Last week I posted about Lawrence Lessig being on the Colbert Report talking about his new book. During the interview Colbert, tongue-in-cheek of course, dared his audience to remix the interview. Well, last night Colbert played his own remix of the interview, which was great. Today I went to YouTube to see how many people posted a remixed version of the interview and counted 16. Here are four of my favorites
Last night I posted a link to a clip on YouTube where Lawrence Lessig was on. This sparked a conversation between a colleague and myself on Lessig's point of view and copyright in general. With her permission the conversation is posted here (personal asides and misspellings included). I'd be interested in hearing your perspective.
Jeff: Lawrence Lessig on Colbert. http://tinyurl.com/8weu6m. "Isn't that like saying arson laws are turning our kids into pyromaniacs?"
Ashley: I saw that episode. :)
Jeff: what did you think?
Ashley: Richard is sitting here complaining that you didn't comment on his status when he had it say something about Lessig. I didn't see that status either so ignore him.
Richard also points out that the youtube clip is illegal
I think that he's absolutely right... not Colbert on the arson bit I do believe that people's creations should be protected, but not to the extreme that it's been taken too. And as long as the original is cited (linked back to or whatever) then what does it matter.
Richard also says that he thinks Lessig would have done better on that daily show
I see that you're Facebook friends with Sam Richards. Isn't he awesome?
Ashley: Wait I missed a sentence in what I was saying. I do believe that Lessig is completely right about "remixing" as it were. However, I also believe that people's ideas should be protected. Though, it has been taken to the extreme. It's at the point where I"m afraid to put something out there for fear it's already been done and I'm going to be sued!
Sorry, class drained me. I hope that made more sense.
Jeff: A common misconception, fostered in part by Lessig himself, is that he feels there should be no copyright protection. What he really argues for is that the gray area that allows for creativity be open for people to do something with. He has a 4-part grid explaining "protected" and "fair use" the he showed during his keynote.
I did not see Richard's updates. I'll check my friend's list to see if he is on it.
Jeff: The point Richard makes (the Colbert clip on YouTube is illegal) is correct and also supports the argument Lessig made on the show: the law as it is was written for a different time.
Why do Colbert and Comedy Central not insist it be taken down? In fact why are there multitudes of clips there? Because having these clips there actually increases interest in the show and therefore drives up the show's revenue.
The laws were written for a text based medium where making copies did infringe in the rights of the owner. These digital copies now actually help to enhance the owners status and profitability. Yest by definition the law was broken.
Jeff: Ashley, you mind if I post a transcript of our conversation on my blog? I think there is value here. Feel free to do the same.
Ashley: Feel free to do so.
Jeff: Lawrence Lessig on Colbert. http://tinyurl.com/8weu6m. "Isn't that like saying arson laws are turning our kids into pyromaniacs?"
Ashley: I saw that episode. :)
Jeff: what did you think?
Ashley: Richard is sitting here complaining that you didn't comment on his status when he had it say something about Lessig. I didn't see that status either so ignore him.
Richard also points out that the youtube clip is illegal
I think that he's absolutely right... not Colbert on the arson bit I do believe that people's creations should be protected, but not to the extreme that it's been taken too. And as long as the original is cited (linked back to or whatever) then what does it matter.
Richard also says that he thinks Lessig would have done better on that daily show
I see that you're Facebook friends with Sam Richards. Isn't he awesome?
Ashley: Wait I missed a sentence in what I was saying. I do believe that Lessig is completely right about "remixing" as it were. However, I also believe that people's ideas should be protected. Though, it has been taken to the extreme. It's at the point where I"m afraid to put something out there for fear it's already been done and I'm going to be sued!
Sorry, class drained me. I hope that made more sense.
Jeff: A common misconception, fostered in part by Lessig himself, is that he feels there should be no copyright protection. What he really argues for is that the gray area that allows for creativity be open for people to do something with. He has a 4-part grid explaining "protected" and "fair use" the he showed during his keynote.
