Registration for TTIX 2010 has just opened, so visit the site now and sign up for free. The conference runs June 10 & 11 in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is a great little city in a beautiful environment.

Hope to see you there!

On Thursday I shared an hour with Terri Rowenhorst of NROC introducing folks at WCET 2009 to open education and some of the ideas and directions orbiting around it. Mine was just a half-hour pres, and didn’t get into some of the meatier bits that interest me; nonetheless the slides and video may be of interest:

• “Openness as a Catalyst for Education” slides on SlideShare
• “Openness as a Catalyst for Education” video on ustream

You may have already heard some of the Twitter buzz about Chris Lott’s presentation, “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis”, so here are links to his slides, video, and wiki:

• “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis” video on ustream
• “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis” slides on SlideShare
• “Closing the Gutenberg Parenthesis” wiki with matrix

Chris let me moderate this session, and it was exciting to monitor the backchannels on Twitter and ustream for questions, ideas, or challenges that I could interrupt him with. As always, Chris did a fabulous job presenting a continual stream of rich ideas on technology and learning. I must admit I may have underestimated both Chris and the WCET audience prior to the session; both seemed quite comfortable with complex and provocative notions embedded in our connected culture and interplaying with Ong’s concept of a “secondary orality”.

First, I recommend you read Boone’s post, as I don’t want to re-state his exploration of both Gardner’s and John’s Open Ed 09 thoughts here. I think there is definite tension between individualism and communalism, especially in context of creativity. Such tension may be culturally inherited, or it may be endemic in our brains. I.e., we need to work in groups/tribe to survive; we want to claim individual power and perpetuate our own unique genes. It’s much deeper and richer than that.

…

As I sat in on John’s Thinkubator session I recalled how recently I had reluctantly agreed to author a full white paper collaboratively through Google Docs with a colleague. For a while we both were very sensitive to the other’s contributions–”do you mind if I enhance paragraph 10?” or “I’m going to rework your section on X, is that cool?” We were very courteously practicing the golden rule.

After a while, however, the insistence of the deadline and the necessity of coherence required us to abandon courtesy in favor of efficiency, and thus we diminished both of our individualizations of the article. We ended up with a decent article, produced in probably 75% (not half) of the time it would have taken just one of us to produce it. Do I feel like I own that document? No. Do I feel I co-own it? Yes. Do I want to take credit for it? Kind of, because in doing so I’m taking credit for someone else’s work, including their flaws. Did the structure of the project support our objectives? Yes, but I certainly wouldn’t adopt a collaborative approach for all, not even most, of the documents I author. I’d rather more closely tie my identity to my individual work, and that means making my exact contributions extricable from the original.

…

On a loosely related note, I was searching for an image for a presentation the other day, had exhausted CC licensed images on Flickr or Google, couldn’t find anything on the paid license site I subscribe to, and was seriously contemplating just stealing someone else’s IP. I should preface this by saying that CC and the availability of open-licensed works has allowed me to respect other people’s © IP more appropriately (OK, I know some of you want to pick the Copyleft fight with me, but some other time). But as I was looking at this ideal image, contemplating swiping it and using it, a shudder of confusion and regret came through me, and I realized, twenty years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about appropriating the image.

No, I would not have just taken it.

I would have made my own.

Which led me to wonder, by refuting closed licensing, does openness provide a path that is “quicker, easier, more seductive”, yet diverts one away from creativity, innovation, and individual growth through distinguishing effort?

After some lengthy idling of engines, the real conversation starts when Downes asks, what does the university offer? Content, delivery, and credentials. Content and delivery is also possible outside the university, yes? Implication: therefore, there is no significant difference in effectiveness, no reason to choose one over the other (!?). Leaving the credential piece out of it, I object to Downes’s initial equivocation between learning that occurs within an institutional framework and that which can occur without. Just because learning can occur outside the university doesn’t mean it will occur as efficiently or effectively as our historical institutions. This is not to say that learning that occurs outside the university is de facto inferior, but one must compare outcomes. It’s an ugly equivocation that begs to be elaborated on, i.e. how can (or will) non-institutional learning be maximized?

Wiley recognizes that, for instance, States require teacher certification to work in a classroom. I half expected Downes to object to the teacher certification requirement in general, which might contradict his previous stance that home-schooling is a kind of abuse due to lack of teacher qualifications. I’m relieved that he didn’t.

