e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

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.

Virtual Currency for Your Email

Seriosity, the same company that just published the Leadership in Games and Work with IBM, also has an interesting product called Attent. From the site: "creates a virtual economy for enterprise collaboration and a solution to information overload.  Using Serios™, the virtual currency of the Attent ecosystem, the solution enables users to assign values to messages based on importance. Attent also provides a variety of tools that enable everyone to track and analyze communication patterns and information exchanges across the enterprise." So on one level I think that the ability to attach this economic value to email messages is interesting. What I find even more intriguing is the secondary effect of being able to track the flow of value within  your organization's communication structure. Now that is powerful.

It also reminds me of another effort by 3D Buzz working with Epic Games for the Make Something Unreal competition. I remember that 3D Buzz had created a web site full of video instruction to teach people how to create mods using the Unreal engine. The catch was though that if you wanted to ask a question, you had to attach a value (points) to it - the more points, the better your chance of a good answer. I like both the game element here and the effect of focusing the sender's attention on how badly they really need an answer. I wonder if we'll keep seeing more and more attempts like this to reverse of minimize the Tragedy of the Commons.

The Digg Story and why it fascinates me...

From the "In Case You Missed It Dept."...last week, someone posted to digg.com a link to a page that contained an access code that allows people with Linux machines to watch DVDs on them. The powers that be at Digg began taking down all the stories and links to that info. That's when it got interesting...in something like a revolt, the users of digg protested this move by posting the information hidden in image files, songs and in a number of other ways. The NYT reports that one post had over 15,000 digg votes (users of digg.com vote on stories they like and in doing so allow the most popular stories to land on the front page).

The upshot is that the founder of digg eventually capitulated to the community and said (link to full statement):

"...after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying."

I've been aware of in-game revolts before but this seemed to me to be one of the first protests to involve a Web 2.0 site which banks on the involvement of its users. I am interested in this as it relates to possible vectors that we should consider in using new technologies to engineer new learning communities and what might the cultural implications be stemming from these new communities.

 

Foucault, Control and the LMS

I came across Brent Schlenker's post on personal learning environments tonight and as I sat reading through some of the links I just kept thinking about how I hope the discussion continues to be around how we can build opportunities for people to use a variety of tools to build their own PLEs or else we fall down the same rabbit hole of thinking that we can somehow design learning instead of opportunities for learning.

This keyed in with another article I had been reading about Jonathan Lethem and copyright and even a conversation via post&comments that I had been following on Will Richardson and Dave Cormier's blogs respectively about a new degree being offered by the University of Michigan in Social Computing. 

What then is the connecting thread here you are right to ask? It seems to me, possibly only because of the allergy medication I am on, that the element of control is clearly present in all these discussions. This is something I have been thinking about since Boston and the e-Learning Guild conference where I described instructional design as being a schema for control. Then I did something that was actually banned in my graduate school history lounge, I turned and brought in Michel Foucault. Foucault was banned incidentally because it seemed that his influence was such that he could be brought into almost any discussion and so we decided that he would get a pass and we would simply stipulate the presence of his arguments.

Again its late Sunday and I am medicated but when I read these passages from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), which describe Foucault's "modern disciplinary society" and its techniques for control, I am struck by how they almost seem to be taken from an RFP for an LMS acquisition:

Hierarchical observation: "A perfect system of observation would allow one "guard" to see everything (a situation approximated, as we shall see, in Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon). But since this is not usually possible, there is a need for "relays" of observers, hierarchically ordered, through whom observed data passes from lower to higher levels."

Normalizing judgment: "A distinctive feature of modern power (disciplinary control) is its concern with what people have not done (nonobservence), with, that is, a person's failure to reach required standards. This concern illustrates the primary function of modern disciplinary systems: to correct deviant behavior. The goal is not revenge (as in the case of the tortures of premodern punishment) but reform, where, of course, reform means coming to live by society's standards or norms."

The examination: "The examination (for example, of students in schools, of patients in hospitals) is a method of control that combines hierarchical observation with normative judgment. It is a prime example of what Foucault calls power/knowledge, since it combines into a unified whole "the deployment of force and the establishment of truth" (184). It both elicits the truth about those who undergo the examination (tells what they know or what is the state of their health) and controls their behavior (by forcing them to study or directing them to a course of treatment)."

So where am I going with all this? Fabulous question and as answer I shall defer to the preamble of this blog which reminds readers that what you are really about here is watching me formulate an interior monologues in a public way...that is, I am working my way through this stuff out in the open. I don't have a pat answer but what I suspect is that as we grow as a profession toward a greater "Professional" profession (again with the language of control), we may need to really nail down what we are about. This is not to argue that all control is bad or that learning can not occur with external controls present but that we should at least be a bit more open about what we are about. We have the privilege and honor to serve what I think is a grand idea and I think that grand ideas are served best by critical thought...help me serve....

New Spaces and Capabilities...but have we thought about this?

The ning post got me thinking...it really does have some nice features...I have also been looking at Wikispaces and Netcipia and have been really impressed with how these tools are maturing so quickly into things that could be really helpful in learning and training.

I can't help though but have this feeling that the technology is vastly outpacing our ability to rationally integrate it. We can't stop trying but we need to find a different way....maybe this discomfort I feel is related to the fact that I am thinking about how to use these tools in an industrial age model of learning. Maybe I just don't have a sufficiently advanced theoretical construct into which I can place these new tools and quickly deduce their levels of functionality and applicability.

(Update) Maybe this is where technology like iReader (Read/Write Web story) comes in. Maybe we look to sue tools that flow with "us" as we move across the Web (meaning in our browsers)....