I did not see Richard's updates. I'll check my friend's list to see if he is on it.
Jeff: The point Richard makes (the Colbert clip on YouTube is illegal) is correct and also supports the argument Lessig made on the show: the law as it is was written for a different time.
Why do Colbert and Comedy Central not insist it be taken down? In fact why are there multitudes of clips there? Because having these clips there actually increases interest in the show and therefore drives up the show's revenue.
The laws were written for a text based medium where making copies did infringe in the rights of the owner. These digital copies now actually help to enhance the owners status and profitability. Yest by definition the law was broken.
Jeff: Ashley, you mind if I post a transcript of our conversation on my blog? I think there is value here. Feel free to do the same.
Ashley: Feel free to do so.
If you know me, you know that my blogging, up to recently, has been sporadic at best. Like many others I struggled not only with finding my voice but, also with figuring out the point of it all. What did I have to say that was worth reading? Who would want to read it? With many other people out there much smarter than me already blogging about the things I would blog about why should I bother? What purpose would it serve? Me? Others?
Recently I made the commitment to have another go at blogging partly spurred on by a book I'm reading on economics, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson. Anderson, editor in chief of Wired, talks about the economics of a world in which virtually anything is available and how within this ubiquitous availability there seems to be a market for everything. What Anderson found in his research is that the distribution curve virtually never drops to zero no matter how much content is out there. And it keeps being added. Someone, somewhere, out there is interested.
Now writing a blog for a single reader does seem pointless. But what if this reader was interested enough in what I had to say to want to hire me to do some work? And what if they were in a position to do so? Now, with virtually no overhead and only an investment of time, I have a consulting opportunity. It gets interesting. And what if another person becomes interested and this leads to another opportunity, say a publication or speaking engagement? It begins to add up. Think about it. If maintaining a blog only leads to one connection a year what does that look like over the course of your career? Pretty good, huh?
Recently I made the commitment to have another go at blogging partly spurred on by a book I'm reading on economics, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson. Anderson, editor in chief of Wired, talks about the economics of a world in which virtually anything is available and how within this ubiquitous availability there seems to be a market for everything. What Anderson found in his research is that the distribution curve virtually never drops to zero no matter how much content is out there. And it keeps being added. Someone, somewhere, out there is interested.
Now writing a blog for a single reader does seem pointless. But what if this reader was interested enough in what I had to say to want to hire me to do some work? And what if they were in a position to do so? Now, with virtually no overhead and only an investment of time, I have a consulting opportunity. It gets interesting. And what if another person becomes interested and this leads to another opportunity, say a publication or speaking engagement? It begins to add up. Think about it. If maintaining a blog only leads to one connection a year what does that look like over the course of your career? Pretty good, huh?
I found some compelling evidence for incorporating social media into higher education in an unlikely source: a book about politics. The book, Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, & the Future of American Politics, puts forth the argument that, roughly, ever four decades we undergo a major political makeover. Incumbents are overwhelming ushered out and a new majority party is placed in charge. Naturally, this grassroots uprising is driven by a new generation coming of age. And interestingly enough, each generation leverages the new technology of its time to drive the change. For example, Generation Xers leveraged television as a primary source of information in a way that their Baby Boomer parents used radio.
The authors, Morley Winograd & Michael Hais, lay out in great detail how the current generation, the millennials, leveraged internet-based communication technology to drive the latest major political shift culminating with the election of Barack Obama.
But what does this have to do with higher education? The answer to this lies in where Millennials are going for information and how they make decisions and act upon that information. For example, in their report of the 2006 election the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported that Millennials are twice as likely to use the net to get political information. The report goes on to suggest that within the next several election cycles the net will become the source of political news. (Rainie & Horrigan 2007). Even when they turn to traditional broadcast sites, such as television programs, they are accessing them online whenever possible. The authors point out how Barack Obama's appearance on ESPN Monday Night Football became a YouTube sensation.
