Disruption Bypass
I'm weary of "disruptive education" policy chat, and inaction, that extends as far as the Head Office foyer.
Politics means caution. Politics means sound bites. Politics means gaining and holding the middle safe ground.Politics means slow and steady; control the agenda and message that disseminates to the electorate. Politics is not disruptive, nor innovative, nor visionary. All the qualities digital learning is crying out for.
Genuinely transformative change, disruptive change, that is messy, uncomforatble, possibly not well understood but is entrusted because supportive leaders are visionary, is yet to even enter wider education debate.
So which nations will be in positions to have an education disruption bypass?
As connectivity improves in nations without traditional education infrastructure, as mobility, flexible delivery and costs allow greater participation rates,current disadvantage faced by LDCs will actually become their strength.
Change inertia will not be as strong, disruption to traditional policy for progress will be considerably less and openess to the way it just is now, will not be competing with too tightly held past conceptions of what education was, not should be. Clean sheet versus TTWIAB.
Which nations won't have to contend with wasteful incremental iterations of past practice or sit patiently through generational change?
Which populations will be active, motivated, even desperate to have access to badge labs, to not become educated, but as a means to remove inequities they face?
The largest gains will be made in the places of greatest disadvantage, as any juniot high maths reinforces. The "undoing" inertia found in welded on beliefs, and safe cyclical politics, is powerful.
Changing this current power is both more problematical and less efficient than establishing the new. Especially now.
Data as a Resource - Round 'em up, move 'em on Rawhide!
Jessica Irvine in this morning's SMH opines;
"Those minerals they're mining - all the gold, iron ore, coal and uranium - it's yours. You own it."
When you think about, yes of course we should all kit up with shovels, swags and fly blown rations and get amongst our mineral wealth. We own it after all.
Gold Rush 1850's, Eureka stockades and worker's protest over governmnet taxes anyone? The ironic circuitous history of it all comes flooding back.
'In December 1851, rather than making it easier for the miners, the Government (Colonial Victoria) announced that it would double the (miner's licence) fee to 3 pounds. The reason for this was that the government was in some financial difficulty."
Well blow me down with a feather if we aren't seeing history relived. Tax the producers of national wealth for it is easy and convenient for a government bereft of alternatives to hit those who do. Just like a government did at Buninyong in 1851.
Yes "our" mineral resources are finite; "one use, when it's gone, it's gone" style.
Yes we have fly in fly out workers earning ridiculous amounts which they spend on their families as they choose.
Yes some of those mining execs on world mega rich lists may well deserve burnt stick to eye scorn for general stupidity or suspect social grace. But please, not simply because they have been successful risk takers, investors and massive employers.
Well so what? Why bash those who can? And do. Were the wool and wheat exporters who romantically are seen as the economic mainstay of 19th century Australia slugged an additional tax? They paid what was due. Sure the squattocracy got rich and lefties bemoamed their foresight, but proportionately a broad comb shearer got way less of the spoils than today's pit truckie.
As much as "those destroying democracy" as Treasurer Wayne Swan wrote in The Monthly are influential, a mature policy could move beyond the man and play the issue as Clive Palmer retorted. The mining companies who stump up zillions (often in exploration which returns zilch) to extract zillions don't deserve a discriminatory industry penalty tall poppy tax.
Which brings us to the day the fat ore pit is empty and the Pilbara becomes a latter day Yerranderie, Hill End or Glen Davis. It won't happen overnight, but what does happen when the rich veins do run dry?
Which makes me think of the change in economic bases we are transitioning between. Raw primary resources to raw digital resources.
Global data has always been a raw resource. It's why spies exist. But now the harvesting, disecting and disseminating of that data is approaching real time in quantities never before imagined.
Data which we own. Data that is becoming currency. Data that we trade for ads. And for Free.
Our data is an emerging reusable, renewable, and exponentially massive resource of the digital insight age. But who will be the dominant exploiters, miners or users of our data? Who will get fat on it's richness? Who will become the latter day Data Barons and Byted Gentry?
Who will be Australia's Twiggy Forrest, Gina Rheinhart or Ivan Glasenberg of the raw data resource rich nation. Or will an insight economy negate nationalities and go straight to global ownership and control?
No wonder the current corralling data wars will escalate.
As learning insight, understanding learning, matures and becomes hot property for economies going places the raw resource of wild unbroken data will be the fuel that feeds it's growth.
Round 'em up Rawhide...Yeehah!
Who'll Have the Means to Analyse Our Learning?
As Pearson and INITE announce plans to opens an online Mexican University , and consequently assume ownership of the learning data created, I wonder who will have the means to analyse our learning in the near future?
