Hot & Cool Election Campaigns

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While I was in Montreal this week I received a call from a newspaper journalist, looking for some comments about the use of blogs in the current election. I was engaged in meetings and the deadline was only a few hours away, so I wasn’t able to to add an insights (not that I had any pithy comments ready anyway).
Instead, the journalist should have contacted Mark Federman who has some excellent comments on the election, especially around McLuhan’s work on Hot versus Cool media. For instance:

You cannot "label" a medium as hot or cool by looking at the medium, but rather by observing its effects. A hot medium is one that is hypnotic, decreasing awareness by providing explicit, often simplistic, information. It is intense, and tends to separate and fragment. There is little active, cognitive participation because of the explicitness; rather we take it in and nod in agreement, eyes glazing over. If you find yourself mindlessly echoing tropes and memes without really thinking them through (to discover a hidden context, for instance) you have likely been exposed to a hot media environment.

Mark goes on to show how a party could use the Internet as a cool medium:

One of the effects of UCaPP is for "consumers to become producers." In the context of the current campaign, this might mean that ordinary people could be given a venue on the campaign sites to upload their own podcasts. Consider the Liberal Party dilemma of lack of trust. Now imagine if the archetypal "ordinary Canadian" was given an open and free opportunity to upload a "why I’m planning to vote Liberal" podcast directly to the Liberal party site. At the very least, all the ideas that the central campaign can’t think of would immediately become available to them. What’s more, (as we learned from the Howard Dean Experience) even anti-Liberal trolls (a troll, of course is relative to the venue; one person’s troll is another person’s freedom fighter, so to speak) would be contributing to the passion, fervor and motivation of the Liberal team and their supporters (Dean raised a huge amount of money through people pledging donations for every troll post to Deanspace). Most important, allowing such a forum for democratic participation and conversation is the move that would help to create the trust, openness and welcoming that a cool campaign requires.

Montreal during a Winter Election Campaign

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Currently sitting in downtown Montreal on a client project. Typical consulting gig – fly in; check into the hotel; spend a long day in a meeting room; repeat; fly out. I happened to be in the same hotel as the Liberal Party of Canada (the French leaders’ debate was last night) so there was more traffic than usual for a week day in January. Speaking of political campaigns (and I try not to) Rob Wall has an interesting post on a candidate who really blogs.
Perhaps during the next election the two-way web will be the norm and TV/Radio will be ignored. For myself, I’ve ignored the mass media and have read a few blog posts, including this one from Dave Pollard. I see elections like final exams; you have to do your homework prior to the end of the coursework, not during the pressure of exams.

Wikibooks

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Dave Cormier is proposing more work be done on the concept of textbook wikis, or wikibooks. According to Dave:

I would see a well funded wikibook project as a viable alternative to the current publisher textbook hegemony. With the work done at wikimedia as a backbone, the right input, enthusiasm and knowhow, a full wikibook science program could be up within a year. The key to the success of such a project would be getting ‘everyone’ involved. Not just science people and curriculum designers, but teachers, science institutions and students as well. A solid organizational structure, a place for debate and disagreement, as well as areas for student input. It has all the potential for being a real turning point for education.

Most of us have used wikipedia, or at least heard of it in the popular press, and the wikibook is another open source model for education using the power of community built web pages. Dave goes through some of the pros and cons including the question of validity, or  "How do we know that the information in the textbook is ‘true’?". In this world of information abundance I don’t believe that it’s necesssary to prove that something is true. Once posted, facts can easily be cross-checked, and a strong community will make sure that the information is fact-based. Learners and educators have to be media savvy and understand how they can check the verity of an information source. Truth is what we believe and we need to understand why we believe something.
I remember a course in third year on Canadian historiography (the wikipedia definition is number one on Google) that covered three textbooks, one English Canadian, one French Canadian and one American. Which one of these university textbooks contained the "truth"? In many courses, only one of these texts would have been required reading or required to purchase. A more open wikibook, transparent to all and open to debate, is a much better system, and cheaper, than an unchanging textbook.

