CommonCraft continues its tradition of taking complex ideas and reducing them to their essence in short videos. Their most recent release is Social Media in Plain English (just under 4 minutes). The video presents the value of social media creators (the amateurs) using new tools and approaches to personalize and augment the activities of traditional "big companies". Well done, though I'll pass on the pickle ice cream, thank you.
Terry Anderson has released the second edition of his popular Theory and Practice of Online Learning (direct link to entire book in .pdf). The book is available for purchase or as a free download. Topics include social media, philosophies of technology, mobile learning, cost decisions about technology, libraries, learner support and more. On a personal note, I appreciated Mohamed Ally's opening chapter on learning theory, including extensive discussion on connectivism. The broad range of subjects, both theoretical and practical, ensures that this publication will continue to be a critical resource for trainers, educators, and students.
Chris Lott is one of the most insightful writers I follow. I've had several opportunities over the last six months (while I was in Fairbanks) to spend time with Chris. Great experience each time. He offers a rare blend of creative and critical thinking - I guess that's what happens when a poet holds a degree in philosophy. Anyway, Chris recently posted on understanding the backchannel (a backchannel is essentially a tool such as Twitter, IRC, or IM that allows for participants to interact with each other while in a classroom or conference): "Others have bought into what I consider a common fallacy: if the backchannel weren’t there that attention would be directed at them (or whoever is speaking) instead. We all know that regardless of what a participant has at hand– a backchannel, a laptop, a cell phone, a book, or a set of Legos– they are not and never will direct 100% of their attention forward and they will find ways to create the attention cycles that characterize engagement. I was able to ignore all of my horrible, disengaged, shallow, incompetent teachers just fine back when the only thing digital any of us had access to was a watch."
I'm not sure what this means (if anything) - apparently, bands are selling more songs on xbox than on itunes. All content converges on entertainment?
Educators are concerned about student use of technology in the classroom. Laptops are an easy exit point from a lecture. A few years ago, I upset a series of colleagues when I stated something to the effect of "if students are distracted in your class, the issue is not with them, but with you as a teacher". Apparently, they didn't agree. I do think that laptops can be challenging in classrooms. Learners can get themselves into trouble with too much time spent online, creating a situation where they get too far behind in course material to catch up. Then they run the risk of failing or dropping out. But imposing control by limiting laptop use is about more than fostering learning. It's about the rights of the learners. And, failing is a part of that right. We can minimize laptop use, but what about iPod touch? Or mobile phones? When I don't have a laptop at a conference, I learn differently, not more. I learn what the speaker is saying, rather than the resources she is citing. When I have a computer, I don't play solitaire as suggested in this article - Hey you, pay attention!. I use the opportunity to find related resources, follow up on information presented, and generally enlarge the sphere of what would often be a single-perspective presentation. I'm sympathetic with the concerns of laptop mis-use. Yet I wonder if the problem isn't partly with our lack of modeling proper technology use. Perhaps we ought to utilize these tools for academic purposes, rather than continuing lecture models and seeing laptops as add ons to learning rather than a key contributor.
Open educational resources are an extension of the learning object excitement of a few years ago (with less complex meta-data schemes :)). I'm very much in favor of sharing learning resources, especially when they have been developed with public funds. But, OERs are not the answer. They are at best a transitory solution. Product-based approaches to learning will ultimately fail. Two significant pressures: 1) Learning is a social process that requires interaction between learners and educators, 2) information development will continue to increase exponentially, meaning today's OERs cannot be kept current. But, while we are waiting to fully experience the flaws of OERs, here are a few thoughts on The Role of University Faculty in the OER World.
Stephen Downes simultaneously releases a new piece of software and provides one of the best names I've recently encountered: gRSShopper. gRSShopper is a tool for aggregating and managing content. According to Stephen, "I don't expect massive numbers of downloads or WordPress-like popularity. Rather, I view it as one prong in my overall research effort, a demonstration, in code, of the concepts I talk about in writing." A demo area is set up for interested parties to play with the software. Great example of putting real examples of theoretical concepts.
