NewTube

YouTube is finally available to DET NSW teachers- after years of frustration beating on doors. Access will of course allow teachers to plan, research, display and embed YT videos in their resources, within their working context . One giant step…for liberal access and OER . Now state teachers can enjoy the same access entitled to many private school colleagues. The interesting aspect will be to see what impacts it has on:

• DET produced resources

• Teaching practice in respect to utilising video clips as a valid resource and involving group participation esp. with IWBs

• Use of video as a legitimate presentation form and for student self expression

• Student engagement.

For many students (my kids included) the preferred source of information is through YT and not text based sources, or even Google. They are also furiously loading up clips to YT for personal use and school assignments. Look at the collections building up under any school banner- its becoming a contest between schools and a personal badge of honour for students in building their own portfolios.

 

Open wide come inside

The Open movement is undoubtedly one of the most significant-yet misrepresented philosophies to underpin C21 education. Promises abound in terms of the open revolution, but is it just another education experiment? The 2008 publication Open Content, and Open Knowledge (MIT press), is one of the few attempts I know of to bring together any coherent understanding on the topic. Edited by Toru Liyoshi, the publication represents a diverse collection of practitioners on apects of ‘Openness’, including Diana Laurrillard, David Wiley,Chris Mackie, James Dalziel and John Seeley Brown. In his introduction Liyoshi states that the “history of education is a narrative of an opening of education”- if so then we have been stalled since industrial times. Everyone has an interpretation of ‘openness’- but most would think only of technical openness associated with the open source movement.

 

Static Learning Objects?

Paul Reids piece  (Digital Chalkies) taking a swipe at LO implemenations such as TLF,

has sparked a running debate. The comments represent ‘where are we at’ X section of opinion on the worth of LOs (and associated implementation) and what constitutes good connected learning.

 

Tools of the trade

New breed of Web 2 learning tools are appearing such as XTimeline (thanks Chris O’Neal). These I’d call conceptual mapping tools- rather than cognitive tools.  Xtimeline is a collaborative widget for creating, sharing & ranking timelines. I’d be interested in what other ‘visual Wikis’ exist -too many collaborative tools lack focus/specific purpose and only provide an environment for dialogue and transfer. These new breed of tools may well point the way for more meaningful joint construction, assisting teachers in specific conceptual tasks. The creation of such shells reminds me of ‘open’ learning objects’- a concept worth revisiting in relation to these products.

 

BECTA rejects Office 07

Yesterday Becta sent a formal complaint to the European Union against Microsoft- claiming their products do not suport open standards. BECTA says that Office 2007’s underlying format, known as Office Open XML, is not interoperable with software from other vendors.  BECTA wants the EU to compel Microsoft to support open standards, such as the Open Document Format. “Upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended,” said the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, in a report issued at the time. The report’s conclusions could end up costing Microsoft millions of dollars in lost sales in the U.K. public sector market.

Strong stuff- but I’d ban it for reasons of usability alone.

 

 

 

CoPs

Graham Attwell’s post on a chaired presentation to the Alt C conference in Nottingham on International CoPs, included this excerpt by George Roberts-
“Communities of practice are emergent organisations with tacit but clearly identifiable rules and other signs of identity: shared goals, shared values, shared symbolic artefacts. These may be codified but as often as not tacit community rules transgress or subvert codified, formal rules. We start from the position that although it now commonplace to recognise the existence of CoPs, the processes underpinning their development are still poorly understood. In particular, it has been found to be difficult in practice to create or facilitate the development of CoPs“.

George’s video cites Scott Wilson’s categories of CoPs:Practice/Interest/Action/Purpose/circumstance/position. George talks of the boundaries of cohesion necessary for these communities, but stresses the importance of openness to new ideas and people. This resonates with Tom Haskins recent posts ‘the changing debate‘ -where he puts foward four principles for overcoming impass between communities (in this case the LMS V PLE debate). George Roberts calls on the need for new comers to feel valued and welcomed in the communities, and the importance of other communities to recognise the value of each others work.

This also harps back to the notion of valuing the ‘lurker’ – as legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger) and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. But heres the rub- most people are only interested in signing up to a community which has a higher order of knowledge. So its a fine balance to subscribe them to something to which they have some knowledge, and ensure they are supported in contributing to the discussions – thereby becoming a member of the ‘inner sanctum’ (or at least contributing to the shared knowledge).

