I've been focused lately on trying to get a sense of the defining element that shapes, drives, and influences what's happening in the educational technology space today (and to a related but lesser degree, what's happening in society). I guess I'm asking the question: "What is the element/entity, that if we understood it better, would illuminate that nature and scope of the changes occurring?". People living in the midst of a revolution likely aren't aware of the full scope. And, I suspect, people living in non-revolutionary periods are not aware of how history will perceive their era. Are we in revolutionary or non-revolutionary times? Ultimately, history will pass the verdict. But in trying to find the element that will illuminate what is happening today, I'm increasingly returning to information. To how we create it. Share it. Dialogue around it. To this end, I find sites or concepts that alter how interaction with and around information of particular interest. For example - History Commons "allows people to investigate important issues by providing a space where people can collaborate on the documentation of past and current events, as well as the entities associated with those events." While people have always been able to do this, the scope and ease of collaborating and (hopefully) creating a multi-perspective information source is now greater than before. It just feels different to me. Like we're still going through many of the motions I recall going through in the past with regard to information creation/sharing...but something fundamental is different. Can't quite put my finger on it...
Connections (obviously, but still worth noting occasionally) are central to how we socialize with and without technology. Technology brings to the forefront the sometimes less obvious connections found in a pre-internet world. How we used to network in face to face environments is now permissible at a more advanced level. Connections are everything: "My connectivity to individuals in libraries around the world have made me better at what I do and enabled me to build a rich understanding of practices different than just those I am surrounded with on a day-to-day basis. Maintaining these connections are incredibly important...connections are everything in the very technical sense that understanding and interacting with modern information technology can be seen as the management of connections."
Could the Chronicle be awakening from its slumber of pre-1980's view of technology? It appears as if some signs of life exist as it explores video in courses. Capturing videos of lectures is a useful idea...but the length of videos can be an issue. If a lecture is boring, a one hour video of a lecture will retain this character. The TedTalks approach to video makes more sense (now, all you have to do is convince Nobel Laureates to speak to your class).
Wikis embody much of the collaborative spirit that drives the discussion of participative technologies. They're (theoretically) open. Reflect the multiplicity of voices that often comprises the development of information and new ideas. They're accessible and easy to use. But, challenges exist in adoption because wikis force a consideration of where we end and the group begins. Technical issues are partly a problem as wikis are not the most intuitive tools available, but ease of use is improving. The big issues rests with the conceptual shifts required for using wikis. As this article - No Rest for the Wiki - (focusing on corporate adoption of wikis) states: "Even employees convinced of the usefulness of wikis aren't necessarily comfortable with them, especially when their work may be seen and tinkered with by colleagues from across the company."
Once again, the field of mainstream media provides practical insight into what ails education as an enterprise: "This is something that people in the media world don't understand. Media in the 20th century was run as a single race--consumption. How much can we produce? How much can you consume? Can we produce more and you'll consume more? And the answer to that question has generally been yes. But media is actually a triathlon, it 's three different events. People like to consume, but they also like to produce, and they like to share."
Isn't that what we want with our learning experiences? We don't just want to read your book. We want to talk about, create something around it, share it with our network and peers. Seems simple, but to truly implement it would be rather disruptive for education as we know it today.
I delivered my last presentation to the iDesign group at University of Alaska Fairbanks this morning (I have a remote presentation on the role Google in educational settings tomorrow, and then I'm presentation-free until the CNIE conference next week). The presentation: Connectivism in Practice for Instructional Design. The concepts were generally well received and attended to with good discussion. Toward the end of the session, I presented a model for learning resource development that was viewed as being too complex. I've presented this model before (and used it for evaluating organizational communication within a university context several years ago). For some reason, it hasn't had much traction. Perhaps the feedback from this group explains why!
Pew Internet has released a report on Writing, Technology, and Teens (.pdf). From observation, I think my children write more today than I did when I was their age. Kids are constantly texting, instant messaging, using MS Word (or Google Docs), interacting with text in game environments, etc. The quality of writing concerns many people, but the idea of thinking in text and expression of concepts via text is certainly not lost on this group of learners. As the report indicates, learners don't see their social use of text as writing and they recognize the importance of writing and would like to receive higher quality formal instruction on the subject.
