Harold Jarche

Analysis for Informal Learning

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This is a follow-up to Informal Learning and Performance Technology. I’ve created this diagram to show a rather simplistic representation of how you would conduct an analysis to determine where informal learning might fit in to your organisation. This process is designed for larger organsisations, and there is much missing from this diagram that space won’t allow. Anyway, it’s designed as a conversation accelerator on how to start looking at opportunities for informal learning on an organisational basis.

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Aliant connection speed – the saga continues

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I’m currently on hold with Bell Aliant technical support to complain about my very slow DSL connection speed, for which I pay $85.00 per month (plus tax), as part of a bundle that is called, “Value Package Ultra High Speed, Unlimited Can/US LD & Cellular”. My monthly recurring costs, including taxes are $136.53.

I’ve now listened to short versions of every standard maritime folk song at least 5 times each, as I wait, because “your call is important to us” according to the automated voice on the phone. Thankfully I have a speaker phone so I’m typing as I listen to this cheesy music selection.

FYI, my download speed is usually 1,200 kbps when I am supposed to get up to 8,000 kbps.

[later]

The technical support rep checked my account and will be sending a technician to my house on Saturday. He was very helpful and friendy as we did some troubleshooting on the system, and he agreed that my upload/download speeds were slower than they should be.

At the end of our conversation, I asked him to search on Google for “aliant connection speed”, which he did and was surprised to see that my blog post, Marketing Hype & Reality, complete with comments and complaints, was the first search result. It was due to these comments that I decided to take up the issue again. As one reader posted:

Welcome to Aliant my friend. This is how it works, aliant has several packages.

High speed, 1.5 meg

and ultra, anywheres from 3 to 7 meg.

You pay for ultra, but they will NOT switch you to the ultra circuit until you complain about 15 times, then they click the button and you get your ultra speed.

For about amonth, when they switch it back to 1.5 thinking you won’t notice.

I’ve been an Aliant customer since vibe began, and have been an ultra customer since they started offering it. This is how it works, and I’m a tech for the government so I know what I’m doing, and I know exactly what is going on.

Aliant does not have the bandwidth to support the dedicated connections it sells, so it screws most people, and they don’t notice.

A few notice like us, and spend the rest of our lives fighting them to get the speed we are paying for.

We’ll see what happens.

Update: Saturday, September 9th. The Aliant technician showed up at the house in the afternoon and spent a couple of hours troubleshooting the system. He checked the DSL router, the jack & switch, as well as all of the lines in the house. He was friendly, informative and thorough.

Overall, I was impressed with the service. I also found out that the technicians who show up at your house are trained employees of Aliant. On the other hand, the customer service representatives on the telephone are employees of a different company, and Aliant just outsources this lack of service. That’s why no one acted on my complaint about slow connection speeds last year (July, 2005).

After checking everything in the house, including the testing of a new modem, the technician then went out on the telephone pole and checked the speed of the line passing by the house. Everything was OK, but still no improvement in my speed. He then went to the main DSL switch in town and changed the port. Still no improvement; but he was clear that I have not been getting the high speed ultra that I have been paying for.

The ticket has now been advanced and another technician is supposed to be here on Monday. At the very least, Aliant owes me a rebate.

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Update 2: A senior technician arrived this morning and checked out the connection again. After about 45 minutes, and a few phone calls, he determined that I was not subscribed to the ultra high speed service. One flick of the switch at Aliant and my download speed has tripled.

Now why did it take so long? I’ve been paying for this service for over a year.

Statistics

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I switched to WordPress as my blogging software last March. Later that month I installed the Akismet spam module, which has been working very well. Akismet is a free plug-in that learns from the actions of all its users so that it is constantly up to date. I’ve found it to be very effective, blocking over 10,000 comment spam since installation in late March.
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The other interesting stat I’ve noticed is that since I started this two-way website, in Feb 2004, I’ve received almost as many comments as I’ve made posts. I know that many of the comments are my responses to other people’s comments, but it makes me glad to know that there are some real conversations embedded in this website. It’s a learning experience to go back and re-read the older ones.

