The Ed Techie

Of Course

George Siemens and I ran the Course to Discourse mini-conference the other week, to discuss the future of the course. The elluminate recordings are now up if you missed it. Here is the slideshare of my presentation:

Digital Implications for Universities

View more OpenOffice presentations from mweller.

I opened the conference and so I was trying to set the tone for what was to come by considering the impact of digitisation on education. I employed a rather reductionist strategy by considering higher education as being comprised of a number of components. I used the analogy of newspapers to consider how each of their components had been weakened by digitisation. I argued that we can think of these various components as being held together like atoms in a molecule. Not all all molecules are equal and neither are all industries - the strength of the bonds between the component atoms will vary. The question then is to what extent are these components in higher education weakened by digitisation and how strong are the overall bonds that make 'Higher Education' a valuable package?

As for the mini-conference overall, I thought it went well. Attendance was pretty good (at about 70 people), but I think we could have done better. I only blogged and tweeted it, but didn't make a real effort to put the call out in mailing lists, etc.

The line-up worked very well I think. George and I bandied a few names around by email, contacted them with a rough brief and put together a quick schedule, and yet I don't think the synergy and flow between them would have been better if we'd spent months planning it and coordinating in intricate detail.

The technology worked well, although I saw a few reports on twitter that some people couldn't get access. I want to run more open sessions like this, and Elluminate seems a reasonable lightweight choice, so I hope access isn't an issue.

The discussion in the sessions was lively, and there has been some continued debate in the Moodle forums that George set up, although I still think this continuation post-event is something we haven't quite cracked yet - how do you make the event the start, rather than the end?

Anyway, thanks to all those who presented (Josie Fraser, D'Arcy Norman, Grainne Conole, Alec Couros, Tony Hirst as well as George and myself) - I really encourage you to check out the recordings of at least some of these talks, as there is some great stuff here. Also thanks to all those who 'attended', and kudos to George for setting it up and sticking with my half-baked idea.

What would ALT-REF look like?

So in the UK the Research Assessment Exercise is being replaced by the REF (Research Exercise Framework - see it's got a different name?). This will evaluate the research standing of individuals and departments and allocate money accordingly. Here's what they say:

"The REF will consist of a single unified framework for the funding and assessment of research across all subjects. It will make greater use of quantitative indicators in the assessment of research quality than the RAE, while taking account of key differences between the different disciplines."

In a twitter exchange with Joss Winn and Brian Kelly this morning I talked about creating an alternative to the REF:

I have in mind something that takes in the sort of distributed identity we have online, so measures activity in blogging, delicious, slideshare, YouTube, twitter, etc. It would need to measure not just activity but influence, impact, etc in some data driven manner.

A key principle must be that it's easy to do and doesn't involve expert panels, peer review etc. What I would be interested then is seeing how an ALT-REF would compare with REF? Would there be any overlap in the top researchers? Would the fields be the same? Would online reputation have any correlation to research funding?

I don't have the right knowledge for this though - it needs data and metrics experts, but it'd be an interesting experiment wouldn't it?

The Four Assumptions of the Publishing Apocalypse

<Image Apocalypse by New Man http://www.flickr.com/photos/rnewpol/310013754/>

I have pondered before that referencing in academic papers is an anachronistic practice in a digital age. This came home to me again recently, and my reaction was almost visceral this time. I wrote an article for a journal recently (I know! What was I thinking?), and it inevitably featured lots of online references. I thought I had conformed to the loathed APA referencing style, but was then asked for web pages to specify "(n.p.) when page number not known and (para 4) when the quote comes from a particular paragraph in an online article."

Let's look at those requests: a) it's an online reference so page numbers are rare and b) who ever counts the number of paragraphs on a web page to find a quote? I mean, seriously, come on, does search not exist in this world?

But it's not the absurdity of it that bothers me. Nor is it the pointless, soul-sucking nature of putting references into a very specific format (after all much of life is pointless and soul-sucking). It's the assumptions behind these requests that really antagonise me. Let's look at what I shall lightly term the Four Assumptions of the Publishing Apocalypse:

1) The assumption of power: This says 'yes it may be foolish and anachronistic, but we can demand what we like since we are the publishers and this is your only recognised outlet.'

