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.

NRC abandons e-learning

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I know that this is old news, but I’m sure that there are many people outside the local area who don’t know that Canada’s National Research Council has given up on e-learning as an area of focus (even though it’s still listed on their website).

I was involved in some of the early round table discussions that brought about the creation of the IIT (Institute for Information Technology) with its satellite e-learning office in Moncton. Only a few years ago there was much hoopla about e-learning and how this research centre would be an asset to the local learning industry. Now it has just died a slow death. I was reminded of this while reading Dave Tosh’s recent interview with Stephen Downes:

In addition, since the NRC has disbanded the e-learning research group (I have been reassigned to ‘Internet Logic’) and moving away from e-learning per se (I have been asked to work in other areas, such as human-computer interaction) the production of OLDaily (and of e-learning in general) is becoming less and less a part of my professional work and more of (as it was originally) a hobby.

Colleges need towns

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The New York Times reports [why do they require a login?] that towns around colleges are just as important as the colleges themselves in attracting faculty and students:

Colleges have traditionally tempted top students with ivy-covered campuses, towering Gothic buildings and up-to-date student centers. But nowadays, there is a sense that a beautiful campus is not enough. An alluring college town is seen as necessary as well.

Our small town has a university but the town itself has had some difficulties over the past few years, with business and store closures. This past weekend, a 150 year-old building, on the main downtown corner, burnt and was completely destroyed. No one was injured.
sackville fire.jpg

[Note: Project Rebuild is focused on helping out those who were left homeless by the fire.]

Perhaps this is also an opportunity for us to rethink the important connection between the university, the town and what attracts and retains people. What could be built on this key intersection that would enhance a sense of community? Should it be retail; residential; a town square?

Via Christian Long, at Think: Lab

An historical explanation of Blackboard’s Legal Suit

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There is much discussion about Blackboard’s recent suit against Desire2Learn for allegedly infringing on learning management system patents, such as Stephen Downes’ aggregated links and Dave Cormier’s commentary.

This post from Oligopoly Watch, not related to Blackboard, explains the nature of the beast and shows once again that corporatism is the enemy of a free and open society:

Reback recalls the time when Sun Microsystems was still small and IBM still utterly dominant in the computer business. IBM sued Sun for patent infringement, and Sun’s legal staff called for a meeting to iron things out. As Reback puts it, “Fourteen IBM lawyers and their assistants, all clad in the requisite dark blue suits, crowded into the largest conference room Sun had.” After hearing details of the alleged violations, outmanned, but of tech-savvy Sun lawyers, demolished the arguments of the IBM lawyers one by one.

At first, the IBM lawyers were silent. Then, recounts Reback, “the chief suit responded. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘maybe you don’t infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?'”

This kind of historical precendence shows that the patent system and corporations are the real problem, not any specific company. Given the chance, most corporations would act in the same way; on the advice of their lawyers of course.

An Introduction to the Commons

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I’m working on an introductory piece (about 2 printed pages) for people who know nothing about the Commons. My aim is to explain enough so that people are interested and will ask more questions. Feedback is always appreciated.

Our Commons

For a long period of time, human economic development was tied to the land. The elites owned the land, and various types of workers, from serfs to sharecroppers, produced crops for the landowners. During the Agrarian Age, land was the most valuable commodity.

Even though large engines and other physical capital had been around in the 18th century, it was not until the early 20th century that a large number of workers were able to leave the farm. The automobile and highways made it possible for many people to commute to factories to work as employees. With the arrival of the tractor, one person was able to farm much more land than was previously possible with a team of horses. Larger farms were now viable and farm workers were lured to higher paying factory jobs. During the Industrial Age, physical capital, such as a factory, was the most valuable commodity.

factory.jpg
Today, less than 2% of Canadians work on farms, yet we can all eat. At the same time, the industrial sector is shrinking, but there is no shortage of manufactured goods. The only sector that is growing is the knowledge sector. At some time in the near future, knowledge work will outnumber manufacturing jobs. I say knowledge work, not jobs, because much of this work is not as salaried employees.

Knowledge work is not information work. It is work that creates something new, such as a story, a design, or a service. Some knowledge workers can create new services, such as a digital photo sharing service. This is the case of Vancouver-based Flickr, whose husband and wife founders sold their service to Yahoo for $30 million. In the Internet Age, the most valuable commodity is human creativity.

team_sketch_erich_schube_02.jpg

If a community is to thrive in the Internet Age, it must be attractive to knowledge workers. These workers need to be connected to other knowledge workers so that they can stay creative. They need to have constant access to fresh ideas. One way to attract knowledge workers is to offer the right physical space and connections. Because many knowledge workers are not employees, they don’t need conventional office space. Many are starting to create their own alternative spaces in cities such as London, Toronto, Vancouver and even Charlottetown. Take a look in any city and you will see people working with wireless enabled computers in what has become the default third-space – the coffee shop.

coffeeshop1.JPG

Now, a new third-space, the work commons, is being created where workers pay a monthly membership to have access to shared work areas and business services. No one owns an office, because no one needs a full-time space. It would be a waste. The idea behind the Tantramar Commons is to provide the physical space in Sackville for a work commons. The model for the work commons has been established and is successful, covering its costs, nurturing innovation between sectors and growing entrepreneurs; all at a minimal capital cost.

