I’m currently developing an article for inclusion in a newsletter. As I go through the editing and re-write process, I have realised how limiting the print medium is, especially when transferring what was originally a series of blog posts to create the basis of the article. Added hyperlinks are now more natural to me than using the APA format, which I have used for many years, but I now view as a relic of a bygone era. What originally changed and flowed is now just a piece of static content. As a blog post, this article built on previous posts and was open to comments and additions. With this print article, it seems as if my learning process has been frozen in time.
“We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror”
A post in the Silicon Republic shows that Irish tiger has similar economic issues as many other Western nations, and that it cannot rest on its recent successes in information technology. The author states that the success of the IT sector stems from investments in education that were made in the 1960’s. Similar investments must be made now if the Irish economy is to remain competitive. He cites Seaghan Moriarty, “a former primary teacher who also works in the third-level sector and who has worked as webmaster for the Irish National Teachers Organisation and the Irish Primary Principals Network”:
“Not only should Irish pupils be learning technology but they also should be learning through technology. The Government is doing a huge disservice to the economy by having an ad hoc vision. The technology is here and the Irish are just not prepared,” Moriarty warned.
As I noted in my last post, it is obvious that agricultural work has tanked at below 2%, manufacturing work is decreasing and knowledge work is increasing. That means that knowledge workers will soon be the largest, and best paid, segment of our workforce. Local economic sustainability will be dependent on the presence of knowledge workers and almost all of these knowledge workers will use the Internet as an essential part of their business.
However, this Province and other regions are still graduating students without the necessary skills for the Internet Age. Schools still have outmoded computer labs, when no one in any workplace today goes to a lab to use a computer. Connected computers are essential for work today and should be an integrated part of all schools. If not, schools will continue their slide to irrelevance in the minds of most students and many parents.
Current initiatives, such as the New Brunswick government’s Quality Learning Agenda fail to address the critical issues of preparing our students for life and work in the Internet economy. Of the stated challenges to our education system, the report does not include the need for specific Internet Age skills, such as the ability to work in a virtual collaborative environment. Neither does the Department of Education intend to put a computer in the hands of every student. How then will our graduates be able to prosper in a flattened world without even the most basic of skills?
I’ll close with some words from Marshall Mcluhan, a Canadian who saw where our education system was going as print was being replaced by electronic media:
The school system, custodian of print culture, has no place for the rugged individual. It is, indeed, the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.
McLuhan also accurately described how, “We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror.“
Update: Just over the border in the State of Maine, they have announced the purchase of about 36,000 Apple iBooks for Grade 7 & 8 students, at a cost of $(US)289 each. One reason for the low cost is the use of open source software, such as the Mac version of OpenOffice, NeoOffice, as well as the Gimp image manipulation program. Looks like a sweet deal.
Viable Open Source Business Model
In 2004 I noted that Spikesource looked like a viable business model for open source development. The company now has a certified solutions program for 13 different open source applications.
“We have a few dozen paying customers today, which is in line with our business plan,” Halsey [VP] said. “It’s all about getting mass penetration and converting a percentage of those into paying customers.”
Of the applications listed, there is no learning application, but the time may be coming soon that this business model would work for a mix of Moodle, ATutor, Elgg, Drupal, etc.
Knowledge Work and Schools
I’m finally reading the book Nine Shift after subscribing to the blog for the past year. It’s one of my preferred reads and the book puts much more of the blog in perspective.
One reason it has taken so long for me to read the book is that my local bookstore gave me a price of $(CA)90.00, which I confirmed two weeks ago at Amazon.ca as $(CA)89.00. I finally checked Amazon.com and the list price was $(US)18.97, so I purchased the book from the USA. When I received it, the jacket price was “USA $29.00 – Canada $34.00 (go figure).
I won’t do a complete review now, but I highly recommend this book, which describes how 75% of our working days (nine hours out of twelve) will radically change by the year 2020. The signs are all here.