Millennials also rely heavily upon each other to find out what's happening. Of particular note are the "Influentials", those individuals whose opinions matter to a lot of others. Winograd & Hais detail how the Democratic Party leveraged the opinions of the Influentials to spur the Millennials into action. This was done through friending in MySpace and Facebook, which had an exponential effect on membership growth. Participants were invited to check out interactive web spaces where you could help shape the platform or get a widget that you could drop into your own web space. Participants were encouraged to create multimedia testimonials and place them on YouTube. And offered other ways to get involved with the campaign. The result was an energized block of voters that generated a lot of buzz around the candidates. Additionally, record amounts of campaign contributions were received via internet participation, not through large donations but through the contributions of a large amount of people.
The increase in access to broadband is going to further enhance the ability of Millinnials to seek out their preferences via the internet. It is incumbent upon us to make sure that we are available where they are from recruitment through graduation.
The authors, Morley Winograd & Michael Hais, lay out in great detail how the current generation, the millennials, leveraged internet-based communication technology to drive the latest major political shift culminating with the election of Barack Obama.
But what does this have to do with higher education? The answer to this lies in where Millennials are going for information and how they make decisions and act upon that information. For example, in their report of the 2006 election the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported that Millennials are twice as likely to use the net to get political information. The report goes on to suggest that within the next several election cycles the net will become the source of political news. (Rainie & Horrigan 2007). Even when they turn to traditional broadcast sites, such as television programs, they are accessing them online whenever possible. The authors point out how Barack Obama's appearance on ESPN Monday Night Football became a YouTube sensation.
Millennials also rely heavily upon each other to find out what's happening. Of particular note are the "Influentials", those individuals whose opinions matter to a lot of others. Winograd & Hais detail how the Democratic Party leveraged the opinions of the Influentials to spur the Millennials into action. This was done through friending in MySpace and Facebook, which had an exponential effect on membership growth. Participants were invited to check out interactive web spaces where you could help shape the platform or get a widget that you could drop into your own web space. Participants were encouraged to create multimedia testimonials and place them on YouTube. And offered other ways to get involved with the campaign. The result was an energized block of voters that generated a lot of buzz around the candidates. Additionally, record amounts of campaign contributions were received via internet participation, not through large donations but through the contributions of a large amount of people.
The increase in access to broadband is going to further enhance the ability of Millinnials to seek out their preferences via the internet. It is incumbent upon us to make sure that we are available where they are from recruitment through graduation.
Math 021 is a general education course meaning lots of students, with varying abilities, in lots of course sections. James Sellers, Department Head, would like all sections of Math 021 to have their quizzes in ANGEL and to have the students take their quizzes at the Pollock Testing Center. The purpose of this is to enable Math 021 to function as a mastery course, students can take the quizzes at their own pace and finish up the course as early as they can. This would free up the instructors to focus on the students who truly need their assistance along the way. Additionally, having the tests online meant that class and practicum time traditionally taken up by in-class quizzes was now available for teaching and personal support.
The goal for the fall semester was to pilot this process in four course sections, each with approximately 50 students. In Math 021 there are 12 quizzes (10 questions each) and the students can take each quiz up to three times. The original plan called for the quizzes to have unique start and end dates. The students could take the quiz u to three times within this window. If they demonstrated mastery by scoring an 80% or above the quiz would lock and a new one would become available. If they failed to achieve mastery they would be directed to make an appointment with the instructor. If they did not take the quiz in the allotted time they would get a score of zero and the next quiz would open. Students would schedule appointments to take a quiz using Pollock's online calendar. James also wanted to include a pretest survey prior to the semester and an exit survey after the last quiz.
Stan Smith, Associate Professor, Math 021, built the quizzes in Diploma, an online Math textbook tool, and published them in an ANGEL Master Course. From there they were copied into the four sections. I created the master course and assisted stan with quiz training and setup.