...and, as a compliment to the importance of writing, I find this to be a good document on the value of reading: What Reading Does for the Mind (.pdf).
Marshall McLuhan's comments are frequently drawn on to explain technical developments and social impact of the internet. CBC has an archive of 18 clips (9 audio, 9 video) of McLuhan expressing commentary on media, books, the "tribal drum" of humanity, and learning. Well worth spending time reflecting on how many of our discussions today on learning were echoed many decades ago (via Howard R. Engel).
Hey, look, who would have known we would get science 2.0? We are in an egotistical era where we think we're only up to version 2.0 in science. What was Aristotle - Beta? Oh wait, I know, Copernicus was .5, Bacon was .7, and Newton was 1.0. Einstein was 1.5. How fortuitous that I exist in the official 2.0 era of science.
Sarcasm aside - the article does provide a short look at how scientific research is becoming more open and more collaborative. It's just the "2.0'izing of everything" that causes me to briefly rant about once a month.
I'm almost done posting presentations I've done over the last few days :). I delivered an online session to the Emerge conference early this morning on Technology and Community as Identity.
I'm currently in Fairbanks, Alaska...and this morning, I delivered a presentation to a group of designers on the Big Picture: Future of Education. While I'm pleased to have received the invite to return to Fairbanks, I feel a bit conflicted in that Chris Lott (situated in Fairbanks) is every bit as capable of synthesizing and expressing key trends in society and technology (though he would do so with a more poetic/artistic flare).
This article - Struggling with growing pains - is not note worthy for what it says (we've been saying/hearing similar things in edublogs for over 5 years), but rather for the mainstream appeal of the article. We're seeing conflicting messages, which are signs of a system in transition: messages range from "it's all been done before, we've seen this with video in classrooms" to "this is completely new and will revolutionize education".
From the article: "Some professors and schools are redesigning their courses to take advantage of the Web's interactive and visual possibilities, adopting some bleeding-edge technologies such as gamelike simulations and digital avatars to make online courses more exciting and more effective than traditional classrooms."
On Saturday, I delivered a presentation to Educamp 2008 on A new future or status quo: directions in education. A recording of the session is available. It was an early morning session, which I'm using as an excuse for misdirecting a few of the questions. Stephen Downes' session elearning 2.0 is also available...as are previous presentations from Henry Jenkins, John Seely Brown, Marvin Minsky and others.
Online video is where blogs were about 7 or 8 years ago - on the threshold of large scale adoption for content creators due to ease of creation and sharing. Tools for your video career is a useful, though basic, resource on how to get started with creating, sharing, and streaming video.
The graphic in this short post - The "new" news process - captures part of the iterative, evolving, multi-faceted, and multi-contributor process of where we are going with education. Journalism today has shifted from a broadcast model to an interactive model with reader input/feedback. I see no reason why we don't take a similar view of our educational resources. Instead of having the educator present "read this" material to learners, a more desirable model would be for learners to interact/critique/update/improve existing learning materials. It will likely result in greater learner engagement (which in turn we generally conclude with result in "better" learning), but also the resource will be more valuable for future learners as it (the resource) is more current and reflective of multiple perspectives.
Is knowledge representation becoming more visual?: "Emeritus Professor Alfred Crosby suggested that visualisation and measurement were the two factors most responsible for the rapid development of all of modern science."
I'm not comfortable with the notion of "knowledge visualization" (information seems more appropriate), but there is little doubt that visualization plays an important role in how we make sense of abundance. A visualization is, partly at least, a form of aggregation, bringing together many individual elements into a pattern. In complex environments, we need to ramp up how we interact with information. As information becomes more abundant, we need to interact with the patterns produced, not the individual elements.