2) The assumption of quality: This claims that not only are they the only outlet, but their method is the only one appropriate for academic discourse. Failure to use their correct format for referencing implies a lack of academic rigour.

3) The assumption of immutability: This feels there is no need to change. They have begrudgingly accommodated online references (although the assumption of quality emphasises these are to be viewed as substandard), but in their hearts they feel that the paper method is the purest form, and anything else should be a subset of that. Thus we have practices suited to paper transferred online.

4) The assumption of proprietary: If the assumption of power says we can make you do what we like, and the assumption of quality states that we are the custodians of reliability, then this last assumption asserts that thou shall have no other publishing model than us: we own publishing.

Now if you believe any of these assumptions hold true, I congratulate you. For the rest of us, I know it's only referencing, but think about what it says. I value acknowledgement and giving proper credit, but I want digital-friendly ways of doing this, not practices that have been reluctantly twisted to accommodate digital practice and who bear the scars of this transformation all too readily.

What I talk about when I talk about running

I read Murakami's reflection on running recently (he pinched the title from the first chapter of my VLE book - oh, okay, we both pinched it from Raymond Carver, but I got there first), and it caused me to consider why I run. I started running regularly about four years ago (it's my runiversary!). Before I launch into a meditation on running here are a few facts:

1. I am patently not very good at it. There are people who discover running and a talent is unearthed, they are effortlessly clocking sub-3 hour marathons and a slow training run is faster than I can ever manage. I am not one of these. At my peak I managed a 48 minute 10K. I guess if I trained really hard and changed diet, got a personal trainer I could bring this down, but I am never going to be a 40 minute 10ker, let alone a 30 minute one. Some people start up and within a couple of months are clocking 40 minutes. I am at very best average ie I come in the middle of the pack of a race (although see next point).
2. I am getting worse at it. I used to be an 8 minute miler, but my pace has slipped to around 9 minutes and despite my best efforts I seem unable to reclaim the glory of the first year or so. This could be related to age, or putting on a bit of weight, but I think it's more down to being willing to push myself harder when I was starting out.
3. I frequently don't want to do it and don't enjoy it. I drag myself out and have a miserable, below-par run.

So why do I run? I have rarely gone a week without a run in the past four years, usually run about 4-5 times a week and have taken part in countless (oh, okay, 13) races that I have no chance of doing well in. Let's put aside issues of staying reasonably healthy and weight (which are factors, but probably not my prime motivation). As Murakami says of his writing, he doesn't really compose much while running. I am the same, I could argue that I think through problems, but while I do occasionally, often I don't think of much beyond 'I'm not enjoying this run much.' Having said that, it does give you some clear space and maybe that not thinking of much at all enables you to be focused at other times. I do semi-compose blog posts (hell, even tweets) while running so it has helped with that.

The god things about running? There is something about the nature of the data in running that appeals to me. It's about miles run, pace per mile, top speed, long distance speed, etc. I also like its simplicity (being a simple person at heart), but this very simplicity provides a multitude of ways of approaching it (kind of like Twitter). You can concentrate on a race, different distances, pace, hills, etc. This year, although my pace is rubbish, I am aiming to run 1000 miles over the course of the year. It's not an amazing amount, but it requires a steady approach, and changes the psychology of my running. I am fond of running on holiday and some of my most memorable runs have been in Cornwall, Antigua, Italy and Australia.

But all these are bonuses: the main reason I run is something I've been thinking about a lot lately with regards to online activity - namely, identity. Although I'm not a good runner, I do it regularly enough to feel confident in classifying myself as a runner. In running terms I am a mild underpronator, 8-9 minute miler, half-marathon runner. And that classification matters.

And so on to the inevitable connection with education. Actually I don't think the link is as arduous to make as I sometimes manage - running is a lot like learning. You don't have to be the best in a subject, you 'compete' against yourself, you find different strategies, you need different motivations, and we define ourselves by what we express a preference for. And the analogy holds true if we consider formal and informal learning. I don't belong to a running club and I mainly engage in informal learning. But for the sake of motivation and the experience I like to take part in formal events, ie races, and occasionally I might want to have my learning formally recognised. The two can exist quite happily and to each other's mutual benefit in running, so why not in education?