New Year, New Tools

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This year I got a digital camera (finally) for Christmas. It was a gift from my wife, but I had a fair bit of input (about 100%). The Olympus Stylus Verve 5.0 megapixel camera is very compact, weatherproof and looks cool. It takes great photos and I’ve picked up an extra battery as reviews say that it eats them.

For my first transfer of photos to my computer I used Adobe Photo Album which had come with my Palm. I found it cumbersome, and when I wanted to do anything extra I found out that I needed to upgrade to a paid version. I therefore installed the Olympus master program that came with the camera. It took forever to download the updates from the web and when I started using it I discovered that it was a crippled version of the pro version which I could purchase from Olympus.

I therefore uninstalled both of these programs and downloaded The Gimp. It is a free and open source image editing suite that does much more than I need but there is no nag-wear and I know that it has everything that I’ll ever need in terms of functionality. I should have done this first, but the process reinforced how many good open source products are out there. If you install The Gimp for Windows, make sure that you install the GTK+2 Runtime environment first. I’m playing around with a Flickr account too, to start sharing some photos.

I’ve also tried some new tools for this website. In the External Links on the left you’ll see an OpenSource4Learning link which takes you to a Squidoo lens. Squidoo is an experiment in focused content, based on the premise that everyone is an expert on something. I’d appreciate any feedback. My intent is to see if one of the subjects of this blog requires its own special place. Is it any easier to find stuff this way?

I also built a swicki, which is a specialised search engine. I had it installed on the navigation bar but it slowed the loading of my pages so it’s off for now. You may see it re-appear as I test it some more.
Now it’s back to real work for the month of January ;-)

Jay Cross on Informal Learning

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Jay Cross has posted a Breeze presentation that you can watch and listen to online. It’s a review of his research over the past year that informed his in-press book on informal learning.

There’s a lot here and worth the time (35 minutes) to sit back and learn. Jay and I share perspectives on many things, including the importance of performance & the power of networks. In this presentation Jay gives a lot of food for thought on the important role of informal learning.

His statement that only 0.4% of behaviour change is attributable to formal learning should make training organisations and educational institutions shake in their boots, but of course it won’t (until it’s too late).

Mapstats blogging resource

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I’ve been using MapStats, which is a function of Blogflux, as an additional statistics tool on this website for a while. What I like about Mapstats is that you get the real number of actual visitors to your website. It eliminates spammers & bots and also anyone reading from an aggregator. As for the latter, I at least have an indicator of regular subscribers from Bloglines.
Mapstats also shows where each visitor comes from, what browser was used and what search query was presented to a search engine. Since it’s in beta, the system has had a few hiccups but it is quite promising and gives some interesting detail that I don’t get with my ISP-provided search package. For instance, since October:

  • 91% of visitors using a search engine use Google (no surprise)
  • 47% of visitors use Internet Explorer while 42% use Firefox (not exactly reflective of what the popular press is saying about Firefox’s 10% of market share, but I’m sure that I have a lot of "early adopters" visiting this site)
  • 45% of visitors are from Canada, 26% from the USA,  4% from the UK, 2% from India and 7% unknown
  • +99.99% have Flash enabled (looks like Adobe-Macromedia has won the game)
  • Top search queries include "lms comparison", "benefits of blogging" and "training vs education"
  • The most popular blog post since October has been the one on the Blackboard WebCT merger

I’d recommend Mapstats for any blogger (only bloggers can use this free tool) as it provides just another level of feedback that may keep you motivated on those long cold winter days.

Those who teach will not test

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First post of the new year – best wishes to all – after a somewhat fallow period since the holidays began and the boys have been at home and family arrived, etc.

I haven’t created a ‘best of’ for 2005, and will not make any predictions for 2006. I know that life in perpetual beta will continue for me and I’m feeling fairly optimistic in spite of the large challenges facing human kind.

I’ve had many discussions these past weeks on the failings of our education systems (public, private, higher, government-sanctioned). Like many others I see global changes on the horizon that will affect our economic and political systems. However, in one short conversation, I believed that we hit upon a small incremental change that could have some really positive results. That is to remove teaching from assessment:

  • Anyone who teaches is not allowed to test.
  • Those who design the tests are answerable to those who learn and those who teach.
  • Those who teach are only responsible to those who learn and are subjected to tests.