Shift One is that “People Work at Home”. As we shift from the Industrial Age to the Internet Age over the next decade, there will be more knowledge than manufacturing workers. I really like the definition of a knowledge worker, as it does not equate to someone working in an office.
Knowledge workers:
1. Are paid by their outcomes, what they produce, not by the time they devote.
2. Are only paid for products or projects that are valuable to the organization for which they work.
3. Bring something unique to the organization for which they work. Their value is not in being like other workers, but in being different.
4. Have a marketable set of skills.
If this shift to knowledge work is a certainty, and I believe it is, then our education system is woefully inadequate for what will be the majority of the workforce. Our schools are still designed for declining and soon-to-be-obsolesced factory workers. Teachers and students are not rewarded according to measurable outcomes; if they were, many teachers would not get paid, some students would graduate in less than 12 years and others would never complete their schooling. Students are not valued for being different but for conforming to the standard curriculum. Many, if not most, teachers are fearful of Internet technologies even though most high-paid work already requires Internet savvy. This is most evident with boys:
The Internet terrifies most teachers, and some boys know more about the Internet than do many educators. Boys also exhibit those accompanying attributes which go with a future dominated by the Internet, like taking risks, being entrepreneurial, and being collaborative. Thus they are leading society into the Internet age.
The one-size-fits-all school is a twelve-year sentence with no eligibility for parole, but the good news is that as the workforce changes there will be demands for more relevance in the education system and it will change. Unfortunately for those with children in our current outdated education system (as the one room schoolhouse was outdated 100 years ago), we have to work with what we have. So how do we keep our children motivated and help them develop skills for the Internet Age, when we all know that the education system is obsolete?
Another factor in selecting a university
Last night a number of fourth year veterinary medicine students from AVC visited us at the Atlantic Wildlife Institute. They were a very keen and motivated group, ready to embark on their new careers. This morning, faculty at the University of Prince Edward Island (where AVC is located) went on strike. Many of these students are only weeks away from graduation and some of them feared, with reason, that their final courses may not be credited and that they may not be able to graduate.
A couple of things have struck me since. First, I’m wondering how long the university monopoly can insist on payment of tuition up front, without a requirement for delivery of the service. If students were able to withhold some of their tuition fees until the course is actually completed, then they too would have some leverage in these events. As it stands, they are helpless bystanders. Secondly, I’m thinking about the time when we decide which university may be best for our children. One factor that I had not considered was the state of the collective agreement at any given institution. Knowing that a contract may be renegotiated during one’s period of study may have you reconsider a certain university. I know that I will use this as factor in evaluating universities, especially since our local university has had a few strikes in recent memory.
Does anyone know of a database that shows when university/college collective agreements are up for negotiation? Would it be a relatively simple bit of programming to create a wiki/matrix/DB to which this kind of information could be added? Perhaps this could be an additional service of Rate My Professor.
Estimating the Performance Situation
Last week I mentioned a few communication tools that I learned how to use in the Army. One of these is the Estimate, which is a problem-solving tool. As young officers, we were constantly told to “estimate the situation and never situate the estimate”. In many cases, when training is prescribed for a work performance issue, it is a case of situating the estimate. I can think of two recent examples in my own business experience.
In one case, e-learning was prescribed to address the performance needs of nurses changing to a new nursing care methodology. In that instance, I was able to convince the client that a quick performance analysis could be used to confirm the assumption that e-learning was the solution. As a result of the analysis, we changed the intervention to the development of an online diagramming tool, because we determined that nursing staff already had 80% of the necessary skills and knowledge, but they didn’t know how to use the new diagramming and reporting procedures. The initial e-learning program was greatly reduced.
In another case, training was prescribed in order to get staff up to date with a new organisation-wide policy. Each person received an average of 17 days classroom training. As an observer for part of the training, I would estimate that all of the training could have been done in less than a week, had the new procedures and some job aids been first developed. The total cost of training approached millions of dollars, plus the cost of missed work.
