The world is not flat, it’s kind of lumpy. By the time it’s truly flat, we’ll take it for granted. One flattener is the ability to create any digital artifact and post it for immediate worldwide access on the web. These posts can then be hyperlinked to any other post; it’s extremely democratic but also chaotic.

Most bloggers (including me) have been echoing the Cluetrain refrain that “hyperlinks subvert hierarchy”. Many edubloggers have been saying that the educational system is no longer relevant to the needs of a knowledge society and none more succinctly than Chris Lehmann. As the world flattens, so will corporate and bureaucratic structures, but not without struggle and confusion.

The challenge for learning professionals will be to change their toolsets from prescriptive to supportive. For instance, in our informl learning unworkshops we’re trying to foster a community with the tools and connections needed to address that essential 80% of learning that is ignored by formal training and education. I really do not believe that formal approaches, like instructional systems design, will be able to help these learning needs.

Changes in business, public education and corporate training will happen in fits and spurts and those in bypassed jobs will not notice that they’re irrelevant until it’s too late. That’s the way with revolutions; you don’t know you’re in one until it’s almost over. The indicators though, are pretty clear.

Look at the advances that open source software has made in the past three years. Three years ago I strongly suggested to my LearnNB colleagues that this region should develop expertise in open source learning applications and become a major node of skills and knowledge on these tools that were available to anyone for free. Of course I was seen as an open source radical and ignored. Imagine if a few companies had started to develop expertise in Moodle, now adopted by major universities around the world, three years ago.

Today we are are seeing the beginning of the turning of the tide, in spite of the current market success of a few large vendors. There is now a general acceptance of open source software and even open source content (e.g. Wikipedia) as viable options. We are also seeing the subversion of institutional software systems via quick and dirty web applications (free IP telephony, free blogs, tagging as our own semantic web, and a multitude of social networks) that can be set up in minutes.

It’s not just open source that will change our institutions; it’s the realisation that individuals now own the means of knowledge production. In a knowledge economy, the individual is the knowledge creator and relationships are the currency. It’s getting easier to set up alternative systems if you know who to connect with and get things done.

Democracy is subversive and so is the Web. In a connected world, every learner brings his or her own network with them. Learners no longer integrate into the educational system, they connect their network to it – if they want to. How relevant is an educational system that does not allow learners to connect their personal, professional or vocational networks to the “system”?

As a learning professional, it’s time to take a stance. Enabling learning is no longer about disseminating good content. Enabling learning is about being a learner yourself, sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm and then taking a back seat. In a flattened learning system there are no more experts, only fellow learners on paths that may cross.

Patrick, at Green Chameleon, writes about the limitations of knowledge management systems, their constraining characteristics and the real world knowledge sharing practices of the medical community. There is an excellent graphic that shows the symptoms of the Industrial Era grating against the Knowledge Era. The medical field is still working in silos of specialist knowledge, where doctors and nurses learn in separate schools and from different perspectives, but about the same thing – human health.

These separate disciplines, with their mores and practices dating back in time, are now confronted with the patient who has instant access to a lot of information; not all of it accurate. Patrick notes that not all knowledge sharing is equal, but my feeling is that the informed patient is someone whom the medical system has not yet comes to grips with. If the medical profession, with all of its specialties, cannot share information with members outside the tribe, then how can information be freely shared with the patient?

Friction will continue in hierarchial corporations and bureaucracies as knowledge era clients rub against industrial era service providers. One of our challenges in the training and education fields with be to provide methods and tools to overcome these knowledge-sharing obstacles. Enabling learning flow in a networked knowledge society is much more important than creating learning content.

The Atlantic Wildlife Institute is developing a regional wildlife emergency response network and part of our work is the creation of learning resources. We have identified two major knowledge areas to be addressed: the identification of local wildlife, and how how to deal with these animals when they are in distress. People often don’t know what to do when they see what appears to be an orphaned or possibly injured animal. In many cases, the animal should be left alone, as the mother has probably left it alone intentionally.

Today, we tested out some learning programs, as we had visits from veterinary technician students as well as a Grade 7 class. Generally speaking, the average person’s ability to identify local species of wildlife is not very good. As a society, we are out of touch with our habitat, and we don’t understand the roles that wildlife have in our environment, which we share with them. For instance, killing off certain predators creates other problems down the food chain or increases disease in other populations, which may be transferred to humans. Identification of wildlife and then understanding their role in nature are the first two steps.

The Grade 7 students had a tour of our facilities, including our 102 foot long aviary flight cage, followed by some fun activities. The students ran a 50 metre course and were classified as predator or prey, based on their times. The prey set off on an obstacle course and were chased by the predators – all good exercise. We also set up some artificial treees and the students had to build an eagle’s nest, by playing the role of builder or gatherer. This activity was thoroughly enjoyed.

At the end of the afternoon I think that most of our visitors had some understanding of the complexity of nature and that simple solutions are not enough. It’s a start …

Photo: Grade 7 students from Marshview Middle School building their own eagle nests, while Bob the goose supervises. Bob has been at AWI for 3 years, and refuses to migrate with other geese.

Here are some more wildlife photos.

[NB: I’ve posted this twice as my WP installation seems to have eaten the last post.]

On May 29, 2006, Inukshuk Wireless launched the 2006 Calls for Proposals process in a number of region across the country. Under this process, Inukshuk Wireless invites you to submit:
EITHER
An innovative and creative project to develop multimedia and feature rich learning content, applications or learning environments for Canada’s learning communities;
OR
A Connectivity Project which results in the provision of wireless broadband internet access to un-served or underserved communities in the region. The goal of the connectivity projects is to bring wireless broadband connectivity to both public and private sector customers, including learning organizations.

Inukshuk Wireless, a joint venture of Bell Canada and Rogers Communications, is a provider of wireless broadband. As part of the Industry Canada licensing requirements, Inukshuk helps learning communities across Canada through the Inukshuk Fund. Proposal requirements and amounts available for each region are available on the website.

I spent the day at a workshop on education in Africa, featuring a presentation by William Saint, lead Education Specialist, Africa region, The World Bank. His presentation was interesting, but it was quite evident that it’s next to impossible for an independent consultant to get the type of international development work that was described. The bank specifically finances:

• strategy development
• innovation funds
• curriculum reforms
• staff development
• library & information access
• system support units

If you’re interested in this kind of work, it’s best to get connected with a large contractor. There’s more information available on The Development Gateway and the UN Business Website (New Brunswick companies can access this database by contacting BNB).

The second session featured a case study of a new private university in Guinea. The founder, Dr. Malo, spent several years in developing the business model before launching UDECOM in 2004. The university is focusing on the transfer of theoretical knowledge into practice and uses the local community (a rural region of about 2.5 M people) as a test-bed for educational programs. Students get involved and take ownership of their communities and the inherent challenges. Given the African tradition of universities as training schools for the public service, UDECOM is a refreshing change. The UDECOM bootstrap financing model may be one that Canadian institutions could emulate as well.