Do it yourself education

Reading Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education by Anya Kamenetz has been fascinating. It's a book that has been recommended to me several times over, so it was long overdue that I laid my hands on a copy. With its lurid red cover and aggressive image of a fist gripping a pencil (I would have suggested an iPod Touch or iPhone instead) while wearing a wrist band that proclaims DIY U, the books holds a lot of promise. But we all know you don't judge a book by its cover. Anya Kamenetz is no edupunk, and doesn't pretend to be. Turns out she's a journalist, working the scene, trying to make sense of the open access and bricollage movements that are gripping the imagination of teachers in schools, colleges and universities across the globe. Yet she does express opinions that are sympathetic to the Edupunk philosophy of 'do it yourself', rage against the system, undermine the edubusinesses and give it all away for free (with the exception of her book, which is reasonably priced .... and she does earn her living as a writer). You can visit her DIY U website for a deeper insight into her views.

In a fast moving writing style that reminded me of a squash ball, she ricochets off subject after seemingly unrelated subject, weaving her way swiftly through a history of education, philosophy, science, music, popular culture and sociology in an attempt to paint the broadest of brushstroke backdrops to the book. Her key message is simple - that education needs to change to make it more accessible to those who want to, but cannot afford to enter into full time higher education. Like some seasoned livestock farmer, she herds her illustrations, examples and 'key player' profiles together, to reiterate this theme throughout. Some of our favourite Twitter buddies pop up to make cameo appearances, including Jim Groom (inevitably included, but described in gritty terms as chain-smoking and unshaven), David Wiley, Alec Couros, George Siemens, Lawrence Lessig and Stephen Downes. Notably, the book is disappointingly parochial and inward looking however, focusing largely on North American activism, with scant interest to the rest of the world, as if nothing much is happening outside the borders of the USA and Canada. There is no mention for example of the New Zealand based OER University (or its founder Wayne McIntosh) and the ground breaking work they are doing to transform open educational practices in higher education. This criticism apart, the book still manages to provide some useful observations about the DIY and Open Ed movements and explores their crossover points.

One of the best ideas in the book is where Kamenetz suggests that ideas travel faster over informal networks than they ever could within the closed silo of an organisation or department. Those of us who are residents in the land of social media already know the truth of this, but it's nice to see it opined on the pages of a mainstream publication. Kamenetz eulogises over blogs which she describes as nodes in a vast, informal network of learning and opportunity. If there is a need for your ideas to escape the walls of your organisation, blogging is an excellent way to set them loose, she says. This is all good stuff, but although it may have been considered Edupunk a decade ago, it's a little passe now. What Kamenetz does do well however, is to highlight the significance of Massively Online Open Courses (MOOCs), suggesting that they may yet play a part in breaking the hold of the traditional, ivy league universities on mass higher education. What she misses the opportunity to explore is the informal nature of MOOCs, the amplifying power of connections created by such endeavours, and the resultant myriad of artefacts, activities and achievements that result from direct engagement with these learning movements.

Although it leaves much unsaid, Anya Kamenetz's book is useful to read if you are new to these ideas. The challenge, she says, is to capture the potential of technology to both lower costs and improve learning for all. High ideals indeed. Higher education is changing slowly, and it is good to know that the ideas of the Edupunk and OER movements are being written about formally, and that the ideals of these approaches is entering into the mainstream of people's consciousness.


Tomorrow: Me and Malcolm McLaren: The story of that photograph.

Image source

Do it yourself education by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Educate the world, don't just feed it

Some of my Twitter buddies have reminded me today of the torrid picture that was taken of me jokingly emulating Edupunk Poster Boy Jim Groom. There's an image of me floating around the web with 'PUNK IT UP' on my knuckles. I guess it's timely, because I travel to Hamburg tomorrow to keynote the German Moodlemoot conference (#mootDE11n) on Thursday, and one of the key themes of my speech will be 'do it yourself' education, the ethos of edupunk. My title is 'The Road Ahead is Open', and I will cover a spectrum of open approaches, including open learning, open educational resources, and the open bricollage approach espoused by Levi Strauss. Ultimately, the entire speech will boil down to a plea for people to adopt an open scholarship approach to their learning and teaching.

Open Scholarship, as I have previously suggested, is much more than a term denoting open practices. Open Scholarship is a way of life, based on the belief that to share your ideas is much better than to hoard them. It's also about opening yourself and your ideas up for constructive criticism, so that in receiving feedback from your PLN, you will learn and grow together. Let me ask you this: What possible purpose is there to hide knowledge away from people who need it to survive and make their lives better? Stephen Heppell, in the 2011 Plymouth e-Learning Conference stunned us all by declaring that around half a billion children in the world (like the ones in the picture above) are outside of education, and don't have a hope of even seeing the inside of textbook, let alone a classroom. And yet all it would take to educate the lot of them would be 5 billion US dollars. It got me thinking. There are a few super-rich people in the world who have this kind of money, and more, in their personal fortunes. Certainly, many of the banks or corporations around the world are rich enough to have this kind of cash to spare. But how many of them would be willing to stump some up to educate our world?

Several years ago, we all gave money to a world wide appeal to feed the starving of the world. The 'Feed the World' campaign was a triumph of compassionate fund raising, but it simply solved a problem in the there and then. Poverty and starvation still exist and although we can't cure it, we can educate people who are in poverty if we simply share the wealth and knowledge about.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you show him how to fish you feed him for life. In many cultures, if you educate a man, he is self sufficient. Yet if you educate a woman, you educate an entire family. How are we going to meet the challenge of this century? The challenge to educate people out of poverty? Open scholarship will go a long way to resolving that one, because if everyone shares what they know, and we don't greedily hoard that knowledge away, or capilulate to the invasion of the edubusinesses, the world will be a far more equitable place.

Educate the world, don't just feed it by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital literacy 9: Broadcasting yourself

In the last in the series on digital literacies, we explore how through the web, each of us can become our own broadcasters and publishers.