Recently, David Maister stated that training is often prescribed in the “hope” that performance can be improved, when a few pointed questions might better get to the root of the issue:
The correct process would be to sit top management down, ask: What are people not doing that we want them to be doing? – and then figuring out a complete sequence of actions to address the questions – how do we actually get people to change their behavior? What measurements need to change? – what behaviors by top management need to change to convince people that the new behaviors are really required, not just encouraged? – what has to happen before the training sessions to bring about the change? What has to be in place the very day they finish?
A more detailed process is shown below. It shows that training only works in certain circumstances and that there are a number of other factors to look at first; such as barriers to performance and mismatched rewards & consequences.
A macro view of this process is that triage (sorting out priorities) should initiate the process, followed by a diagnosis (analysis), which can be as short as Maister’s questions, before prescribing some kind of treatment which may or may not include training. Using this method, I continue what my instructors told me many years ago – don’t situate the estimate.
Finally, here’s a job aid that I use in determining what the causes to performance problems may be:
- Causes, Enablers and Obstacles:
- Question the assumptions and potential solutions.
- What is causing the problem?
- What will prevent a solution?
- What will make a solution easier?
- Focus on Key Sources:
- Find and focus on the people who are close to the problem and have perspective on the issues. Don’t try and reach everyone, especially in an initial performance analysis.
- Focus on facts and results
- Look for data, through observations, records, experiences:
- What evidence is there?
- Is it consistent?
- What does it tell us?
- Is there more?
Open source better reflects customer needs
The word is out that Windows XP can run on Intel-based MacIntosh computers and the software is now available for downloading. However, Apple doesn’t seem to understand its own customers:
An Apple spokeswoman declined comment on the contest. Apple officials have said they have no desire for Windows to run on their hardware.
Earth to Apple – it’s not about you, it’s about your customers. Thousands of people have already downloaded the software, so there must be some kind of a demand.
That’s the joy of open source software, because any group can “fork” a project and the wisdom of the crowd will decide which way is better. No need for a “company spokesperson” to say what’s best for users.
Communication Tools from the Army
During my Army service I learned many things that I have already forgotten, such as the composition of a Soviet Motor Rifle Regiment, and a few things that I could never forget. Three tools that I used extensively during my military career were 1) the Estimate, 2) Battle Procedure, and 3) the Orders Format. All of these are communications tools.
The Estimate is a logical way of analysing a situation and making a plan. Battle Procedure is a logical method to get you on the road to your next mission, and the Orders Format is a standard form of conveying the details of your plan to those who are going with you.
Some specifics of these three tools have changed over the years, but these combat-tested tools for effective communication remain in use. If you strip away the military specific stuff, they are quite practical for civilian applications as well. The Combat Estimate is a short version of the detailed Estimate and is based around seven questions, which I have slightly revised:
- What are competitors and clients doing and why?
- What have I been told to do and why?
- What effects (these can be described as your specific tasks) do I want to have on the competition and/or my client?
- Where and how best can I accomplish each effect?
- What resources do I need to accomplish each effect?
- When and where do the actions take place in relation to each other?
- What control measures do I need to impose? (e.g. what detail of project management is necessary)
Here is a revised Battle Procedure, in non-military form, geared around a client project:
- Get a warning that a new project is going start.
- Pass this on to your team.
- Do some quick research into the sector, the competition, the client and the opportunity.
- Get the official go-ahead for the project [probably not as much detail as you would get from a military superior, but then your boss doesn’t know the Orders Format].
- Conduct a detailed analysis and research based on the available time.
- Figure out what you have to do, by when [do this by working backwards from your critical deliverable dates/times].
- Write a detailed message (see next paragraph), with your time estimate, to your team members and partners.
- Advise anyone else from whom you may need support during the project (printing, translation, etc.).