I arrived in Ghana late on Tuesday this week. I'll post reflections on the experience on my connectivism blog some time later this week. It is a lovely country with beautiful, friendly people. As I said to a colleague, if I could be assured of broadband, I'd move here (assuming, of course, that they would have me!). That may reveal my somewhat pathetic addiction to online access, but, hey, it's true :). I presented on A narrative of learning for a world without boundaries (slides are here). John Connell was kind enough to provide a summary of the talk. He concludes by mentioning a participant accusing me of being a Maoist. Not sure what I said that caused that reaction. But I am fully willing to sell my presentation to anyone who would like to pay.
Teaching and learning as traditionally presented in the classroom is managed from a fairly singular perspective - the educator's. Sure, books and readings provide different viewpoints, but often these were also selected by the educator. Perhaps the most significant contribution the web has made to society - outside of providing increased access to information - is the forced consideration of perspectives and opinions outside of our own. While we might not always take advantage of it, each link is a simple access point to a new perspective. We can build echo chambers if we so desire, but the ability to encounter random views and perspectives is valuable and worth pursuing in its own right. A similar occurrence in traditional media: New York Times Embraces Link Journalism: "In a traditional newspaper article, all of these facts and analysis would have been synthesized, but the reader wouldn’t have had the opportunity to read for themselves the source material. This post does what journalism is supposed to do — empower people with facts, understanding, and perspective about important issues."
I've been largely conditioned to ignore advertisements online. Flashing banners are mildly irritating. However, when I'm looking for information through search or reading an article, I find ads valuable. The often direct me to resources I'm already interested in finding. Other media separates ads from intent. Online advertising that works blends intent and ads. That's why Google has succeeded so well with its context-relevant approach. Why Traditional Advertising Formats Fail On The Web: "...most online advertising creates NO value for consumers.
Search advertising, because it is relevant to what users are already searching for, creates enormous value. But the search advertising is largely about helping people buy what they already know they want."
I was presenting to a group in Niagara Falls last week, and made the point that "curriculum is the least valuable part of our education system". After the talk, an individual approached me and said he was quite upset with my comment. He said curriculum was both a product and a process and cited Grundy in this regard. And he was right. My concern is that most people see curriculum as content - as a book on the shelf or a binder of course notes. The process aspect of curriculum is not one that many educators consider. So, I should have said "content" instead of "curriculum". Next time :). But on the subject of content - The Tyranny of Content "Of course, the scientists were worried that they need to cover a certain amount of material during each quarter. I pointed out that they're being fearful, that they've fallen prey to what more progressive practitioners have called "the tyranny of content." That they need to be teaching students to learn, not stuffing their brains full of facts that they'll promptly forget immediately after the third "midterm.""
Jane Hart at Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies has been putting together a list of learning tools and technologies. Her directory now includes over 2300 tools. Great place for educators, marketers, people who are randomly bored, to get some new ideas and approaches to teaching and communicating. Jane has split the tools out in "free" and "non-free" categories.
This is interesting - McMaster University is involved in one of the fine "old book digitization" projects popularized by Google and duplicated by Microsoft. McMaster University Library is taking a slightly different approach. In addition to digitization, the books can be purchased through the print-on-demand service Lulu.
On Monday, I leave for eLearning Africa in Accra, Ghana. I'm looking forward to gaining a better perspective of what's occurring with learning and technology in other areas of the world. In a recent presentation, Sugata Mitra suggested the impact of learning technologies is more pronounced in areas of the world where access has previously been very limited. Opportunities to improve quality of life are significant in these developing countries. While I am presenting on "A Narrative of Learning for a World Without Boundaries" (short interview based on the presentation is here), I'm most looking forward to my role as a learner...