Economies of scale, aggregation and removal of internal data barriers (like siloed servers, conflicting TOS, or "unsharing"autonomous faculty) results in richer, deeper and faster data flows. The deeper this pool of linked data becomes, the more valuable is the extraction.
As this digital Model T emerges, which companies, governments and institutions will;
a) have the inclination to invest in the infrastructure and specialist skills needed to keep data analysis and learning analytics in house?
b) sub-contract data management and learning analytics to whole of service learning providers, like Knewton or Pearsons.
What data strategy will smaller companies, governments and institutions adopt? Can they hope to "compete" in the insight age if their raw product is limited? Or of an inconsequential size? We don't see any small scale iron ore exporters left. Data will follow that trend as firstly the knowledge economy matures and secondly the insight economy emerges. Rapidly.
The Googles and Facebooks are just the tip of emerging advertising data empires. They have plenty of growth left. But at who's cost? If growth of these "free" services (socmed or ad portals? Take your stance) in exchange for our data privacy is insufficient, wait until the nascent field of learning analytics ramps up production.
“Education is the world’s largest data industry, by far,” says Jose Ferreira, Knewton CEO. “Online education,” says Ferreira, “is on the cusp of massive change, and only 100 cognoscenti know about it.”
Jose realised four years ago, online whole of service education (content, assessments, instruction, analytics, accreditation) offered to fiscally challenged education providers (and mobile consumers in less developed economies, hungry for accessible tertiary qualifications, like Mexico) will be in a strong position to leverage advances in learning analytics.
As real time analysis becomes the default (as algorithms, size of "big data" and ability to ask disciplined questions improves) what impact will this have on learning providers?
Will a few dominant learning data companies emerge, or can learning analytics remain an in house cottage industry?
As BehindCompanies says of Kyle Baxter and the insight economy,
He rightly argues that this is the age of accountability, where you can’t just blindly follow a life path that will guarantee you success (go to school, get a job, live life, retire).
This has massive ramifications across almost everything we do in education and work.
Stuff For Later
SoLAR
“learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs.”
Academic Analytics
Academic analytics is the application of business intelligence in education and emphasizes analytics at institutional, regional, and international levels.
Academic analytics helps address the public’s desire for institutional accountability with regard to student success, given the widespread concern over the cost of higher education and the difficult economic and budgetary conditions prevailing worldwide.
John P. Campbell, Peter B. DeBlois, and Diana G. Oblinger stated: “Analytics marries large data sets, statistical techniques, and predictive modeling. It could be thought of as the practice of mining institutional data to produce ‘actionable intelligence."
Through the use of academic analytics, institutions have the potential to create actionable intelligence on student performance, based on data captured from a variety of systems. The goal is simple — improve student success, however it might be defined at the institutional level.
but "significant institutional challenges impede the implementation of analytics efforts."
Each institution must carefully consider the functionality necessary to best support its teaching and learning environment and weigh that against what commercial products offer.
The college/university thus must become a more intentional, intelligent organization, with data, evidence, and analytics playing the central role in this transition.
Advocates refer to themselves as cognitive behavior therapists (e.g. Mahoney, 1974; Meichenbaum, 1977). Clients' behavior problems are described by referring to their beliefs, desires, intentions, memories, and so on. Even the language of self-reflexive thought and belief (so-called‘meta-cognition’) figures in some accounts of behavioral difficulties and interventions (Wells 2000). One goal of such language is to encourage clients to monitor and self-reinforce their own behavior. Self-reinforcement is an essential feature of behavioral self-control (Rachlin 2000; Ainslie 2001).
What is Behavior Analysis?
Behavior analysis is the scientific study of behavior.
Behavior analysts ask "Why does behavior change over time?" They seek answers by looking at the biological and environmental factors, although they are primarily interested in the role of environment in behavior change. Many behavior analysts do either basic or applied research. Others specialize in applying behavior change principles to enhancing quality of life.
Nothing New About Asking Questions. The Right Ones.
Deloitte states;
There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the BD market. But big
data probably deserves a place in overall enterprise IT strategy for generating
business insight. Best practices include generating a list of important challenges
or questions that the current approach to data does not address. Could big
data deliver the answers enterprises are looking for? If so, then it’s all about
discipline. A disciplined, targeted approach to big data – one focused on
answering very specific questions. (my emphasis - I'll get to those later)
Nothing like some backward planning common sense. Agile iteration towards a known desired behaviour goal. Mostly involving change. AKA Don't Hold Your (cherished) Tools Too Tightly. Obstruction or bypass become too painful otherwise. Let's face it. Anyone can accumulate essentially worthless data. Linked or siloed. Fewer efficiently curate it.
