e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

Welcome to e-Clippings: The Prologue

This blog is primarily about how culture and technology come together over the space we call 'learning.' It covers a lot of ground but the overarching theme (at least in my mind if not always evident) is how these new technologies, methodologies and ideas can be used to create a richer world of learning. (for more, check the About page)

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Social Learning Workshop

Ross Mayfield and Robert Scoble talk about Socialtext and Enterprise 2.0 (via SocialText)

Lessons from Leonsis - Not the Tech but the Culture

Ted Leonsis, for those who don't know, is a guy who made big bucks at AOL and is now owner of the Washington Capitals hockey team (CAPS Let's Go CAPS!) Ted also writes his own blog -really he does - and recently he posted this piece. In this post, Ted (yes, I call him Ted) asks if it ever does any good to blame the media for your troubles. He concludes that it isn't. He talks a lot about what he thinks you should be doing if you're in a position to need to control your image in the media and while that's helpful - I really like the article for what its not explicitly talking about.

The fact that it is Leonsis presents us with a nice comparison. Look at the beating that Dan Snyder (owner of the Washington Redskins football team - who aren't doing very well) is taking right now. Do as Ted suggests and go Google "Ted Leonsis" and see what comes up and then Google "Dan Snyder" and see what comes up. It's clear which owner is shaping the message - by PARTICIPATING in it.

 

This is a central lesson about social media - people are already talking about the stuff they don't like and the policies they don't like - by not fully embracing not just the technology of social media but its attendant CULTURE of openness and transparency (as Leonsis recommends) all that happens is you prevent the sharing of all the good stuff.

 

I think one of the big pieces here that might get missed is that Leonsis is not talking about a technology shift - he is talking about a mental shift, a cultural shift, a shift in how he thinks about his relationship with the media. I'd humbly suggest that organizations looking to implement social media or social learning (whatever the current term of art is) are confronted with a similar option-make this about more technology or make it about changing your culture and using technology to help.

If you are putting together a Social Learning plan are you budgeting for organizational design and change management issues? Have you thought about doing any ethnographic research before moving forward? Have you thought about how using these technologies might re-shape your corporate culture? We need to be thinking these things. These things are at the heart of what we need to do to really move forward.

Come be a Camp Counselor at Social Learning Camp

So I totally forgot about this yesterday! I am doing this Social Learning Camp at DevLearn 2009. OK. So, developing the materials for it here, yadda yadda.

Anyway, we are going to be running quick (40 min) sessions throughout the conference on a bunch of different topics (you can see the schedule at the link above). We also have some real superstars coming through like Jay Cross, Koreen Olbrish, Mark Sylvester, Robin Paoli and Aaron Silvers - to talk about a range of Social Learning topics.

Here is the kicker though - I can talk believe me - those of you that know me, know I am not kidding. Now I am more than thrilled, proud and happy to talk through the rest of the sessions but what I REALLY WANT TO DO - is use at least some of that other time as a bit of a 'BarCamp'  - that is - ping me somehow and let's work out a time and topic - case study - plea for help - strategies for implementation - for YOU to share with US.

C'mon now, this is supposed to be SOCIAL so if you got two AWESOME slides and ideas you want to share - let's do it! You got a question you want answered? Bring it. Wanna vent? Rant? Well, OK but just watch the language. ;-) Anyway - let's make sure we use this time to get YOU what YOU need to take these ideas home and use them!

ACME - Augmented Collaboration in Mixed Environments (wicked cool)

OK..so as you watch the video, imagine this smoothed out with telepresence-like fidelity. 

Social Networking Trends: ABC News

Social Networking Trends. ABC News interviews rep from Pew Internet Project. 

Pop! Tech Video: Nina Jablonski - The Power of Touch

You know, I always feel like I should just take a few days and watch all the videos from Pop!Tech. I soooo wanna be able to go to this conference one day but until then, I'll just feel glad that they post all this amazing material to the Web. 

PopTech | Nina Jablonski from PopTech on Vimeo.

DevLearn '09 is Getting Close: Wanna Help?

We already know that Zombies will be attacking...I mean just look at what they are doing to the logo! If you aren't already clues into that part of it, you can learn all about it here. Aside from fending off the undead, I could use a little help personally - if you're already headed out that way (and if you're not, registration is still open!)