We ran into issues due to limitations within ANGEL and with the testing center protocol. Using the Action Editor ANGEL could hide/release quizzes based on student mastery. However, ANGEL could not hide/release quizzes based on 3 unsuccessful attempts. Nor could it release a new quiz after the current quiz time window expired. This occurred because our Action Editor has limited functionality because we need to disable the Automate tab due to load issues. The solution was to manually set the start and end dates and to manually review the quiz results to see which students did not achieve mastery.
There was an additional complication regarding scheduling the testing center. Because of demand a set number of seats in Pollock had to be dedicated to Math 021. Also, when the scheduling system was set up it did not take mastery quizzing, or multiple attempts at one quiz into account. As a result, we needed to create 3 unique instances of each quiz in order for the students to schedule a time. Stan would generate a list based on the Item analysis in ANGEL and Will Kerr, manager, Pollock, would set the students parameters so they could schedule appropriately.
Also, rather than the ANGEL Gradebook recording the student's best quiz score, the original parameter, Stan wanted it to record a 1 if the student mastered the quiz and a zero if the student did not master it. This is not possible with the current ANGEL settings. Again, we would need the agents available in the automate tab. The solutin was to keep recording the scores.
We were able to achieve the original goal of have the students take all their quizzes in Pollock.
The pilot will run again this spring. The quiz settings are established and workarounds put in place for any limitations within ANGEL. AIS and Pollock are working together to recode the communication process between ANGEL and the testing center so that student permissions no longer have to be manually set. The goal is to have this in place after the ANGEL upgrade at the end of the spring semester.
The goal for the fall semester was to pilot this process in four course sections, each with approximately 50 students. In Math 021 there are 12 quizzes (10 questions each) and the students can take each quiz up to three times. The original plan called for the quizzes to have unique start and end dates. The students could take the quiz u to three times within this window. If they demonstrated mastery by scoring an 80% or above the quiz would lock and a new one would become available. If they failed to achieve mastery they would be directed to make an appointment with the instructor. If they did not take the quiz in the allotted time they would get a score of zero and the next quiz would open. Students would schedule appointments to take a quiz using Pollock's online calendar. James also wanted to include a pretest survey prior to the semester and an exit survey after the last quiz.
Stan Smith, Associate Professor, Math 021, built the quizzes in Diploma, an online Math textbook tool, and published them in an ANGEL Master Course. From there they were copied into the four sections. I created the master course and assisted stan with quiz training and setup.
We ran into issues due to limitations within ANGEL and with the testing center protocol. Using the Action Editor ANGEL could hide/release quizzes based on student mastery. However, ANGEL could not hide/release quizzes based on 3 unsuccessful attempts. Nor could it release a new quiz after the current quiz time window expired. This occurred because our Action Editor has limited functionality because we need to disable the Automate tab due to load issues. The solution was to manually set the start and end dates and to manually review the quiz results to see which students did not achieve mastery.
There was an additional complication regarding scheduling the testing center. Because of demand a set number of seats in Pollock had to be dedicated to Math 021. Also, when the scheduling system was set up it did not take mastery quizzing, or multiple attempts at one quiz into account. As a result, we needed to create 3 unique instances of each quiz in order for the students to schedule a time. Stan would generate a list based on the Item analysis in ANGEL and Will Kerr, manager, Pollock, would set the students parameters so they could schedule appropriately.
Also, rather than the ANGEL Gradebook recording the student's best quiz score, the original parameter, Stan wanted it to record a 1 if the student mastered the quiz and a zero if the student did not master it. This is not possible with the current ANGEL settings. Again, we would need the agents available in the automate tab. The solutin was to keep recording the scores.
We were able to achieve the original goal of have the students take all their quizzes in Pollock.
The pilot will run again this spring. The quiz settings are established and workarounds put in place for any limitations within ANGEL. AIS and Pollock are working together to recode the communication process between ANGEL and the testing center so that student permissions no longer have to be manually set. The goal is to have this in place after the ANGEL upgrade at the end of the spring semester.