I’d like to thank everyone who has joined in the conversation and helped me learn along the way.

“never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”

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In a nearby school classroom is a sign that states, “for whom the bell tolls” and the teacher says to the students that “it tolls for me, not you”. This reminded me of John Taylor Gatto’s teacher of the year acceptance speech in 1992, as he described the seven lessons that are taught universally in western education.

The third lesson I teach kids is indifference. I teach children not to care about anything too much, even though they want to make it appear that they do. How I do this is very subtle. I do it by demanding that they become totally involved in my lessons, jumping up and down in their seats with anticipation, competing vigorously with each other for my favor. It’s heartwarming when they do that, it impresses everyone, even me. When I’m at my best I plan lessons very carefully in order to produce this show of enthusiasm. But when the bell rings I insist that they stop whatever it is that we’ve been working on and proceed quickly to the next work station. They must turn on and off like a light switch. Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of. Students never have a complete experience except on the installment plan.

Indeed, the lesson of the bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything? Years of bells will condition all but the strongest to a world that can no longer offer important work to do. Bells are the secret logic of schooltime; their argument is inexorable. Bells destroy the past and future, converting every interval into a sameness, as an abstract map makes every living mountain and river the same even though they are not. Bells inoculate each undertaking with indifference.

Want to improve learning? Get rid of those damn bells.

Schooling, deschooling or unschooling?

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There seems to be a growing chorus questioning our Western school system. The conversation has been strong amongst bloggers, voices like Brian Alger or Robert Paterson on the value of homework or Chris Corrigan on unschooling. A number of our friends in Sackville have posted on Rob’s homework-related posts. Now the cry against homework has been picked up by the mainstream media such as Time Magazine and The National Post.

It’s not just homework, but the fact that a one size fits all approach to learning just does not work in a ubiquitously connected and pervasively proximate world. As Ivan Illich said in Deschooling Society in 1973, “We permit the state to ascertain the universal educational deficiencies of its citizens and establish one specialized agency to treat them.” That agency is cracking.

The lack of confidence in our education system is similar to the search for better training and e-learning methods, as evidenced by the interest in our Informl Learning Unworkshops. People realise that the old ways of instructional systems design take too long for most training programs. Furthermore, slapping on a training course cannot address the majority of human performance issues faced by organisations today. Also, many are discovering that learning on the Web is more about who you know than what you know, because if you know many knowledgeable people, you can usually find a solution to your problem. The “connectors” are becoming critical to any organisation.

As students go back to school, it is up to the rest of us to ask what are they really doing there and if there is a better way. We owe it to our children.

[Note: there are more learning links to explore on this one post than our boys may get in a day of classroom instruction]

My PKM System

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Note: Latest version: PKM in a Nutshell (2010).

In response to a post I made on Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), Tony Karrer recommended that I look at his post on Personal Learning for Learning Professionals. This had me review my posts on PKM and reflect on how I go through my process of triage. As a result, I created this picture.

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I’m starting to use some other web tools but this is pretty well how I move from “interesting stuff” to “this is what I think”. For me, PKM is more about attitude than any given tools. My system works for me because I’m curious and because I have got into the habit of writing down my thoughts in a public forum. This develops into some interesting conversations about things that matter to me at the intersection of learning work and technology. Having a defined field of interest helps stop this blog from spreading too far and wide and keeps my PKM manageable.

Update: The diagram was slightly changed in response to Loretta’s suggestion (see comments). I would also encourage a look at Dave Pollard’s graphic on the same subject.

LMS circa 1999

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I was digging through some old files on CD and came across a report that I did when I worked at the now defunct Centre for Learning Technologies at Mount Allison University. It was called The Design, Development and Delivery of Internet Based Training and Education, dated March 28, 2000. I had worked on that report during the Fall of 1999. Part of the report examined what I described as “Asynchronous Group Learning Capable Environments”. This report was the second evaluation that we had completed at the CLT, but I can’t find a copy of the earlier one from 1998/1999.

