e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

"CCK08: Valdis Krebs on Networks"

So George Siemens and Stephen Downes are leading a course entitled "Connectivism & Connective Knowledge." The course has an insane number of students (something like over 2,000) - probably speaking to both the interest in the topic and the reputation of the two leaders.

Now sometime soon, I hope to have an interview with George Siemens about this class - details when they become available - but I did want to go ahead and point to one of the lessons from the class so far. We all talk a lot about networks these days but few of us - actually damn few of us - know more about networks than Valdis Krebs.

Thanks to CCK '08, we now have this post outlining Krebs' talk on networks, this copy of slides on the same and this recording of the presentation - do say nothing of the follow-up discussion of networked learning between George and Stephen.

Sugata Mitra: Can kids teach themselves? (TED)

This is amazing. Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video.

eLearning Guild Research: Blog and Survey

I know that there are a lot of good people and organizations out there doing research around elearning topics right now, but I have to say that from the corporate standpoint - the eLearning Guild is really doing some great work. I also wanted to call attention to two items - first is the Guild's Research Blog  - curently manned by the Director of Reseearch himself - Steve Wexler.

The nice thing about the blog is that the posts are usually centered around one or some data points from ongoing research that the Guild is doing - so they're backed by real albeit incomplete data or the posts concern possible future directions/questions for the research to address. So when Steve posts something like "I’m toying with the idea of building a mechanism to determine which industries are the "best" in terms of opportunities for e-Learning professionals" - and asks people to post what kind of data points should be in that kind of assessment - there is a very real chance that those data points could end up in the next Guild survey and could be answered by real survey data.

See that eye chart to the right there? That's a great example of the real data I'm talking about. The data there is based on the responses to the question "If your organization plans to incorporate eLearning 2.0 approaches, who and/or what in your organization is driving this?" The "n" is currently over 1,00 - which in my mind is getting into the decent sample size range.  One thing that interests me about this chart is that it indicates that the majority (52%) of respondents see themselves as the folks who will be driving this forward and only 24% of the respondents say that other parts of their organization are bringing Web 2.0 tools in house. This contradicts my sense that other departments, notably KM, are leading the way in bringing 2.0 in house.

I also wanted to add that the basic level membership in the Guild is free and as soon as you sign up, you could add your thoughts to the eLearning 2.0 Survey. I'd also encourage you to follow and comment on Steve's blog. You really can help shape the way research is being targeted.

Howard Rheingold's Syllabus for Virtual Communities/Social Media

Well, looks like I've got some reading to do.

Google isn't making us stupid - it is challenging our design

Tom King posted to something to Twitter that caught my eye about a piece that Tom Kulhmann of Articluate wrote. Thx for the pointer Tom (Tom King that is).

Geez, I can't even go with "Tom K" to differentiate here...OK how about,  the piece that Kuhlmann wrote is entitled "Is Google making our e-learning stupid?" and is a play on a piece by Nicholas Carr that appeared in the Atlantic Montly entitled "Is Google making us stupid?" Bear with me, I know its a lot of stage setting.

I had read the piece by Carr (thank goodness his name isn't Tom) and I liked it. What I didn't like was the discussion that seemed to grow out of a bunch of people who didn't even read the article. Anyway, Carr cites Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts who argues that "Reading, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It”s not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains." Awesome, of course as an anthropologist/historian, we kind of knew that. We're familiar with the impact that technology has on reading and larger impact that has on society - affecting the way people read is one of the most powerful pressure points in civilization.

Wolf also argues that "When we read online, she says, we tend to become "mere decoders of information." Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged." Now that I have a bit of an issue with. When we start talking about our ability to make rich mental connections, I don't think that has ever been stronger  - what has happened (IMHO) is that we have moved that activity from a solitary pursuit to a collaborative one. Just look at the process of writing this post. I read King, then I click and read Kuhlmann, that jogs something and I go to the Carr piece - then I have two more pieces that I'm going to mention that hadn't thought about connecting until now and then I'll hit "publish" and all of this will go public for consumption, comment and so on. So, back to Kuhlmann.

I love what Kuhlmann does is this article. Here is a veteran of elearning and guess what he is talking about? DESIGN! Brilliant observation that if our literacies are changing, e.g. the "power browse", the duh, maybe we should change the way we provide information to people. Let's not forget that eLearning, by definition is "e" so it only stands to reason that maybe we should look to the dominant ways that people consume other forms of "e" materials for clues on how to shape ours. Great stuff! Practical tips as well on the rapid design front.

I do however, want to point to two additional pieces that somehow I have been able to make mental connections between...if you haven't already, read James Paul Gee's book What Video Games Can Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Important work there on how to understand games as another form of literacy - as you read, just substitute Google for games and you'll get the idea that different may or not be better or worse but it is different and our understanding, our mental models need to change to keep up.

Finally, kind of on the other side of the coin, read "Hamlet's Blackberry: Why paper is eternal" by William Powers. For the anthropologist in me, this article was a clear rejoinder on the power of the physical to affect multiple cognitive and emotional domains.