And there's the rub.
If traditional hierachies, DO manage to become, at least, internally open, and share data (data, not spin) within the organisation, then co-operation improves for The Win.
If that same place also asks the right preemptive, disciplined and targeted questions of their newly different and co-operative data pool, deeper institutional insight will result. And redundant layers become exposed. Hence, possibly, why internal sharing is currently resisted.
Ok just briefly to finish, the emphasis.
Skeptical - I remain very. Especially of BD/LAK providers ultimate responsibility. And therefore, intent.
Insight - some say LAK does not provide this. Well sorry, you're using the wrong brand if you're not feeling the difference. Or using old questions.
discipline - easy to aggregate oceans of data. Harder to find value.
specific - need to know what you''re looking for. Ask The Right Questions, otherwise you'll find it, for 100% of 0 use.
Can you set your own enquiry questions?
Some even co-operate by sharing their data distillate. But only when lucred bottom lines are absent. Profit demands understandably do that.
And approaching status of rare as rocking horse excreta are those who do share meaningful, disciplined, (public?) questions. Before analysis. If pre question is absent, you're sure to find what you're looking for. Especially if wallowing in low hanging binary dross.
Shiny Badges Everywhere.
George's slide 37/46 made me stop. I'm curious what explanation accompanied it.
Three communities that don't communicate?
Herein lies an opportunity, and the converse, to retain policy direction for autonomous LAK, at least at the institutional level.
Internal openess, to enable institute LAK data to communicate, will be a major challenge for the traditionally autonomous.
Will the Big Three listed above, who "don't communicate", play nice, voluntarily?
Or will Benevolent Uncle Pearson/Google/Gates Foundation (insert LAK funder/provider of choice) be seconded to provide the environment for that critical (internal) openess to exist?
If communication (data capture, storing, sharing, analysis, visualisation) in communities remains a blunt "don't", then a Google Data Aggregation Moment. sold in a whole of system solution, will remain an alternative for the increasingly fiscally challenged. Welcome to Digital Economies of Scale 101.
Selling their perspective of your data back to you before you know they've even visited, could well become the "don't communicate" LAK default implemenation.
Who tells Our Stories in Data?
Having had a bit to do with #LAK11, a pending topic in #LAK12 that holds my interest is the context and perspective of LAK analysis.
Currently Google is aggregating 60 services under a universal privacy policy. Not to assist consumers, despite assurances to the contrary, but to enable their context and perspective to be applied to these newly linked data sets. The larger Google's data aggregation becomes, the more they reduce shadow and redundant databases that inhibit growth. Assistive (for profit) technology in action, doing what it should. Bolstering their bourse.
I'm pretty certain that's not the model most educators would want for LAK.
But is it ultimately where the emerging currency of LAK is heading, regardless of value other's may apportion? Every internet input, whether directly or indirectly, contributes to learning and knowledge building. One emerging tension may include; where does analysis of that learning data stop being assistive to finite, specialised, ethical, non-profits and start being regarded as profitable for the LAK provider. Not all institutions can, or will want to, provide resources for LAK analysis. They then will become consumers of LAK, not providers. Another emerging tension and important power distinction.
Basically, the bigger the linked data bucket Google creates, the better their hungry algorithms can convert to cash. Consumers mostly don't care or realise, as long as service is free up front and serves their immediate purpose. The real cost is becoming even more deeply hidden, but always discoverable to owners, in linked data farms.
This tension matters to LAK futures. Why? Skip to the end. Or not.
Who knows code? I don't. That fundamentally excludes me from a true digital fluency. I may be functionally literate in services, tools, apps offered, but the backend code forever remains a mystery. Not knowing grammar, I was never taught and have no interest in learning, also excludes me from a true language fluency. But I get by with functional literacy. Most do.
Today's digital difference is the widening gap between exact fluencies and malleable literacies.
Fluent code is evolving rapidly and exactly, fluent grammar has largely remained exact grammar; liitle changed and relatively slowly when it does.
Functional literacy has also changed, but slowly enough for generations to adjust. Compare newspapers (design, sentence structure, layout, adverts, vocabulary, spelling) from 1900, 1950 and 2000 and you'll see what I mean.
Now both exact code and functional digital literacy are rapid in their development. Compare today's latest app to pre-smart phone and pre-mobile. If an active, critical, questioning learner, locked up since 1985, was given an iphone, they'd have the deeper ramifications sorted quickly. If Passive Superficial Joe was afforded the same opportunity, he may well accept whatever he's told, as long as iphone immediately functions and is up front free. That depth of learning wisdom remains far more significant than the speed, or bells and whistles, of the technology or any fluency/literacy change.
This results in an increasingly content group of unquestioning digital fanbois who are actually functionally illiterate, not just lacking fluency, who are simply satisfied by shiny baubles, free and easy. Elsewhere highly fluent coders (and tricky spin-meisters) compete to attract our cross referenced high hanging data. Just the way Google wants it.
Code is not (yet) the (most fundamental) K-12 subject most governments want taught. And yet it remains the key to true future digital fluency.
OK. Why does any of this matter to LAK futures?
Who will be the equivalent edu-Google data "winner"?
Pearsons, FB, Gates, Governments, Open source, a learning institute ombudsman or even google themselves?
Who tells what stories with our edu-data? Others speaking on our behalf is not new. Take analogue democracy. But digital LAK just got a whole lot more serious.
Will stories told from our edu-data, be with a "winners" perspective?
And what is the data owners context for doing so?
How many will be able to exclude themselves from this new fluency?
Think about the possibles. I know I'd prefer to tell my own stories. But I'll also be resigned to being a part of larger stories told by others with my data for their purposes.
Happy? I'll deal with it. Knowingly.
Your "Beds Are Burning" Mr Garrett - Education Minister
The Hon Peter Garrett MP
Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
Dear Minister
OPEN LETTER REGARDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM (HISTORY)
As you are aware, the History Teachers’ Association of Australia (HTAA) is the peak body that represents secondary history teachers in Australia. At our recent national conference of the association, held in Adelaide last week, it was clear that there is widespread disappointment with ACARA’s curriculum development and review processes. In particular, there is a lack of confidence in the way in which ACARA is currently handling the development of senior history courses.
As a result, once again HTAA expresses urgent concern about the lack of direction, poor communication and inadequate consultation processes used by ACARA in the development of the Australian Curriculum.
Poor communication in regard to developments with the senior courses is especially concerning given HTAA’s contribution to and vital interest in this area. We refer to
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The failure to explain the rationale behind the initial 6 unit framework for the Senior Secondary Curriculum.
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The failure to explain why this structure has subsequently been reduced to 4 units
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The lack of clear direction and guidelines for those involved in curriculum development.
We also have major concerns about the composition and processes of consultation and advisory group meetings. There is a lack of consistency in personnel attending consecutive consultation meetings. This means that many new participants are overwhelmed and underprepared to make informed contributions.
Subsequently, advice given to developers and writers may represent the strongly held opinions of individuals who are not always involved in the process of generalconsultation or sensitive to the needs of the profession or the discipline as a whole.
This situation is only exacerbated by the absence of a clear vision or guidelines against which all contributions can be measured.
As it stands, the consultation process simply does not deliver strong, clear or well-informed advice for ACARA to act upon in providing guidance to curriculum developers and writers.
Too often, this results in an ad hoc churning of detail that bears no resemblance to what one would expect of a process that is supposed to deliver 21st century courses that will inspire and excite teachers and students.
HTAA urges you as the Minister responsible to address these issues with ACARA as a matter of urgency. HTAA remains supportive of the Australian Curriculum, but believes that the processes underpinning the development of the curriculum need to be refined so that those involved in the consultation process have a clear understanding of the aims and purpose of it.
Yours faithfully
L Secker
Vice President and
National Curriculum Spokesperson
9 October 2011
"Always On" by default or design?
I'll be using some dot points today by purposeful design. Why? because my clarity really sucks.
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Erik's point in the coolcast about timetables for connection in times of abundance resonated.
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He structures his available time and is then "always on" in and for that moment.
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These are family times, these are syncronous teaching times, these are email reply times, these are whatever time blocks Erik values and reserves.
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Erik does not blur those distinct times.
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Is this a framework time design for always on, that helps calm abundance?
I've long believed re-designing school "time" and learning "space", are two fundamental reforms that will impact school education. Some exciting open physical learning spaces have emerged and in this transitory time, that should be an architectural budget priority for all new or modified school plans.
Would it be possible to re-design "our timetables" from a generic default "always on" to a purposefully designed "always on"? Quick, back to some dots.
- Erik's class power up connections for learning. "Switch on all connection devices. During our syncronous class time"
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They have 5 hours to actively pull in, share and co-operate around knowledge in the network that students have previously curated. Group filter.
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If a network learning source is another syncronous human, have you checked their "timetables" allow them to be "on" when you connect? Disruption or purposeful?
I ask my students before phone triva Friday's, is the person you are seeking to involve in our learning, able to "be" in our class right now, because that's what you are requesting by connecting.
