) are valid. It's not a complete view. Learning is more than simply dialogue with others. I've learned significantly over the last few years from simply reading blogs - often without dialogue. Dialogue is a catalyst to learning, but not an exclusive conduit. Different learning styles and different learning situations require different approaches. While I'm very fond of the notion of learning communities, I'm afraid that we'll ignore the values of personal reflective/contemplative learning in our rush to embrace this concept. Learning in communities is not the answer for everything (nor is the model of classroom lecturing). Learning requires a balance of methodology based on desired outcome, learner situation, etc. One canned answer doesn't meet every need. Learning has many components - personal, group, organizational - and an understanding of these dimensions ensures greater prospect for successful learning implementations.
I find that much confusion of what learning is stems from different uses of the same terms. Learning has two components that are often used interchangeably: knowledge acquisition and doing. Most definitions of learning stop at knowledge acquisition. If learning doesn’t' translate into "doing", I'm not sure learning has happened.
I'm also a bit lost as to how "shared meaning" relates to learning. I'm hearing meaning-making mentioned with increased frequency...but am unsure how it differs from personal learning. What is the defining characteristic of "making meanings"?
Tags (folksonomies) continue to impress users as the "new revolution" in content organziation. Yahoo's acquisition of flickr fuels the hype: "But, more importantly, Flickr is a pioneer in a new method for cataloging the Internet that some believe could revolutionize Web search."
Google...ourmedia: "The future, at least for me, is in distributed networks with front ends that aggregate everything together."
academici: "'Academici' is the first global networking platform linking academics, academic-related associations, societies, academic services, students and academic-related business."
Blogging Clicks With Colleges: "First the Internet turned colleges upside down, extending classrooms and changing the way people learned. Next came Napster and other file-sharing tools, then Web logs. Now blogs are morphing into the next big thing on campus: wikis." (via elearningpost)
As I've stated previously, information flow is the information era equivalent of the oil pipeline in the industrial era - Blog, Vlog, Podcast, Mobcast: "Until a few years ago, governments (secular or non) had almost complete control of information. That made (and continues to make) information a form of currency -- like the military and other stores of economic value. These "new words" are much more powerful than the technologies they represent, they speak a new language of information and, to be sure, currency."
Related: why wiki and Here come the vlogs
ourmedia: "The idea is pretty simple: People who create video, music, photos, audio clips and other personal media can store their stuff for free on Ourmedia's servers forever, as long as they're willing to share their works with a global audience."
Comment: The site has been receiving heavy traffic, access takes perseverance.
One of us is smarter than all of us: "The wisdom of crowds comes not from the consensus decision of the group, but from the aggregation of the ideas/thoughts/decisions of each individual in the group."
Comment: The distinction of a group creating an idea vs. a group aggregating ideas of others (and thereby creating a better overall idea) is very important. I have two very dominant traits - I really value being able to share ideas and knowledge with others (and in turn receive their insight)...I also really value being able to think and create on my own. A group following a group created ideology has the potential to be dangerous. A group of individuals following an aggregated vision is exciting. Groups, organizations, and institutions need always keep the individual in mind. Failure to do so, weakens the whole structure (this is particularly true of knowledge management initiatives).
Informal learning (I ignored the "p-word" if gives me a rash. It should be abolished): "In recent posts I have talked about the power of informal learning, and wondered why learning professionals conspicuously ignore the potential for performance improvement that it offers. Now that the kind of human interactions that make informal learning so effective are being facilitated by the Internet, the relevance and impact of formal training may diminish even further. Do we as learning professionals stand by and watch our empires get sidelined, or do we try to take a leading role in defining and refining emerging learning paradigms?"
Comment: Informal and formal learning are viewed as opposites (or at least in conflict with each other). Several recent discussions have suggested that perhaps reading a series of 30 - 40 top management books is a more effective approach than getting an MBA. I think there is a balance of formal/informal learning. Each has a place. Context and need should drive which one is utilized. One of the opportunities for formal education is to find ways to increase delivery of formal learning via informal channels.
Designing Schools for the Present Age: "Based on our experience as physicians specializing in helping children with learning problems, we would like to offer several observations on what children in the present age "need to know", and what current brain science suggests about the best ways to help them acquire this knowledge."