The presence of a work commons will encourage communication between entrepreneurs, who need additional space, and will be a focal point to attract knowledge workers from outside the area. Other commons are currently looking at creating a worldwide network to share ideas and services.

In addition to a work commons, the Tantramar Commons will offer space to non-profit organisations in the environmental and cultural sectors. These sectors are important to ensure our sustainabilty as a community. Sackville has a certain critical mass of organisations in these two sectors already, but we need to sustain it. There are many potential benefits of local entrepreneurs working in the same space as environmentalists and artists. The cross-pollination between sectors that don’t usually intermix will be fertile ground for innovation.

Much as the town square was the common space for community development in early America, so will the interconnected, but locally grounded, Tantramar Commons be our space for problem-solving, celebration, consolation, and knowledge creation.

Elgg Reviewed by R/WW

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elgg.gif

Read/Write Web has a good overview of Elgg Learning landscape and an interview with Dave and Ben, the co-founders. [I had mentioned that I believe that Elgg is one of the few online learning systems that is not affected by the current Blackboard LMS patent suit, though there are other Blackboard patents that may be a cause for concern].

The overview is a brief look at what Elgg currently offers and what is coming soon, including Elgg Spaces. This article is excellent for anyone unfamilar with Elgg, as Read/Write Web is not about educational technology, so they don’t assume that the reader knows everything about the field.

The Commons – creating social space

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In speaking with Robert Paterson about the many commons blossoming across the country, I was reminded about this statement made by John McKnight, in Community and its Counterfeits in 1994.

McKnight was referring to de Tocqueville’s famous book, Democracy in America, recounting his travels across the new country in 1831-32 (as cited in Ideas: Brilliant Thinkers Speak Their Minds (2005) Goose Lane Pub., p. 116). My emphasis added.

The book, Democracy in America, is, I think, the most useful book I know to help understand who we are. And he says, if I can summarize him in a rather gross form, that he came here and he found a society whose definitions and solutions were not created by nobility, by professionals, by experts or managers, but by what he identified as little groups of people, self-appointed, common men and women who came together and took three powers: the power to decide there was a problem, the power to decide how to solve the problem – that is, the expert’s power – and then the power to solve the problem. These little groups of people weren’t elected and they weren’t appointed and they were everyplace, and they were, he said, the heart of the new society – they were the American community as distinct from the European community. And he named these little groups “associations”. Association is the collective for citizens, an association of citizens. And so we think of our community as being the social space in which citizens in association do the work of problem-solving, celebration, consolation, and creation – that community, that space, in contrast to the space of the system with the box at the top and lots of little boxes at the bottom. And I think it is still the case that the hope for our time is in those associations.

I cannot think of a better description of what our Commons could be.

Writely for proposal development

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We’ve just finished an intense collaborative effort to get a proposal shipped for today. Our main collaborative tool was Writely, a free online word processor/wiki combination.

I’ve been using Writely (now owned by Google) for collaborative document development for about a year. Writely lets you upload or create a document online with most of the features that you would find in any word processor. It also lets you invite other people to collaborate at the same time. If two people make simultaneous changes to the same text, then Writely wiill tell you about the conflict. You can look at everyone’s changes, make comments, add content and view all versions of your document.

I think that Writely is the perfect tool for a distributed team that is writing a proposal. It’s even better with a team in different time zones so that one person can work while others are sleeping.

Here are some suggestions on using Writely, while it’s still fresh in my mind:

  • Start your document online with Writely – don’t upload an existing document. This will reduce extra HTML code and weird formatting, especially from uploaded MS Word documents.
  • Use the online version to develop the main text of the document and don’t worry about making it look pretty.
  • Avoid tables in the document, but if you need them, create them in Writely.
  • Use Writely to get consensus on the words and the flow of the proposal.
  • Once you have agreement on the content, save the document as an RTF, Word or OpenOffice document. I find that OpenOffice produces the cleanest document.
  • On your desktop application, start adding graphics, headers & footers, headings & titles, etc.
  • If you are using OfficeOffice, you can finish by clicking on “Export as PDF” and your document will be ready to print and/or send.