Well, James Farmer is true to his word and has created Learner Blogs for students to start their own free blogs. The subject of what was a good blogging platform for K-12 students was raised during our EdTech Talk brainstorm last night, and James jumped right in and offered to create a safe blogging environment for students. Learner Blogs is on Word Press MU and offers a more restricted environment, and better features, than the publicly available Blogger. Having a password-protected site that is not open to the entire Web is a necessary feature when introducing young students to blogging.
If you want to learn more about how to use blogs in schools, Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed News is a good place to start.
Edubloggers Map
If you’re looking for educational bloggers, or are one, then check out Josie Fraser’s Edubloggers Map on Frappr! Google Earth just keeps cropping up everywhere.
Multi-user Blog Review
James Farmer has a review of multi-user blogs, including Drupal, WordPress Multi-user, elgg, Movable Type, Manila and pLog. So what kind of real-world applications are there for multi-user blogs?
As I’ve mentioned before, we’re using elgg with a healthcare community of practice and one of the tools is a professional journal (blog). These journals are used to keep other community members up to date on training issues and are used to track committee minutes and agendas. Nothing fancy but it’s a practical application within a corporate intranet.
We like elgg so much at Mancomm that we’re going to move away from eGroupware and switch to elgg for document sharing and internal communications.
I can see multi-user blogs as useful applications for distributed communities (e.g. educators within a school system) who want to share their knowledge and need more functions than a free service like Blogger offers. With multi-user blogs you only need one administrator and the community uses a common platform which fosters peer-to-peer support.
Informal Learning for a Flat World
A flattened world is one where skilled workers compete with each other, no matter where they live. With the opening of China, India and Russia to the world economy, the world is becoming flatter. Thomas Friedman, in The World is Flat says that there are four categories of workers who will prosper in a flattened global economy – special workers, specialized workers, anchored workers and really adaptable workers. Learning how to learn will be the critical skill for this last group; who in my opinion will be the largest. In 1998 I noted in my thesis that learning how to learn would be the critical job skill for the future. It’s now becoming reality.
Given the huge diversity of learning needs for these adaptable workers, we need to move away from a one size fits all educational approach. One of the answers is informal learning (see Jay Cross), which can be likened to mass customisation. It allows the learner to co-design the learning process.
This means that informal learning environments have to be loose structures that can accommodate as many different learning needs as possible. Instructional systems design (ISD) was developed to train soldiers for war so that everyone would have the same skills. In a global, networked world the last thing you want are the same skills as everyone else, as you will then be an interchangeable commodity.
Therefore in an economy that needs adaptable learners, the type of learning environment that they will demand will be an adaptable one as well. A single course, with established learning objectives that all students must achieve, just won’t cut it.
The Web for learning – from stock to flow
Will Richardson talks about the changing needs of learners in a networked world:
For instance, now that we have access to people and knowledge, learning is “network creation” and that we can learn through “collaborative meaning making.” And the idea the we no longer need to learn everything in “advance of need” resonates strongly with Brown and Hagel’s idea of push vs. pull learning, that we can pull information from a source when we need it, not have it pushed upon us in case we need it.
I have always felt that the Web was an environment more suited to just-in-time learning (e.g. performance support) than for the more pervasive course model. Learning on the web is moving from stock to flow. It also seems that in true McLuhanesque fashion the medium of the Web is having measurable effects on those who use the technology, specifically – obsolescing, enhancing, retrieving and reversing. For instance:
- Courses are being obsolesced on the connected Web.
- Access to knowledge is enhanced.
- Storytelling is being retrieved, especially through podcasting.
- Learning on the Web may also reverse into mere grazing, instead of in-depth learning.
Now that the Web is becoming ubiquitous, we are moving away from a horseless carriage type of metaphor and using the medium for what it can really do. I see a rapid decline in online course development as better models of collaboration and just-in-time knowledge are developed. We also will need more metaphors, models & technologies to facilitate 24/7/365 learning in a connected world.
