The Ed Techie

Principles of FLOSS and education transfer

I've been in Thessaloniki for a couple of days, at a meeting of the FLOSScom project. The project is looking at the principles of open source communities and whether any of these can be found or transferred to education.

Rudiger Glott from Merit gave a good overview of FLOSS communities, based on a survey they have conducted. The key question to me is whether some of these characteristics are fundamental to the success of FLOSS communities, or whether they are incidental. Here are some of the significant characteristics as I see them:

i) The communities are constituted mainly from young men - at around 2% the proportion of women in FLOSS communities is much lower than it is in IT generally (around 25%). There may be many reasons for this but  for our purpose the point to consider is whether this is a necessary characteristic for how these communities operate. If so, then they obviously don't have much to offer higher education.

ii) Reuse is a vital characteristic. One of the key things members felt they learnt was how to write software that can be reused. Part of your status is determined by how often your code can be reused and also how easy it is to reuse. In some respects reuse is a proxy for writing clear, concise code, but it also demonstrates that reuse is seen as a good thing. In higher education we don't hold reuse is the same regard - in fact we punish it and call it plagiarism usually. Again, the extent to which the high regard for reuse is fundamental is an interesting question, as it would necessitate some significant changes in higher education practice (although these would probably be worth making).

iii) There is a reasonably objective measure of quality. The dictum that the code decides isn't quite absolute, as there are often aesthetic qualities to coding, but the final product does offer some degree of objectivity. If you fix a bug, then it can be demonstrated that you have contributed. This level of objective measure is not always present in discussions in higher education. The software also acts as a binding factor for the community, in a very clearly defined manner, which again might not be found in many subjects.   

Internet trends influencing education

I'm working on a report for the broadcast strategy group currently, with a focus on how broadcast (and whatever that means now) influences pedagogy. I tried to identify a number of internet-related trends that I thought would/are having an influence on education. Note these are restricted to technology type trends, there will be other cultural issues which might have a bigger impact (e.g. top up fees, the student as customer approach). I thought I'd share them anyway:

• The Long Tail – the idea that the internet allows access to small numbers of users to a wide range of content, so for example Amazon’s sales are mostly from lots of small titles that sell to a few people rather than bestsellers. There is an analogy with broadcast here, increasingly what is significant are lots of small pieces of content (be they podcasts, multi media, AV clips, RSS feeds, etc) that appeal very directly to a few people, rather than large scale productions that appeal a little bit to many people. The trade-off people make is quality for applicability.
• The liberation of content – with more and more online resources and large scale repositories coming on line two contradictory trends are being realised. Content is losing its economic value since an alternative, free version can usually be found. As the failure of subscription models to newspapers has demonstrated, people are generally unwilling to pay for content. However, with a wide range of content available which is variable in quantity, then the reputational value of producing good content is increased. This is particularly true in a very connected world – your worth is determined by the degree to which you are linked to, commented upon, networked with.
• New types of content – increasingly users are accessing different types of content to meet their needs, such as RSS feeds, podcasts, vlogs, etc.
• Convergence of tools and content – increasingly the distinction between a tool or service and content is becoming blurred. For example one could argue that Google is both a content provider and a tools provider. Wikipedia is both a technology and a resource. This has implications for how we conceive of broadcast and broadcast partners.
• Decentralisation and democratisation – the traditional broadcast (and to an extent educational) model is built on a hierarchical, centralised relationship with one to many information. Much of internet activity is built around one to one, or one to some, interaction and is a more dynamic, interactive medium. In addition the web 2.0 developments have emphasised the democratisation of tools and content, with users adapting and creating their own resources.
• Openness – this is realised in many different ways, for example open source software makes the code publicly available, while the freeing up of content makes resources more open, not just for people to access, but more importantly to adapt. The web 2.0 approach has openness at its core, for example, technology companies make their tools freely available for others to mix (or ‘mash up’) with other tools. Google Maps is a good example of this. Making openness central to technology and content is a profound shift in the way organisations operate, as it shifts the emphasis from controlling access to encouraging participation.
• Personalisation – this is one of the real benefits that e-learning and internet provision can offer, since resources tailored to the user’s needs can be delivered. The development of portal sites which combine personalisation and customisation, for example Netvibes, and the creation of a MyUniversity space which provides a portal to both information feeds and useful tools.
• Constructing narrative or meaning – in a resource-rich world the question of how people construct meaning from a range of resources becomes more pertinent. Providing pathways through material that construct a narrative which can be shared is one means of doing this.
• Open content – there is a wide range of research to be done around the area of open content, such as what users do with it, what sort of user is attracted to it, what is the global uptake, what tools are useful in supporting it, is it sustainable, what business models might develop, etc.
• The new learner – there has been much talk of internet natives, or net generation, learners who have a different relationship with the internet than the rest of us. It is still relatively unknown what impact these people will have on education or broadcast institutions, both as employers and customers.