The social web has shifted the balance of power away from commercial production companies in favour of the individual. The shift is from push to pull. This is a characteristic of the Web 2.0 and Edupunk movements - the do it yourself culture in which costly proprietary systems and tools are spurned in favour of haphazard, unbranded, informal mashups and loose aggregations of tools. There is a huge array of social web tools to choose from and many of them are free at the point of delivery. But more than that, it's participatory. Web 2.0 tools have made it possible for a massive, unprecedented surge in self-publication and broadcasting. The video sharing service YouTube's usage statistics should convince even the strongest sceptic that people really want to share their content. YouTube now boasts over 2 billion views over each 24 hour period and receives 24 hours of uploaded video each minute. The photosharing service Flickr claims that between 3-5 million images are uploaded every day, and hosts well in excess of 2 billion photographs and other media such as short video clips. The blogging sentinel service Technorati lists 1.2 Billion blogs at the time of writing. These are staggering statistics. People everywhere are using the web to broadcast, publish and share their ideas, opinions and creative works to the rest of the world. It may not all be great content, but here and there, you will find gems if you search for them.

The music industry has had to learn the hard way that it no longer has the monopoly on music production and distribution. It now coexists alongside independent companies and individuals, all of whom are just as intent on selling or in some cases, giving away their music to the public. Many teachers and students are doing the same thing, with educational content. Traditional publishers are having to sit up and take notice - particularly to the open access movement. Public awareness has been raised about the openness and availability of educational content. When students encounter a paywall, they will simply go elsewhere for similar content.

Podcasting, and its visual equivalent, vidcasting, are very quick means of getting your ideas out there for others to listen to or watch. Blogging your ideas over a period of time attracts readers, and if you are lucky, and produce consistent quality and quantity of posts, you will garner a loyal following of readers who will return again and again, and also comment on your posts. For many bloggers, this is all the spur they need to persist. But beware, for the social web can also be the not-so-social-web. Peer review is very informal, and can be anonymous. Either way, it can also be harsh and even abusive, so bloggers, broadcasters and publishers need to be thick skinned. This kind of digital literacy enables learners and teachers to fully engage in the social web culture, and all its rewards. Every time they post or upload new content, authors and producers makes a mark on the web and the influence of their digital footprint increases.

If you are already creating podcasts or videos, writing blogs or uploading images to the web, you will be keenly aware of the benefits and challenges. But I think you will probably agree that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Image source


Broadcasting yourself by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

A digital heretic?

Some people think I'm a bit of a rebel. A non-comformist. You see, I don't take too kindly to unnecessary rules and regulations, and tend to scoff when people try to impose them. I despise bureaucracy and red-tape. 'Why can't I do this?' I ask. 'Because it's against the rules!' 'But what if the rules are wrong?' 'I don't make the rules mate, I just make sure you keep them...' How ridiculous!

I know we need some rules to maintain a semblance of order in society, and we need order to avoid a descent into chaos. But when rules are created for the sake of creating rules (governments and large institutions are very good at this) I am usually tempted to step out of line, just to see what happens. It doesn't make me any better or worse than anyone else, but it causes problems for the 'powers that be'. What do they do with me? I'm on record as supporting the do-it-yourself ethos of Edupunk, and a rejection of the corporate learning platform 'solutions'. I also use this blog as a platform to rant about a whole range of education issues. I don't consider myself to be completely rebellious though - I just tend to get a little too uncomfortable when I'm expected to tow the party line when I don't actually subscribe to it. And when I see something I consider unjust, wasteful or unfair, I have to point it out, and if necessary, shout very loud about it. I'm the little boy watching the emperor walk past in his birthday suit, and I'm the one who points out that he's naked. I'm the one walking out of step in the parade. I'm the conformist's worse nightmare. I would be a very bad party politician, and an even worse soldier. What I think I am good at though, is thinking outside the box, trying to come up with stuff that makes people think, or challenges preconceptions. That's the bit that I like the most, so perhaps that's why I tend not to conform.

I was reading the book 'Tribes' by Seth Godin recently, and although it's rather simplistic in its use of language and doesn't tax the mind much (it's written for corporate types after all), I never the less enjoyed reading it through to find out what his take was on leadership and business. I like his concept of 'sheepwalking' where people blindly follow someone or something without really questioning or understanding what they are doing. I like even more his idea of tribes, as groups of people that have purpose and communication. What I like most of all about his book though, is his notion of the 'heretic'. In more superstitious times, says Godin, the heretic was burned at the stake or at the very least, cast out from the community, undesirable, unwanted, a dissident. In present times though he says, the heretic is now more valued, and is probably the one who asks 'er.... why can't I do this?', and then when told it's against the rules, goes out and does it anyway. It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, says Godin, and I think he's right. Heretics don't lose their faith, he reckons, they just challenge the established 'religion' - the status quo, the established ways of doing things, and they find another way.

I suppose that makes me some kind of heretic. Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not satisfied with the learning platforms I see, and I'm not too keen on being complicit to corporate profiteering. That's why I use my own online tools, tapping into free services I know my students will find useful and will enjoy using. I'm opposed to respectable and long accepted theories such as learning styles (Honey & Mumford should hang their heads in shame) and digital natives theory (Marc Prensky has retracted much of what he said about cognitive change, but people still keep trotting out the theory as if it's a fact, hoping it makes them sound knowledgeable), because these models try to categorise students and thereby constrain creativity and individuality. I strongly support user generated content as an effective means of supporting learning. PLE will triumph over VLE. Who's to say that txt language is inferior to standard English? And let's allow children to use mobile phones in schools. Call me a digital heretic if you like, but I'm certainly not the only one.