As part of our online conference - Shaping our Future, Heather Kanuka and I will be presenting later this morning on Modeling collaboration: Researching professional development and learners needs. The live presentation can be accessed here (no fee) beginning at 11:00 am CST.
The idea is important but the execution is flawed and a bit delayed: A Seismic Shift in Epistemology "The epistemology that leads to validity of knowledge in Web 2.0 media such as Wikipedia is peer-review from people seen, by the community of contributors, as having unbiased perspectives."
I have rather significant issues with how epistemology, consensus, and knowledge are treated in this article. I'm not fully convinced knowledge is collectively created. By my definition, most of what the author treats as knowledge is more like information. And if the discussion is primarily about information, epistemology as used does not apply either. So, I'm conflicted. I like the distinction the author tries to make, but due to fundamental disagreements in how information, knowledge, and epistemology are treated, the article is more of an entrance into the conversation than one that can be used to shape the larger discourse. As is often the case, we can find a better more complete effort addressing the subject in the edublog space, in this case, Stephen Downes' Connective Knowledge article.
It's easy to get immersed in new technologies and lose sight of the reality for most people. While I may blog, twitter, flickr, skype, second life, etc., most people do not. Even at academic conferences, the adoption of technology is limited. Or non-existent. A small percentage of the population actually uses these tools. This number is growing, but to date, the hype exceeds the reality. I see it a bit like the stock market. When a company is vastly overvalued, due to hype, it is a function of the future potential investors are betting on. The hype of educational technology is the equivalent. We are betting on the transformative aspect of participative tools...
A short article addressing this hype theme - Assuming too much about the web we know: "It's too easy to start making assumptions - assumptions about general awareness, about the number of people who really know what's happening in "our" online world. Viewed from the comfort of our living room, bookmarked pages and social circles, the Web looks pretty small and awareness looks pretty big. It's too easy to assume that people have heard about the tools and sites we use everyday.
But they haven't. In real terms, no one has."
Doug Belshaw applies his usual critical and thoughtful perspectives as he shares Ed. D. thesis proposal on What does it mean to be digitally literate?: "To have some clarity as to what it means to be ‘digitally literate’ will help move on the debates taking place at all levels in the western education system...Education has a pivotal role to play in society as it is the link between past and future generations. In the past this link has been relatively easy to achieve, as the knowledge and skills useful to acquire would vary only slightly within a generation. In the brave new world of digital technology, however, fundamental shifts in required knowledge skill sets and knowledge can occur several times within a generation."
I'm looking forward to seeing more of Doug's work. It is an important area that requires exploration beyond the hype and cute catch-phrases that currently define much of the conversation on digital literacies.
An interesting view on our increased fragmentation - Endless Conversation: The Unfolding Saga of Blogs, Twitter, Friendfeed, and Social Sites: "The challenge today is that while the size of individual contributions to online conversations is getting smaller, the frequency of conversations are increasing on these new social media platforms."
I maintain that while we are currently getting very good at fragmenting our ideas, our identities, our relationships, and our conversations, the real value arises in seeing how the pieces fit. We haven't had as much innovation in "pulling pieces together" as we have in fragmenting them. Sure, we have sites like Friendfeed, PageFlakes, Netvibes, and others, but they have so far adopted a fairly unoriginal approach to making sense of our distributed selves. Bringing pieces together involves more than bringing them together (ok, that likely doesn't sound sensible, but it is). Tools that make sense of fragmentation need to provide visualization, unknown connections between elements, peripheral elements of potential interest, history of our own behaviour, etc. I just haven't seen much that excites me in area yet.
An axiomatic statement in concept, but often ignored in our online habits Our Data, Ourselves: "Who controls our data controls our lives...Our data is a part of us. It's intimate and personal, and we have basic rights to it. It should be protected from unwanted touch". As far as I'm concerned, not many statements are more obvious and more likely to result in universal head nodding. But for some reason, we are allowing sites and applications online to handle our data in almost abusive manner while we use their "free" tools. Not all costs of use are economic, but all data can be used for economic purposes by someone.