From the report’s introduction:

The landscape of web-based learning environments has become more complex over the past few years, and this is further complicated by mergers, acquisitions, new versions of existing products and new products on the market. No one knows exactly how many learning environments exist, but the 40 that we evaluated provide a good view of the spectrum currently available. The Centre for Learning Technologies (CLT) examined these environments as part of a collaborative project effort by the BC Standing Committee on Educational Technology, the Centre for Curriculum, Transfer and Technology, the Office of LearningTechnologies, and TeleEducation New Brunswick.

The environments were evaluated from the perspective of functionality only.

Each environment, or LMS, was examined against a number of functions, as follows:

N= Not applicable
0= No support
1= Some support, but not a strength of the product
2= Adequate support, a secondary feature of the product
3= Full support, a primary feature of the product

I’ve picked a few of the functions out of the tables to highlight how many other commercially available systems were on the market at the time. These had all been in production and on the market for several years. You will note that many had functions that Blackboard claims were unique to its system in 2000. Note that Blackboard was known as CourseInfo at the time.

I’m posting this to show that Blackboard’s claims of patenting a unique “course-based system for providing to an educational community of users access to a plurality of online courses”, do not reflect the online learning technology marketplace at the time.

Here is a sampling:

“Analysing and tracking tools include facilities for statistical analysis of student-related data and the facility to display the progress of individual students in the course structure”
3: eAdministrator, Generation21, KOTrain, LearningSpace, VCampus
2: CourseInfo, and several others
1: WebCT, and several others

“Authorisation tools that assign access and other privileges to specific users or user groups.”
3: WebCT, eAdministrator, FirstClass, Generation21, Knowledge Planet, KOTrain, LearningSpace
2: CourseInfo, and several others

“Course monitoring includes facilities that provide information about the usage of course resources by individual students and groups of students.”
3: WebCT, VCampus, Pathware, KnowledgePlanet, Generation21, KOTrain, eAdministrator
2: CourseInfo, and several others

Course customising includes the facility to change the structure of the course and its assignments, exams, etc. This may include guides, templates, and related product support and training.”
3: WebCT, CourseInfo, Knowledge Planet, Generation21, LearningSpace, Pathware, Quest, Trainsoft, VCampus

“Managing records includes facilities for organising and keeping track of course-related information.”
3: WebCT, WCB, Virtual U, QuestionMark, LearningSpace, KnowledgePlanet, Generation21, eAdministrator, CourseInfo

“Progress tracking includes some facility for the student to check marks on assignments and tests.”
3: WebCT, Pathlore, Norton Connect, VCampus, Pathware, Mentorware, Learningspace, KnowledgePlanet, eAdministrator
2: CourseInfo, Serf, TrainSoft, WCB

At the time, this was a public report, available on the TeleEducation New Brunswick site (now defunct, too). I do have a copy, though.

Navigating in a Stormy Economy

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The Summer is almost over and soon the kids go back to school. Usually my business picks up in September, once vacations are over and most people are back to work.

This year I don’t have any major projects scheduled for the Fall; which is not good from a financial perspective but it does mean that I can be open to any possibility. As I was cycling today, I thought about what I would really like to be doing at the beginning of this “year” (I have always considered September to be the start of the year; a time to begin anew).

A few of us recently finished writing a proposal that we just found out was not accepted. It was entitled, Navigating in a Stormy Economy.

Storm

In spite of not being awarded the contract, the process of working with Jim, Hal, Robert, Vaughn and Sue was invigorating. Our approach to strategic planning and community economic development was definitely out of the box; part of it was based on Rob’s recent work with National Public Radio.