Image source

A digital heretic? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 International License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Two fingered salute

They stood facing each other across a muddy ploughed field. It had rained heavily the night before. On the one side, flying their colourful banners, the pride of French medieval nobility: at least 30,000 men in shining armour, armed to the teeth and ready for an overwhelming victory. On the other side, the army of Henry V - less than 8,000 English and Welsh soldiers, weakened and bedraggled from weeks of forced marching, dysentery and hunger. The French looked like they had just stepped out of a Louis Vuitton boutique, and their opponents looked like crap. Yet over the course of a few hours, Henry's small dishevelled army systematically took their enemies to pieces with the result that the French dead were piled up in walls, and their noble families, sometimes three complete generations, were slaughtered like cattle. The French snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, losing over 5000 dead, while Henry's army sustained around 200 dead. The year was 1415, and the battle took place just outside the tiny French village of Azincourt. The Battle of Agincourt radically altered the course of European history, and Henry V regained the crown of France through his determination, will to succeed and the sheer pugnacity of his ‘happy few’, his ‘band of brothers’.

The French should never have met the English and Welsh in open battle. From previous heavy defeats at Crecy (1346) and Poitiers (1356), they had reason to fear the longbow of the English and Welsh archers, who each could accurately fire a dozen or more armour piercing bodkin arrows a minute. In the reloading stakes the French cross-bows were no match. Legend has it the French feared the archers so much that they threatened to cut off the two fingers on the drawing hands of every one of them if they were captured. At the end of the battle when the hundreds of Frenchmen (those who were fortunate enough to be spared because they were rich enough to attract a ransom) were paraded through the ranks of archers, the archers showed them their two fingers – the V sign that has since become the British gesture of defiance.

The reasons why Henry V won against overwhelming odds?

1) The French had no effective leadership, but the English and Welsh had a strong and determined leader in King Henry V.
2) The English and Welsh were more flexible and manoeuvrable than the French, who came at them in a way that bunched them together and tripped them over so that many simply drowned in the mud.
3) The English and Welsh archers did not wear the heavy plate armour that encumbered the French men-of-war. The French got bogged down in the muddy field and once they were down in the mud, the archers moved in swiftly to dispatch them with their poleaxes and knives.
4) The awesome fire power of the English and Welsh long bows was a significant factor. It did for the first and only French cavalry charge that was meant to destroy the archers.
5) The English and Welsh had very little left to lose and nowhere to go but forward.

Anyone with a modicum of insight will see that there are several parallels here with the battle between the institutional VLE and Edupunk style ‘do-it-yourselves’ personal web tools. The shiny, expensive and cumbersome VLE dominates the battlefield that is education, and is supposedly the killer application that all colleges and universities have bought into. The colour of the banner doesn’t matter, because whatever the brand, the VLE has essentially a common architecture and purpose: it is there to restrict access, deliver homogenous content and control the activities of its users. It lumbers ever forward into confined spaces, tripping itself over as it goes, and is slow to adapt to new requirements. Whilst its champions think it is invincible, they don’t seem to realise that it is becoming bogged down in a morass of apathy, resistance to use and lack of response to change.

The personal web by contrast, moves along lightly at the pace of its users, being directed as changes and personal needs dictate. It has an awesome array of choices, and is responsive to the needs of communities of practice as well as the individual. It is cheap, and not very attractive (at least in corporate terms) when compared to the institutional VLE, but it is a damned sight more effective when it comes to supporting learning. The institutional VLE is led by the entire institution and is therefore slow to respond to change, whilst the personal web is led by one user. The personal web has one more key advantage – it is owned by the individual who created it.

All things considered, it is inevitable that the personal web will win in a straight fight against the institutional VLE. The VLE has had its day and will meet its demise, even though its supporters cannot see it coming. The personal web is on the rise. For me and many, many others, we’re showing our two fingers to the institutional VLE.

Responses to this post and related posts:

VL-istically speaking (Matt Lingard)
It's not dead ...yet (James Clay)
Not dead yet (Mark Notess)
The VLE/PLE debate (Lyndsay Jordan)
Dead personal (Steve Wheeler)
USpace (University of Sheffield)
Virtual Learning Environments (Dan Kennedy)
Is your VLE really a Virtual Learning Environment? (Paul Vaughan)
Social media is killing the LMS star (Bryan Alexander)
The VLE debate (Dan Stucke)
Move to a more agile VLE (Jez Cope)

Image source (From the movie Kes)


Learning with 'e's by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Three chord wonder

Thanks to an invitation from Thomas Bernhardt over at Educamp in Bremen, I actually managed to present my Edupunk talk earlier today. Using Skype, I presented a 20 minute talk which covered the history and philosophy of Edupunk, it's analogies to the Punk Rock culture of the 1970s, and a few comments on corporate profiteering, the state of institutional VLEs and the 'Do It Yourself' approach to teaching and learning.

There were some very incisive questions from those present in Germany, and some equally delving questions and comments from others listening and viewing from elsewhere in the world across the live streaming media links. One interesting comment was that Edupunk seems to be all about taking part rather than excellence. I agree - all you needed to be a punk rocker was attitude, and if necessary, the ability to play three chords on a guitar. Edupunk encourages learners to take part - and contribute something, even if it is wrong. I pointed out that at one point, 30 years ago, I only knew 3 chords myself. Now I know several more, and play in a more sophisticated manner than I did when I was in my teens and early twenties. The same applies to learners. They learn to participate, and eventually can become quite proficient in learning within collaborative environments. They just need to be given the opportunities to gain confidence and make mistakes without being penalised. Traditional education doesn't offer enough of these opportunities.

Another comment opened up a discussion on creativity and destructiveness and the notion of 'anarchy'. Here is a recent article we published on the destructive creativity of Web 2.0. My take on this is that Edupunk is not a destructive kind of anarchy. That kind is where 'smashing the system' is replaced by nothing better. No, Edupunk promises to do for education what Punk did for music. Punk gave the British music industry a much need shot in the arm and saved it from stagnation. I also said that sometimes you need to be destructive in order to be creative. Writing contributions to a wiki takes on this form. When you have posted a wiki contribution, it is no longer your own, but becomes the property of the user group - and they are then at liberty to do what they want with it. Edit it, add to it, or even delete it completely.