- Sit down with the whole team (or virtually) and ensure that everyone understands the project, the constraints, the deliverables and who is responsible for what.
- Ensure that all activities are coordinated (remember, it’s your project).
- Get going.
Finally here is a civilian version of the Orders Format, used to communicate your plan to others:
- What’s going on
- What we’re going to do and how success will be measured
- Who is going to be working with us
- Who has to do what and by when
- How we’re going to communicate over the course of the project
- Who’s responsible for making decisions
If twenty years of military service can be summed up by the mastery of three communication tools, I think that it shows the importance of effective communications in organizations. Since retiring in 1998 I have had three jobs — university-based researcher/consultant, dot com executive, and now freelancer. On reflection, I can say that almost all of my projects over the past 8 years have been about communication, such as:
- explaining how to conduct training
- coaching how to use technology
- communicating through design
- selling an idea through a business plan
- telling how I would do a project through a proposal
- putting together diverse opinions into a cohesive vision
- connecting people through conversation
Basically, as more and more of us connect in our work, we need effective ways to communicate. Though not perfect or comprehensive for all business needs, these military tools have stood the test of time.
“Let them manage themselves”
In a recent post on Learners as Contributors, which received some good comments, Bill Fitzgerald said that:
True student-centered teaching takes more preparation than traditional lecture because the teacher needs to be prepared for whatever outcome organically arises. Really, it requires an openness to possibility that many teachers feel uncomfortable with because they labor under the paradigm that they need to be the expert in any subject covered in their classroom. True student-centered teaching also requires teachers to explicitly teach critical thinking skills, media evaluation skills (a must for internet-based research), and a host of other skills that are necessary for life but are not directly measurable on a standardized test.
This got me to wondering about curriculum, such as Brian Alger’s comment that “Curriculum is a solution to a problem we created.” I also started thinking about the barnraising exercise that Dave is hosting on new media curriculum creation. I believe that it’s a good exercise but there is a more fundamental issue that really interests me.
What would a curriculum look like if you eliminated any specific CONTENT and any reference to particular TECHNOLOGIES and instead focused on universal cognitive PROCESSES? Many varieties of this “curriculum” could be created, using various content areas or communication technologies. I imagine a curriculum that is open to teachers’ expertise and learners’ needs, based on processes like:
- Critical thinking
- Problem solving, individually and as part of a group
- Narrative development
- Media analysis & critique
- Self-expression
- etc. (please add more)
What would be different about this more basic curriculum is that learners would be able to choose how they would learn these process skills and how they would show mastery. Self-expression could be shown through writing, blogging, art or mechanics. This approach would also free up a whole bunch of teachers in administrative curriculum development positions ;-)
Given the expanding amount of information and media that is available through the Internet, access to material should not be an issue. Of course, teachers would need to develop new skills, but just imagine what learners could achieve. As John Taylor Gatto wrote in Harper’s a few years ago:
After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.
Writely now in Google Camp
I’m sure that almost everyone has heard that Writely has been purchased by Google. I’ve been using this wiki-like program for a while and have found it very practical for collaborative word processing. It sure beats sending huge files around by e-mail and trying to figure out five colours of track-changes plus a bunch of comments in Word or even in OpenOffice.org. Writely is basically a wiki (multi-editor web page), but has a simple word processor interface and imports/exports from popular file types like .doc and .pdf.
So far I’ve had little luck in convincing many others that Writely is a better tool than “Word + e-mail”. People are stuck in their old habits and with the first sign of difficulty they revert to their comfort zone. Now that Writely has some street cred from Google I’m hoping that it will be easier to convince others to try it. The interface has been steadily improving and I’m sure that Google cash will help it even more. New users may have to wait, as Writely seems to have temporarily closed the door on new accounts. Existing users can add only four new collaborators. I’m sure this will change shortly.
Personally, I see the move of word processing to the Web as a real productivity advance for what used to be known as CSCW (computer-supported collaborative work).