Communities

communities of interest and practice

Open Source in Education: A European Perspective

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Just perused this 91 page PDF (now available as HTML) produced by Teemu Arina and Timo Tervo of the FLOSSE Posse. This is an excellent overview of many trends affecting online learning. It covers everything from the long tail, power law, connectivism, small world networks, blogs and wikis. It’s a bit short on detail, but if you’re familiar with these concepts, then it’s a fast read. If you’re not familiar with these concepts, then read the references.

The second part of the presentation covers the results of a workshop on open source in education and discusses a number of future scenarios that were ranked by the participants, for instance:

100% [of workshop participants] agreed:


Rip, Mix and Learn is the new metaphor for constructing learning objects

Amateur audio and video enters learning
Connectiveness a core competency
ePortfolios focusing on capturing informal learning appear

These will give you an idea of what has traction on the other side of the pond in the OS world. Most of the paper is CC licensed and there are a lot of interesting diagrams. Definitely a keeper for your digital archives.

Learning Networks – The New Framework

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Stephen Downes presented a work in progress in Palermo this week, Learning Networks – Theory & Practice. In order to better understand it myself, I have put my notes up here, but please listen to Stephen’s audio file and look at his slide presentation. This presentation begs for a lot more discussion. What follows is my summary and any errors or omissions are my own:

First of all, traditional online learning has been institution-based, consisting of online courses, learning management systems, and closed networks of licensed content. Content is seen in terms of course packs and learning design linearly sequencing.

On the other hand, learning networks are not institution-based but resource-based within an open network. On the Web, content is not packaged but aggregated. E-learning is more of an
engagement and a conversation than an event.

From these premises, Stephen has developed several learning network design principles (works in progress he says) that specify how networks differ from traditional learning. These can be used as a means of evaluating new technology, to determine whether it is network-centric (see the slides for details).

  1. Decentralization
  2. Distribution
  3. Disintermediation
  4. Disaggregation
  5. Dis-integration
  6. Democratization
  7. Dynamism

These principles are based on Connectivism (see George Siemens’ post) and Stephen also links these principles to what Robert Paterson has written in Going Home: Our Reformation:

E-Learning has been based on centralized systems

But these centralized systems, such as the LMS, are like a dysfunctional crutch –
There’s so much going on out there – you have to leave the cocoon and experience the web.
Stop trying to do online what you do in the classoom – it’s a different world online.

My own opinion is that the Web offered a lot of options for learner control, but this was co-opted by technology vendors and institutions. For instance, there are still “web-based learning program” that disable your browser’s navigation functions.

The fact is that the genie is out of the bottle, and we are in the metaphorical process of casting off the horseless carriage and adopting the automobile. Stephen’s framework, Rob’s vision and George’s pedagogy provide some of the foundation and now there are new tools, such as DrupalED, coming out of the artisans’ workshops to help us implement this framework. Allons-y!

Architecture for a better future

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Dave Pollard produces more thought-provoking articles than almost anyone else on the Web. I have used his Natural Enterprise model to inform my own work in developing better business models for small businesses, and now Dave has started to put many of his ideas together in his latest post, Creating a Post-Civilization Culture. His framework consists of four components – Principles, Learning, Enablers & Infrastructure. The premise is that,

With the right principles that can guide our decisions, the learnings to build the new culture properly, and the enabling building blocks, we can create the infrastructure that embodies the new culture.


This framework, coupled with Robert Paterson‘s narrative on the next Reformation, could sow the seeds for some grassroots action. It may be just what we need at the local level to address our own community’s sustainabilty issues.

“A Learning Blogosphere”

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A recurring theme here and elsewhere is that decentralized Web 2.0 technologies are better than older, centralized technologies (e.g. LMS & LCMS) in enabling learning on the Web. Here is an interesting story about a University of Michigan class that implemented blogs for learning, beginning about a year ago. The first installment from the Community Engine Blog is now posted:

Milestone 4 – Why blog instead of using technology X?

This question came mainly from academics who had invested in some previous computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) system. Nonetheless, it also came from students and is a reasonable question. Should we adopt new technologies because they are new? As I hope this tale illustrates, adopting new technologies is costly.

My answer is this. By design, blogging allows individuals to raise topics of interest and create threads of conversation without having to ask anyone’s permission. That was an explicit design consideration for this course; I wanted to know what was going on with students. Bulletin boards tend to be top-down and are owned by one person. Wikis force you to go through a social filter. Others can edit your pages or even delete them.

Second, because blogging also produces XML-based feeds, it is very easy to aggregate all of the individual contributions in one place while still maintaining individual attribution. Third, the XML-based feeds in blogs allow me to join people and resources to my group vs. having to get them to join me. Note, I did ask permission of everyone whose feed I aggregated into our site, but they did not have to go through a sign-on process and explicitly produce content for the site. By localizing content creation, blogs make it possible to ask permission and get a coherent stream of content.

The lessons learnt in this case provide some guidance to anyone implementing blogs for education today. Some of the obstacles were due to the fact that this class was just slightly ahead of the technology adoption curve, but their experiences can now inform many others embarking on similar trips. The numerous trackbacks & comments attest to the value of these experiences being posted.

In the space of a year, blogs for learning have moved from the bleeding edge to the leading edge.

Tagback

Mrs Blash’s Home and School Communicator

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I have frequently mentioned how a blog would make home and school communication very simple. Well Debbie Blash, a school Principal, has started a blog:

Welcome to Mrs Blash’s home and school communicator. It is hoped that through this blogger that we will be able to improve home and school communication. Please feel free to contact me through this site.