John Connell explores Teaching at a crossroads "...in an age where technological development has changed the game in education, changed it to its core, the innately conservative nature of the formal institutions of education are recognizing such shifts only very slowly, and in some places hardly at all." John's discussion of the notion of "pedagogy first" resonates with some thoughts I expressed recently on my connectivism blog. It's a discussion with many conflicting perspectives...but it's important that we consider different elements of teaching/technology and theory/practice, even though the process gets a bit bumpy at times ;).
I love this statement: Journalism Will Survive the Death of Its Institutions: "When our central institutions blew up, people asked many of the same questions I hear among journalists today. Without these institutions, who will fund the mission? How will we attract the talent we need to make the transition? Just as journalism without newspapers seems inconceivable now, it seemed inconceivable to many then that innovation could continue without the might, resources, and sheer heft of the companies that formed the core of the high tech industry."
Perhaps we can say the same of education?
I'm pleased (and for that matter, even excited) to announce an upcoming online conference - Shaping our Future: Toward a Pan-Canadian Elearning Research Agenda. The conference will run for a period of three weeks, beginning May 12. While our focus is on the Canadian context, I think anyone involved in research and learning technologies will be able to benefit from the conference. Registration is available by clicking on the "login" button top right of the page.
From the conference description:
"Canada is one of the only countries in the developed world without a national strategic plan to research, develop and harness new technologies for teaching and learning. E-learning, in combination with other forms of delivery, affords potential to increase not only accessibility, but effectiveness and enjoyment of both formal and lifelong learning for Canadians of all ages."
Week 1 will kick off with a presentation by Terry Anderson, followed by discussion of Anderson and Buell's paper Towards a Pan-Canadian E-Learning Research Agenda (.pdf)
Week 2 will have 4-6 presentations (titles/abstracts will be posted soon).
Week 3 will be a wrap up discussion on next steps forward
It would appear that there are many more virtual worlds in existence than I was aware of...have a look at this list of 100+ virtual worlds (via Brett Bixler). A quick skim through the list reveals a heavy emphasis on the youth market. Wonder if they're more receptive than older populations?
This is a slightly confusing and conflicted article - Am I my brother's web 2.0 gatekeeper?: "The thing is, there has always been too much information. That is to say, there has always been a great deal of bad information, or badly presented information, along with the good and the well done. So there has always been a role for the person who had the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff and the temerity to consign the chaff to oblivion...My point is that there is no need, nor has there ever been one, for “gatekeepers.” The information has been there, for anyone with the time and resolution to dig for it and learn to make sense of it."
I find myself agreeing with what the author is saying at stages - i.e. the importance of people (networks) to help make sense of the world . In other areas he ends up expressing points that I disagree with - such as the view that information has always been available. It may have been there, but barriers to access treat information as if it's not there for many members of society. I read a fair number of journal articles...but I don't link to them here. Unless you are a student of faculty member, you likely don't have access to many articles in academic journals. So is the information there? Of course it is. But it can't be accessed by a large portion of society. And that's the problem. Wikipedia, for example, is too often viewed from the perspective of "is it valid/truthful". That's not the real point. Wikipedia is accessible. It fits into the information habits of web users. Online, like it or not, access trumps authority. Educators need to understand that key distinction.
You've likely seen the "three doors of choice" in cartoons, TV shows, and movies. In theory, the general view is (and I saw this recently in the movie 21) that if you have options of door A, B, and C, you have a 33% chance of getting it "right". Let's say you select door A. If one door (let's say door C) is then eliminated, the question becomes: should you change your choice? On the surface, it would appear as if you are still dealing with the same percentages...but in reality, you have a better chance of getting the right door if you change your choice to door B, as it now has a greater possibility of being correct (door A still has 33% possibility (not 50% as would be assumed with the existence of only two doors), but the potential of door B being correct is now 66% as the probability of door C is subsumed into door B). What's the point of this? Well, according to an article in NY Times, many prominent experiments on cognitive dissonance don't account for the potentiality shift to the remaining unselected option...and as such, these well known experiments may not be as authoritative as is often thought.