The main thing that I could use some help on is a little crowdsourcing for my Social Learning Workshop and Social Learning Camp.  I'm embedding a widget below that links to the post-it board I've been using to help develop the material for both of these. Please feel free to visit the site and contribute anything you think that fits - resources, links, success stories, strategies, etc. You're also more than welcome to use whatever you find on that site in crafting your own presentations, talks, whatever - I mean, this is supposed to be social right? :-)

I guess that's it for now - except a blatant call to get on out to San Jose. This year's DevLearn is going to be awesome - great speakers - an alternate reality game and debrief - a Tweetbook already being planned - c'mon - you don't want to read about this one on Twitter. ;-)

"Learning 2.0" and why that name suddenly is torquing me off...

So somebody recently asked me about a presentation on "Learning 2.0" Not the first time I'd heard this term, hell, I probably used it a couple of times myself. This time however, something really hit me. I need to read a lot more neuroscience and cog sci but I'm going out on a limb and saying that there is no such thing.

I know, cause I heard him say it myself, that Tim O'Reilly, the guy who started the whole "2.0" craze (or who at least at the meeting where it was started) did not use the term to denote an iteration but a break with the prior ways things had been done. SO I really don't believe that humans are learning differently - meaning, I think we are constituting memories, adapting behavior, practicing new skills - those activities that typically make up learning from the human standpoint - in much the same way as we have for hundreds if not thousands of years. I'm talking about our internal processes. 

That doesn't mean that we haven't changed the mechanisms we use but the internal processes are very similar. So there is no "Learning 2.0" from the learners' view - there could well be "Instruction 2.0" or "Teaching 2.0" but think about what is really different there - those last two (and you could throw in Government 2.0, Education 2.0) address organizations and not learners and this gets to my second bothersome point about "Learning 2.0."

The use of "Learning 2.0" in my mind, puts all the burden of change on the learner. If they are all 2.0 and changed then clearly we (The Organizations) don't need to do anything on our end. Think about it - Government 2.0 as a term - talks about how the organization of government needs to change. IMHO, the use of a term like "learning 2.0" seems to absolve us of addressing the hard questions of how we need to change as organizations. Forget for a moment, about using Twitter for whatever or blogs for something else - do you need to have HR at the design table? What is predominant characteristic of your organizational culture? Is your technology woefully out of date? Does your office furniture suck and imparts to people a concrete idea of how the org REALLY values it "most important asset"? How do you hire? What kind of people do you look for?

Those are the dynamics that our learners are already operating in. Understand that environment. Figure out how to change that environment needs to change. Then maybe, we'll actually be getting to a "2.0" place. Let's put the burden on us and not on the learner.

DevLearn '09 Alert! Zombie Broadcast #1

We've located a video that we think is the first one to come out of the initial area affected by the zombie outbreak. There is important information here. Critical. You really MUST watch this video. Seriously. Watch it

Test / video embed

How Understandable is Your Idea?

Just listening to "Made to Stick" this morning and LOVE this passage (cuz its just so damn true):

"Contrast the "maximize shareholder value" idea with John F. Kennedy's famous 1961 call to "put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade." Simple? Yes. Unexpected? Yes. Concrete? Amazingly so. Credible? The goal seemed like science fiction, but the source was credible. Emotional? Yes. Story? In miniature.

Had John F. Kennedy been a CEO, he would have said, "Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry through maximum team-centered innovation and strategically targeted aerospace initiatives."

Seriously. Can we just talk to each other like we're humans?

How Video Games Can Help (Video) James Paul Gee on Frontline

"Years of research have shown us that textbooks are among the least effective ways to teach, but they're in every classroom" James Paul Gee

(video)

We Learn by Failing (video) Henry Jenkins on Frontline

"Most forms of collaboration in the classroom are considered cheating." Henry Jenkins

(video)

"We" are Smarter then "Me" - Looking for Collaborative Input for SoMe Workshop

So I'm doing a couple of things at DevLearn 2009 this year. I'm doing a pre-con workshop on Social Media and Learning and we're also doing a Social Learning Camp that will run throughout the conference. Of course I want to use Social Media to develop the ideas, themes and focal points for these events and I've always found that you can't really learn if something will work unless you actually try to use it for something - so here goes.

I always liked using post-it notes and whiteboards (I know, how very 0.5 of me) for general organization of something so I like this metaphor that PinDax is using.The image you hopefully see below is a live view of the PinDax board I'm using to organize thoughts for DevLearn. The full board is here. It's not perfect - I want to be able to edit notes once they are posted and I want some way to export the whole thing to my desktop for an archive - but the price is right and I think its got some good functionality. 

I've checked with a couple of folks and while you should be able to view the site without signing up, you need to sign in to be able to leave a note- should take a few seconds - pls let me know if there are any problems. Anyway, once you are signed up, please feel free to add, move, comment, etc - there is also a synchronous chat app so we might check that out - but I do believe that We are better then Me at putting something like together and would love and value your input.