Bless my cotton socks I'm in the news

(yes, I have been waiting a long time to use that title)

A couple of weeks ago, a journalist from The Guardian contacted me to talk about how a tweet from Stephen Fry had sent over 10,000 visitors to the OU's Devolve Me site. The angle was initially the power of new media, but quickly morphed into educational use of new twitter. I stressed the importance of one's personal network and new forms of digital scholarly activity. I didn't really have a single message though, and journalists like to have something to hang a report around, and it seemed clear that she wanted to go beyond the Fry story.

So she spoke to Brian Kelly, and in the meantime the CLex report of the use of new technologies in higher education came out, and the piece became about more general use of web 2.0 and higher education. It was published today in the Education Guardian. After all the hype and scare stories around twitter, it's a good, well balanced piece.

It was interesting to see the piece develop. I wonder though if there isn't a little hypocrite dwelling at the bottom of my heart: I praise new media, talk about the death of traditional news, and then get a little flush of excitement when a national newspaper prints my name. Is therapy required?

Can we talk of a blogging 'industry'?

Cayusa - http://www.flickr.com/photos/cayusa/2941045084/>

There was a piece in the Wall Street Journal recently which claimed that

"In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters."

My reaction was similar to that of a lot of bloggers - 'Really? Are you sure?' I left it at that, but of course, some others did a bit of digging. Adam Gurri gives a good summary of the criticism, chief amongst them Clay Shirky who rather takes the piece apart arguing that:

"their key figure -- 2% of bloggers claim it's their primary source of income -- would be well below the margin of error for data collected by a serious polling organization, much less for self-reported data, making that figure useless as an input."

And from this dubious figure they go on to multiply it by the number of bloggers who report it as their primary source of income, but complicate matters by writing

"about people making serious money from "posting their opinions", but later make it clear that many of these bloggers are flacks, paid only to post the opinions of the PR department, not their own."

They then do some dodgy things with averages:

"Average revenue for bloggers in the top 10% of revenue is even lower than the 100K median, and the median income for all bloggers running ad-supported weblogs is (wait for it)...$200. A year."

Shirky is right to take them to task for dodgy methodology, but I think there are some assumptions in his critique too that should be examined. Firstly, he dismisses people who blog as part of their job. But these can still be considered as people who are paid to blog (although the article wasn't really making this point).

It becomes more complicated when we consider that not all bloggers are 'flacks', for example there are a lot of academics (ahem - oh, me?) who blog where the relationship with their paid job is a bit ambiguous. Sometimes it is formally acknowledged with a set number of days allocated for it, but more often it is accepted as something that is done within your work, and outside it. So the number of people who are 'paid' to blog is beyond just those who are independent bloggers.

The article (and hence Shirky's analysis of it) is rather obsessed by the celebrity blogger and mistakenly gives the impression that you, yes YOU, can quit the day job and start blogging for a living tomorrow. That is very rare. Indeed, the celebrity bloggers are, in my experience, often the least interesting. The not very subtle sub-text of most self-employed bloggers is 'Why I'm excellent and you need to hire me'. This quickly becomes tiresome. My preference is for bloggers who do it as an aside to their normal day job.

The point I want to make is that, yes, the original article was dodgy, but even when I take into account Shirky's analysis I was still left with the impression that blogging (including the employed and self-employed bloggers) is creeping up on us as a profession. I would maintain that it's something broader than 'blogging' but also it isn't solely 'communications' in the PR sense either, since I don't want to read a communications officer's interpretation of what Lessig says, I want to read what Lessig says (but comms people you know I love you, and there is a role for this type of activity also).

All this is leading to a claim for legitimacy on my part. If 'blogging' (we'll use that as a shorthand term for now) is becoming a grown-up, robust profession/skill/industry then it makes sense for at least some academics to be doing it. It would be as strange if some academics didn't have expertise in this subject as say, law.

So, you see - it only looked as though I was wasting my time over these past three years.

Happy blogiversary to me

<Image - revised version of Evan's 3rd Birthday by D'Arcy Norman http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnorman/48439662/>

I am three today. Yes, three years ago I started EdTechie, so here is another of those blogging about blogging posts.