Seb Schmoller has compiled a short list on what to advise a student about using the Web. The list is a good starting point for educators who are trying to improve their own use of the web (after all, we need to become somewhat competent with the tools before we expect to model use for learners).
Neuroscience research is opening new doors every day. Some have declared this the century of the brain, indicating a highly optimistic view of what we will discover about ourselves as we move forward. In very few areas are we finding a blurring of corporate interests and research as significant as in the neurotech field. The Ultimate Cure offers insight into the current state of this emerging field. While a great deal of research suggests we'll find cures to many of the brain-based problems now common in society, this report illustrates the prominence of business-oriented interests driving the speculation. I'm comfortable (but only marginally so - our understanding trails behind technology) with research driven by scientist's and society's desire to push back boundaries of what we know. But, when neuroscience becomes a market-based speculation, we are asking for infractions, violations, and ethical infractions. Neurotech research (via Mind Hacks)
I'm in Saskatoon at the TLt Summit. I presented last night on Education: An ecology of connections. Great work on the part of the conference organizers in putting together what looks like a great conference (a sell out at 600 attendees) - Alan November is speaking today, Stephen Downes tomorrow. The concurrent sessions are a challenge - too many good options.
Unlike blogs - which, when public, seem to appeal to a certain personality type - everyone is a potential contributor to a wiki. Terms and concepts are currently blurring as learning management systems are adopting the functionality of blogs and wikis, Google Docs seems more like a ramped up wiki than a word processor, etc. This short article - Sage Advice on Wiki Adoption - provides an important perspective: start with small pilot groups and let things unfold. To mandate is to kill a wiki project. I could, however, do without the term "go viral". It no longer means anything. And it's so 2006.
Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope is now available. I haven't had a chance to download it (I'm on a back up laptop as my still new Dell is undergoing repairs for hardware failure - I try to whine about this in every forum I can). Comments and reviews have generally been favorable. As with the Google Earth, this is likely to be an important resource for teachers to add a greater sense of realness to subject matter often taught with grainy videos and text.
On Monday (May 12), we will begin our online conference: Shaping our future: Toward a Pan-Canadian elearning research agenda. Terry Anderson is the first presenter and will be presenting on The value, form, and function of a large scale research agenda. All sessions can be accessed here. Discussion during the conference (and more information on schedule, themes, etc) will be held here. If you're interested in attending our Monday presentation, please review how the scheduled time translates into your time zone.
I spend most of my time looking at networks from the perspective of learners and educators. I find my own personal network for learning far exceeds any other information source (including Google). As I begin to follow/read different practitioners and theorists, I begin to develop in my own understanding - especially if they represent a related, but not overly similar field. Media, news, video games, communication theory, philosophy, and other areas contribute to my understanding of the role of technology for learning. But learning is not confined to colleges and universities. As this article states, the ability to form networks is vital for achieving personal and career goals. When I suggest how important personal learning networks are, I often encounter the statement "I don't have time". As this author states: "If you want to succeed you need to make the time". She then goes on to suggest that we need to schedule time for forming networks so that it becomes habitual. I wonder how many educators regularly set aside time to consider the quality and diversity of their networks...
A short exploration of Twitter as a tool for reporting, filtering information, and consuming (much) time. A particular focus in the article is the use of twitter for finding information. I frequently see educators posting requests on Twitter...and the network replying with a great list of resources, often within minutes. Email lists no longer exhibit this spirit of sharing. It might be due to email fatigue and the fact that most of us see email as a burden, not an opportunity for helping others. With Twitter, the spirit of sharing and assistance remains strong. At least until network fatigue kicks in...
