Posts Tagged ‘Opinion’
March 28, 2008
The more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I’m feeling with the notion of ‘online pedagogy’.
At the moment, I’m having trouble figuring out how ‘online’ pedagogy is any different from ‘ordinary’ pedagogy. I’m even thinking that it might be slightly beguiling to suggest that learning online qua learning requires special consideration, intellectually speaking, that is.
Naturally, the things we can do as online learners are different from the things we could do as pre-internet learners, but is it the doing of it that’s important in this instance? The doing is essential to how we use web tools (wikis, blogs, social networking, videos, slideshares etc.) in a educationally sound fashion in our daily teaching, but to suggest that there’s something special going on privileges the notion that the internet actually changes learning and gives learning online properties that it doesn’t necessarily have. So let’s not talk about ‘online learning’ but ‘learning online’.
Pedagogy is pedagogy, and the type of pedagogy you deploy will depend on the outcomes you’re seeking. Let’s not privilege the technology too much.
Tags:Internet, Learning online, Opinion, Pedagogy, Technology
Posted in Learning online, Opinion, Technology | Leave a Comment »
March 28, 2008
Education is notorious for being slow in its business reponses. We buy a system (e.g., Black$Board or My$Classes) and stick with it foreverrrrr. Same with infrastructure. When was the last time you saw a truly innovative teaching space instead of one with rows of chairs and desks? (Ngunnawal Primary School’s Redwood Teaching Unit is my answer … what’s yours?)
Some of this can be put down to budgeting issues and a lack of funding in general. But not all of it. Perhaps not even most of it. Indeed, often let slide are the poor business and product decisions made by educational administrators and management, who (perhaps through their not being on-the-ground teachers themselves), lack the vision required to make the creative, anticipatory, adventurous decisions that teachers need them to make. Add to this the reconciled acceptance of second-best on the part of wearied educational leaders and we have fine mix, conveniently self-adjusted for exploitation by business. In other words, business has come to rely upon our own ordinariness.
So, why not claim our market share? Why can’t we start demanding quality products and products that give us what we want? And why can’t we demand that they be free? In fact, it’s the ‘free’ bit that I’m really talking about here … The market capacity of education is huge, and yet are we so ‘umble as to not think that we can’t start demanding what we want — for free?
Why can’t we ditch expensive, unweildy learning mangement systems such as Black$Board and go for the free stuff? Is it because the free stuff won’t let me link in with my student database? Then demand that it can. Is it because the free stuff might have privacy and security issues? Then get the assurances you need.
We like to think of education as being ‘different’ or ‘singular’ and, of course, we are in the sense that what we do is for The Greater Good. But when it comes to business, we need plain, old, hum-drum canniness — nothing special, nothing exceptional. Young people demand stuff for free out of their web-based services all the time — and they get it, too. We need to start being a bit smarter in education about how we get what we want.
Tags:Business, EduBusiness, Education politics, Leadership, LMSs, Management, Opinion
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March 18, 2008
Al Upton has become a victim of his own classroom blogging success. Al’s been using blogging for some time as a major educational tool with his ‘Mini Legends’ year 3 class. Now, he’s been ordered to close the Mini Legends site down: apparently, one parent became concerned when his child’s photo appeared on the site — this is despite Al’s gaining parental permission slips. As Kerry Johnson says in a blog post about the Mini Legends’ closure, Al has broken no laws.
To read people’s comments on the whole shameful situation, visit Al’s blog.
Tags:Blogs and blogging, Education politics, Opinion, Web Two Wowsers
Posted in Blogs and blogging, Education politics, Opinion | Leave a Comment »
March 15, 2008
I can’t believe that educational institutions happily do business with companies like this! Black$Board is using school and higher ed $$$$$$$$$ to fund legal actions against smaller companies such as Desire2Learn (D2L).
Black$Board has managed to patent a system that allows individual users to log-in with a single procedure to access multiple courses. What a joke! I can’t believe they’ve managed to patent that! I can access my multiple blogs and wikis through single log-in procedures! WetPaint and WordPress watch out! Black$Board might be taking you to court soon because they’ve just succeeded in arguing that D2L has infringed Black$Board’s patent rights.