I very much enjoyed participating in Educamp. Skype worked well, and those participating were as equally passionate about learning as me. Thanks Thomas for the invitation!

Image source

... for tomorrow we DIY

My recent post on Edupunk 'Can Anybody Hear Me?' and my interpretation of it has provoked some debate I see. Recently, Frances Bell wrote a blog post entitled 'Learning to Love the Term Edupunk' where she raised concerns over the term and highlighted some issues over its use.

Frances posted a comment on my blog today, and I will take the opportunity here to respond to the two questions she posed:

Question 1: We have the advantage with Edupunk of being able to look at what happened to Punk - anyone done this comparison?

My answer: A retrospective would be a great idea. What happened to Punk was that firstly it energised a stagnating music industry when it was desperately needed. Punk rockers took a DIY approach by releasing their own recordings and printing their own fanzines, bypassing the established industry. Punk rock brought an edgy, controversial and ultimately innovative form of content and drive. It was anti-establishment, sure. But it brought its own structure. Eventually Punk music distilled into New Wave, and opened the door for other music genres including Ska, Heavy Reggae, and New Romantics to achieve popular status. Punk's influences can still be felt even today in the arts, and music has never quite been the same since - so it has accomplished its purpose. I propose that the same analogy will apply to the DIY Edupunk philosophy. It will, and in some cases, already is, transforming some aspects of education and challenging established practices. Open source, I would suggest, was an early example at what we now know as Edupunk - Linux and Moodle have made the corporate giants sit up and take notice. Edupunk will distill too, into less rampant forms of education, but it will do its job by challenging the established practices and subverting some of the corporate profiteering that is currently rife. Music and education - two inalienable human rights, I think.

Question 2: You say edupunk ... "brings the punk band (the teacher) closer to the audience (learner group)". If the learners are the audience, we're back where we started. Edupunk is where learners live edupunk too.

My answer: I can see why some people may have problems with the analogy of 'audience' and 'band'. We are not back where we started, and we need to acknowledge that there are distinct roles teachers and learners play. What I was really trying to get at as someone who actually played in a 'Punk' style rock band in the early 80s was that we, like many other 'new wave' rock bands broke tradition and invited the audience to join us on the stage, and in some cases, we didn't use a stage at all. We wanted to narrow the distance. We even went down into the audience to join them during our performances - remember 'body slamming'? 'Fans' contributed to our fanzine, and there was no 'them and us' syndrome, which was prevalent with much of the mainstream music industry of the period. We mashed up the roles we took, and this is patently something that is also happening when an Edupunk approach to learning is applied - with learners taking control of their own learning, creating shared spaces, forming their own groups, communities and networks to teach themselves. Although this is not exclusively Edupunk, the ethos plays a key role in its success. This approach is reminiscent of Illich's Deschooling thesis, where he called for the removal of 'funnels' which promoted transmission approaches to education in favour of 'webs' which enabled rhizomatic approaches to learning which were eminently more person-centred.

So some people have a problem with Edupunk as a term. It represents bricolage, anarchy and subversion and a challenge to the establishment. We have Jim Groom to thank for the term, I guess, but at the moment I can't think of another term that fits better or conjures up more appropriate analogies. What do you think?

Image source

Can anybody hear me?

To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. I was due to speak at the roundtable event tonight for Educamp, alongside Martin Ebner, and as those of you who were listening discovered, the technology failed me at exactly the right moment. What can you do? I came in two hours early, tested out the system. The institutional network locked me out. I called my tech guys, who did a stirling job trying to find out what the problem was. No access to Elluminate. Proxy error or firewall problem. They couldn't resolve it. Eventually, bless 'em, they logged me into a specialised system - known as the access grid - which was open with no networking restrictions. It worked. Hooray! I was able to upload my slides, and even tested out the radio microphone I was given. The sound quality was good. All set to go. I walked back up the stairs to my desk for a quick cup of tea before the session started.

Back down in the access grid, I waited for my cue to speak.... the microphone was dead. Like an idiot, I frantically tried to get the sound working. The tech guys had gone home. I was on my own. More than 3 dozen people were waiting to hear me speak and I couldn't make myself heard. Could I try sign language? Useless. Maybe semaphore? Waste of time. Chat messaging on Elluminate was working OK, but not the best medium for presenting a live talk. Morse code would have worked if I knew how to read/write it (and if the audience knew it too). Other forms of language came to mind during the technology failure, none of which are actually printable here. Could I try ESP? How about crab language? Grand Opera? I tried rebooting the computer. Big mistake ... I lost Elluminate completely (again).

Oh the irony! I'm suspicious that the institutional gremlins conspired against me, because my topic was none other than ... Edupunk! Here's my slideshow 'How Edupunk can save the World.' And here are the points I wanted to make:

1) Edupunk is a philosophy deeply rooted in the belief that educators can 'do it themselves', and use tools that are open, 'free' and non-proprietary. It's a movement against the commoditization of learning and against corporate profiteering. It is not just about selecting open tools and technologies. It is also about the freedom to choose the methods of teaching that are open and student centred. I would even go as far as to claim that Edupunk teachers should be challenging the curricula they are required to teach, and especially the assessment methods that are imposed from on high. These are the structures that constrain education and stop learners from achieving their full potential.

2) Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and in particular Learning Management Systems (LMSs) contribute toward restrictive practices in education and constrain both learner and teacher to operate within a model of learning that is insitutionally beneficial, but does little for the learner themselves. VLEs are generally difficult to use, with far too much effort needed to be put into understanding how the system works, to the detriment of the time and effort spent actually learning.