Our team’s experience ranged from the local to national and included international development work. I would like to put this team to work on a meaningful project, as the value of this network is exponential to any individual member. The experience of assembling this team and then working on a tight timeline was inspiring. I knew every person, but the rest of the team had never met before. Trust had to be developed quickly so that we could write a complex proposal in a few days. It worked, and I’m quite proud of what we accomplished. As Bogart said, “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

The work that we proposed was based on meaningful evaluation criteria. We decided amongst ourselves that we would not submit a proposal based on the same old, tired SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis format. We would provide real tools that members of each community could actually use once we left. It was good to work with people who had principles and were willing to walk away from a project that couldn’t incorporate these principles. This is my kind of work; principled, meaningful and with clear deliverables that have value for the end client, not just the person writing the cheque.

As September begins, hope springs eternal.

[Photo Credit: wagsdot911]

Elgg and the LMS Patent

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Alfred Essa asked this question on my post, Blackboard Sues D2L over LMS Patent:

I am not sure where Jarche gets the notion that Elgg Learning Landscape is not affected by the current Blackboard LMS patent suit. As I noted in a recent posting, Blackboard’s “invention” describes a generic learning system and a corresponding set of methods. The 44 claims cover any system which supports students interacting with instructors in an online course setting. Interaction simply means the manipulation (read, write) and exchange (asynchronous, synchronous) of data files. It’s that simple. It’s also frighteningly comprehensive because it can be interpreted to cover not only learning management systems but standalone tools such as blogs, wikis and online chat when used in the context of a course. The patent could also be interpreted by the courts to cover any other elements (e.g. e-commerce engine, card systems, ERP connectors) that integrate with the basic system.

Please explain why you think Elgg is not covered.

I think that the Blackboard patent filing is a load of crap, based on significant prior art, but here is my understanding of this patent in relation to Elgg’s design. Essa may have a point that the patent could be given wider application by the courts, but I’m not a patent lawyer or a judge. I still disagree with the principle of Blackboard’s patent and feel that it may lead to further patent infringement litigation.

A reasonable person could not interpret the following 44 points as applying to the Elgg Learning Landscape. Elgg uses a completely different model than most online learning systems. It does not use content (e.g. course) as the basic building block, but rather the individual person.

As I mentioned in my initial post on this patent, my view is that Blackboard’s patent is for an “education” system, not a learning system. Elgg is a learning system.

Anyone in the Elgg community should feel free to correct me if I’ve made any wrong assumptions.

1. A course-based system for providing to an educational community of users access to a plurality of online courses, comprising: a) a plurality of user computers, with each user computer being associated with a user of the system and with each user being capable of having predefined characteristics indicative of multiple predetermined roles in the system, each role providing a level of access to a plurality of data files associated with a particular course and a level of control over the data files associated with the course with the multiple predetermined user roles comprising at least two user’s predetermined roles selected from the group consisting of a student role in one or more course associated with a student user, an instructor role in one or more courses associated with an instructor user and an administrator role associated with an administrator user, and b) a server computer in communication with each of the user computers over a network, the server computer comprising: means for storing a plurality of data files associated with a course, means for assigning a level of access to and control of each data file based on a user of the system’s predetermined role in a course; means for determining whether access to a data file associated with the course is authorized; means for allowing access to and control of the data file associated with the course if authorization is granted based on the access level of the user of the system.

A. Elgg is not a course-based system. There is no mention of courses in the interface, nor ability to create a course.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the instructor user is provided with an access level to enable the creation and editing of a plurality of files associated with a course.

B. Elgg does not have an instructor mode, nor use the term instructor.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the course files comprise an announcement file.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the course files comprise a course information file.

C. Elgg does not use course as a metaphor, model or term.

5. The system of claim 2 wherein the course files comprise a staff information file posted to all registered in the course.

D. Elgg does not differentiate between staff and students.

6. The system of claim 2 wherein the course files comprise a course document file posted to all registered in the course.

7. The system of claim 2 wherein the course files comprise an assignments file posted to all registered in the course.

8. The system of claim 2 wherein the course files comprise a dropbox file.

9. The system of claim 2 wherein the course files comprise an asynchronous communication file.

10. The system of claim 2 wherein the course files comprise a synchronous communication file.

E. You cannot create courses in Elgg. See point A.

11. The system of claim 2 wherein the student user is provided with an access level to enable reading of a plurality of files associated with a course.