First up, some facts:

• In that time I have done 451 posts
• I have gathered 1196 comments
• The average number of comments per post therefore is 2.7
• I have 1098 subscribers (although who knows how many are active)
• Most popular posts are:
• The VLE/LMS is dead
• A Twitter Love Song
• Social Networks will make us scared of kittens
• Ownership ain't what it used to be
• Future of content
• My first comment was by Juliette Culver (then White) on I verb therefore I am important, which was my about 6 weeks after I'd started.

Inevitably I've been doing a bit of reflecting, so here's a few things blogging has taught me:

Identity

Looking back on those early posts (if you've got a few spare hours, why not peruse the back catalogue?), it is clear I was trying to find the right tone. This is what has become apparent to me - it's not about blogging, it's about identity. I think I made the noob's mistake of being too personal in early posts, thinking I needed to detail every aspect of my life. I settled down to a more educational technology focus, but with a personal take on it.

The blog (along with twitter and more recently Tumblr, plus assorted other sites) is a key part of my academic identity. Indeed I'd go as far to say as it is my academic identity, or at least the one I am most comfortable with.

Multi-media

Things that have progressed since those early days include the use of firstly images, and then a range of multi-media. It is rare now that I create a post that is only text, I usually add in a Flickr CC image, or a YouTube vid, Slideshare presentation, music embedded from Skreemr or Blip, Animoto movie, etc. This ease of use of multi-media has been one of the big cultural shifts of the last five years I feel. Creating a multi-media posting is now so simple that the absence of additional media almost seems a punishment.

My blog has been very significant in my understanding of this, in that it has driven the awareness of these other tools, and provided the space to play with them, as well as the motivation to test them. Without a blog I would have maybe made use of some of them in presentations, or have been trying to find a use for them in courses. Which brings me on to my next point.

It's liberating

Prior to the web, one's only outlet was through official routes. If I wanted to express an argument or point of view I would have to write at least a conference paper or a journal paper. The academic publishing process had become so formalised that only certain types of publication made it through. While the scientific paper structure is good in chemistry, it was less well suited to exploring ideas in educational technology. The only alternative was to write a book, or get taken up through a journalistic route. While I could (can) write papers, there are a lot of things I want to explore in other formats. Beforehand we were shut out from doing so.

And whadyaknow, it turns out that there is this whole area of academic discourse we can have that goes around, inbetween and alongside the formal outlets. It's not just that this allows you to have a wider range of discussion around topics, but also different types of interaction. It also permits experimentation, which was both difficult to realise, and would never find an audience before. For example, I could have maybe written a journal article (albeit a less interesting one) instead of the Future of Content post. But I couldn't have found an outlet for a video from it. On YouTube someone has left a comment on this video bemoaning that

"this kind of superficial treatment, full of sound and fury signifies little of actual value. This is a poster child for the Cult of the Amateur."

The reference to Keen is telling here - this was an experiment, playing around to see if I could take a lengthy textual argument and condense it into a movie. I'm not sure it works either, but the key is that I could try it. The Keenians (and this commentator) don't want you to be allowed to do this, unless you pass through some pre-filter. This great liberation of expression and discourse has (and is having) profound effects on society, and I feel keeping this blog has been the means through which I have been able to experience it.

It's real life too

The easy criticism levelled at people who spend any time online or speak of having online friends is 'get out in the real world!', as if any time online necessarily excludes real life interaction. I've found the opposite to be true - I often meet people (at the OU or conferences) who talk to me with a level of familiarity that is born from reading my blog or following me on twitter. There is an element of kick-starting conversation. For instance, I am looking forward to attending the UK ed tech conference ALT-C this year because it is the first post-Twitter one I have been to, and I know there will be a big group of Twitter friends there who I can meet up with (assuming they're not all trying to avoid me).

Similarly in Cardiff there are several face to face meetings such as the monthly social media cafe Trydan, the Ignite series, Cardiff web scene, etc. These are all facilitated by the online presence people have on blogs and twitter. When you attend these the only pieces of information you need to impart are your twitter id and blog address. The online community has made my local one more significant and valuable to me.

So after three years I wouldn't necessarily say 'you should blog', because I think people have different forms of expression. Some may be great podcasters, or YouTubers, etc. But I would argue that developing an online identity is a crucial part of being an academic (or maybe just being a citizen) - there is an online identity for you out there somewhere, you just need to find it. And when you do, nothing will be the same again.