Wait...I forgot to include "Why Professor Johnny Can't Read: Understanding the Net Generation's Texts" from Mark Mabrito and Rebecca Medley. Takes up an extends Kuhlmann's point and goes from his rapid elearning focus to a focus on education and on the responsibility if not the requirement of teachers to work to understand the texts of next-generation students. Brilliant!

So this was a long post and I'll assume you just skimmed it. :-)

Video Killed the Radio Star but What About the Instructional Designer?

I have to say that I remember a couple of years ago when Instructables came on the scene and I thought that their setup was a nice way to create some very interesting instruction.Well now it seems that the  youtube effect is trickling down to instruction and we are seeing maybe the next stage or I hope another stage (additive in other words not zero sum) that is employing video.  There is Video Jug,  5min Life Videopoedia,   and Sclipo - just to name the ones open in my browser at present.

I am still trying out all three - hey! that's how you tie a Windsor knot - but my initial impression is that while all are good, Video Jug and Sclipo have caught my eye quickest. Video Jug is nicely implemented and  has some typical but well done features like ratings, embedding code and they have done a great job making many of the videos available for download in a range of formats include for the PSP - now there is one you don't see every day! Video Jug also prides itself on the fact that the videos it hosts are not done by your neighbor's kid but rather "Every video on our website has been carefully researched and professionally produced or vetted (in the case of user-generated content) with an eye toward quality and value." This is great and one wonders what Keen might think of it but then they do wax a bit hyperbolic when they say "VideoJug embraces its mission of being the definitive source for credible answers and wisdom for every conceivable aspect of human life. They are of course free and ad supported by Google ads.

Then we have Sclipo. Feature wise, many of the same features and employing some nice design as well. The business model here though is a bit different. First, your neighbor's kid could upload a video to Sclipo unlike Video Jug but what I find intriguing is the "Sclipo Live" section - it features the tag line "the learning revolution." 

Two Papers from Downes and Siemens That I Need to Re-Read

Way back in December of '04, George Siemens wrote a great piece entitled "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age" (his site indicates that he updated it in April of '05 and there is now a whole blog/community around this paper). Then in December of '05 (what is about winter, deep thinking and Canadians?) Stephen Downes published "An Introduction to Connective Knlowedge" (along with the 1.5 hour audi version).

I need to re-read these pieces again (and go through all the connectivism stuff on George's other site) and I thought I'd just take a minute to make sure that you knew of them as well. Be warned though - clear some time to go through these - not because of the writing - they're both fine writers - but this is long form and packed with ideas, thoughts and pieces that will surely send you off in other directions as well.

Swaptree...Another Possible Solution to An Object-Oriented Economy?

Here comes Swaptree. Sounds like one of those dot.com's doesn't it? Except here is the thing...I wonder if this effort doesn't provide us a window on how we could create incentives for content producers to participate in a market of their own learning/knowledge/whatever objects. This is one quote from the review that really caught my eye: "You first notice that Swaptree is different from other systems when you enter an item that you're putting up for trade. Swaptree shows you exactly what you can get for it, not what it's worth in the abstract. Enter more items, and the list of things you can get expands."

I love this idea that the more you put into the system, the more you'll be able to get out of it and that the formula for that is not one based on quantity market demand. Hmmm...if I spend a long time crafting a beautiful piece of Flash animation that explains some complex process, the not only can I get a lot for it - but I can get a lot for it again and again - since all trades on Swaptree are person-to-person. Second eye-catching quote: "In Swaptree, there are no credits. All trades are person to person. You list on the site what you want to trade out and what you want to get, and whenever there's a match, the system will enable you to do a direct one-to-one trade with a person who has something you want and wants something you have."

I wonder.....

LAMS 2.0 Released

If you haven't tried LAMS out yet, maybe now is the time. They have a partnership with Moodle, are working integration issues with Sakai, have a BlackBoard LAMS Building Block and have just released LAMS 2.0 with a revised architecture that looks a lot like it is learning from Web 2.0 trends. You can check out the wiki here, or get a test drive of LAMS on one of their servers here.

Solid Article on Copyright in Education (Innovate)

Creative Commons: A New Tool for Schools by Howard Pitler

Doesn't this story just warm your heart?

"One of my students showed me an early cut of his video, and I noticed that the music he had used for the soundtrack was a remix of songs by some of his favorite artists. We had discussed copyright guidelines in class, and the student thought that he was within "fair use" because he only used 10-second clips from a number of songs and sampled other sounds into the mix. Since the videos were going to be shown outside of our class and entered in a statewide technology contest and since he also had altered the original music, I advised the student to get permission to use those clips from the copyright owner. The story could have ended happily with the record company's agreeing to allow him to use and modify the music. Instead, my student received a very nice but pointed letter telling him in no uncertain terms that the record company would not allow him to use its music, even for the purpose he had described."