Our educational leadership signs contracts with mobs like Black$Board, and then spruiks how being involved with them is much, much better than using something free and more agile as an LMS (such as a wiki or blog). These LMS companies (including D$2L) are just rorting already-underfunded educational institutions out of money that could be going to professional development or improved infrastructure. Black$Board is just in it for the money, don’t kid yourself. In that sense, they are no different from any other internet company — except that their product is waaaaaaay poorer than most, they have hoodwinked educators into believing it’s all about the learnin’ (when it’s not — it’s all about the $$$$$$$$), and they have a monopoly over the market. It’s a disgrace.
Tags:BlackBoard, EduBusiness, Education politics, Educational leadership, LMSs, Opinion
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March 14, 2008
In the course of my work as an online education designer and as an educational consultant, I come up against some Pretty Daft Arguments as to why teachers and managers shouldn’t use free, online applications, such as wikis or blogs, in our classes and for our work practices. Those making the Pretty Daft Arguments are what I would call ‘Web Two Wowsers’ — people who want to spoil it all for the rest of us: they are Web One people stuck in a fast-changing world, and they haven’t done any research or investigation into (let alone thinking about) how the new systems work. Thus, you’d think it would be safe to say that their opinions are un- and ill-informed and thus really should carry no weight in decision-making.
Sadly, though, they do. In fact, these people seem to make up a large chunk of the leadership that is making decisions about what’s best for the rest of us. Rarely are they current teachers with on-the-ground, day-to-day experience of 1) how effective wikis and blogs can be as learning and management tools, and 2) how crappy LMSs such as MyClasses and BlackBoard are to work with in the classroom.
So, for your own edification and delight, here are some of the real doozies I’ve heard recently from Web Two Wowsers, and my responses to them:
- “Free, online services are not secure”. Yes, they are. Do your research.
- “Free, online services are not private”. Yes, they can be. Do your research.
- “Free, online services are not reliable; their infrastructure might go down.” Yes, and so might Telstra’s, which is probably where your LMS is hosted. But how often does this happen with a reputable company? It is usually not the software company that owns the infrastructure. It is the telco. Same: your educational institution does not own the infrastructure, it is owned by the telco. The control you think you have over the infrastructure is an illusion — hosting something on your own site just makes you feel better, is all.
- “They might sell your info to a Third Party.” Meh. Maybe. But that’s why you need to check out the Terms of Service when you register and you need to go with a company with a reputation. I’m not taking my car to Dodgy Brothers when it needs a tune-up. I’m taking it to Ultra-Tune or to an operator I trust. The Terms of Service and Privacy Policies of companies such as WordPress and WetPaint state unequivocally that they will disclose your info only to those who need it in order to work on the system (such as employees and contractors, who must sign non-disclosure agreements, anyway) and only if the law requires it. Do your research.
- “This is changing the work practices of the entire organisation. You need permission from Those Up On High to do that”. (Frankly, I don’t know where in Hades this one came from, but I have heard it …) Two answers: 1) No it’s not changing the work practices of the entire organisation — just this class or project group. We want to work more efficiently and produce better-quality learning. 2) Why do we need permission to work better? The answer is ‘because Those Up On High signed a contract with this particular LMS company — a company that is making big bucks out of rorting already under-funded educational institutions by supplying poor-quality, ill-conceived, difficult-to-use products’. Mobs like WordPress, WetPaint, Google, WikiSpaces aren’t rorting the education system. You can at least say that much for them.
- “I know nothing about this company”. So learn. You might find that you like their business model, ethics and mission. You might find that they have a published commitment to using your data in an ethical way — does your mechanic? WordPress.org, for example, promises to adhere by Attention Trust principles (don’t know what that means? Then learn …). Other mobs such as MyMindshare, and Wesabe, are up-front about their commitment to your rights to your information, and Open Social Web is working on A Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web. Do your research.
- “They might go bust.” If the product is poor, then so they should go bust. If the product is good, then they won’t. The reason that companies such as WetPaint, WordPress, WikiSpaces, Google, Yahoo! etc., etc. have survived is because they care about their reputations and they know that if they make poor products, then their customers will be out of there like a shot. I ain’t sticking with a mechanic who can’t set the gap properly on me points. I’m going elsewhere. Web Two Wowsers seem to think that business on the Web is somehow ephemeral and that there is no such thing as reputation. Trust and reputation are the same concepts, regardless of where they occur.