“If you tore the covers off books (on Ruby) you couldn’t tell the difference.” Wiley says, “The books at Borders parade as choice without their being any significant difference between them.” Having reviewed tech books myself, especially XHTML and CSS books, I must say this is not really true. Yes, there are some books in any subject matter that are too similar. But there are just as many that are significantly different. Also, as the number of players in the market expands, and the number of publications–let alone editions–increases, tech book publishers are increasingly wary of being redundant. They are looking for the selling point, the distinction. Perhaps the desire for distinction comes only after the market is flooded with the generic version. Regardless, while this is incorrect, but I get the point: openness (and the Internet) brings more choice by liberating access to the market and means of distribution.

Downes goes all socialist and argues that financial incentives discourage variety because the bland textbook sells more. Again, I go back to the idea that once the market is saturated with the bland solutions, this opens a new opportunity for the unique solutions. Best example that springs to mind: “Head First” series, a quirky, sometimes silly, approach that integrates learning theories into the content as no other web language book does.

Downes suggests that because there are a large quantities of a single kind of learning object (pictures of ducks) that may be classified an OER, there is no lack of OER online. I can’t actually believe he doesn’t recognize that because one has plenty of a single thing that fits into a category, one has plenty of things in that category.

Wiley counters that there is relative value to learning resources, but leaves the argument unsubstantiated and shifts to talk about nonrivalrous nature of online resources. I think the argument here is strong, and hope he comes back to this.

Downes challenges Dave: you say a full course can be an OER, and you say an OER is digital. So can a full course be digital? He caught Dave off-guard because, again I think Downes equivocated OER with LO, and Dave didn’t realize he had actually asserted that a full course can be a learning object. There is a difference between a learning object and an OER.

Downes is challenging assertion that an organized course is more efficient (than what? at least more efficient than “floundering around”), but coming up pretty empty. Best counter argument he set aside, and that is that a course costs thousands of dollars to produce. Now he is questioning the goals or outcomes of education, and asking if a course is the most efficient path to “a good life”. So if you disagree with the outcomes of organized university coursework, for whatever reason, you might agree that, yes, a course of study is not efficient. But even if you believ the goal of university learning is self-betterment through access to knowledge, I still say that the regimented classroom and semester is pretty efficient.

This made me wonder if the most critical piece for learning is accountability: teachers and grades and administration hold students’ feet to the fire, making them read and study and produce things that make them learn–activities they may not have the discipline to do on their own. If I were to aim to lose weight (or, rather, bulk up), I would achieve my goals much more efficiently with a personal trainer driving me to work out every day under a particular, crafted, and organized regiment, rather than leaving it to me to find ways to exercise on my own. But if my goal is just to have fun exercising, yes, I’m better served just going off to skate.

Speakng of which, I’m going out to skate.

Instructional Design & Development

1. ADDIE, Dick & Cary, and other ID models useful to revisit and reflect upon, especially for planning of critical stages of course design. Models do not necessarily inhibit rapid prototyping. UVU IDS might rethink how its course design process fits into such models (instead of immediate prototyping do we first analyze needs, course objectives, then outline content in design? Prototyping should be mid to late design phase).
2. Build instructional design models into project mgmt software as template. We in UVU IDS do something like this with dotProject, but could more explicitly label phases to provide data documentation and data.
3. Log instructional patterns (e.g. activities, interactions, assessments) and create “templates”.
4. Brainstorming ideas: aim for quantity not quality (no negations), stock conference room with treats and toys, limit to 1 hr/break & flow, focus everyone on the task, use online shared docs.
5. In design phase, instead of lists of info, make visual representations like wireframes & site maps. Let it be basic, ugly.
6. Tame your use of media to reduce cognitive load (read Clark’s Efficiency in Design again).
7. Avoid novelty for novelty’s sake (bad example: wave runner game with multiple choice questions, our Frogger game).
8. Try rapid e-learning dev tools like Captivate, Articulate, and Rapid Intake, but beware of outputs that aren’t accessible, web standards format.
9. More often than not Flash is just flashy.
10. PowerPoint continues to be abused by presenters from around the world, resulting in mind-numbing, soul-sucking internments. Folks talk about PPT design in terms of how many bullets, words, fonts per slide, with nearly no mention of “Presentation Zen”.
11. Also, a PPT designed for a (classroom) presentation is not elearning, even if you convert that PPT to Flash with Captivate. @BrianDusablon says #1 problem in e-learning is PPT. (#2 is systems that put obstacles between learner and learning.)
12. However, you can use PPT as an effective e-learning prototyping platform, if not a complete and robust authoring platform.
13. Surprise! Corporate training wants demonstrable outcomes, not rubrics that assert generalized ideals of quality based on theory. How well do our distance learning “quality” rubrics (QM, Chico) measure the actual effectiveness of learning experiences at helping students meet learning objectives? Isn’t that more important than, say, the 7 principles?
14. Though the session was canceled, it appears possible to use Google Spreadsheets as a data source for live e-learning content generation (think flashcards, quizzes)
15. UVU IDS should create all lesson discussions, assignments, and assessments as plain text files WITHIN the lessons folder, until Common Cartridge XML becomes useful on Moodle and Bb Vista.
16. URLs from augmented reality games session: http://argology.org, http://argn.com, http://unfiction.com