3) An exemplification of Edupunk philosophy is the rise of the personal learning environment (PLE) in which the learner selects his/her own tools and technologies to apply in formal and informal learning. Typical PLEs will incorporate a social networking service, reflective and collaborative tools, e-mail and a mobile device. I use a mashup of wiki (shell to aggregate all tools and provide a collaborative space), blogs (reflective tool and mind amplification space) and Twitter (microblog to update and inform and also to receive ideas and contact from others with a similar interest to me). I also use my wireless laptop and iPhone as communication/end tools.

4) Edupunk is more than 'do it yourself'. It is also a counterculture against corporate control and exploitation of learning, and brings the punk band (the teacher) closer to the audience (learner group). It is unashamedly anarchic and harks back to the concept of 'deschooling society' first proposed by Ivan Illich in the 1970s. Illich famously argued that we don't need funnels (directional learning through institutional control) but webs (multi-directional, hyperlinked learning that can be tailored by the individual to her/his own needs). Rhizomatic approaches to learning fall into this kind of philosophy.

There. That is what I would have said if the technology had allowed me. I got it off my chest. It's a shame that my rant on Edupunk has to end up here as a two-dimensional diatribe, rather than as a round table discussion with a live audience. On this occasion the technology amplified the distance, but hopefully this blog post will narrow the distance again, and that readers will contribute to a semblance of debate through the comments box below. Over to you...

Image Source

Buzz words of 2008

With the year drawing to a close, and with 2009 breathing down our necks, one interesting thing I like to do in the holiday downtime is to look back on the year. This time last year I revisited some of the tech buzz words of 2007. Here we go again with 2008.... Although some of these words (or phrases) are not strictly '2008' words, or are just emerging, they have begun to rise in prominence or are perhaps being used to describe things that weren't really available or widely known about, this time last year. If you have other buzz words you think should be added to this list, please use the comments box below. Here are my 12 in alphabetical order:

Blog groveling: This is the practice of certain companies to try to court popular bloggers and influencers to test, sample or endorse their new product or service. It extends to blog posting too. I have been approached several times by those who wanted to write ‘guest posts’ on my blog. When I vetted the posts some could best be described as 'product placement.' I don’t know whether I should be flattered or depressed.

Cloud Computing: Distributing your files away from your desktop and/or accessing programs and services across the Internet using large networks of remote servers. Used to be called distributed computing, but I think cloud computing sounds a little more friendly. Makes sense, I suppose.

Digital Cliff: No, nothing to do with the Peter Pan of Pop going virtual. It describes a sharp degradation of a digital broadcast signal if receivers are beyond a certain distance. This 'digital cliff' could be encountered when broadcasters stop transmitting analogue signals early in 2009. Viewers who received clear analogue signals may find that the new digital signals don’t work.

DWT: Not so much a new word as a new acronym. Driving While Texting – not only downright dangerous, but also stupid.

Edupunk: The philosophy that we should all ‘do it ourselves’, by spurning commercialism and rejecting large corporate products such as PowerPoint and BlackBoard in education (notice I'm not linking to them, so I must be an edupunk!). A word originally coined by so called Edupunk ‘Poster Boy’ Jim Groom. I have blogged about this several times over the year and even gave a presentation on Edupunk at the ALT-C Fringe this year in Leeds.

Friendiligence: This is the amount of your time you spend managing friend requests on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, LInkedIn, etc, etc…. ‘Friendiligence’ reflects the oversaturation of the social networking sphere and the need to ask what your criteria are for ‘friending’ people. Are they real or is it actually spam? Do I actually want 2 million friends on Facebook, or will a paltry 1 million be enough?

Longphoto: This is a video clip of 90 seconds or less. It’s a term used by the photo-sharing Web service Flickr, which began allowing videos to be posted to its site in 2008. Go Pro for $25 a year and you get this facility. Longphotos are not long enough to capture an Obama speech, but long enough to show someone throwing their shoes at Dubya.

MicroTubing: Happening as a kind of ‘atomisation’ of popular media such as television. New forms of content are rapidly proliferating on the social web and many of these appeal to increasingly smaller and more specialised audiences. YouTube has snatched away the initiative from many previously established content producers, and the DVD and satellite TV revolution is also causing MicroTubing to gain pace. Odds on, if you ask someone in work 'did you watch ... last night' - they probably didn't.

Nomophobia: No Mo Phobia (geddit?) Fear of being out of mobile phone contact for a significant period of time. Strikes me that it had to come eventually, although for a while now we have probably been describing this condition as ‘mobile phone addiction’ or tech-dependency.

Photobombing: Inserting an image of yourself in the background of someone else’s photograph. Not sure why people would want to do this, but I suppose it takes all kinds. Photoshop has a lot to answer for.

Swipeout: This occurs when the magnetic strip on your credit card has worn out due to overuse. Not sure whether this word will continue to be in use when the credit crunch and recession really begin to bite in the coming month. Like many workers, it may become redundant...

Anything with Tw- in front of it! ...all these words are inspired by the very popular micro-blogging service Twitter. It allows you to share what you are thinking or doing in just 140 characters per message, by ‘tweeting’ your message to those who ‘follow you’ by subscribing to your stream. Twitter has been so popular in 2008 it has inspired new words and related Web sites. Twitter users (Tweeple or Twits) can now meet up (Tweet-up) and can even check out how successful their tweeting is on Twittergrader. Twemes, Tweetdeck and Twittergroups are just a few other examples of the growing plethora of allied services that have recently appeared – watch out for many more in 2009.

World War 2.0: There's a battle raging out there between those who are committed to the idea of a democratic, open and socially rich web, and those who want to maintain strict control over it, content and concept. The polemic between Andrew Keen (who famously compared bloggers to ‘monkeys with typewriters’) and Web 2.0 champions such as Donald Clarke and Don Tapscott will continue, and we may even witness the outbreak of World War 3.0.

e-Vampire: This is a derogatory term referring to electrical equipment that consumes electricity while in standby mode. It’s symptomatic of our society’s new conscience on going green and saving energy.

I wish you a peaceful Christmas and a very happy and successful new year!

Edupunk stalks the institution...

There has been much rhetoric over how academics are increasingly disenchanted with institutional VLE provision and are subscribing to a 'doing it yourself' approach. Students are also voting with their feet, with many preferring to use social networking tools such as Facebook to communicate in place of the institutional e-mail system. The adoption of free social software tools has raised questions over corporate branding, security and privacy issues, and legal requirements. The storm is just beginning, and people are now getting worried, for according to this press release from JISC earlier today:

As learners increasingly adopt free third party email providers over their institutional email, further and higher education institutions are faced with whether to follow the crowd by outsourcing their email and data services.

JISC, UCISA and Universities UK recognise this challenge and are today launching two new briefing papers to help institutions understand the implications and opportunities involved in no longer hosting their own email service.

Steve Bailey, Senior Advisor at JISC infoNet, said: "Outsourcing email and data storage facilities is being viewed as an increasingly attractive proposition by many institutions faced with growing user demand for increased storage and functionality.

"However, it is important that institutions enter into such arrangement with their eyes wide open and fully appreciate that outsourcing these services does not also outsource their management responsibilities, liabilities and obligations.

"These papers highlight the experiences of four institutions, the University of Westminster, the University of Oxford, Leeds Metropolitan University and Glasgow Caledonian University on how they considered outsourcing and what solutions worked for them," added Steve.

The opportunities include:

* Enhanced and enriched student learner experience
* Email account with an ac.uk address
* Retain email account beyond leaving education
* Storage of emails in GB rather than MB - greater capacity
* Access calendar and file storage services
* Information sharing.

The implications are:

* Hidden setup costs
* Legal, contractual and procurement processes
* Whether to outsource email services for learners, or learners and staff
* Privacy and confidentiality of data storage
* Compliance with Freedom of Information and Data Protection Acts
* Beta status of services - which are constantly changing.

David Harrison, Chair of UCISA, said, "There are many aspects an institution should consider before opting to outsource. These papers highlight the issues and encourage institutions to take a holistic view when considering outsourcing."

So Edupunk is stalking the institution, and has begun to undermine previously secure and structured provision. Where will it all end? Your views and experiences will be welcomed on this blog - post your comments here.

The Emperor's new clothes?

I'm grateful to all those who have commented on my recent 'Monkey Business' post. I also seem to have stirred up some passion from the edublogging community, judging by some of the blog responses to my Edupunk rant on VLEs. Felix Grant (on his delightfully named 'The Growlery' blog) wrote a couple of posts agreeing with much of my argument that VLEs are overpriced, restricted in their functionality and poorly designed, and made the point that:

"My own (frequent!) contention is that every (yes, every) benefit of the institutional VLE for the learner can be obtained elsewhere with a little thought, using combinations of other information and communication technology tools which are freely and publicly available and already transparent to the target learner. Also, conversely, that most (not all, but most) of the disadvantages of the institutional VLE can thus be avoided".

These are interesting views, espousing a similar approach to my own. James Clay over at e-Learning Stuff was a little more circumspect with his post entitled: 'A bad workman always blames his tools'. He urged users esssentially to make the best of what is available, and reminded us that VLEs are only tools, used well or badly depending on those who wield them. He also advocated a hybrid approach:

"Using a VLE does not preclude you using other web based tools, it can be the cayalyst. With RSS it is possible to use the VLE as a focus for other web based services".

I agree - I use wikis as a central portal to link to other tools and resources, but it might just as well be a VLE (albeit an expensive option). As for bad workmen - can I respectfully point out that the skills of good workmen are often constrained by poor tools. Helen Whitehead over at Periodic Fable responded by posting 'VLEs - A boon or a bust?" She argued from a similar perspective, in a very much 'wait and see', don't 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' stance:

"Designed for learning, they keep everything in one place and provide for a variety of ways to teach and learn, at a variety of levels of expertise. Recent discussions about the future of learning, e.g., at the Learning Futures Festival and JISC online 08 have shown that there are new more personalised and flexible technologies coming along for learners to manage their own learning. Until then, the VLEs are our familiar territory and it's up to us to find creative ways to use them".

I agree they keep everything in one place, but aggregators can do that and so can wikis - for significantly less cost.

The week culminated in a very enjoyable Skype panel discussion facilitated by James Clay where Dave Sugden, Rob Englebright and Dave Foord and I all held forth about our opinions on the future of the VLE. One of the conclusions from the discussion was that the choice of tool may reflect the learning philosophy of the user. A podcast of this discussion will be posted up onto e-Learning Stuff next Sunday, 30th November.

So, the jury is still out on VLEs. Not everyone wants to ditch them in favour of a patch-work, do-it-yourself approach to using social software, even if it could ultimately benefit learners more. I concede that VLEs have their place in the panoply of learning technology tools, but to consider them the only institutional solution for e-learning would be folly. Look to the horizon, and the rapid advances being made in new social software tools, and we may begin to realise that the status quo cannot be sustained for ever. We need transparent systems that teachers and learners can use easily, without having to think too hard about anything other than the content they are learning.

One final word - I still suspect that the 'one size fits all' approach and the poorly designed VLE systems most universities and colleges have lumbered themselves with, are being covered over by the respectability of huge subscription charges and corporate branding. I hope though that it won't be long before the Emperor's new clothes are seen for exactly what they are.

Monkey business

I took my wife and son to see the animals yesterday. No, not the football crowd at Plymouth Argyle. I refer to the wonderful animals at Paignton Zoo, especially the baboons. Morrison's Supermarket is right next to the Zoo, and I remembered that they had a great little restaurant there. So that's where we went for lunch. Now I wish we hadn't.

We got in line and waited. And waited... and ... waited. Five minutes went by. The queue was in the same place, not moving. Ten minutes went by. I looked down the line and then spotted the hold up. At the checkout there was a poor woman of mature proportions struggling to operate the touch screen till. We waited... and waited... five more minutes passed and the thoughts were going through my head that I would soon need another shave if I were to look half way respectable when I later had my photo taken with Mr and Mrs Baboon.

So we waited... each transaction seemed to take about 4 or 5 minutes, because the poor woman on the till just couldn't seem to get the hang of it and kept having to restart each new transaction. Several of her colleagues appeared in cameo roles, monkeying about with the screen, trying to fathom out how it worked. Eventually, after about 20 minutes of waiting, during which time 2 people died of old age and my son was carried screaming from the building (slight exaggeration - he was only sobbing), we eventually arrived at the head of the line. We ordered our meals and drinks and waited... and waited. Tap, taptap.... tap...... taptaptap.... The poor till operator just couldn't get the hang of her till touch screen. But she remained remarkably calm. I peered over her shoulder and noted that the screen had multiple touch squares, each of which led to another set of options, which in turn led to another set ... you get the idea.

She was hopelessly undertrained (of course I blame the management, and also the designers of the till who it seemed had overcomplicated matters - the till screen was incredibly badly designed). In the end I resorted to helping her out, pointing out which sequence she should tap to enable us to pay for our meals so we could sit down and eat them before they grew hairs all over them. The amazingly stoic members of the British public in the line behind us kept their counsel and not a word was said, not even so much as a rolled eyeball, even though just about everyone was by now fuming with frustration. And so we paid for our meals and sat down. Next I noticed that the till lady had been relieved of her post and suddenly to everyone's relief, the queue started to move faster. She was sent off to clear the dishes and do the washing up, poor woman.

But it wasn't really her fault. I blame the management for setting someone loose at the sharp end of a busy restaurant without checking to see if she was up to the job. And the designers for not creating a system that was transparent.

Got me thinking about the opacity of some VLE systems. OK, this is my opinion, but many VLEs are not fit for purpose, and masquerade as solutions for the management of online learning. Some are merely glorified e-mail systems. Others are overpriced aggregations of web tools that you can get for free out on the web if you know where to look for them. I have not seen a single VLE system yet that works so transparently that students think more about their learning than they do about how to make the damn VLE work. Again, I don't blame this on the users - it's a management and design issue. When will we get VLEs that do what they are supposed to do, and with minimal cognitive effort on the part of the student? When the baboons start operating the checkouts at Morrisons restaurant, I guess...

Making a difference

As ICL comes to a close and another international e-learning conference fades into memory, one has to stop and reflect... did this conference make any difference? The answer is probably both yes .... and no. At an individual level, I have spoken to many delegates here who feel that the conference has been worthwhile, whether it is because they have been to sessions that have challenged or enlightened them, or on the other hand, perhaps they have met someone who has inspired them, or with whom they can share ideas, or collaborate with in the future. At a more general level though, it may be true that this conference has failed to do what so many of it's precursors have also failed to do. And that is to change anything of any significance. (Pictured: panel members during the final plenary discussion).

Many of the papers were advocating change, and many of the presenters admitted honestly that they didn't have a clue about how that change was going to come about. In coversations today over lunch we debated the issues and challenges facing education in this decade, and came to the pessimistic conclusion that change only happens slowly, and only when the 'powers that be' decide that change is necessary. The few lone rangers and (to use Christian Logofatu's term for me) 'lunatics', will forge on regardless, stretching the gap between their own understanding and that of their more transigent colleagues, so that pockets of innovation stand out as the exception rather than the norm.

Much coverage has been given to Web 2.0 social software tools and also Web 3.0 semantic tools, but how many of us are actaully using them day in, day out. Not many. And probably not enough. Until such time that universities and other institutions (and the governments that control them through funding and inspection) wake up to the fact that the youth we are educating view our tired systems with a jaundiced eye and then go off and 'do their own thing', there will be no significant change. Even then it may be slow in coming due to the vast amounts of money, energy and time they have invested into systems that are already 5 years out of date (and here I am being kind).

I have tried to report as honestly and fully as I can from ICL 2008, but inevitably I have missed things as even with my super-human powers and x-ray vision, I can only be in one place at a time. You can go to our Twemes conference site to view some of the images of the event, and some of the blog and tweet artefacts generated over the three days, and you can also access the official ICL 2008 conference site to view the titles and abstracts of the papers. But ultimately, it was for me, just another conference where we got together with like minded people, discussed hot and happening issues, and were inspired by each other to go back and do more of the same. It won't change anything, but it does give us just a little more energy to fight against the system and try to make some small changes where they are needed.

I would personally like to thank Michael Auer and his team from Fachhochschule Karnten for once again putting on a well organised and enjoyable event, including good scheduling, technical management and excellent food. I wish them every success for next year's event, here in the beautiful alpine town of Villach, Austria.

Clash of principals

So Edupunk is now a noun, with its own official definition (how un-punk is that?). Jim Groom's latest post on Bavatuesdays shows an image with text about Edupunk:

'Avoiding mainstream tools like PowerPoint and BlackBoard, edupunks bring the rebellious attitude and DIY ethos of '70s bands such as The Clash to the classroom'.

Seems like something the principals, heads and powers that be might be interested in avoiding at all costs. Me, I'm up for it, mate.

The meme-ing of Edupunk

Nice to see that Jim Groom has picked up on my presentation yesterday at the Fringe event of ALT-C 2008, in Leeds. Jim has posted a version of my slide presentation up on his blog bavatuesdays and comments that he views Edupunk as more than just a meme that went awry. Jim agrees with my idea that we need to unleash the true potential - the 'anarchy' - of the web. This to challenge the restrictive structures (or should that be strictures) of institutional control so that learning can become truly student-centric.

