e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

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.

  

Kevin Kelly (2007) Predicts the Next 5,000 Days

(link)

My fav quote - "we had better get good at believing the impossible."

Flip - dılɟ

˙looɔ ɟo puıʞ s,ʇı ʞuıɥʇ ı ʇnq 'ǝʇıs sıɥʇ ɥʇıʍ op oʇ ʇɐɥʍ ʍouʞ ʇ,uop ı

Ever Wonder How Much a Meeting Costs?

We've all sat in meetings thinking "Geez, this little confab is costing the organization plenty"....well now we can quantify that amount in an onscreen ticker. Actually there are two, one by Tony Hirst and one from Effective Meetings (there are probably others and I'd love to see them).

Just imagine if you will, popping this little guy up onto the main screen as you flip through 400 slides and just watch that ticker roll up at light speed. I wonder if even something as visceral as that would change some of the behaviors that prolong meetings?

The Danger of "Quick Wins'

As I become more and more convinced that implementing next-gen/Web 2.0 is soooo much less about technology than about culture (Duh Mark, I know), then I am also becoming more and more convinced of the danger of 'quick wins.'  Changing organizational culture is hard. It takes time, will and extended effort.

I think the idea of 'quick wins' can be not only distracting but wasteful. I think that often 'quick wins' are used to cover up the lack of an over-arching strategy against which actions can be measured and be found either to support an long-range plan or not to support it or to support it in some measure. That strategy is the long pole in the tent - it is the metric that we can measure our actions against.

So 'quick wins' are fine as long as they take place within the context of a long-range plan and are executed in such a manner as to continue progress toward that vision. I guess what I am saying is that we should stop acting like changing any organization to take advantage of new technologies or ideas is hard, hard work and we need to respect that, fund like we understand that and invest in ways that indicate we see beyond the next quarter.

...course that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.

EduPunk? Please tell me this is the start and not the end

Judas Priest...I've been sitting on the post for like a week now...just can't seem to get it totally where I want and then I see new stuff that adds some additional nuance and well I just figured I needed to go ahead and just push this out there and we'll go from there.

I don't know why but I've had a really visceral reaction to all of the EduPunk activity. I think that I'd classify myself as Punk - at least according to the principles that I've seen (do I need some sort of pedagogical piercings or intellectual ink?) I know that I hate BlackBeard, er BlackHeart, oops BlackHole <darn keyboard>, I mean blackboard's rapacious, avaricious, naked and chilling attempt to abuse both the patent and legal systems. I love and subscribe to MAKE  - a powerful DIY effort. I'm constantly working to string together various free systems and apps to improve my organization's performance and if IT people have any pull with who gets into Heaven, then I'm in for a very warm afterlife.

I'm also opposed to the conflation of ISD with anything that has to do with learning instead of being honest about what something like ADDIE is - a production model not a design process. I've written before about how I feel that systems like LMSs are not only badly named but have nothing to do with learning and everything to do with control. This was kinda the point I was making in this post that compared the LMS to Foucault's description of a "modern disciplinary society" and to Bentham's idea of the Panopticon, but I do have concerns with some of what I have seen and read so far.

What is it exactly that EduPunkers have discovered? That technology can be used to control people? That education is also a business? That scrappy DIY'ers can fight City Hall or forge a path to the West? Or that
systems like LMSs are really about control and not about learning? That ISD is really based on a post-WWII manpower requirement and not on any great concern with learning?

Let's also agree to not act like we're not all part of the "market".,..that is unless any of us are logging onto the Internet at the public library and then heading back to the commune for a quick dinner of organic, free range tofu. My frustration with acting like we are somehow outside the machine is that it takes away any possibility of us learning how to use/co-opt/subvert the Machine for our own purposes.

You know I cam to the learning field from anthropology and history not from adult ed or ISD and in history one of the things that took a lot of heat were the historians like Toynbee and the Durants. The criticisms were usually that the scope of their works were too grand and too large and marginalized the vast majority of people who were not 'great actors' on the stage. There were other critiques to be sure and I'm sure that some were warranted (historians actually make quite a habit out of going after each others theories and ideas with a vigor and rigor that I find somewhat absent in this field) but I always found impressive was the attempt. Geez..a ten-volume history of civilization of 2 million words across ten thousand pages? Next time you feel all cocky about your 250 page book (I'm really just jealous here because I can't seem to write one) consider that feat. The grandness of that attempt fostered a rich mine of thought that lasts to this day. So one of my concerns is that whether or not its EduPunk or EduGoth or EduGrunge or even Ethno-EduGothRock....I want the grand theory, however flawed. maybe its not punk that should be our ethos but folk maybe what we really need is Dylan and a non-violent, academic/intellectual version of the Weathermen.

We need something like the Watchmen, to lay bare in a graphic way, the controls and imperatives we operate under - not to rail against them per se but to begin to understand them so that we may exercise some of the levers of control ourselves - after all, we'd use the power for good, right? We need a good Naked Lunch and man! could we use a good HOWL;

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix; Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night." (1)

So here is what we are going to do (I fear)...we are going to engage in long, drawn-out debates over what it really means to be an EduPunk. We are all going to get spun up on our punk history, we are going to spike the number of downloads from iTunes of The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash and some of us will be build great and innovative presentations that we'll earnestly present at the relevant conferences and maybe some of us will even publish a thing or two on the topic. Fab.