Whether it be in public school or higher education, teachers should be there to help the learners. Others, who design and administer the tests must show how these tests are valid and reliable and be able to publicly defend the principles upon which they are based. When, or if, learners are tested, teachers are advocates not judges.

By removing the role of assessor, I think that we can do a lot to advance learning. I know that there are many other challenges in our education systems but this one change could be the start. I also know that this will not be a panacea, but it could give a new sense of purpose to many teachers. It does not require a wholesale dismantling of the system (not that it’s a bad idea) but is a pragmatic start while the hierarchies come to the realisation that the world is changing faster than they can even conceive of adapting.

The mantra can be – Those who teach will not test, period.

Community Driven Renewable Energy

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I’ve been helping to develop the business model for a sustainable energy investment co-operative in the Sackville area. We’re in start-up mode with Renew Coop and the cooperative is recruiting members to show that there is enough interest to attract larger investors. I like the idea of some day living in a completely sustainable region that is not dependent on fluctuating non-renewable resource prices and where there is an overall low impact on the environment.

RenewCoop has been formed to provide small, medium and large investors the opportunity to get involved in the development and ownership of renewable energy projects that directly benefit our region.  The timing is great, because the Government of New Brunswick, under the province’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, wants renewable sources to produce 33 per cent of the energy consumed by New Brunswickers by the year 2016. RenewCoop will be looking at ways to invest in renewable production, with potential projects in Wind Energy Production, Tidal Power Generation, Biodiesel, Hydrogen, Energy Efficiency and Conservation.

Membership costs $25 and we expect shares to be $10 each with a minimum purchase of 5 shares. The cooperative is aiming for 100 members by the end of January. If you’re still thinking about a New Year’s resolution, perhaps investment in sustainable energy is it.

Tools for Communities of Practice

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The CP Squared online conference on Web 2.0 and communities of practice (via Nancy White) will be held during January 2006. In looking at the schedule, which focuses on tools, architecture and applications, I noticed that most of what is being featured is what we (Mancomm Performance) have integrated into a single Elgg application for the Sud-Lanaudière health region in Québec. Using only open source applications, this is the structure that we built:

Blogs & RSS Integral part of Elgg. RSS is very granular.
Wikis Integrated PMWiki each time a new community is created in Elgg
Tagging Automatic or created by the individual with Elgg, including a Tagcloud to see what’s happening
SNA, FOAF & Networking Integral part of Elgg and added an RSS calendar function
Podcasting & Audio Added a web music player to play self-created audio in blog posts
Mashups Nothing applicable
Interoperability Followed open standards so interoperabilty has been relatively easy. Working on connecting directly to Moodle.

This means that you can get an “almost” out of the box integrated community of practice platform that is free and open source. We even had to translate the entire system into French. Techies can connect through the Elgg development community for more information. Of course, the technology is the easy part in building growing a community of practice ;-)

Connecting formal & informal learning

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Dave Tosh, co-creator of Elgg, has a model in progress of “how to facilitate the social interaction of learners and resources within the current architecture most institutions employ.” His two-layer model is similar to what Mancomm has developed for a healthcare institutional setting:

Layer 2 Personal Learning Landscape

e.g. Elgg

 Informal

Learner defined

Social
Layer 1 Course Management System

e.g. Moodle

 Formal

Institution defined

Task based

By using Elgg linked to a more formal system like Moodle you can provide traditional training & education, focused on specific tasks while encouraging emergent and informal learning in the less structured elgg learning landscape.

In a later post, Dave links to a concept map being developed by Andrew Chambers. This map shows the wide variety of tools currently available for informal learning, in order to organise, connect, create and share. These really are “small pieces loosely joined” for informal learning.

The trick will be in linking informal & formal systems so that the learner can easily move from one environment to another. This is probably the biggest challenge for institutions and their IT departments. If they aren’t linked, then learners may find less use for them. That’s why I continue to recommend the Elgg and Moodle communities because they are actively working on integrating these two layers.