It’s on Blogger, so it’s free and it seems so obvious that I wonder why more schools (like ours) have not adopted the medium. Mrs Blash is obviously new to blogging, but she has taken the plunge in order to further communication – bravo! In our town we have "Talk Mail" using the telephone system, but not much on the Internet. Maybe soon …

Yahoo uses Drupal

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Sebastien Paquet is blogging the Information Architecture Summit [what’s the difference between a summit and a conference?] in Montreal this week (thanks Seb). The presentation on Implementing a Pattern Library in the Real World: A Yahoo! Case Study, shows how Drupal meets the needs of the expanding company:

I used to work with an internal group to build an intranet. We didn’t want to go around begging for money, so it needed to be cheap. [php, movable type, drupal, other logos pop up] We wanted it scalable [some logos go away], customizable and extensible, easy to use (unlike coders, designers are a fickle bunch) [some other logos vanish], and conducive to collaboration. A bottom-up feel to it. Categorization. The answer was Drupal. It has broad functionality, blogs, calendar, strong taxonomy system. Active developer community – I want to do as little work as possible. There’s a new version about every four months. It has a very abstracted engine. It’s not the greatest at everything, but the taxonomy part is very strong.

The strength of the Drupal community just keeps growing :-)

Seb has blogged a number of other sesssions, well worth the read if you’re interested in IA.

 

Skype Journal Launches

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Stuart Henshall at Unbound Spiral has launched a new community around Skype, the free Voice over Internet Protocol system that lets you speak from one computer to another computer anywhere in the world. You can also call regular telephone number for a very low price.

Concurrently Skype growth has accelerated with over 2m active online and some 40m minutes a day. New products both hardware and software for Skype are emerging daily. Each day Skype adds another 130000 users. With 24+ million Skypers the majority early adopters, computer literate, these are the current change agents for the communications society. While for the most part tied to desktops and headsets they will become part of a mobile social communications revolution.

This burgeoning market needs representation, and a vehicle for sharing news, product updates, industry views and counterpoints. Skype is also proprietary, it is pointed out again and again that it is not SIP, and similarly security and business applications are frequently raised (usually by competitors). These are important issues, and the blog world has enormous power to influence where a company goes and how it develops. I’m listening for counterpoints!

I find it interesting, and very McLuhanesque, that this company has launched to support a community that uses a proprietary software application. It’s third-party marketing, customer lobbying and developer support all rolled in one; and the company (Skype) is not even involved in this venture. However, Skype could really benefit in an active relationship with Skype Journal, and I’m sure that they understand this. Definitely one to watch.

Do You Have a Company Blog Strategy?

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According to the Wall Street Journal, "Blogs Keep Internet Customers Coming Back – Small Firms Find Tool Useful for Recognition, Connecting With Buyers".

Instead of maligning blogs as being written by a million guys in pyjamas, the WSJ states:

The blog as business tool has arrived.

Some eight million Americans now publish blogs and 32 million people read them, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. What began as a form of public diary-keeping has become an important supplement to a business’s online strategy: Blogs can connect with consumers on a personal level — and keep them visiting a company’s Web site regularly.

Those inside the corporation/company/organisation/department may want to consider what Robert Paterson has to say:

Imagine you are a senior executive and one of your 20 old staffers asks you about whether we are going to have a Blog Strategy. You are surely going to be stumped.

I continue to be amazed at how busy people in corporate life are. The sad thing is that they are so busy that they don’t know what is going on and will find this a mystery

Blogs are not a mystery. You just have to start with the premise that markets are conversations, and go from there.

Our Own Reformation

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Robert Paterson has put together many of his thoughts on social software and societal reform in an excellent synthesis entitled, “Going Home – Our Reformation. Rob’s article begins:

I was in a meeting this week with a group of “educators”. We were talking about Communities of Practice. I mentioned blogging several times in the meeting. At the meeting’s end, one of the participants approached me and said, “Every time you mention blogging I get annoyed. It is only a fad and will never affect education.”
I believe that it is not a fad. I believe that Blogging, and its wider family of Social Software tools, will not only affect education but will shake our entire society to the core. I believe that our descendants will look back at its arrival the same way that we now look back at the advent of the printing press.

He continues with a number of current scenarios that show the desperate conditions we have created, and then goes on to show how targeted, local initiatives can get us out of this mess. The future that Rob sees for Prince Edward Island could happen almost anywhere, and he describes the kinds of grassroot projects that are possible and feasible. Rob’s description of the new schooling model is an example:

The School Revolution — As with seniors, the revolution in PEI schools did not happen as a result of any deliberate project to transform schools. What is happening is that a series of projects designed to engage children have taken hold. This work did not even take place in the regular school day but in the afternoon. The afternoon has become a place where children can do the one thing that they really love. They choose and then the community tries its best to find people who can take them to a place of great expertise.This idea had its start in two areas, Theatre and Sport. Theatre PEI began a community program in the afternoon to awaken kids to the thrill of theatre. At the same time, Sports PEI began a similar program to offer the average kids more opportunity in sport. All this work was organized and expanded by the use of local blog sites that were designed to engage the local community. The resources came from adults who lived close by.

Take some time to read Rob’s article and see if it makes sense to you. Either way; please make a comment. This is just the beginning and Rob has given us the first draft of the blueprint.
Here in Sackville, the town is going through a strategic planning process – once again. Our downtown is in decline, due in part to competition from the nearby Trans-Canada Highway development of fast food restaurants and drive-through shopping. The new highway also makes it easy to go to the big box stores and shopping complexes in nearby Moncton. Much of the discussion that I have heard to date is focused on the symptoms, not the root causes of the decline of the community. Instead of debating the problems for another decade, we now have some concrete examples of what we can do in Sackville (The Commons Network; The Media Revolution; Local Food Networks; Seniors College; and The Consulting Revolution) . Rob’s examples provide a starting point to initiate conversations on how to create our own future.

Thank you Rob, now it’s up to us.