It becomes more than just a "phone call". Student's slowly see it as a request for a learning connection, a process that aides learning, rather than the social tool it rightly is at other times.
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Erik's class is a flipped learning process.
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Quality content is important, but process is always more so.
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The firehose of abundant content is collaboratively aggregated, further curated and suddenly 5 hours does not feel like enough time.
I teach four one hour lessons every two weeks for 4 clasess, two year 9 and two year 10. (I also teach year 7 and year 8, a total of 7 to 8 classes) In other words, highly fragmented, excessive disruptions to our core due to extras school has adopted as solutions and waste. It is an issue others see, but then always ask, "what can we do about it?"
If we had all 4 hours, with no interruptions, once every two week cycle would learning be better?
pros of 4 hour classes;
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PBL would be mandatory
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PL, for digital connected technologies, would be mandatory
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more responsibility on developing engaging learning design, not teaching.
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once engaged with their meaningful project,(legacy, empathy, heritage) student learning becomes far deeper
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allows purposeful learning connections to be developed and modelled
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asyncronous digital support spaces would be needed for continuity.
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shift from passive to active becomes the only way to learn.
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extended time allows innovation, like GBL, to be integrated well.
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allows formative feedback and a two week reflection cycle between classes.
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on task time would improve, not decrease
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active well connected learners would quickly feel an advantage
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the need for developing better learning connections would be stark
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any extra curricula day excursions would not disrupt others
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those who miss a live session, can rely on youtube, elluminate, MP3 recordings
cons
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in a 10 week term, I would only see each class 5 times, four hours each lesson.
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miss one 4 hour class, you miss 20% of course time immediately.
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current little boxes timetable thinking could never vision it, let alone do it
If our system ever needs like minded educators to teach this way, I'm putting my hand up now..
I'm not sure why space and time can't at least be tinkered with.
I suspect an answer may be found in school bus timetables, welded on industrial and budget constraints and that's the way we've always done it thinking. It will be sadly interesting when this has to change, not because it's right for learning, but because PISA ranked us so and the government plays safe catch up, not innovate.
Logical, orderly, and aesthetically consistent relationship of parts.
Coherence, fragmentation, clarity, randomness, chaos and mess. Six concepts in MOOC connectivism that pique me right off. And that's The Curious Good News.
Widely disparate coalescence itineraries and overt lens tensions are evident in all definitions. When and how you arrive at, and see "it", is predominatly framed by convergent crowds, not divergent outliers. Many nuts of their time, are now celebrated. Why later and not then?
Nuts were always coherent, through their lens, but the societal focal point had yet to shift. Once the biconvex majority allowed their staid "coherency" cracks to chasm and then refocus, a new plateau of broader societal understanding, admitted once spurned radicalism as normal.
Many tertiary providers are now the actual concentrating convex lens in the first diagram. A proscribed narrow societal focal point after the event is the expected target. Training to retain that economic competitivness alone is unsustainable. There is a multitude of disaggregated institutions offering that more conveniently than full service sandstones and at a considerably reduced cost already. Once governments green light new credential providers, what will differentiate campus attendance? Awesome open educators that design both syncronous and asyncronous brilliantly.
So, what lens and which of your past experiences are you bringing to the table that defines fragmented, random, chaotic, messy, clear or indeed coherent?
Asking Braque, Mondrian or Pollock would elicit anything but coherence. All abstractionists and abstract, but using three distinct forms, each presents a canvas that is not an accurate representation of a form or object. Emergent coherence is enriched over time through debate, discussion and reflection on what may initially appear incoherent. Understanding becomes a developing fluency to reach out and actively engage with, over time. That is the time missing from factory badge models. If control tolerance from past experience is also high, an answer of "Just give me the truth, a grade and a badge. I'll be compliant and complicit."
Professional abstractionists, paid to teach, who expect coherence, to their experiences, is thought control with lipstick. If paid to provoke thought, an ironic anathema develops if an anticipated, logical, orderly and aesthetically consistent relationship of parts does not result. Expecting coherence, to instructor's past experiences also breeds narrow passivity.
So the learning process is now doing the 'ole D&G rhizome shuffle' and finding a way around artifical frames of control that once served well. Badged up club members defend positions, overtly which is fine, or more ingenuously through control in the name of a cookie cutter coherence. Their comfortable, defendable reality informs experience and why change that threatens, will be actively prolonged.
Braver educational leaders embracing transformational change are needed. Or whole of service Edu providers, who aren't educators but dividend platforms, will be taken up by bankrupt governments. Then we will have scaled badgeville; cheap, shallow and boringly cookie cutter coherent.
Careful what we wish for when we ask for coherence. Who's and to whom?