What ever you think of the term 'edupunk', (and there was some opposition to this nomenclature at the F-ALT yesterday) there is a strong set of underlying principles that cannot be ignored - and do it yourself learning is here to stay. (Picture of Multi-me by Emma Duke-Williams)

Sessions, slams and serious fun

It's been an interesting and varied day here at ALT-C Day two, at the University of Leeds. A somewhat controversial keynote, and several morning papers and workshops kept us all busy. The Digital Divide web slam event was engaging, fun and jam packed full of ideas about how we are all using technologies to either bridge the digital divides (yes there are several) or to perpetuate them. Several slams were performed, including one by myself, James Clay and Joss Winn (collectively known as the Slam Virgins - don't ask). We actually received the most votes from those present, surprisingly, so we were the winners on the day. The video of our slam 'It's not for Girls!' can be viewed here on Youtube. (Picture by Helen Keegan).

I later spoke at a F-ALT fringe meeting in the middle of the dining room at 3pm, on the subject of Edupunk. There was fertile and passioned debate about whether edupunk exists or is just a fad, and whether the name actually does the concept justice. Thanks to all those who took part - it was another enjoyable and captivating session. (Picture here)

The cream on the cake, literally, was our evening ALT-C Gala Dinner, which was held this year in the executive rooms of Headingly Cricket ground - the home of Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the scene of many fascinating Test matches between England and the tourists. The turf was being dug up as we arrived, which was a disappointment, as I wanted to see the ground in it's full glory. Never mind. It was still pretty spectaculr, as was the food, brought to us by two local catering colleges.

Highlight of the night was watching Josie Fraser receive the prestigious award of Learning Technologist of the Year, and a substantial cash prize, presented by in-coming ALT president Steve Draper (London School of Economics). A splendid time was had by all. Look out tomorrow... last day, here we come.

Edupunk rides again

I just loaded my PowerPoint presentation entitled: 'How Edupunk can save the world' into Slideshare and linked it to the F-ALT wiki, so that people can follow it on their laptops, or make comments about it before we do the session on Wednesday, at 15.00. I'm not sure how many are going to be there, but for Steven Warburton's Fringe session today on Massively Online Courses, there were over 40. A good turn out.

The evening pre-conference buffet was a cut above average, with Morrocan style lamb and cous-cous, goats cheese, and a variety of other very palatable choices on offer. Met a few new and interesting people, and enjoyed some tangential conversations...

Earlier several of us got together for a few drinks and a chat to catch up. The old gang (it's an inside joke) included James Clay, Graham Attwell, Steven Warburton, Josie Fraser, Helen Keegan, Cristina Costa, Dai Griffiths and Scott Wilson. It's good to meet up again and spend some time with these guys, as they are all, in their own ways, pushing the boundaries of learning technology forward, and contributing significantly to the future of digital learning methods.

Punk it up

I'm getting ready for the 310 mile drive up to Leeds tomorrow to participate in ALT-C 2008. I'm going to be speaking in the main conference about some of the research we have been doing in Plymouth on wikis in teacher education. I'm also speaking in the fringe event F-ALT entitled WTF Edupunk, where I will try to show how the punk rock ideology has parallels with contemporary thinking about going outside the walled garden of the institutional VLE to use free, open content, social software tools. The movement behind this idea is referred to by many as Edupunk. I make no apologies to Jim Groom or anyone else for repurposing the idea behind his poster boy image (above) because that's what punk is all about - do it yourself!

There is a growing consensus that punk philosophy can and indeed, does, have a resonance with those in universities and colleges who are considered mavericks. I have never used my university VLE for a number of reasons, preferring instead to use a variety of tools, websites and methods that in my opinion, work better. Just about anything a VLE can do, social software can do better, with the possible exceptions of surveillance and control (and even those are debatable). Joining me for the presentation at this fringe session will be Helen Keegan and Graham Attwell, and we hope that there will be some lively debate on this thing we call edupunk.... Punk it up!

Thinking around corners

Edupunk is anti-establishment apparently, and is a response to the corporate and institutional efforts to contain education. It is about destroying the boundaries of our oh so comfortable education systems. It is about wresting control from central authority and liberating the learner. Edupunk is certainly about using tools and services that are outside of the institution, beyond the walled garden, so to speak. I have been doing that for a while, with wikis, blogs and the like, circumventing the university portal. So I certainly support this movement, if that's what it is. As I write this I am listening to Graham Attwell's Emerging Mondays podcast, where he is in converstion with Jim Groom (dubbed the 'poster boy' for Edupunk, whatever that means).

I was a punk the first time around, in 80s Britain (to be honest I was probably more new-wave actually, because punk was essentially late 70s - I played in a band that was fast, loud and furious, and we stood against the mainstream culture of the time). I still have the punk attitude, to be frank - that rebellious streak - and it has carried through into my professional life, so perhaps I am one of them there edupunks. I am against the sterile, meaningless Managed Learning Environments (read BlackBoard, SharePoint and yes, even Moodle) that universities and colleges push which are purpose built to maintain strict control. They constrain the use of materials, and ensure that only bona fide students are allowed in. The students don't like them, and only use them because they have to. Anything an MLE can do, the social web can do just as well, if not better.... oh, and did I mention, usually for free. I'm really thinking about my students and what's best for them.

And that is my version of Edupunk, so I'm glad Jim Groom coined the phrase. When you have a mysterious illness, it is often a relief to be diagnosed, so that you put a name to your illness. The same applies to my 'condition' - I often swim against the mainstream, and try to find ways to subvert 'accepted practice' and I like to 'think around corners'. So it is nice to find a word that describes my condition. Whether 'Edupunk' will survive as a movement or will be strangled at birth remains to be seen. But at least now I know that there are others out there who think the same as me.

There is a tension between the Web 2.0 culture and Higher Education control mindsets and it is difficult to know how this can, or will be resolved. The bottom line is this - the MLE is dead, and the corpse needs to be removed before it stinks the place out. Trouble is, the university managers don't know it's dead, but they know it cost a lot of money, so there it remains, quietly rotting away.

Check out more on Edupunk on Stephen Downes blog, here at Professors go edupunk, and also in the Wikipedia pages.