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.

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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.

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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.