- “This company might get bought out by someone else … like … like … like Google!” Well, BlackBoard bought WebCT, didn’t it? Besides, if Google buys something, then it’s gotta be good. Who owns Arnott’s these days? Does it stop you from eating Scotch Finger Biscuits? Web Two Wowsers seem to think that the online world somehow is different from the ‘real’ world — that business models and practices that characterise the ‘real’ world suddenly change online. In fact, it seems to me that Web Two Wowsers don’t really have much idea about how business works at all.
So, leaders, get educated. Inform yourselves about how these companies and their tools work. And then think of creative solutions (as a TAFE college in WA did) as to how to integrate these things into your institutional framework. Once you have investigated these things properly, you will be in a position to make intelligent and legitimate calls about how the technology can and should be used in your workplace.
Tags:Business, Education politics, LMSs, Opinion, Web 2.0, Web Two Wowsers
Posted in Education politics, LMSs, Opinion, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment »
March 5, 2008
I wrote about PebblePad, a Personalised Learning Environment (PLE) in a previous post. Although PebblePad is a huge step beyond Web 1.0 systems such as MyClasses, BlackBoard and WebCT, I think there are still problems with how we, as teachers and educational leaders, are approaching the issue of online learning and where it occurs in the online environment.
Basically, I’m still not convinced by the need to have everything in one spot and mounted on an institution’s own servers. And I’m not convinced educational organisations need to pay for this stuff. I think it probably makes it in some ways easier to have everything in one place, and it gives institutions greater control over what systems students use, but I believe we need to be looking further out than that.
You can do all (OK, ‘most’) of the things you can do in PebblePad for free in other online applications – applications that are often more powerful and ‘authentic’ than those found in PP. For example, why use PP’s limited blog function when students can blog via WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal and the like. Students can also share ‘experiences’ and ‘thoughts’ via a blog, and they can set up meetings through Google Calendar or Zoho Planner. And you can sort out action plans through things such as ToodleDo and Remember the Milk. Furthermore, wikis and blogs can make for highly potent and accessible webfolios. For the ‘extras’ such as adding reflections or doing SWOT analyses, well … I’m sure teachers can come up themselves with ways of integrating them into assignments or classroom tasks and should be doing so, anyway.
I just believe that schools and post-compulsory education need to get out of the mindset of having to pay for everything and having to find server space for it. Web 2.0 allows us to be much more creative than that.
Tags:EduBusiness, Educational leadership, Learning online, LMSs, Opinion, PLEs
Posted in EduBusiness, Education politics, Learning online, LMSs, Opinion | 1 Comment »
February 16, 2008
In the early days of the Web, schools and universities realised that teachers needed to have some kind of online presence for their classes. So, we invested in expensive, clunky, ‘uploady-downloady’, Web 1.0 systems such as Blackboard/WebCT and My Classes. The problem is that the world has moved on, and now, thanks to the many free and nimble and frequently updated beta Web 2.0 applications, LMSs have become obsolete. Further, with something like Blackboard/WebCT or My Classes, it is the teacher who has to do everything from setting up discussion categories in forums, to creating ‘blogs’ (what a joke that function is in most LMSs!), to setting up chat.
Even though most classroom management and online assessment can be achieved through free, online blog and wiki software such as Blogger, WordPress, WikiSpaces, WetPaint and PBWiki, schools and universities continue to insist that staff use old-fashioned systems that offer very little (if any) customisation or flexibility when it comes to student learning. And the only reason I can discern for this is that ‘we’ve paid for it so we’d better stick to it.’ This is not an educational argument, it is an economic argument, and a very poor economic argument at that: why would you continue to use something that is out-of-date and doesn’t give you what you need and that actually (in many cases) impedes your work? Why would you drive a coach and six horses when you’ve got a Model T Ford in the shed?
With imagination, creativity and leadership, we can allow academics choice in how they want to set up their courses online. With foresight, consideration and care we can introduce more reticent staff to how easy it is to use free, online software to manage their courses. And with trust, we can allow students to complete their assignments using free stuff, too. We don’t have to ditch BlackBoard or MyClasses and we should certainly be clear about what the institution expects of its community members in terms online presence … but this doesn’t stop us from showing academics, teachers and students the alternatives and then let them use what suits them best.