Penn State's Technology Learning Assistants (TLAs) are student technology
tutors who work one-on-one with instructors to help them obtain the
skills necessary to create blogs, podcasts, work with digital media,
use Breeze, and ANGEL. Over the fall 07 and spring 08 semesters the TLA
program received 98 requests for consultations from instructors
resulting in 160 total consultations. Over the last year we added 6 new
TLAs to the program. For the fall 08 semester we added an additional
6 new TLAs and have a working staff of 10. We broadened the reach of
the TLA program to recruit student tutors from all disciplines. As a
result we added TLAs from the college of agriculture, liberal arts,
and HDFS in addition to our student's from INSYS and IST.
I projected around 60 unique requests from instructors for the fall semester, six per TLA. The majority of our consultations are about ANGEL and I did not expect this to change. However, I did expect to see an increase in the number of requests for other ETS services in particular blogs, podcasting, and Adobe Connect. I based my projection on two factors: the increase of requests concerning these services last semester and the increase in the visibility of these services. I also noticed that several of our requests for consultations regarding ANGEL morphed into additional consultations about these services, particularly blogs. Our marketing plan was sound based on the results from last year. We sent out two faculty recruitment notices (9/8 and 10/13). The notices were sent out via the UP edition of Faculty/Staff Newswire, TechNews, TLT News and the ANGEL Community Hub. Additionally, TLA services were mentioned during ITS training events.
We received 40 requests for consultations from faculty this fall, two-thirds of what was projected. I believe this was the case because we did not upgrade ANGEL as we normally due at the end of the spring semester. These requests resulted in 66 consultation sessions with faculty, a total of 77.5 hours. Consultations on ANGEL were the most popular request breaking down as follows:
We also consulted on the following topics:
For the spring semester I added four new TLAs (two from Security and Risk Analysis, one from Health and Human Development, and one from IST). We will pair these with four returning TLAs (two from IST, one from HHD, and one from Liberal Arts). Alex Kozak, the lead TLA will be graduating this spring and Gavin Grissamore will replace him. The lead TLA is responsible for assigning faculty requests to the TLAs, handling any priority requests, and keeping me up to date with status reports. Training for the new TLAs will take place over the first month of the semester. They will be trained on consulting skills, ANGEL, Adobe Connect, blogs, podcasting, and streaming media. Consultation requests traditionally drop by a third from fall to spring and I am projecting between 25 and 30 unique requests this spring. We will market the TLA program to faculty and the beginning of the semester and again at the midpoint. The returning TLAs will handle faculty requests until the new TLAs are trained.The TLAs may also be asked to support the symposium by providing roving assistance to attendees as well as manning a technical support desk.
I projected around 60 unique requests from instructors for the fall semester, six per TLA. The majority of our consultations are about ANGEL and I did not expect this to change. However, I did expect to see an increase in the number of requests for other ETS services in particular blogs, podcasting, and Adobe Connect. I based my projection on two factors: the increase of requests concerning these services last semester and the increase in the visibility of these services. I also noticed that several of our requests for consultations regarding ANGEL morphed into additional consultations about these services, particularly blogs. Our marketing plan was sound based on the results from last year. We sent out two faculty recruitment notices (9/8 and 10/13). The notices were sent out via the UP edition of Faculty/Staff Newswire, TechNews, TLT News and the ANGEL Community Hub. Additionally, TLA services were mentioned during ITS training events.
We received 40 requests for consultations from faculty this fall, two-thirds of what was projected. I believe this was the case because we did not upgrade ANGEL as we normally due at the end of the spring semester. These requests resulted in 66 consultation sessions with faculty, a total of 77.5 hours. Consultations on ANGEL were the most popular request breaking down as follows:
- ANGEL Overview - 9 requests
- Gradebook - 9 requests
- Copy/Import course content - 2 requests
- Quizzes, drop boxes, HTML editor, student views, and groups - 1 request each
We also consulted on the following topics:
- Building webpages - 5 requests
- Powerpoint - 3 requests
- Blogs - 2 requests
- Podcasting, web 2.0 overview, google docs, Flickr, Excel, Gmail, Webmail, listserv, scanning documents, MS Office, setting up an office network, and upgrading a computer - 1 request each.
