David Wiley spoke at the LORNet conference (Nov, 2006) in Montreal about the challenges of ‘openness’ in education. The concept of openness not only relates to content but relationships and ideas. Openess is the cornerstone of of online education…free and open access that enables learning, creativity and personalisation.
David contends that not a lot has really changed in teaching (generally across all sectors of education and training) since the introduction of ICTs because implementation of ICTs has not been transformative but used to replace existing practices. His metaphor of playing water polo by replacing the water with horses would be like ’swimming on horseback’. He says that our goals and methodologies for teaching are guilded by years of traditions that must change in order to leverage new and emerging technologies. The democratisation of learning where power shifts to ‘user choice and control’ is possible if the right policies and support can be enabled.
David points to some interesting examples of ‘open’ initiatives. The Science Commons ‘ is but one. Why haven’t we got an Education Commons?
“Numerous scientists have pointed out the irony that right at the historical moment when we have the technologies to permit worldwide availability and distributed process of scientific data, broadening collaboration and accelerating the pace and depth of discovery…..we are busy locking up that data and preventing the use of correspondingly advanced technologies on knowledge.”John Wilbanks, Executive Director, Science Commons
The Yahoo Answers service is another example of people seeking answers from their peers as a collective, collaborative and open initiative. This service provides often immediate and well considered answers. Wikipedia, I guess, is really another similar service that is free (more than 140 million articles are currently available)
Finally, David asks the question, will in the future, your ability to get a job (say) be determined more by reputation than by degree? There are already a number of people whose reputation and profile have been significantly increased by their participation in the blogosphere and given the rapid proliferation of communities of practice this may be one example of credentials that can be used for career advancement.
4 Comments
Let me suggest that the greatest change we’re noticing at the moment is to media in all its forms, of which education, as an industry is a largish subset. So rationally the new and growing industries, which are offering vast employment opprotunities are in the area of what we would call new, and interactive, media.
So while professors beat their breasts about the develuation of their degrees and how they’re never truly appreciated, the ambitious minds are out buildng their open campuses, and learning as fast as they can, and sharing it. One example is sitepoints forums, where one can always find around 300 members and three times as many guests. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/
And while a professors degree might offer a stable emploment, a good reputation and opportunities for a ‘deeper understanding of the old divisions of knowledge’, spare a thought for one of sitepoint’s 18 year old members who found that the easiest way to get his old man to stop insisting that he “get a real job” was simply to offer him employment.
There is an Education Commons - which admittedly has been established by SUN rather than by the education sector and is US focused - but nevertheless it’s an attempt to bring together the various groups in education for their mutual benefit. See it at http://www.educationcommons.org/
Garry - great post. The concept of an Education Commons is one that would be worth exploring. I think there are probably small scale examples around of something not too distant from the notion, but you might be right that there is as yet no concerted international move in this direction as yet. I know it is something that my own organisation, LT Scotland (www.ltscotland.org.uk) is already thinking through a similar idea in relation to Glow (www.glowscotland.org.uk) but it would be great to be able to get involved in a wider version.
As a minor supplementary, I agree with most of what Simon says above but I don’t agree that education is a subset, largish or otherwise, of ‘media’ - I agree that they intersect in significant places, but there are aspects of education that have nothing to do with media as such (although, I guess, the ‘media’ portion is getting bigger every day with the growth of Web 2.0 and the recognition of its importance within education globally).
Hope you are well.
Gary, this is an important area for discussion, and I’m heartened by John’s words. I am currently doing some digging (soul searching?) on this issue to help formulate some directions and offer the following thoughts:
If we are talking about “free and open access that enables learning, creativity and personalisation” then in using the same ‘commons’ metaphor I lean towards a ‘knowledge commons’ rather than the other variations that are generally discussed, such as learning commons or education commons.
For me this allows knowledge to be the driving factor, and have all other things shape around that, particularly all the work being done on reshaping learning spaces, both physically and online, and reshaping of the role of libraries, school networks, VLE, Web 2.0. We are crafting a new blend - and some, like the Scots, are well down the pathway.
I see such a battle between groups - division of knowledge as Simon describes it. In my world people are are busy pushing their own disciplinary barrows, pulling down time-honoured school libraries, and building IT hegemonies - as if that is the future solution for quality learning! We must be crossdisciplinary, and take the best facets of knowledge making into our future. I agree that means lots of review and development, and collaboration.
I think we can wrap it all up nicely in a Knowledge Commons. What I have in mind I haven’t yet seen written about anywhere, so I’m planning a ‘white paper’ around this some time soon.
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