F. There are no students in Elgg, only Friends.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the student user is provided with an access level to enable modification of a subset of the plurality of files associated with a course.

G. Access level is controlled by each individual and cannot be imposed by the system or some other user.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein the user is provided with an access level to enable creation of a student file associated with a file for which the student user is able to read.

14. The system of claim 13 in which the file that the student is able to read is an assessment file created by the instructor user, and the student file created by the student user is a response to the assessment file.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the assessment file comprises a plurality of examination questions selected by the instructor user to assess the ability of the student user.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the examination questions are selected by the instructor user from a predetermined pool of available examination questions.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein the examination questions are created by the instructor user substantially at the time of the creation of the assessment file.

18. The system of claim 15 wherein the student file is reviewed by the instructor user and assigned a grade.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the grade is made available to the student user.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein the instructor user collates a plurality of grades obtained from reviewing a plurality of student files, and wherein the collated grades are made available to all student users associated with the course.

21. The system of claim 13 in which the file that the student is able to read is an assignment file created by the instructor user, and the student file created by the student user is a response to the assignment file.

H. There is no assessment file or grading application in Elgg.

22. The system of claim 8 wherein the dropbox file comprises a plurality of files transferred to the server computer from one or more student users associated with the course.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the instructor user is provided with access to the files in the dropbox file, whereby the instructor user may download, edit and upload the files in the dropbox.

I. There are no assignment files or drop box files in Elgg. However, learners can upload files and make them available to selected groups, including someone who may be a teacher. This is not the same as a drop box.

24. The system of claim 1 wherein a user is required to enter a login sequence into a user computer in order to be provided with access to course files associated with that user.

25. The system of claim 24 wherein the user is provided with access to all courses with which the user is associated after entry of the logon sequence.

26. The system of claim 25 wherein the user is provided with a web page comprising a plurality of course hyperlinks, each of said course hyperlinks associated with each course that the user has enrolled in.

J. There are no “courses” in Elgg. There are communities, but the individual must decide to link to a community.

27. The system of claim 26 wherein selection of a course hyperlink will provide the user with a web page associated with the selected course, the web page comprising a plurality of content hyperlinks to various content areas associated with the course.

K. There are no courses in Elgg.

28. The system of claim 27 wherein said content hyperlinks comprise an announcement area hyperlink, a course information hyperlink, a staff information hyperlink, a course documents hyperlink, an assignments hyperlink, a communications hyperlink, and a student tools hyperlink.

29. The system of claim 28 wherein selection of the announcement area hyperlink provides a web page comprising a group of course announcements.

30. The system of claim 28 wherein selection of the course information hyperlink provides a web page comprising information regarding the associated course.

31. The system of claim 28 wherein selection of the staff information hyperlink provides a web page comprising data regarding the instructors of the associated course.

32. The system of claim 28 wherein selection of the course documents hyperlink provides a web page comprising a listing of documents associated with the course.

33. The system of claim 32 wherein the listing of course documents comprise active hyperlinks to the documents.

34. The system of claim 28 wherein selection of the assignments hyperlink provides a web page comprising a group of course assignments.

35. The system of claim 28 wherein selection of the communications hyperlink provides a web page comprising hyperlinks to a group of communication tools comprising an asynchronous communication tool and a synchronous communication tool.

L. No courses, no staff, no assignments, no students.

36. An method for providing online education method for a community of users in a network based system comprising the steps of: a. establishing that each user is capable of having redefined characteristics indicative of multiple predetermined roles in the system and each role providing a level of access to and control of a plurality of course files; b. establishing a course to be offered online, comprising i. generating a set of course files for use with teaching a course; ii. transferring the course files to a server computer for storage; and iii. allowing access to and control of the course files according to the established roles for the users according to step (a); c. providing a predetermined level of access and control over the network to the course files to users with an established role as a student user enrolled in the course; and d. providing a predetermined level of access and control over the network to the course files to users with an established role other than a student user enrolled in the course.