During this last week, at MADLaT, Peter Tittenberger and I presented several sessions. The first was a workshop addressing approaches educators need to consider as they move content online. The second session - Walking Uncertain Paths: Technologies and models of learning for tomorrow - was focus on where we are heading with educational technology, as technology both influences and reflects existing mindsets within society. I enjoyed both sessions as most of the time was spent in conversation rather than presentation. At one point, as a group of educators were addressing some of the change pressures they face, I asked about the key question guiding their technology plan: Is the question one of should we use technology or one of how should we use technology? Everyone in attendance stated technology use was a foregone conclusion. The only question they were grappling with was how to make it work. Not sure how I feel about that. A few good cynics are always nice to have around :).
This is a bit dated (from last year, which is a condition of obsolescence in online tools and applications) but still useful to consider how social network sites are positioned around the world. I'm interested in how countries not yet dominant in social networking, but possessing large populations, will influence maps like this. Will sites like Facebook and Myspace be able to successfully internationalize? Or will companies such as South Korea's Cyworld serve their own markets more effectively?
RescueTime is a tool that tracks what a user does with her/his computer. I tried it for a while. It was depressing, so I stopped using it. They've now publicized some aggregate information on computing habits of early adopters. The results are not surprising - most people still spend the bulk of their time in Microsoft-based applications. Google is coming on strong, however, with their email service approaching Outlook in terms of usage time. Google Reader rated quite highly as well for early adopters, almost on par with time spent in Google search.
Identity is challenging in a distributed environment. When dealing with educators, I often mention that if they are not involved in networked conversation, their voice essentially doesn't exist (which raises the prospect that learners will receive information from less than ideal sources). Well, in reality, if you're not online, it's not only that you don't exist. Instead, the challenge arises that others may form your identity for you. For example, in a neighboring city of Brandon, Manitoba, a teenager has been charged with impersonating a teacher for creating a Facebook account using the teachers name and identity. While I see the parallel with impersonating a person in a physical space (and therefore the basis of the arrest), these types of things are almost impossible to control. The onus of confirming identity - much like email spam - should rest on the people interacting with the Facebook profile. I have become cynical over the last few years about people offering me huge sums of money if I will only provide my personal banking information. In a similar sense, when I encounter an individual online, I need to question/be wary. As astonishing as it may appear, not everything we encounter online is completely accurate.
I presented at the Leading Learning conference this morning...presentation slides are here: On Becoming: cognitive and social impact of technology. My focus was on retaining the needed elements of education - transforming learner and society, deep understanding, cultivating capacity for ethical thought, and emphasizing "what it means to be human" - while fostering greater innovation in teaching and learning through the opportunities of technology. It's a tough balance to get right.
Games provide a useful model for learning (cost and time are two limiting factors). Games provide an ecology of exploration. Clear aims are pursued (complete a level, for example) in a flexible manner. Learners have time to explore peripheral experiences. The pseudo-linearity of intent within games combined with the ecology of exploration provide much of the value of games. An interesting post on the subject: Digital Montessori for Big Kids: "We’re so accustomed to silo’ing kids by age and ability these days that the mere suggestion of mixing in older or adult peers makes us somewhat uncomfortable. And yet, there is immense value in commingling experts and novices, learners and teachers, grown-ups and kids - especially in third places for informal sociability where one’s rank in terms of age or credentialing does not matter."
Data visualization is highly useful in helping us to make sense of complexity. If you're new to the concept, a few useful online talks are available to provide a basic introduction. We will be seeing many more visualization tools for use in learning: visualizing conversation/connections, content elements (word cloud, for example), related content, related learners, displaying relationships between complex concepts, etc.
If you're interested, I've posted the slides from my presentation this morning - Rethinking Teaching: Networks and Social Connections to the Pacific Northwest Higher Education Teaching and Learning Conference. A somewhat interesting confluence of factors - social learning, activity theory, network theory, and technology - is occurring. And it seems to be accelerating. Recent conferences I've attended indicate a shift in educator mindsets from tools (blogs, wikis, podcasts) to concepts (networked learning, distributed cognition, rethinking teaching, etc.). Nice to see.