Bottom-up quality metrics

I'm at the EDEN research workshop in Barcelona at the moment, where I'm giving a keynote (on VLEs you won't be surprised to hear). In the sessions so far the issue of quality has come up a lot. Without intending to I have rather found myself cast in the role of sceptic for the formal, hierarchical models such as benchmarking and advocate for a more bottom-up web 2.0 approach.

In this world quality is measured by a number of emergent metrics - for example the popularity of a resource, the number of times it is referenced or quoted, the number of times it is linked to, and for dynamic resources (e.g. blogs) the number of repeat visitors. These will be quite different from the formal benchmarks of quality and esteem indicators that are predetermined in academia.

Put simply - are blogs, wikis, etc as valuable resources as formal articles that have been through the rigorous academic process? My feeling is that if they meet the need then yes. There seems to be some resistance, snobbery, even towards these types of resources. I think this is partly rooted in defence, a kind of job preservation - many academics want to be the holders of content and feel threatened by this more open approach, and thus wave the quality flag to try and hold back the development.

OpenLearn launch - a mild regret

The OpenLearn project was launched internally today - the official launch is October 25th. It looks very impressive, particularly when you know the problems of taking legacy material and getting it in suitable chunks and up online. I also think they've done some good things with the tools in the labspace area (I like the non-client based messenger particularly - I always wanted a tool like this where I could join in an informal real-time chat around a piece of content).

I was part of the team that worked on the bid last year to the Hewlett Foundation to get the project. In January I had a choice - either go full time on the project, or write my VLE book. I'm not particularly good at multitasking so couldn't do both. I felt that the VLE book wouldn't really wait - like many educational technology books, it feels as though it's obsolescing as you type. So my literary pretensions won out and I opted to spend four months writing the book. But sitting there today I would have to admit to a mild sense of regret at not being part of such an exciting project. One of those 'I need a parallel life' moments, when both routes are pretty good. Still, having said that, it probably wouldn't have been so successful if I'd been on board...

Web 2.0 presentation

I gave a presentation with Patrick McAndrew today to IET Committee on the implications of web 2.0 for higher education. Apart from all the fun technologies, one of the key principles to me is that of openness and a letting go of control. I think the instinct of many of us in higher education is to try and control the student experience. This may come from good intentions relating to ensuring quality, promoting a caring environment, getting students to understand the key concepts and gain the key skills, etc., but I think it becomes a habit, a default action. It doesn't sit well in a web 2.0 world and I do find myself having to pull back from the initial reaction of defining exactly what should happen, and perhaps allowing things to be a bit more unstructured and unpredictable. This is probably one of those characteristics that marks out us digital immigrants as having an accent. Our instinct is to try and hold on to things whereas children raised in a web 2.0 world (and maybe there is already a web 1.0 generation who are slightly immigrant to this) will find the notion of not making everything open kind of weird. It reminds me of my parents' attitude to debt and credit. It was something mildly distasteful, and if they did need a loan they would dress up in their best clothes and feel very privileged if the bank manager deemed to let them have some money on credit. Now I can fill out ten application forms before finishing my muesli in the morning and still have companies begging me to take more.

Anyway, presentation is below, courtesy of Slideshare again (some of the transitions particularly with images don't work that smoothly, but in the spirit of web 2.0 I thought I'd stick with using it).

Running, VLEs, e-learning and democratisation

Warning - this post is a desperate attempt to combine all my interests in one posting.

I took part in my first half-marathon on Sunday (Cardiff, naturally). Like many runners I have come to it relatively late in life (I started last year in earnest). One of the many things I like about running is its very democratic nature. It really is a sport for everyone. All you need is a pair of trainers (in theory that is, I also find an ipod, GPS tracker and hi tech fabrics essential also, so I resemble some form of cyborg, but these are really just luxuries). It encompasses all manner of ability, ages, backgrounds and motivations.

It struck me that this notion of democratisation is something of an underlying theme in my interests, almost by accident. I work at the Open University, the aim of which was to democratise higher education. I was part of the team responsible for the OU course,  T171 You your computer and the Net in 1999, which had around 15,000 students and arguably did a lot to open up understanding of the internet. Next week I am giving a keynote in Barcelona entitled 'VLEs and the democratisation of e-learning', in which I will argue that although VLEs are  not the most exciting or innovative technology around, they have done a lot to democratise e-learning for many academics, in the same way that Microsoft products are often not the best, but the end-result is that they have brought computing to a much wider audience.

However, I think I am guilty of a lazy shorthand here, whereby I drop the word 'democratisation', with the assumption that it is necessarily  a good thing. This is not so - one could view terrorism for example as the democratisation of warfare. Some things are not, or should not, be susceptible to democratisation - talent is a good example. The plethora of reality TV shows (such as X-Factor, Pop Idol, Big Brother etc) can be presented as a democratisation of talent, or celebrity. But they rarely produce anything of quality. Talent, is by its nature, exclusive and undemocratic.