Comment: This short article makes two very valid points: students need a different level of preparation than what was required in the past...and each student needs to be instructed in the manner in which they learn best. As mcLuhan said: "we confront this new situation with an enormous backlog of outdated mental and psychological responses."
Some interesting thoughts on directions in computing. Short version: web-based, thin-client...internet operating system.
Electronic Portfolios: "The infusion of technology in all academic areas makes it evident that schools of this new millennium will look quite different from the schools of the past."
Comment: The author presents a variety of benefits for eportfolios, ultimately concluding that multiple dimensions of learning are effectively addressed through learner reflection and documentation. I'm still unsure of what "the tool" will be for increasing the legitimacy of informal learning in the eyes of formal education. Eportfolios are certainly one of the most promising.
Lots of hype on blogs and tech journals on OpenSearch: "OpenSearch is a collection of technologies, all built on top of popular open standards, to allow content providers to publish their search results in a format suitable for syndication." Fascinating possiblities...
As most people are aware, Microsoft purchased Groove last week. General comments have been very positive, with most people expecting tighter Groove/Microsoft Office integration. Ray Ozzie and the Children of the Future briefly evaluates the reason for the acquisition, and then (more importantly) discusses what people are actually doing with technology: "IM, blogs, and email have been woven together in practice that almost perfectly simulates what I see in a collaboration suite...". The question then, if an end user can connect functional tools on their own, why do we need a system like Groove (for all my ranting on the virtues of "connected specialization", I must say that Groove is one of the best tools I've encountered for collaboration and ease of use)?
Research is making almost daily progress in revealing how our brains actually work. For many educators, the "different brains" of younger students requires a different approach to instruction - Your Brain over Time: "The reality is that parents' and teachers' brains are different from the brains of teens' and other children's they teach. The most obvious ways for us to learn may not be the obvious ways for them to learn."
An unfortunately rushed presentation (audio is only about 20 min) on learning networks: .mp3 file and PowerPoint notes. For all the talk of networked learning, this is one of the first presentations I've come across that attempts to create a theoritical construct for thinking about these networks.
Neat article about the strength of ties/relationships between team members: "Evidence from personality profiles and from studies of military, corporate and space flight crews suggests that looser ties between group members can be a strength, if the team includes individuals who can generate collective emotion when needed."
Valdis Krebs: ""We NEVER look at purely *social* networks... it is a mix of social, task, strategy, career, knowledge and innovation networks."
The World in Your Palm?: "In our lifetime we will not see a single device that will represent all devices for everything we do...The barriers include human physiology (typing is still difficult on a small keyboard), technology (battery life for a fully converged device might be in minutes, not hours), and human preference (would the iPod be as popular if it looked like a cell phone?)."
Many "one-person" activities from generations past now require the input of multiple people and perspectives. Things are too complex for stand-alone heroism in leadership and learning. Structural Holes Part 1: "As managers, we need to shift our thinking from command and control to coordinate and cultivate...the key to innovation is not creating a good idea but recognizing the opportunity to re-use an ordinary idea from another group." See also part 2. Structural holes are "weak connections between clusters of densely connected individuals". Understanding structural holes can assist organizations in generating innovations and connecting interesting ideas and concepts. Filling a structural hole creates a more fluid pipeline for information.
I was interviewed by FLOSSE recently. It can be accessed here. I spent quite a bit of time trying to articulate the challenges of learning and how inadequately they are being met by current approaches to learning and technology. Interviews are also available with Stephen Downes, Alan Levine, Antti Kauppi, Knut Yrvin, Teemu Leinonen.
Balance between learning and applying: "The paradox for knowledge workers is this: the more time you spend in gaining knowledge, the less time you have to apply it. The reverse is also true. We must strike a proper balance between learning and doing. Most people have their nose to the grindstone. Very few spend enough time, energy and money in a quest to gain and process knowledge."
Comment: Learning is doing. I don't think that sitting in a classroom, reading books, attending conferences, etc. is learning. I think those are examples of knowledge acquisition. Learning has to be evidenced in actions/behaviour to qualify as "learning". Learning is actuated knowledge.
I finished my kick-off connectivism presentation. The PowerPoint is available here as well as the audio
The new site on connectivism as well as a blog are now live...I've added a wiki and discussion forum as well.
Audio Interview: Stephen Downes...the discussion on federated search (and learning objects as a whole) is very informative. Good interview.