Dave Snowden makes a statement, that while seeming obvious and intuitive is often misunderstood, summarizes much of what I was trying to communicate with Knowing Knowledge a few years ago: "A very large part of what we know, and how we know it is fluid, evolutionary and context dependent."
Seems like mobile technology is the theme this week...the Economist has an article/interview titled Nomads at Last that explores how technology (well, wireless communications) is changing how people live and work. An appropriate quote from Castells sums it up nicely: "Permanent connectivity, not motion, is the critical thing". I spend more time most days interacting with people in other countries than with people down the hallway. And I suspect the ability for people to interact outside of geographical constraints will replace much of what it means to "be here". Several times this week, I've approached people standing at counters, under the assumption they were there to provide a service for me, only to discover that they were in rather animated conversations with someone on their phone (go Bluetooth). "Here" means less and less. Connected means more and more.
While I don't care for the general concept of this article (solving complex issues like poverty requires more than just a new technological tool - it requires a political/ideological shift in thinking) - Can the cellphone help end global poverty - the impact of mobile phones on developing worlds is touch to over emphasize. The author cites "a growing number of economists who maintain that cellphones can restructure developing countries...Today, there are more than 3.3 billion mobile-phone subscriptions worldwide, which means that there are at least three billion people who don’t own cellphones, the bulk of them to be found in Africa and Asia. Even the smallest improvements in efficiency, amplified across those additional three billion people, could reshape the global economy in ways that we are just beginning to understand." This is likely true. But the bigger issue for me relates to where the money flows and who will have control over the new infrastructure. As I was reminded by a participant in an online presentation I delivered this morning, technology cuts both ways. It opens and it closes. It frees and it imprisons. That's why we an ideological shift in how we interact with developing nations.
The article provides a valuable look at how mobile phones are being adopted in developing countries, with growth in ICT expenditures out pacing basics such health and education.
To date, I haven't really considered time elements with regard to the use of social technology for learning. But I just came across a site museum site that explores "how much time does web 2.0 take?". Newcomers to the concept of the participative web sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed with the new terms, tools, and concepts. How does a person know where to start? Perhaps, as this article suggests, available time is the best starting point. Can't commit too much time each week? Well, start by reading a few blogs or tracking themes on technorati (or Google alerts). Have more time? Join/start a Facebook group. Or a Ning community. Start your own blog. Or podcast. From my experience, significant value exists in the gradient approach permissible with distributed, single functionality tools. We don't need to figure out an entire system to get started. Just one tool at a time. And that often only takes a few minutes. Don't try and figure it all out. Try and grow a tool or concept at a time.
Two of the most significant trends in society today - social networking and mobile phones - are destined to converge. Several concerns still exist (quality of web access via mobile devices...and if you're Canadian, the rather insane data fees), but the convenience of continual access to both data and your network of people is highly desirable. The Future of Social Networking: "A few years from now we’ll use our mobile devices to help us remember details of people we know, but not well...Once this network is established, you’ll know everyone’s name who’s around you (if they choose to share it), and enough basic information to jog your memory if you know them, or meet them if there’s mutual interest."
I've posted the slides from my presentation earlier this week. My focus is increasingly turning to the impact of information flowing in networks and the systemic changes required (and prominent barriers).
I had the opportunity yesterday to visit The Museum of Modern Art. It made me realize the tremendous value museums provide as a way of making sense of the world. Walking between exhibits, moving image artifacts, a touch of history (dueling media of typewriter and 35 mm film), Picasso, van Gogh, and others. The tour of ideas, concepts, and emotions communicated through art culminated in the sixth floor exhibit: Design and the Elastic Mind. The exploration of how technology impacts who we are as human beings was eye opening. As stated in the exhibit: "Designers give life and voice to objects, and along the way they manifest our visions and aspirations for the future, even those we do not yet know we have." I encountered some familiar tools like data visualizations and Twittervision...and some provocative (frightening?) consideration of our ability to engineer ourselves at a genetic level.