For the spring semester I added four new TLAs (two from Security and Risk Analysis, one from Health and Human Development, and one from IST). We will pair these with four returning TLAs (two from IST, one from HHD, and one from Liberal Arts). Alex Kozak, the lead TLA will be graduating this spring and Gavin Grissamore will replace him. The lead TLA is responsible for assigning faculty requests to the TLAs, handling any priority requests, and keeping me up to date with status reports. Training for the new TLAs will take place over the first month of the semester. They will be trained on consulting skills, ANGEL, Adobe Connect, blogs, podcasting, and streaming media. Consultation requests traditionally drop by a third from fall to spring and I am projecting between 25 and 30 unique requests this spring. We will market the TLA program to faculty and the beginning of the semester and again at the midpoint. The returning TLAs will handle faculty requests until the new TLAs are trained.The TLAs may also be asked to support the symposium by providing roving assistance to attendees as well as manning a technical support desk.
This is a video response to Cole's second question concerning community.
My colleagues and I have been grappling with the idea of what it means to be a literate person in the new millennium. The discussion began in the fall and has carried through the Digital Commons tailgate and the latest All-ID meeting. It's been an interesting and lively discussion in part because we're all coming at it from different perspectives and are arriving at an understanding that is multifaceted to say the least. What follows is an attempt at organizing my thoughts into a coherent understanding of what I think of when I think of 21st literacy.
Digital Literacy is an understanding of how we communicate in the 21st century where conversations are very likely to take place in multimodal formats using personal, mobile devices in conjunction with collaborative webs tools. The definition of digital literacy is similar to the definition of literacy as designated by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which states, "'Literacy' is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts." The shift occurs at the end where "printed and written materials"" are replaced or supplanted by multimedia formats such as video, audio and images used in conjunction with text in an electronic format. So a definition of digital literacy could be "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use multimedia materials in varying contexts.
Being digitally literate requires the ability to both consume and create information using digital media, both hardware and software. Hardware items include computers but, perhaps more importantly, personal mobile devices such as cell phones, personal digital assistants, and iPods and other MP3 players. Hardware items also encompass the means of transporting data such as mobile broadband networks and bandwidth limitations. Due to their cost and improvements in the user-interface and application capabilities, personal mobile devices are quickly becoming the preferred communication platform. Software primarily refers to the collaborative web-based tools that are, for the most part, free and require no installation of an application or drivers on the part of the user.
What are the characteristics of Digital Conversations? Instead of a one-way conversation that was primarily text based, new conversations now take place that combine multiple modes of communication including movies, images, audio, and text. These conversations involve participants who are actively involved in the information creation and response process where they build upon or interpret each other. People respond to each other by taking the original content, interpreting it, and then creating a new meaning and making it available for additional review and interpretation. These conversations tend to take place in open forums where anyone can participate. Social networks are then formed around people with similar interests.
As educators we need to understand the interrelationships between user-hardware-software that enable this type of conversation to take place. This involves an understanding of both the hardware, in particular the trend of hardware to become smaller, more personal, and handle increasing amounts of computing power, as well as the web-based software applications that enable multi-modal kinds of conversations. We also need to begin to shift perspective from a conversation being organized around a single application to an network organized around the interest of its members.
Digital Literacy is an understanding of how we communicate in the 21st century where conversations are very likely to take place in multimodal formats using personal, mobile devices in conjunction with collaborative webs tools. The definition of digital literacy is similar to the definition of literacy as designated by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which states, "'Literacy' is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts." The shift occurs at the end where "printed and written materials"" are replaced or supplanted by multimedia formats such as video, audio and images used in conjunction with text in an electronic format. So a definition of digital literacy could be "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use multimedia materials in varying contexts.