Here is what I fear will not happen. The old, tired, damaging curriculum of ISD which is built on some post-WW II factory production model and is decidedly NOT a design process/model, will continue to be dominant and will continue to be used to crank out more graduates who will dutifully move out into the public and private sectors and who will dutifully pick up where their peers have left off, worrying about templates and screen captures and Likert scales and nothing important will change.

And educators will also continue to feed the content intake valves of the very monsters that seek to choke off other options by being oh so EduPunk while continuing to publish in peer-reviewed journals that are only available libraries at astronomical prices  - the economics of which is choking off academic publishing - something Robert Darnton has been writing about for a while now. And why will they continue to do this? Because that is rank and tenure are determined. Not by the extent of your plucky, pioneer spirit (Remember the lesson of Oregon Trail and watch out for dysentery). So now we are either confronted with giving up the punk ethos, seeking some employment security in the academic field or ...?

We'll continue to ignore issues like the freaking RIAA and MPAA choking the life out of 'fair use' and Viacom suing Google and threatening even the flimsy protection offered by the DMCA...or this ridiculous claim by a Singapore firm that would make the use images or graphics on any site, a violation of their patent...or when the cable companies are trying to choke back on bandwidth and kill net neutrality.

So while I think its great to have a good rebellion now and again - I would like to see some goals for that rebellion - otherwise all the powers that be have to do is simply wait us out. Shouldn't we shape those goals with an understanding that Education is inextricably linked to economic models, to corporate interests and to a growing set of larger concerns that extend far past the institution? Couldn't we benefit from a Grand Vision or some Super Future Roadmap - if only to be able to understand not only where we are going but also to examine the choices and roads we may not take? I applaud the ideals of edupunk but fear that as a label and as a set of imaginative but limited activities, it will serve as some sort of intellectual pressure valve which, if left capped, would eventually explode with such energy that the system truly would be changed for good.

I keep coming back to this intact cohort idea.....

So someone tell me if I'm wrong but here is how I am seeing this....the way IT departments are currently 'incentivized'  - their ideal situation would be zero users and no connection to the Internet. Once you connect to the internet and add users, then things start getting hinky. I'm not casting stones here, in fact in a way I'm apologizing to all the IT departments for whom I've caused trouble by demanding applications and access that did nothing to honor the way the were rated on the job performance - essentially I just kept asking them to do me favors.

Maybe we need to have a corporate discussion about changing the way the IT department is evaluated for job performance so that it is in-line with the strategic direction of the company. I think that strategic plans get written and even implementation plans get written (I've written a couple myself) but then no one from HR is on the writing team so the incentive structure stays the same and may not be a positive vector for hitting those strategic goals. Learning/training departments are seeing this right - as they get tasked with defining their purpose as supporting the strategic direction of the organization or specific business units or lines.

I'm still working through all this in my head but I think a first, practical move for me will be to expand my definition of the departments I need represented on IPTs for instance....

Huh? Uranium Ore on eBay..

"Product Description: Radioactive sample of uranium ore. Useful for testing Geiger Counters. License exempt. Uranium ore sample sizes vary. Shipped in labeled metal container as shown. Shipping Information: We are always in compliance with Section 13 from part 40 of the NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules and regulations and Postal Service regulations specified in 49 CFR 173.421 for activity limits of low level radioactive materials. Item will be shipped in accordance with Postal Service activity limits specified in Publication 52. Radioactive minerals are for educational and scientific use only."

e-Learning Evangelicals

So I have to admit that it has been a busy few days between work and some family travel and the upcoming U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and then a conference after that and quite frankly, I was not going to blog tonight but rather enjoy some teeth-rattling, gut-clenching first-person shooter action in Battlefield 2142 ("Grif2142 reporting for duty sir!"), my current game of choice. Alas, it was not to be, EA killed my fun with a required 368 MB update...that will take a while to download, so I figured let's catch up a bit while I wait.

I noticed that my friend Brent Schlenker is an evangelist for the eLearning Guild and I have now taken on the Nom de guerre or Nom de plume of an evangelist at DAU. A search on Google of "e-learning +evangelist" turns up something like 337K hits! That is quite the large evangelical population. So what is up with that?

Are we really "one who preaches the facts of the Gospel in order to win converts" or "proclaiming the gospel to the unbelieving world"? Could we become zealots? Heretics? How elastic is this metaphor? I think now that after thinking this through a bit and having been the sole creative force behind my new job title, I think I will change it again when next it is time to print out business cards..this time to something from my contract archeology days at New South Associates, Principal Investigator. I never was one but I also liked how it sounded. I also think it better reflects the critical analysis piece that my bosses hope that I bring to the job coupled with an awareness of the field. I don't want to imply that we don'e need evangelicals in this field; clearly we do, without question. I just don't think that is my role and I do think titles are important, to me at least, in that they help me frame my roles and responsibilities to a degree anyway.

So at the next meeting, I'll turn in my vestments for my old multi-pocket vest, #5 trowel and Sharpie and we'll be off.

Wanna new job? How about CEO at SocialText?

Well, Ross Mayfield certainly knows how to stir things up. Ross is the founder of Social Text, "the first wiki company and leading provider of Enterprise 2.0 solutions." Ross recently posted this on his blog:

" As a company founder, as I've written before, it is inevitable and necessary that your role evolves for the best interest of the company and what you own of it. Today I'm invoking the most powerful inflection point I can for Socialtext. We've grown to 3,000 customers, 50 people, the leading brand in the space, an innovative product, solid revenue growth and are targeting profitability. It is time for Socialtext to be taken to the next level, and for that, I want to openly recruit the CEO 2.0 for Socialtext." (click for more)

Now that, is recruiting 2.0. Good job Ross.