Questions

1. Does UVU IDS have enough accurate dotProject data yet to estimate the hour-cost of a new online course?
2. Non-linear ID is still popular, but is it effective? Have we passed the point at which hypertext inhibits learning and focus?
3. Where are communities that share DTDs and schemas, esp for e-learning? Does our XML DTD match any other known e-learning DTDs? (Really only Common Cartridge)

Reading List

1. Goal-based learning design a la Robert Schank
2. Humanizing education articles
3. Videogames and Education: Humanistic Approaches to an Emergent Art Form by Harry J. Brown
4. Chico State’s latest vers. of ROI
5. Survey of Instructional Development Models by Kent L. Gustafson, Robert Maribe Branch
6. Any empirical research on linear vs. non-linear (hypertextual) learning outcomes

Software Demo List

• Articulate (rapid e-learning development)
• Captivate (rapid e-learning development)
• ProForm / Unison (rapid e-learning development)
• Jing (screen capture)
• Agilix BrainHoney (LMS/learning system)

Deconstructing entrenchments of the fallen aesthete

The future will give us robots
endlessly yielding Great Thoughts
   exceeding Bill Gates
   or the "famous" Socrates
Yes, their brains will be based on Chris Lott's.

If you didn’t see Chris’s talk live, be sure to check out the archive on Ustream.

Anyone who knows me knows about the Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange, aka TTIX, a small, free conference dedicated to the open exchange of ideas and best practices in distance learning and technology-enhanced education. If I’m not soliciting proposals, I’m soliciting keynotes, or I’m soliciting sponsors, or I’m soliciting participants–and really, the participants are the most important ingredient for a successful idea exchange!

So let me formally thank and welcome everyone who’s planning on coming to Orem, Utah June 3-5 to present, participate, sponsor, exhibit, help or support. We know some people could not travel this year due to tightening budgets, but we hope to offset that with a sepcial announcement:

Instead of taping and archiving this year’s sessions, we are going to try to live stream each and every TTIX session via UStream. This means that participants from around the world will have a chance to watch and engage with TTIX live audiences via the backchannel. I’ll post more on this soon at http://ttix.org

Finally, of course, Marc and I will be tracking your participation in TTIX via social media to crown this year’s Grand Poobah, and give out some sweet prizes. Every blog post, Twitter update, Flickr photo, Delicious bookmark that you tag TTIX (#TTIX on Twitter) will count towards your effort to claim this coveted award, if you sign up.

I didn’t go to Ignite 1, but a 2-hour series of 5-minute presentations (20 slides or less) sounds like the best-ever format for a geek get-together.

Question: will Brewvies’ grill be open for business?

Begins by showing course project which requires students to write/revise an actual article on Wikipedia. Many questions about how the process worked. Good comment/question about opportunities, and leveraging this opportunity in foreign languages.

Brian discusses AP photo of Obama which describes an audience using cameras, phones, and even a laptop(!) to capture their participation in the moment (photo-taking as a social [or personal/individual] act). Flickr was able to track incoming camera phone uploads from this moment.

(JMS: If openness permeates professional fields like we want it to, will this defeat the so-called rise of the amateur? Does this diminish the evolution of a “participatory culture”? If so, do we care?)

Brian telling us how awful OCW has been for MIT: reputation is in the gutter, enrollments have plummeted, content has been sucked into fly-by-night engineering degree mills, faculty have revolted. It takes a while for the audience to get it and start to laugh.

Faculty using simple HTML flat files. Posts everything online. Has been doing it for years. This is DIY openness. “The most important thing is he didn’t need support to do this. He didn’t need a project. He didn’t need a process.”

