The Ed Techie

Some 2.0 reality checks

The Pew Internet report  on Typology of ICT Users (thanks to John for sending me this) has some interesting findings. We do rather tend to get swept up in our little bubble around web 2.0 and modern usage of technology generally, but this paints a rather different picture. It has some great categories also: 'omnivores', 'lackluster veterans', 'light but satisfied', and my favourite which surely describes most of us at some stage 'connected but hassled'.

A few of the finding that caused a mild raise of the eyebrow:

Those who have ever gone online for no particular reason, just to pass the time - 62% (28% yesterday). This seems quite low to me.

Sent or received text messages (amongst cell phone users ) - 41%. Again quite low, I wonder if this might be different in Europe?

Have ever posted comments to a forum or website - 18%.

I think what this demonstrates is that we tend to think in terms of students, or people who want to be students, where these figures will be higher. There are plenty of adults for whom the technology has little impact on their jobs and don't really need to engage with it. Before critics jump on this and say that means we shouldn't adopt e-learning because it will alienate this audience, I think it is also true that once someone makes the decision to study they are also signing up to engage in different experiences and using ICT is one of those. One could just as easily look at how many adults engage in formal learning, where the figures would be low for the population as a whole, but that doesn't mean education is insignificant.

And then there was this piece, which I found via George Siemens: The Web 2.0 Bubble by Michael Hirschorn. There is a lot I agree about in the piece, and I like his phrase "Like “push,” “social media” is a functional advance pimped out as a revolution". In my book I was rather disparaging about the obsession with proclaiming every new technology as 'disruptive' whereas most change is actually  incremental, as the succession model suggests. And I also agree that "Social media has been around since the dawn of the Web" - in my book I said of social software "Given that the internet fosters dialogue and communication, one’s reaction to the development of social software could be ‘well of course there’s social software, that’s what the net is for.’ "

But I disagree with some of his conclusions. For instance, that the best 2.0 sites "facilitate behavior that people already engage in." I think this is rather stretching it, and missing the point. Did people really share photos the way Flickr allows before? Certainly most people didn't. And did people really engage become journalists before blogs? And did they really create and share video clips before You Tube? The sites themselves create the impetus and motivation for people to create because they can share. Even if you argue that they were doing these things before (taking photos, creating videos), then the scale of the operation now makes it something entirely different - scale matters.

I also think it rather concentrates on content and business models, and underplays the technological significance of web 2.0.  This can again be seen as evolution (of the open source model) rather than revolution, but the remix, reuse, small component, service based approach surely now wins out over the monolithic approach.

More significantly, I think it underestimates the cultural significance. Sure, something else will come along and Facebook may go the way of Netscape, but users will always expect a degree of control, decentralisation and democratisation now. The centralised, hierarchical model that is found in so many industries (broadcast, retail, education to name but three) is dead or at least quite unwell, and if that isn't a revolution I don't know what is.

I wish I'd thought of that #243

This is such an obvious, yet brilliant idea (via Beth's blog). Meredith Farkas had a book coming out (social software in libraries), and rather than have some dull cover foisted upon her by the publishers from their standard stock of photos, she set up a competition in Flickr. The winners got - a free copy of the book! While I'm sure it's a good book, it's obvious that the prize wasn't the motivation for entering, people just really enjoyed the chance to be creative. The pool can be found here. Below are a couple of my favourites:

And all are better than the publisher generated cover of my book:

Lazy graphic designers beware...

Reasons for not doing elearning 2.0

Tony Karrer recently did a post suggesting that educators should just do it and try using web 2.0 technologies in education. He's right of course, this stuff isn't rocket science, the tools are being used by millions of people everyday, so why do so many educators resist even thinking about them? This came back to me during the recent OU curriculum and technology conference. There were some good examples of part-time tutors who had 'just done it', but also a lot of resistance. This resistance isn't usually voiced as direct opposition, but is rather couched in 'reasons to be cautious'. Here are the main reasons to be cautious that I've come across, and for each why I think they're misfounded and what the (unkind) translation might be:

1. Quality - any 2.0 approach has a degree of 'letting go' associated with it. As academics, and particularly OU academics who have fought hard to overcome the distance education legitimacy deficit, any relinquising of quality control is hard to do.
   It's misfounded because - quality is important, but you need to focus on certain areas. It is worth creating some good quality content, and lots of good quality activities, but there is a trade-off between controlling all the content and allowing learners access to a wide range of material, and also very current material. It also assumes that the content out there (be it user generated or otherwise) is of lesser quality. This is not necessarily so. If the course is well designed it can accommodate a range of content and be much richer for it.
   Translation - I am experienced at producing content, and this is my default mode of operation, so don't want anything to do with an approach that undermines that.
2. Student experience - related to above, we haven't had the time to test all these technologies so can't be entirely sure of how they will hold up for large numbers of students.
   It's misfounded because - thousands of non-experts are using these technologies every day. They are designed to be easy to use and robust.
   Translation - education is different from everything else and must always have its own version of any tool.
3. Staff development - if we are to use any of this stuff we need a big programme of staff development first.
   It's misfounded because - errm, thousands of non-experts are using these technologies every day! The best way to learn about them is not to go on a two day workshop but to use them.
   Translation - I don't need to do anything because I haven't had the official training yet.
4. Pedagogical research - there isn't enough research on these approaches and technologies yet to know how to use them effectively.
   It's misfounded because - we won't have any research unless we use them, and besides we're the educators so if we can't think of good ways of using them who can?
   Translation - I don't need to do anything because there isn't enough research yet.

There are some other more valid reasons, which include 'I'm trying to but the institution is making it difficult!', but the above represent the four most common ones I've come across. I'm not entirely sure how to overcome them. One can do it by example, but I've done that with e-learning in general (when I created a course with 15,000 students in 1999) only to be met by 'ah, yes, but it wouldn't work in my subject area.' Just got to keep plugging away I guess.

Educator as DJ

James Cridland gave a good presentation today at the OU's internal curriculum and technology conference, talking about the Virgin radio site, and more significantly about the changing nature of broadcast. I'm presenting tomorrow on the broadcast strategy and so his talk had a lot of resonance with me. What struck me when listening to James was that radio now has to compete with the likes of LastFM, and indeed Virgin has a similar social networking site (which I must admit I was unaware of). Given that you can find the music you like and listen to a much greater range of stuff through the likes of LastFM, what makes people want to listen to broadcast radio? The answer is, I guess, the DJ. I wonder if there is an analogy between the tension between radio and LastFM and education and open educational resources here. Just as LastFM provides free content, but some people like a DJ to put context around it, so OER provides free educational content but the educator (or academic institution) puts it into context and provides guidance. So, educators are like DJs, but without so many annoying catchphrases.

Is blogging a good use of time?

Tony Karrer has been prompted by a couple of posts to consider whether use of web 2.0 technologies is viewed as wasting time by others. He asks:

Do people have enough time to use these tools? If so, does that mean that they are somehow not the people who are already "too busy" at their jobs? Are the only people who will use the tools exactly those people who the organization views as time wasters, tinkering about, etc.

Although he's talking about web 2.o technologies, I'll narrow it down to just blogging for some consideration. I have some sympathy with the people who think it is only for those with too much time on their hands, because I used to think the same.  Something along the lines of 'oh yes, it's fine for them to spend their whole day blogging, but I'm actually busy writing a course.' And I do still wonder how some people who have ten posts a day find time to do anything else. But of course I've come round in my thinking, even if I'm not the most prolific blogger on Technorati.

So, if you do think blogging is a waste of time, or you don't have enough time, let me try and convince you otherwise. Firstly, you should be prepared to put in some initial bootstrapping effort. Your blog won't be widely read overnight (if ever), and the paybacks I'm about to list need some critical mass of postings I think. It helps if you've got a project to specifically link to so you have some momentum behind it. For instance I was writing my VLE book when I started mine so I had lots of stuff in my head to get out.  There are lots of benefits in terms of reputation, marketing yourself, indirect payment (e.g. through consultancy) etc, but here I'm just going to concentrate on the ones relating to time.

i) You can direct people to your blog and save having to produce reports or documents. I often get in to conversations with people and they ask me to summarise things in an email and I simply send them to my blog, maybe with a specific tag e.g. 'look at the stuff I've written under the VLE tag'. It is probably still some way off, but in the future I would like to think that instead of producing a CV and letter of application for a job you could just send someone to your blog. That should give them a much better indication of whether they want to employ you.

ii) When you get in the habit it speeds up the process of recording your thoughts on events. I often sit in conferences or workshops thinking about the blog posting I will do (or sometimes actually doing it). This saves me having to write up notes afterwards and also helps me focus on what is important.

iii) It provides an easy dissemination point. For example I usually  put up my powerpoint on Slideshare and link it in my blog. A lot of people know this, so if they have missed a talk or want the slides from a talk they don't bother emailing me, they simply go to the blog.

iv) For the organisation it provides a knowledge transfer route. Now I'm not suggesting we do away with all workshops (biscuit suppliers need not fear for their trade), but an organisation that has a good set of regular bloggers has an efficient means of knowledge sharing which might be time consuming to realise in other ways.