A short article on the art of being connected: Seven Habits of Highly Connected People. A few points made in the article resonated with with: the importance of reading/commenting on the work of others, rather than simply producing content...and the importance of finding places online where we can "add value rather than to pursue a particular goal or objective".
If you have a few extra hours, I recommend you explore these three technology learning related podcasts:
Gardner Campbell: Computers as poetry - a beautiful presentation of how the metaphors of poetry can inform technology use. See also his article on My Computer Romance.
Brain Lamb: Mashups Un-Artist (links to audio file) - This was a presentation Brian delivered in Second Life...I didn't see the session, but from listening to the audio, I got a sense of Brian Lamb as Bob Geldof in The Wall.
D'Arcy Norman - discusses images/pictures/flickrs, but of greatest personal interest, his description of eduglu project (at about the half-way mark)...one that has potential for much impact.
Needless to say (which is why I will), it's an exciting time to be in education. The promise of change is in the air, driven by technology, social change, and (perhaps most significantly) economic and political power shifts to countries like China, India, and Brazil...and regions like Africa and the Middle East. A small sample of the enormity of the change - China’s Higher Ed Explosion: "In pure bulk, the numbers behind China’s expansion are startling. Between 1999, shortly after the country’s leaders decided to focus on expanding access to and improving the quality of higher education as tools to propel the former Third World economy into the leading ranks of the world’s powers, and 2005, the number of undergraduate and graduate students earning degrees from China’s colleges and universities quadrupled, rising to 3.1 million from 830,000. Enrollments grew even faster over that period, with the number of new entering students growing to nearly 5 million in 2005."
Changes within educational technology are complex and uncertain in how they may ultimately impact the institutions of teaching and learning. But (as I've stated many times), we are not without guides in determining potential paths and directions. We have the experience of other industries that felt one of their primary products was content and discourse around content: newspapers, TV news, magazines, music, and movie industries. While we can't directly apply all the lessons of those fields to education, we can certainly gain insight from how different modes of interacting with content and with others may influence education. Mark Glaser provides a quick overview of changes in media and how communication tools have shifted control/power...and the impact on reduced circulation of newspapers and advertising (advertising follows energy and eyeballs, making it a good indicator of macro trends in media habits of consumers).
We often unnecessarily esteem (or fear) what we do not know. Sometimes it's related to race or culture...and other times to ideas and concepts. For many people, philosophy holds such a distinction. When someone is identified as a philosopher, assumptions are formed as to the depth of their thought and thereby authority to speak knowingly on certain subjects. Sometimes it's warranted. Other times it is not. We see a similar trend with neuroscience today. Two fairly recent argue present the challenge: Seeing is believing: The effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning: "...part of the fascination, and the credibility, of brain imaging research lies in the persuasive power of the actual brain images themselves. We argue that brain images are influential because they provide a physical basis for abstract cognitive processes, appealing to people’s affinity for reductionistic explanations of cognitive phenomena."
...and The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations : "Even irrelevant neuroscience information in an explanation of a psychological phenomenon may interfere with people's abilities to critically consider the underlying logic of this explanation. "
Does this explain the willingness for many people to accept the crockus as a part of the brain?
I've been following Luis Suarez's battle with email (he's trying to move completely away from email). He links to this simple graphic of the differences between wikis and email. Email is still a primary communication tool for me. New tools - blogs, wikis, twitter, facebook, etc. - to date have been largely supplemental. I haven't let go of email in any significant way. Maybe I'm a communication tool pack rat.
(update: just saw Stephen had linked to the same image a few days ago...
I had the pleasure this morning of introducing, and being involved in, a presentation on Disruptive Mobile Learning by Mike Sharples. I was quite impressed with the quality of mobile learning activities currently being conducted in schools. The session has been archived and can be seen here.
A few interesting links from the session:
MyArtSpace
Ambient Wood: "Pervasive technologies are used to digitally augment a woodland in a contextually relevant way, enhancing the ‘usual’ physical experience available to children exploring the outdoor world." (try reading that to non-ed tech folks)