Blufr - an example

As a small example of what I was saying in my earlier post about letting the technology lead, take a look at a fun site called Blufr. The idea is simple - you are given a statement which could or could not be true and you have to state whether you believe it or not. But it's given a web 2.0 twist by showing how many people have been bluffed by this statement, and then you are given a score for each one you get correct. They're being coy about their scoring mechanism, but let us imagine that it is based on the number of people who have been bluffed, ie the more people who are fooled by a statement then the higher the score you get if you are correct.

Now, let's play the 'how could I use that in my course?' game. You could take the technology and create a database of your own statements in your subject area. Then you add them in to your VLE, and students get to informally test their knowledge, taking as many questions as they want. You can cash in and get your score whenever you want, so like in blufr, maybe you have a score board to throw in a bit of motivation. And now maybe you extend it out so that students can add their own bluff statements (maybe you make it part of an assessment that they have to create one). Again, you can make a bit of a lighthearted competition of it by assigning a score to the one that bluffs most people. Perhaps you could extend it again, so groups have to do the tests, and the scores are based on how few people get it wrong, so the incentive is to increase the overall understanding of the group, not the individual.

In e-learning terms it's got some potential - it promotes that informal, periodic testing of knowledge that both improves understanding and provides impetus, it has some inbuilt motivation to take part, it creates a social dynamic, and it's kinda fun.

Now it's not going to be a killer app or anything, just one of many tools. But my point is it would be reasonably useful, and I can make an educational justification for using it, but until this morning I didn't know I wanted a tool that could do this.

Love technology more

One of the common arguments I hear when discussing e-learning is that 'pedagogy should come first', and 'we shouldn't be enamoured by technology.' This is difficult to disagree with and everyone nods sagely when its said. However one of three responses occur to me when it's said:

i) "If I hear that again, I'll effing scream."

ii)"It's an excuse not to engage with technology, by claiming the higher ground of pedagogy."

iii) "No, no, no - we need to be enamoured by technology more. I don't sit around with a pile of pedagogies waiting for a technological breakthrough. Rather what happens is that I see a good technology and I think - I could use that to do X. For instance, I didn't know I wanted social bookmarking until I saw delicious, and then I instantly saw the educational possibilities."

Just to be contrary - Instead of creating a course by starting with learning objectives, or pedagogy, I wonder what it would be like to ask 'what are the ten coolest technologies?' and then construct a course around them. My guess is that it would be as pedagogically sound as the more worthy approaches and maybe a bit more fun. So, my new slogan is 'do the technology, the pedagogy will follow'. Expect to see it on t-shirts soon...

Broadcast review workshop

I hosted a workshop yesterday at the OU on the broadcast strategy, looking at how it relates to courses and pedagogy. A couple of things that came out:

i) I've been saying for a while that the boundary between content and technology has become blurred. I became more convinced of this today. Would you regard Google as a technology or a content company? This has implications for what we (the OU) think of as broadcast - it is as much about developing a tool as commissioning a piece of content.

ii) The whole long tail phenomenon is relevant here. The traditional broadcast model relies on a lot of people consuming the same thing, but as broadcast is reshaped by the net, it is more about a few people consuming a wider range of resources. There is an obvious trade-off here with the production quality of that resource and the applicability to you as an individual.

iii) The OU has partly defined itself by its relationship with broadcast - in many ways the personality of the institution was embodied in broadcast programmes and summer schools. The latter have declined dramatically and the former has undergone a serious change because of the internet. I think this is an exciting time to be around and shaping a new personality, but not everyone will feel the same.

iv) The traditional broadcast (and to an extent educational) model is built on a hierarchical, centralised relationship with one to many information. Much of internet activity is built around one to one, or one to some, interaction and is a more dynamic, interactive medium. In addition the web 2.0 developments have emphasised the democratisation of tools and content, with users adapting and creating their own resources. As well as utilising such technologies institutions that have been constructed around a hierarchical model need to rethink many of their practices, for instance a VLE is very much an institutional response to e-learning, but it may not be the only, or the best way, to meet the needs of learners.

Less is more (again)

I was at a meeting of our research group, TLRG, today. I presented on future research directions for VLEs (rather like Elizabeth Taylor and marriage, I can't resist doing these crytsal ball gazing exercises, even though I know something always comes along and makes them redundant). Talking to my colleague Adam Joinson, he mentioned he was doing research on social software looking at issues of privacy and trust. One point in particular interested me and that was a degree of ambiguity is preferable in such systems. For instance, when creating avatars, it helps if the avatar doesn't resemble the individual too closely, as this frees up behaviour online, and also in location systems, users feel as though their privacy is invaded with excessive detail. Saying 'I'm in Cardiff' is okay, but not 'I'm at this address...'

This goes somewhat counter to the natural instincts of developers and designers, which is always to make systems more detailed, more precise. It is a brave piece of design that specifies a level of ambiguity in a system. Like many things though it seems that less is often more.