So that's my reasons for how it repays the time spent on it, and that's not considering all the other benefits. I'm off to read my blog roll now...

New university model

I was at a meeting yesterday hosted by the OU which was exploring new models for the OU, and by implication higher education in general. There were some big hitters there including Stephen Heppell, Stowe Boyd, Jamais Cascio and Stuart Sim.

The resulting suggestion was a social space, with the emphasis on helping others to learn. Such a space is populated by remixable, flexible content and also by learning narratives that guide learners and a range of social connections such as mentors, peers, experts, etc. None of this is particularly surprising given the people there - the solution wasn't going to be a physical campus with lectures now was it.

The critical mass issue was significant for me. Such a system is very long tail - it meets the needs of the few people who want to learn about Ukrainian knitting patterns, radio programmes of the 1950s, the novels of William Boyd and the influence of Krazy Kat cartoons on modern culture. This is good, because such needs aren't met in any current system, but it really needs a large mass to support. And this is where the Catch 22 is - if you have the critical mass the system works well, but the system doesn't function until you get the critical mass. Sites such as YouTube could afford to be a bit more experimental, and just let their system grow since the investment on the part of the user was small. They could also populate it reasonably quickly with a mass of music videos. Learning is more complex, and thus getting the good content and the right connections is more difficult to establish.

Also, although the social networking stuff is important, I think the significance of content is underplayed in such a vision (I even got to use my 'content may not be everything' jibe I mentioned yesterday). For a lot of social networking sites, such as LastFM people don't go there primarily for the social networking, what they go for is the content (ie to be able to listen to a good range of music). This is enhanced (and to some extent enabled) by the network effects. In short they go for the content and stay for the social networking.

Anyway, I noticed a strange thing happening during the meeting. Normally my role is to be web 2.0/elearning/new technology evangelist, but in a room where I was an amateur at the evangelism stuff, I took on the 'devils advocate' role. Sometimes to my horror I found myself offering obstacles to the realisation of such a system. Why does this happen? So just for the record, I do believe such a system is viable (I just have a list of 'buts').

Why I'm not putting in an FP7 bid

A few of us have been working on a proposal for the new framework 7 funding from the European Commission. Our idea was around the central question of how do learners work in a world where content is free, can be reused and remixed. What type of learning environment is needed and how does this affect the learning process? After some discussions with people at the commission it became apparent that they weren't keen on proposals that focused on, or even mentioned, content. The feeling is that this was addressed in frameworks 5 and 6, which looked at learning objects. For us this meant we couldn't make a virtue of the openlearn work, which was central for us.

But more significantly I think the division between content and environment is not a valid one to make any more (if ever it was). In an RSS/AJAX world I find the distinction between tools and content is increasingly blurred. As educators are fond of pointing out 'content isn't everything', and I am fond of responding 'it may not be everything, but that doesn't mean it's nothing'. The interesting research question for us is the interplay between the two in a web 2.0 world. How do learners create, share, remix, subscribe, blend content in an environment that they create, share, remix, and blend? This is the key difference with e-learning 2.0 - what you do with content you do with the environment too. Initially you had the content and the environment fixed and packaged. Then there has been some loosening up in terms of content with more exploratory pedagogies. Now the central control over the environment is liberated also, so the key thing to explore is the interaction between the two.

Maybe the next round of funding will be more amenable to exploring this, but given the enormous effort it takes to put together a European bid, I won't bother this time around when it's clear that they are after something different.

I wrote that!

Someone has taken some old content I wrote for a course called T171 - You, your computer and the Net, which is available through the openlearn site and put it in Scribd. The course was written in 1998, and at the time hugely successful with 12,000 students. So it was funny to see the old content again. It made me reflect on what it's like to have content take on a life of its own. My old, ownership reaction kicked in initially and I asked myself if I should mind. But that passed immediately, of course I don't mind, as long as readers are aware that it's old stuff and you're not responsible for updating it. Still, I wonder if it will influence the way you write material when you know it may leave home and set up on its own one day.

Not entirely sure I get the point of Scribd I must say - it takes a doc and converts it to a form of PDF that can be embedded in a page. I get the point of doing that with a Powerpoint presentation (as with Slideshare), or with video (as with YouTube), but not really with text. But maybe I'm misssing something, so happy to be enlightened.

Horizontal and vertical social software

I've been having some discussions about Second Life, and firstly wondered why I didn't get it, then noticed that something of a SL backlash was starting. Clay Shirky has a good piece on why we shouldn't get too excited about SL, including the suggestion that SL promotes the old content is king idea (thanks to Adam Joinson for pointing me at this).

I am one of those many people who have tried SL and not got beyond the training island. I wonder why this is so, since I'm not a technophobe. Here are some reasons:

• Time - this is the big one for me, SL like all immersive games just requires a lot of time to get any return on investment. I think I can spend that time more fruitfully.
• So whatism? Someone suggested the other day that we 'could have a meeting in second life'. Yes, we could, but why would we do that, rather than just using FlashMeeting, say. It will take longer to learn, and when we do, it'll be errm, just like real life.
• Nice shiny surface. I think there is a temptation in SL to concentrate on the surface, ie that you are in SL, rather than the content of the interaction. As with above, had we held our meeting in SL we would have spent the whole meeting talking about why X was a seven foot mauve cat and not whatever it was we were supposed to be talking about. Compare that with the very in-depth discussion you get in blogs or discussion forums.
• I just haven't earned it yet, baby (apologies to Smiths fans). It took me several attempts to become a blogger, so maybe I just haven't given SL enough of a try yet and if I stuck with it, I'd want to spend all my time there.
• I'm a grown up/snob. Take your pick, part of me does slightly recoil from the whole role-playing, sci-fi, dungeons and dragons whiff that surrounds it.

As was noted in the recent Oxford survey not that many students were using SL (or the even more fantasy World of Warcraft - I have no desire to be a Draenei alchemist, I am struggling to be a human educational technologist) . But I know some people do really like them, so my theory is that there are horizontal and vertical social software. Horizontal ones are those that have a relatively low threshold to engagement - Flickr, 43Things, Wikipedia, LastFM, delicious, etc are all excellent examples of these. Indeed that has been key to their success - they can utilise the benefits of the network without requiring intensive contributions from all individuals. Even browsing adds to the value of the network. That is not to say that some individuals don't spend a lot of time using them - there are many Flickr addicts out there I'm sure.

And then there are vertical social software, such as SL, WoW, and errrm, some more that I'm sure will come to me. These have a high threshold to participation, and users tend to spend a lot of time engaged with them. The consequence of this is that they need to meet a range of needs, hence SL can be used for work, socialising, shopping, etc. But it means they are unlikely to get the real critical mass required for mass networking seen in the horizontal social software tools. Put simply, I can explain Flickr, YouTube, etc to my dad - he will never get SecondLife.

No surprises for guessing what I think are the more interesting from an educational perspective. I think some very specific uses for SL may be found, in the same way Sim City has been used in some courses, but as a general tool, I'd take most of the horizontal ones any day.

Web 2.0 usage at Oxford

Those good people at TALL have done a survey of web 2.0 usage amongst their distance ed students. Dave White blogs about it, with a link to the results. Here are some things I took from it:

• Overall web 2.0 usage isn't as high as you might think given how much some of us talk about it. I don't think this should be that surprising, and before all the naysayers cry 'told you so!' it is worth noting that for some tools it is very high, and it is going to grow rapidly (for example, imagine if this survey had come out a year ago and had included YouTube).
• There is a pretty linear decline in usage across the age ranges (see Figure 3 in the results). Again, not too surprising, but as that youngest group moves up, imagine what the usage will be.
• The big winners in technology terms were wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace, Skype, instant messaging and blogs. Perhaps surprising amongst the lower end of usage was SecondLife, Social bookmarking and Flickr.
• A lot of the usage is social, with wikipedia probably doing the best for study use. Does this mean they aren't useful in education, or that students haven't made the transfer yet, or that the institution doesn't really provide a route in for them to be used?
• Blogs are pretty well read. I know us bloggers like to think they're the new information source, and it does seem they have really become an established part of people's reading pattern (reinforcing the point I was making in an earlier post). This applied to students and teachers.

Of course there are all sorts of caveats that go with such a survey - how typical are Oxford students, these were distance ed people so how transferable are the results to campus students, etc. But well done to TALL for actually get some data on this, rather than just relying on rhetoric like, ahem, some of us do. It will be interesting to see what will be the big changes in the next couple of years. My guess is you'll see an overall increase as they predict across the board, but there will also be one or two technologies which reach a tipping point. My guess is that SecondLife won't be one of these, because the barrier to entry (in terms of just the amount of time it requires to get a reward) is too high. I think social bookmarking might be one, particularly as it begins to relate to study more.