Evangelizing the benefits of openness. “[Openness] is a show of respect to the students… and a show of respect to the public.”

Creative Commons short explanation. Surprisingly, about half the room didn’t know what CC is.

“I took that AP photo without asking. Poor AP! Poor AP… I’ll buy a copy of USA Today later to make up for it.” Brian can deliver strong opinions with humor, which really works on this audience.

Openness and Creative Commons means “you don’t have to steal intellectual property anymore”. Shows Creative Commons license search on Flickr.

Wikeducator uses an open format for its open content, bypassing the inherent restriction of “open” media but closed technology. MIT uses a lot of PDFs, Berkeley uses live Real Media, which requires an internet connection (sounds familiar!)

Gardner Campbell mentioned with respect to his downloadable MP3 podcasts (thanks for mentioning my MP3 legality blog post). Nancy White being recorded, Creative Commons licensed, and she benefits through reputation, distribution of her “voice”.

SELF-DEFINED.

“I am a recovering Learning Object developer.” Martin Weller referenced.

Brian laments not doing a Twitter shout-out since Bryan didn’t do it yesterday.

Sharing doesn’t cost much any more.

Jim Groom referenced. Fake web garbage. Let’s use this spam blog tool and use it to aggregate student blogs. Turn evil into good. UMW is the best WordPress instance Brian has ever seen. (JMS: I love it too.Documentation is incredible. On an loosely related note, this example demonstrates to me the importance of the individual, of individual genius, focus, and dedication over lethargia of [some] communities.)

Findability of open resources is important. Brian shows Zaid in Malasia’s web page cataloging all open resource sites. You can make a Google custom search engine. Scott Leslie puts list into a wiki page, uses a Google custom search engine to ref wiki page links. Freelearning.ca. To bring a project like this into being so quickly “The secret ingredient is openness.” Brian mentions “a guy from England” but I miss the name. It’s gotta be Tony Hirst.

“I want to see if I can teach and interact with students on mobile devices.” Case study: accessing WebCT on phone. 5 minutes of pain results in finally getting to discussion screen, but still unusable.

(JMS: Brian may be cutting WebCT too much slack. I would rip their dessicated zombie heads off.)
Brian concedes that WebCT’s product was not developed for mobile devices. (JMS: True, but WebCT customers have been asking for mobile support for years, and the CE 4.1 example he is using actually functions in a mobile device, but all newer versions of WebCT/Blackboard do not.)

Everyday a newspaper goes under. “There’s a crisis in every cultural industry.” PirateBay, bittorrent site, has a section for textbooks.

Universities are not popular with the public. Perception of overpaid, underworked, radicals. Quoting a (neighbor?), “Taxpayers are only willing to substitute universities to the extent that they contribute to the national wealth.” Openness might alleviate that intercultural tension.

Nice job, Brian. Hope I captured some of the coherence and insight that you delivered this morning.

1. The whole-day experience, while fatiguing (at least for me), was the only way to go about a workshop as ambitious as this.
2. In fact, it could have easily gone two or three days (and would have been a stronger, more memorable experience for it).
3. The participants were both energetic and patient–the latter was important as we dealt with technical issues and the fact that teaching this territory was completely new to us.
4. Though I’d felt we’d been pretty thorough in mapping out the sessions, we could have spent several more hours planning and organizing the workshop for better results.
5. My instinct was to run a pilot segment as an on-campus workshop at UVU as a means of preparing. I didn’t do this, however, and in reflection am sure doing so would have eliminated the few problems I did experience.
6. My concept of “a PLE” has changed. I still think it’s definable, but recognize it to be more like an ever-adjusting, tool-assisted network of individualized processes than an “environment”.
7. “Environment” is easier to say, though perhaps it too strongly implies a monolithic managed system.
8. A well-considered and refined PLE is, so far, the best way for individuals to manage the indomitable mass of information and interactions that are now available.
9. D’Arcy Norman said, “‘PLE’ is a verb, not a noun … an action, not a thing.” I think it’s both: a PLE is a conglomeration of things constantly acted upon. (Someone remind me where I’ve heard this before).
10. Though initially informal, a modular, conglomerated PLE eventually becomes more formal as the individual builds habits and reinforces processes along branches as s/he moves towards “learning/achievement” goals.
11. As Chris spoke in the introduction, I sketched out the following as one concept of how the “interactions” part of my PLE work to send out signals while receiving new signals or feedback: