Learning

Learning

Blogging rhythms

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I’ve been helping out with OLDaily for the past several weeks, but Stephen is now back as editor-in-chief. The pressure of getting out a daily newsletter was much more difficult than I thought it would be. I found that I was scouring my feeds and looking for appropraite posts quite often each day, and then trying to give some kind of fresh perspective. Luckily, Gary Woodill and Barry Dahl were doing the same and I only had to do 2-3 posts per day. Gary also handled the daily publishing of the newsletter. Thanks guys :-)

I started the OLDaily project all full of energy, but was quickly called to task by a reader for repeating a post that Stephen had already covered. I learned to check the archives before posting, realizing that Stephen’s audience is quite large and someone will notice any slip-up. This was of course once I figured out how to track comments.

This co-editor stint has given me a new pespective on blogging. As of last week I was finding the grind a bit much and had stopped posts on this blog. I found that once I’d filtered, examined, pondered and then written for OLDaily that I didn’t have any interest to write one of my own posts. My own pace is much slower and I need to have three or four posts in the mill and let them stew a bit before I decide to post any of them. Many potential posts get chucked or wind up as a quick link on Delicious.

Each blogger writes for different reasons and I mostly do it to make sense of what I’m observing, reading or pondering. There is no pressure to create a daily post and I now know that I couldn’t handle that kind of pressure to deliver for very long. I have more respect for journalists and their deadlines. I also have an even greater respect for Stephen and the enormous cumulative value of OLDaily for our field. Adding a post numbered 45,167 showed just how small my contribution had been.

And now back to our regular programming …

User Generated Context for Learning

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Umair Haque’s short paper on User Generated Context has some insights pertinent to online learning. Haque says that “context” is what most users generate and that content remains an area for professionals or at least the well-known amateurs. The rest of us just add context to what is flowing from the main information nodes, like TechCrunch or the New York Times [kind of like what I’m doing with this post]. Understanding that most of us in the “long tail” generate context, not content, is an important differentiation.

For content players and publishers, user generated context means that connected consumers aren’t their competitors – but are vital, essential complementors, who create very real value for them. The more context there is, the greater demand for their content is likely to be. That means that it’s vital for content players to explode the amount of context connected consumers create about them.

In the online learning business most content is locked down and it is difficult for users to add context that is persistent. I discussed this gap in Learning Content Should be Hackable. Take MIT’s open courseware initiative for instance. The media are available and free but there is no easy way to add context without porting the content to some other place. Blogs, wikis and social bookmarks enable contextualization of learning content but most of this is ad hoc and dependent on the user’s choice of social media tools. Wikipedia is a good example of context being added through links and in the article discussions.

Creating good content on a platform that lets users (teachers & learners) add context may be the the real killer application in education. Content developers and institutions have been so concerned with protecting their content that they don’t see where the real value lies. Letting others add more context will only increase the value of their content.

Non-consumers in education

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Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn say that Computer-Based Learning Could Transform Public Education within a Decade through “Disruptive Innovation”. This is based on Christensen’s models of disruption from his Innovators series of books, which I’ve discussed in Entrants and Incumbents.

The authors use the model of innovation that shows certain advantages for entrants, namely motivations and skills that incumbents don’t want or have. Targeting “non-consumers” is the suggested tactic, as Sony did with its transistor radio against the higher quality vacuum tube radios in the 1960’s.

Using the same methodology in analyzing the public system and its reliance on text books,  they suggest:

Pitting computer-based learning directly against teachers or continuing to cram it into schools will not work. Producers of computer-based learning software must introduce it disruptively, by letting it compete against non-consumption initially. And software makers must customize the software for different learning types while other entrepreneurs find new channels to reach students.

One business model of this type is the University of Phoenix targeting adults who never would be able to attend a traditional university full-time or on site. Another would be the online language learning offerings cropping up all over the Web.

An example the authors provide is that of pharmaceutical makers advertising direct to consumers, so that patients can ask for a specific prescription from their physician.  In this case, centralized purchasing is being completely bypassed, and so with it the massive advertising dollars of the industry.

This could happen in public education. With students identified as “non-consumers” [who are never consulted and have no influence in the education system], they may have education options in the next decade that are “as good as” the existing school system. The next generation may just decide to opt out of the public system. Is this how our public education system will end, with the last student quietly turning out the classroom lights?

Meritus University in New Brunswick

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Meritus University is now the third fourth private online university in New Brunswick, joining Lansbridge [update: Lansbridge lost its degree granting status in August 2010] and Yorkville Universities [and the University of Fredericton]. Meritus is owned by the Apollo Group which also owns the University of Phoenix. Locally, the Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations, which represents faculty at public institutions, says that ” … students are being shortchanged by private, for-profit universities, such as Meritus”. This is an interesting statement from those who have enjoyed an oligopoly [defn: An oligopoly is a market form in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of sellers] on higher education for the past few centuries. I am sure that the paying students will decide in the end which institution offers the best education and related services.

Due to New Brunswick’s legislation that enables the creation of online private universities, we now have three. With their distributed staff this probably doesn’t equate to a lot of jobs but we are beginning to see a bit of a cluster here. Hopefully we’ll see some innovations in teaching and education from these new institutions, and not just a replication of the medieval scholastic model. At Meritus, the focus is on business administration teaching staff who actually have experience in business. Perhaps that’s what faculty at public institutions mean by being “shortchanged”.

I previously wrote about the move toward standardization in higher education and its implications in From Cottage Industry to International Certification.

Mahara open source e-portfolio

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My friend Benoit Brosseau told me about Mahara, which seems to fill a growing demand for e-portfolios in education. I like their approach:

What makes Mahara different from other ePortfolio systems is that you control which items and what information (Artefacts) within your portfolio other users see.

In order to facilitate this access control, all Artefacts you wish to show to other users need to be bundled up and placed into one area. Within Mahara this compilation of selected Artefacts is called a View.

You can have as many Views as you like, each with a different collection of Artefacts, and intended purpose and audience. Your audience, or the people you wish to give access to your View, can be added as individuals or as a member of a Group or Community.

Learner control over content access would be one of my essential criteria in selecting an e-portfolio system. More innovation from New Zealand!

Learning professionals as first responders

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When I was in the Canadian Forces Medical Services much of my work was in preparation for mass casualty situations, such as would happen in a conflict. Hospitals and medical personnel train for mass casualty situations because the rules are a bit different from the standard admission process. You are overwhelmed with casualties and the system cannot treat everyone as they would like or need. Priorities are set. An important role is that of triage [from the French verb “to sort” – Processus de prise de décision utilisé sur les lieux d’une urgence et servant à classer les victimes selon les priorités de soins – Grand dictionnatre terminologique].

I was thinking that triage is good metaphor for learning today. We are inundated with information and sources of knowledge. Learning professionals can help sort the signal from the noise by understanding the current circumstances of the organisation and do an initial triage. Of course the situation will be changing so what was important yesterday may not be important tomorrow. Only by constantly looking outside and inside will the learning professional provide a valuable service.

So if anyone asks why you’re reading 100 Web feeds and checking out the chat on Twitter and Facebook, tell them you’re doing triage.

Negotiating the mesh of social meaning

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I finally got around to reading Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger. I thought that I understood the premise and contents fairly well from my readings on the Web but I was pleasantly surprised by this book, which is now available in paperback. There is lots here that I will refer back to and the book will definitely stay on my reference library shelf.

For instance, I already knew this concept ;-)

In the miscellaneous order, the only distinction between metadata and data is that metadata is what you already know and data is what you’re trying find.

But then we go one step beyond the Cluetrain:

The markets that conversations make are real markets, not mere statistical clusterings.

I highlighted this passge near the end:

In the world after the Enlightenment, the cultural task was to build knowledge. In the miscellaneous world, the task is to build meaning, even though we can’t yet know what we’ll do with this new domain. Certainly some will mine it for knowledge that will change our lives through science and business. But knowledge will only be one product. Knowledge’s new place will be in an ever-present mesh of social meaning. Knowledge is thus not being dethroned. We are way too good at knowing, and our continued progress – and survival – depends on it. But knowledge is now not our only project or our single highest meaning. Making sense of what we know is the broader task, a task for understanding within the infrastructure of meaning.

This made me pause and think about what we mean when we discuss knowledge work, and if it may be the wrong label.

OLDaily Summer Edition

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For the next month I’ll be a co-editor of Stephen Downes’ OLDaily newsletter, with Barry Dahl and Gary Woodill. This will probably mean fewer posts on this blog.

I’m looking forward to the challenge of an enforced daily posting. My own blog averages about a post per day but if I don’t feel like writing anything I don’t feel any pressure to do so. Now I actually have a deadline. Luckily I’ll have two great partners in this endeavour.

See you on the Summer Edition!

Learning content should be hackable

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Early in my training/education career I did a bit of content development; some classroom training, a couple of web-based courses, and some CBT. I found content development rather boring and have spent the last decade focusing on analysis (what would be best?) and evaluation (how does the current program work?)  George Siemens raises a good point about learning content development:

Key point: while much of the initial process for gathering information (or, if you will, creating a course) is unchanged, what is most unique now is the iterative, corrective, and subsequent interaction and enhancement around the content after it has been created (again, think courses and programs if you’re an educator).

We have a lot of material on what works for training or education and how to make better programs from a pedagogical perspective.  One example is Ruth Clark’s Six Principles of Effective e-Learning (PDF). However, there is one principle that is not taught or followed in instructional design that would really reflect the nature of the Web. There should be a principle of  making learning content hackable, so that it can change with the times, the needs of instructors or learners. Licenses such as CC-By-NC would allow remixing. Perhaps we need a special “CC-Education Remix” license.

Anyway, if you want your content to live a long, healthy and even diverse life; make it easier to hack.

Language learning leads the way

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A few months ago, I wrote that the dominant education business model may suffer the same fate as the manufacturing industry –  commoditization.

At a certain point in time (2008?) the cost-benefits of a university education will be put in question. How expensive does it have to be before the majority opt out or look for “good enough” options? Once a certification body gets recognized by enough employers, it could become the de facto as well as the de jure standard.

The leading edge of this change can be seen in language learning. Ken Carroll calls his FrenchPod service a PLS, or Praxis Learning System:

From the get-go (2005) our strategy was to apply web 2.0 tools to do new things for language learning (with the two-way medium, RSS syndication, etc). It was designed for the individual (rather than the institution) with a focus on accessibility. The value creation came through fitting the learning into the learner’s lifestyle (rather than the other way around) and allowing him to hit the ground running with a functioning system.

Another language learning service is offered by EduFire, an agora of tutors and learners using video to connect. Tutors set their own rates, which range from $10 to $150 an hour.

Our goal is to create a platform to allow live learning to take place over the Internet anytime from anywhere.

Most importantly…for anyone. We’re the first people (we know) to create something that’s totally open and community-driven (rather than closed and transaction-driven).

These web-based business and learning models may be the next wave of education and just might challenge the traditional state-subsidized educational systems, beginning with higher education. Why? Because they can grow without increasing costly infrastructure; they are more flexible for learners and teachers; and most importantly, the current system has already commoditized its products. Just ask anyone with a newly-minted Bachelor’s degree looking for a job.