The BlackWeb Opportunity
Ben Watson has posted an industry analyst’s report on the Blackboard-WebCT merger in his comment on the Learning Circuits blog. The analyst’s perspective may be correct, but I see another opportunity. According to this report, there are about 562 current WebCT clients who do not use the enterprise version. These institutions have opted for the cheaper flavour of WebCT and may be willing to try out an open source platform instead of upgrading to "BlackWeb" enterprise.
Now is the time for the OS user/developer/services community, such as Moodle.com, to get the word out about open source learning platforms. For starters, here is the Edutools feature comparison of the soon to be defunct WebCT Campus (the non-enterprise version) compared with .LRN, Moodle and ATutor. And don’t forget about ELGG :-)
OpenOffice 2.0 Released
OpenOffice.org is the open source office suite that is compatible with MS Office. With the public release of version 2.0 there is now a simple way to have all of your office productivity applications on a single no-cost suite. It is very simple to master the applications and the additional benefits are worth the effort. For instance, you can load as many copies on as many machines as you wish – no licensing issues. There is also a large user community. From the press release:
In addition to the OpenDocument format, the redesigned user interface and a new database module, OpenOffice.org 2.0 also adds improved PDF support, a superior spreadsheet module, enhanced desktop integration and several other features that take advantage of its advanced XML capabilities, such as the ability to easily create, edit and use XForms.
One of my favorite features is that you can export your slide presentations as Flash files. OpenOffice also imports WordPerfect files much better than MS Word does. My family, which runs the spectrum of computer skills, uses all of the OpenOffice applications with no difficulty. With 2.0 it is even easier to take control of your desktop and switch to open source. It won’t cost you anything.
Provinent now “Vitesse Learning”
After having recently merged with Fredericton’s LearnStream, Provinent (of Toronto, with offices in Fredericton & Charlottetown) is now merged with US-based Vitesse Learning. This consolidates the e-learning content development field even more. We’ll see if bigger is better in the next months and whether the new company hires more people or jettisons extra staff. The merger means that at this time only one major e-learning content developer, Innovatia, has its head office in New Brunswick. Other companies with learning content production facilities in Fredericton include Ireland’s PulseLearning, US-based SkillSoft and local EngageInteractive.
Addendum: after re-reading this post I’d like to note that Provinent’s head office never was in Fredericton. The point I was trying to make is that New Brunswick has a number of production facilities but few head offices and I’m not sure if this is best for the long-term sustainability of the local learning industry.
Art Across the Marsh
This coming weekend, October 22nd & 23rd, is the annual Art Across the Marsh studio tour in our area. The vibrant artistic community in the Tantramar region of New Brunswick is one of the features that attracted us to Sackville. If you’re in the area and looking for something that’s fun & educational then take a look at the website which features the artists and has a detailed map. To see all of the artists you’ll need both days. We go out every year, as it happens to coincide with my wife’s birthday and is a great opportunity to find a unique gift.
“How to Choose a Content Management Tool According to a Learning Model”
The article of this post’s title is on the eLearningEuropa site. The article maps teaching models to web learning systems. Peter Baumgartner lists three teaching models, and then goes on describe five types of content management systems for learning. He notes which CMS fit with each teaching model. I’ve replaced systems listed in the article with ones that I’m more familiar with, in this summary table :
| To transer knowledge | To acquire, compile, gather knowledge | To develop, to invent, to construct knowledge | |
| The Pure CMS | Mambo | ||
| Weblog CMS | Blogger | Movable Type | Typepad |
| Collaborative CMS | Drupal | ||
| Content, Community, Collaboration MS | ELGG | ||
| Wiki Systems | TWiki |
I would note that Moodle is probably a hybrid of a Collaborative CMS and Wiki System. Drupal also has a wiki-like capability with its shared books that can be edited by multiple authors and all revisions are accessible for viewing.This type of matrix appeals to me as a starting point for conversations about what technology is appropriate for an educational institution. First, you come to an agreement about the teaching model (these three are not the entire spectrum) and then you can create a short list of systems for further evaluation. This is a better starting point than the more typical feature-list approach.