 

Embedding Web 2

Workshop discussion last week with UK ICT in education policy experts, Owen Lynch, Tom McMullan and Jimmy Stewart and from Edu.au. Greg Black and Garry Putlin . Many trends were reinforced through the discussion:

• Increased use of Mobile learning devices
• IWB usage (although mainly as a presentation device)
• Learning platforms uptake (again not clear if this is a VLE)
• Use of open content
• Significance of Web 2
• Service rather than production/publishing orientation

One comment caught my attention: that was the observation that ICT is generally just grafted on the back of curricula /assessment imperatives . Until ICT is understood as being not just the medium or channel of communication- but rather the message syntax, we are destined to keep treading the path of so many previous ‘ed tech innovations’. Which lead to an interesting question: “have you seen any examples of innovative policy decisions?” – a deep breath followed but no notable response. And of course its also a question of business models, management structures/approaches which underpin Web 2 implementation and ‘philosophy’. We need to all take this responsibility, instead of assigning it to the bin of ‘policy adoption’. Web 2.0 adoption requires a holistic approach and commitment on all levels of the business of education from classroom to boardroom and policy quorums.

 

Digital literacy in a knowledge economy

Essay on the ABC website (thanks Ian) by John Hartley, is a good encapsualtion of the argument for fostering real critical literacies to create open innovation networks. Although schools and universities certainly teach “ICT skills” and even “creative practice”, so far they have not proven to be adept at enabling demand-driven and distributed learning networks for imaginative rather than instrumental purposes. Here is where creative innovation must be nurtured.
The piece is stirring a lot of polarised responses, revealing why governments and institutions are bound by collective inertia.

 

Superficial scholarship

Reading a recent article by Karl Kruszelniski on ‘How many words for snow do eskimos know’- resonated with thoughts on what constitutes academic scholarship. It  also highlights that we are better to have ‘open’ online knowledge environments to expose the myths, rather than wait 46+ years as this story reveals.    

 

Open access

Mike Seyfangs dump on his frustrations reporting on the CEGSA conference in South Australia, brings home the frustrations we are all experiencing regards the limitations of network access in education systems. Ironically Gerry Whites presentation (below) at the conference was urging a future for education which embraced ‘Openess’- of systems/content/applications. Mike’s comment really resonates with our own situation in NSW “All the CLOSED approach to the web achieves is a little arse coverage for management and a whole lot of grief for educators, students and supporters …” So when are we going to challenge the senior policy makers to allow for more open access to students- and education content providers to stop kidding themselves they can make a commercial gain on their content.

 

Cult of the arrogant

Couldn’t help also adding a link to this running disussion from Britannica Blog by Michael Gorman defending ‘authoritative’ publishing. Stirred 31 responses so far to his post-(welcome to the wonders of Web2 Michael) -No wonder with lines like-

“The flight from expertise is accompanied by the opposite of expertise—the phenomenon that Andrew Keen has called, in his new book of the same name, “the cult of the amateur.” This cult, says Keen, “worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone—even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us—can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves.” He is referring to the impulse behind Web 2.0, but his words have a wider resonance—a world in which everyone is an expert in a world devoid of expertise. “

 

Web 2-authority Vs ‘collective authority’

At risk of adding more layers of comment (but hey thats knowledge creation )-worth citing Tony Karrer on Will Richardsons post – Web 2.0 as “Cultural and Intellectual Catastrophe”

The basic issue of experts vs. collective intelligence . Tony states there is the contention of whether collective opinion constitutes ‘authority’ , but he states “I do believe that there’s still need for expertise, review, authoritative sources. But there’s also a valuable place for the speed, breadth, depth and network in Web 2.0. “

 

Open source content

Some increasing commentaries on this. Jerry’s Work Blog has a a nice post of comments including:

• how open content movement is lagging a few years behind Opensource movement.
• e books are not selling
• Interesting study – assumption that kids in college are digital natives is wrong. While they may be comfortable with technology for communications, entertainment, they don’t know how to use technology to learn – they learned to learn through books.

This should also link to James Dalziels thoughts on Open Learning Content