Thanks and Happy Posting!

Harold Jarche is Wicked Smart and We Need to Talk about Curriculum

 First, Harold Jarche is wicked smart. Second, I feel kinda dumb because the post that I want to talk about was published in January of 2008. Don't know how I missed it. It's the kind of post that makes me want to back to grad school. Wicked smart post and wicked smart comments.

The post in question is First, we kill the curriculum. One of the main reasons that I love this post so much is because it dares to think big. I love this line "Our education system needs to drop the whole notion of subjects and content mastery and move to process-oriented learning." Maybe it does (I happen to agree) and maybe it doesn't but THANK YOU HAROLD for bringing the Big Thought.

Harold's point in the post, if I may be so bold, seems to be that given the change being wrought by the Internet and the Web should be pushing us into a fundamental re-examination of such foundational items as the notion of curriculum. Damn right we should. Gary Woodill of Brandon Hall Research, presented a terrific webinar on The History of the Classroom as a Learning Technology. Gary wins me over by including in his discussion, vital parts of the context surrounding the use of classrooms. This includes looking at the ways in which humans learned before the dawn of the classroom - a phenomena that some people in the learning/training industry seem to think never happened. It also includes talking about such authors as Michel Foucault and such linked predecessors as Monitorial Schools. You don't believe that the classroom originated as a technology focused on control of students, then you need to read some. I'm not saying that classrooms are evil per se but that we need to understand them as a technology, as a practice and look at their impact on the learning/education process - just as we need to understand the role of curriculum.

Don't believe me yet that we a systematic review of how we teach (at least in the U.S.)? Look at some of the quotes from a 2005 speech that Bill Gates gave to the National Governor's Association:

"When we looked at the millions of students that our high schools are not preparing for higher education – and we looked at the damaging impact that has on their lives – we came to a painful conclusion: America’s high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I mean that our high schools – even when they’re working exactly as designed – cannot teach our kids what they need to know today. 

Training the workforce of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today’s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. It’s the wrong tool for the times. Our high schools were designed fifty years ago to meet the needs of another age.  Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting – even ruining – the lives of millions of Americans every year.

Today, only one-third of our students graduate from high school ready for college, work, and citizenship. The other two-thirds, most of them low-income and minority students, are tracked into courses that won’t ever get them ready for college or prepare them for a family-wage job – no matter how well the students learn or the teachers teach.  This isn’t an accident or a flaw in the system; it is the system."

This is a guy who wasn't looking to pick a fight or run for office. This was a businessman who was telling the Governor's that their systems of education were not producing students that he would hire to work at his company. Also note that his point is that we can't fix it because its not broken. Its functioning perfectly - to achieve 50 year old goals. That's not good enough.   

Someone, I can't remember who (if you can find the link, please put in the comments) wrote a post about how we have failed to consider how the impact of tools such as Blackboard have colored how we actually create training. That if you have a tool that uses a drop-down, hierarchical menu for creating a course - then by default you end up with a linear, lock step course.

Think of the Mighty LMS. Read this description of the Panopticon and tell me you see no great resemblance. 

So do we need to consider whether or not we continue with our current structure of curriculum and classroom and LMS and tools designed by people who may or may not know anything of education and/or learning yet whose tools we use to shape those very moments? We must if we think we will ever see any fundamental change in our system. You know people used to think that newspapers were immortal and that record companies were all-powerful and that the Big Three would always dominate and that computers would never replace typewriters. Let's not go too far down that road again. Thanks Harold.

  

30 July #lrnchat

23 July #LRNCHAT

Open Government and Innovations Conference Coverage

"Alternate Universe Opens New Horizons to Agencies" SIGNALS magazine

(link) Excerpt: The U.S. government is taking a giant leap into the virtual realm with the creation of a parallel world intended for training, education and networking. What began as a platform to improve collaboration of emergency management personnel has evolved into a benefit for all government agencies. The project is government-owned and incorporates techniques and technologies unavailable in civilian efforts, offering a robust, powerful tool for conducting business."

Virtual Worlds and Data Visualization: ThinkBalm Data Garden tour 7 July 2009

Trying Metaplace Embed code....

From A Loyal Customer to AT&T: Suck It. No, srsly, suck it.

All I've done is be a loyal customer Cingular and then you. I've actually DEFENDED you to people who ragged on your coverage (honestly your coverage isn't that great at my house but I'm willing to live with that). I was pretty happy when the iPhone came out and it was on your service because it meant I didn't have to switch. Now though, you can suck it.