Being digitally literate requires the ability to both consume and create information using digital media, both hardware and software. Hardware items include computers but, perhaps more importantly, personal mobile devices such as cell phones, personal digital assistants, and iPods and other MP3 players. Hardware items also encompass the means of transporting data such as mobile broadband networks and bandwidth limitations. Due to their cost and improvements in the user-interface and application capabilities, personal mobile devices are quickly becoming the preferred communication platform. Software primarily refers to the collaborative web-based tools that are, for the most part, free and require no installation of an application or drivers on the part of the user.
What are the characteristics of Digital Conversations? Instead of a one-way conversation that was primarily text based, new conversations now take place that combine multiple modes of communication including movies, images, audio, and text. These conversations involve participants who are actively involved in the information creation and response process where they build upon or interpret each other. People respond to each other by taking the original content, interpreting it, and then creating a new meaning and making it available for additional review and interpretation. These conversations tend to take place in open forums where anyone can participate. Social networks are then formed around people with similar interests.
As educators we need to understand the interrelationships between user-hardware-software that enable this type of conversation to take place. This involves an understanding of both the hardware, in particular the trend of hardware to become smaller, more personal, and handle increasing amounts of computing power, as well as the web-based software applications that enable multi-modal kinds of conversations. We also need to begin to shift perspective from a conversation being organized around a single application to an network organized around the interest of its members.
This video blog was done in response to Cole Camplese's video posting asking, "How do you define community?" For me, the definition of what makes a community has not changed from the one anthropologists have been using for over a hundred years. That is, a community is a collection of individuals who are held together by common interests and proximity. Well, at least the first part of that statement has not changed. But what has changed is the notion of proximity.
Originally proximity meant geography. In order to be a member of a community you had to reside close enough to one another to experience the sense of intimacy required that transforms a collective into a community. Over time advances in travel and communication technologies allowed us to expand our notions of space and time. For example, I can travel by car or plane to meet with other members of my community. Or we could write letters and talk on the phone and sustain that sense of being connected.
Then the world wide web came along and, in some sense, obliterated the constraints of space and time. It's immediacy gratifies us. It makes it possible for me to feel just as close with other members of my community who are spread around the globe as I feel with the people my office adjoins.
Originally proximity meant geography. In order to be a member of a community you had to reside close enough to one another to experience the sense of intimacy required that transforms a collective into a community. Over time advances in travel and communication technologies allowed us to expand our notions of space and time. For example, I can travel by car or plane to meet with other members of my community. Or we could write letters and talk on the phone and sustain that sense of being connected.
Then the world wide web came along and, in some sense, obliterated the constraints of space and time. It's immediacy gratifies us. It makes it possible for me to feel just as close with other members of my community who are spread around the globe as I feel with the people my office adjoins.
The challenges of adapting a course management system to the Web 2.0 (soon to be 3.0) world are the same whether you use an open-source CMS (Sakai) or a product (ANGEL). Each wrestles with how to enhance the user experience by updating the interface to reflect the simplicity of the social and collaborative tools available off the web. There is the challenge of getting the technology out of the way so the focus can be on creativity. Plus there is the pressure to open up ecosystems that are traditionally closed to enable cross-disciplinary and cross-university interaction. Underlying all of these is the subtle but critical shift of focus from content to people.
With this shift comes a re-focusing of what education means. It seems that we are returning to the idea of John Dewey who thought the purpose of education was to create good citizens. To provide our students with the things they need to be productive members of society. We are beginning to once again see beyond a single course, or even a field of study to include the development of life skills as part of the process. Not that this ever completely went away; it just got lost somewhere. Something that was stored away with the best intentions of getting back to only to be forgotten in the rush to keep up on things.
With this shift comes a re-focusing of what education means. It seems that we are returning to the idea of John Dewey who thought the purpose of education was to create good citizens. To provide our students with the things they need to be productive members of society. We are beginning to once again see beyond a single course, or even a field of study to include the development of life skills as part of the process. Not that this ever completely went away; it just got lost somewhere. Something that was stored away with the best intentions of getting back to only to be forgotten in the rush to keep up on things.