M. There are no predetermined roles in Elgg. The individual determines all connections with resources and with people. Access control is user determined.

37. The method of claim 36 wherein at least one of the course files comprises a course assignment, further comprising the steps of: e) the student user creating a student file in response to the course assignment; and f) the student user transferring the student file to the server computer.

38. The method of claim 37 further comprising the steps of: g) the instructor user accessing the student file from the server computer; h) the instructor user reviewing the student file to determine compliance with the course assignment; and i) the instructor user assigning a grade to the student file as a function of the determination of compliance with the course assignment.

N. There are no “student users” nor “instructor users”. Individuals do not send files to a separate place. Users allow access to their Files. The “instructor” in Elgg would have to be granted permission by the “student” to see a file in the “student’s” Files.

39. The method of claim 38 further comprising the step of the instructor user posting the grade to a file on the server computer accessible only to the student user with which the grade is associated.

O. There is no central grading repository in Elgg.

40. The method of claim 38 further comprising the steps of the instructor repeating the steps (g), (h), and (i) for a plurality of student users that are enrolled in the course.

41. The method of claim 40 further comprising the step of the instructor user performing a statistical analysis on the grades assigned to the plurality of student users.

42. The method of claim 41 further comprising the step of making results of the statistical analysis available to the student users enrolled in the course.

43. The method of claim 36 further comprising the step of providing an asynchronous communication tool accessible to student users enrolled in the course for enabling asynchronous communication amongst the student users.

44. The method of claim 36 further comprising the step of providing a synchronous communication tool accessible to student users enrolled in the course for enabling synchronous communication amongst the student users.

P. In summary, there are no predetermined roles in Elgg. Everyone is an individual and can allow their posts and files to be viewed by whatever groups or communities they wish. Each user can create a new group or community. Elgg is not about courses, instructors, students, tests or assignments. Elgg is about connecting people, most of whom are learners.

PKM and Informal Learning

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In re-reading Dave Pollard’s post on personal knowledge management (PKM) I noticed some parallels with the field of online learning. Dave states that:

And although technology companies, by coopting the term Knowledge Management and making it synonymous with centralized content management, have played a role in tarnishing KM’s image, some technology companies are now developing simple, intuitive tools that will make each of the four components of PKM easier to implement.

I think that technology firms did the same with e-learning. They coopted the term to mean structured and managed courses online.

Dave’s experience showed that people were more interested in their own knowledge than in the organisation’s knowledge.

So my conclusion this time around was that the centralized stuff we spent so much time and money maintaining was simply not very useful to most practitioners. The practitioners I talked to about PPI [Personal Productivity Improvement] said they would love to participate in PPI coaching, provided it was focused on the content on their own desktops and hard drives, and not the stuff in the central repositories.

E-learning, for many, has come to mean courses online, delivered via learning management systems. One problem with this model is that learners (the key participants) don’t care about how learning is managed. Another problem is that the course and class models don’t work very well online.

I think that face-to-face classes have worked fairly well historically because good teachers and students could always make up for the inherently poor design. Looks could be passed between students, conversations could take place between class, and trusting relationships could develop over time together in the classroom. However, in an online environment the design flaws stand out, because people can’t easily communicate outside the course-in-a-box.

As the horseless carriage was the outdated metaphor for the automobile, so the course is the outdated metaphor for learning online.

The Internet is the most powerful communication environment that humans have ever built. The Internet is about communication, not content. Therefore, learning online needs to focus on communicating and connecting. If it doesn’t, it will be irrelevant to those who actually live and work online.

Small pieces, loosely joined in an informal and unstructured way, is a better model for online learning. It leverages the inherent nature of the medium. Virtual classrooms and online courses constrain communication and learner control. We need to build better models and methods to create personally meaningful online learning. Using the lens of informal learning is a start.