If that hasn’t got you thinking, then check out Alan Cann’s What the heck is a PLE and why would I want one. More on PLEs (‘Personalised Learning Environments’) and why they are essential to good online student learning in a later post.
Tags:EduBusiness, Education politics, LMSs, Opinion, Web 2.0
Posted in EduBusiness, Education politics, Learning online, LMSs, Opinion, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment »
February 16, 2008
There’s always a lot of controversy whenever you start describing the social and online behaviours that characterise the ‘Net Gen’: Are they critically engaging with what they’re doing? Are they really able to keep a track of all that info that’s coming at them? What about online predators? Are the kids getting enough fresh air? Things get even hairier if you use the term ‘Digital Native’ (for some reason ‘Net Gen’ is less controversial than is ‘Digital Native’): There are lots of people born before the Net Gen who are perfectly at home in cyberspace; not all youngsters are ‘natives’ to this environment, anyway; this is all simplifying things too much.
I don’t have any real qualms over the terms used, as long as we recognise that when we’re using them we’re making generalisations and probably being ever-so-slightly reductionist. There is room for generalisation in anything — that, after all, is how analysis occurs: we interrogate material, look for patterns, and then organise it so that we can eventually create new meaning for ourselves.
But the question is nevertheless raised: How much are we describing behaviours that are peculiar to a specific age group, and how much are we describing the behaviours of anyone who spends a lot of time online? The CIBER team at University College London have gone some way to beginning to answer this question (see my previous post), but the fact remains that for most teachers their new learners will be young people, and, as such, the descriptions still hold good.
Tags:CIBER, Net Gen, Opinion
Posted in Education politics, Opinion | Leave a Comment »
February 3, 2008
I was delighted to be asked to give a keynote (pdf, 2.3 MB)last week at ‘Creating Balance’, the annual professional development conference for ACT Colleges.
I wasn’t so delighted, however, to learn that the year 11 and 12 students who attend ACT’s colleges (as well as their teachers) can’t access even half of what’s on the internet, thanks to some ridiculous Net Nanny-type set-up on the colleges system. YouTube is blocked, for starters, and the only logic I can discern behind this directive is that is has been decided that neither students nor teachers can be trusted to use the resource in a civilised fashion. There is enormous educational potential in the huge amount of video that is available on YouTube, and there is no sound educational reason to block it. Teachers are frustrated by this unimaginative, reactionary response to the realities of the online world that many young people are immersed in today.
The bottom line is this: if teachers are teaching creatively and well using what’s online, then students will be engaged with the class. If students are engaged with the class, then they aren’t very likely to be looking for porn or bomb-making instructions. (Apparently, the gender studies staff in once college faculty were outraged because the word ‘women’ and related terms were blocked by the system! Those terms subsequently had to be unblocked so that the students could complete their assignments!)
It is infuriating to see young adults and teachers being treated like children. It is also short-sighted in the extreme to disadvantage students in their research and in their future employment prospects, where so much business is conducted in the web environment, and it is a failure of our moral responsiblity of educators if we do not provide access to what will surely soon be considered a basic human right: unrestricted access to online communication.
Tags:Net Gen, Net nanny, Opinion, YouTube
Posted in Education politics, Net Gen, Opinion, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment »
January 8, 2008
Educators are ready. Ready to wiki, blog and podcast. That’s what struck me when I gave a presentation at the recent NAGCAS (National Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services) conference in Wollongong. I’ve referred to the talk in an earlier blog post, but here I’ll just say that what was really evident in terms of audience was their receptability to learning how to use wikis, blogs and podcasts in their daily advising practice.
That’s not to say that they’ll all go out and start setting up blogs for their students straight away — but it is to say that the delegates at the presentation were ready to hear how these things work and how they might be applied in the careers context. This is very exciting! I don’t reckon the talk I gave would have worked even just three or four months ago … but what I was getting from the floor was a real feeling of ‘now is the time’. I think we’re seeing a real shift in people’s willingness to use these excellent tools in their teaching. Hurrah!
Tags:Blogs and blogging, Careers advising, Opinion, Podcasts and podcasting, Web 2.0, Wikis and wikiing
Posted in Blogs and blogging, Opinion, Podcasts and podcasting, Web 2.0, Wikis and wikiing | Leave a Comment »