Honest to pete. I hope you die like the dinsaurs. I have been paying bills to freaking idiots for over 12 years. TWELVE YEARS YOU DOLTS. Did you think I didn't have another service I could switch to? Of course I could you dolts but now when the iPhone 3GS comes out, you treat me like I've only been a customer for like a year. So instead of selling me the iPhone 3GS (32GB BTW) for $299 - you want to bang me like a rented goalie for $499!! And the galling part is the condescending douchebag language you use when you propose this royal screwing:

"As a valued AT&T customer, AT&T can offer you an early iPhone upgrade with a new 2-yr commitment and an $18 upgrade fee. You may qualify for a standard iPhone upgrade on 02/06/2010."

Ooh really? Be still my beating heart. You know what's really awesome? The $18 addtl. screwing. Did you guys laugh when you thought that one up? Lovely. Corporate douchebags. Money-grubbing ass monkeys. Hard-headed, non-customer understanding, grab every dollar while you can pig bangers. (sorry pigs). So my reward for being a loyal customer for over a decade is to only get SCREWED for $200 extra over some new schmuck who could walk in and sign up today?! Is that how you read it?

Well guess what ass-hats? Guess how much of my money you're getting? Zero. Zip. Nada. Nil. Nothing. Gonna spend that money on something else. So instead of you making $200 more off me, you make nothing. How's that for some fancy math you knuckle-dragging shitheads? Oh, let me tell you what else doesn't bother me one freakin' bit - don't write in and start telling me about subsidizing hardware costs or anything like it - you know how much I care? That's right - NOT AT FREAKIN' ALL. Guess who picked your business/revenue model? That's right - your dumbass, 20th century thinking cavemen of an executive corps. So I really don't care how much you subsidize a phone for - guess what it looks like to me? It looks to me like someone who has never ben a customer to AT&T can get a better deal than me. Why don't you just include a note in my next bill that says "thx for all your business Mark, suck it."

I hope you go the way of Sprint even the way of the 'real' AT&T. Or AOL. Or the Rocky Mountain News. I hope you get the feeling that you're a dinosaur and you're looking up into the sky one night and you see this big meteor streaking down and you're all like "I wonder if that meteor will change my life?" Yeah, I hope it does. Hey! AT&T marketing/PR hacks - did you hear the audience when they mentioned AT&T from the stage at WWDC 2009? Groans, moans and boos. Awesome job fellas. No really. In light of that, way to treat loyal customers. I CANNOT WAIT until Apple dumps you or opens the iPhone up to other carriers like Verizon. Guess what will happen then you turd-munching idiots? I'll be gone. Then you won't just be out my $200 but every other payment for the rest of my life. Rest assured too that I'll spend part of the rest of my life telling everybody about how bad you suck.

Have a nice day douchebags.

Reputation - Its More Important Than Ever But What Exactly Is it?

Do you know what whuffie is? Do you have any? Can you spare some? Did you know that it came from a book and that there is a whole book about it? The whole idea is reputation-based currency. Instead of money, your ability to move through society is based on an aggregate score of how people regard you and your actions - the other catch is that this score - essentially your community-determined worth - is instantly and always visible to others.

So when we are talking about implementing social media for learning within organizations, we can see the value of having something like whuffie right? I mean it would help us determine at a glance, how much we initially trust sources or data. It could also help re-structure entire organizations' hierarchies of expertise by making the basis of your 'organizational wealth'  - how much you are helping the organization.

Dan Gillmor had a recent article on this and about how we could maybe begin to create an aggregate model by pulling in your eBay rating and maybe your ratings from other social network sites that you may be involved in. Got me thinking about how we could think about creating this kind of currency within organizations to help spur the use of social media...could we create a universal standard for this as a currency and those standards could just be applied to groups at an organization's discretion...and the REALLY important question...what could you spend your whuffie on?

Academic Earth...Awesome and question-raising....

This site just amazes me. Both the quality of the content and the quality of the UX design are exceptional. From the ability build playlists of courses to providing a citation for the video with 1-click to the "dim the lights" feature...this is so well done.

I am working my way through the course on Game Theory. I watch the lectures, can grab the syllabus and do the reading if I choose and I can even look at past exams and solutions to past exams. The class video also includes the questions from the students and the professor's answers.


So I am just wondering; does this raise deeper questions about the value of a university education? Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE universities, I love campuses and student unions and libraries and so on...some of my fav places in the world really - BUT - do we need to be a bit more honest about why students are paying to go there when all of this content/interaction is available? I mean if we extrapolate and see a day when all of a college's content is online like this...what the are you paying for with tuition? Student-to-student interaction? Teacher-to-student interaction? That's a shift isn't it? Then we're selling interactions and not content...and we can now engineer interactions in a whole myriad of ways...