I was recently assigned to note my thoughts on the historical debate between Richard Clark (1983) and Robert Kozma (1991) regarding the question: Does media influence learning?

Clark argues that media is simply a vehicle for delivering instruction. What influences student achievement in his estimation is the content or instructional methods employed (not the media/medium in and of itself). Clark also suggests that the novelty of newer media can generate increased learner attention and achievement, but wears off over time and exposure again lessening achievement scores.

The most amazing/amusing comments in Clark's paper centers around his assertion that no more research be conducted regarding comparing different media to one another. Again, when learning assessment is at issue, researchers should be investigating the design variables, not the media (i.e., the delivery vehicle). Clark avers that comparing the achievement benefits of one medium over another unavoidably confuses the medium with the method of instruction.

Clark squarely believes it is the teacher, not the technology that clearly affects learning outcomes and achievement.

And to a certain degree, I agree with Clark: medium and method can be easily confused by unsophisticated researchers. However, I have a hard time tossing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Media/medium does matter. And how different media are employed, what content is chosen, the tasks associated with the course objectives, etc. all influence the learning outcome. To say we should stop comparing media is clearly shortsighted and perhaps is due to the limited media available in 1984.

Kozma's approach to analyzing media in education is a bit different. Kozma asserts that what a medium can do (and how it represents knowledge) when combined with the way instruction is designed impacts the learner and learning positively. Kozma believes the media and method are clearly interrelated: the medium influences/limits the design and the method is influenced by the constraints/advantages of the medium. Separating the medium and the method within the learning environment is a fallacious argument at best (and Clark should know better!). The studies Kozma reviews in his article demonstrate how learning is supported by the methods employed within a specific medium and how they engage a learners' understanding and cognitive abilities. Therefore, in Kozma's opinion, research should continue comparing media to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of different media and instructional design methods.

I find myself in agreement with Kozma. Research on which variables impact learning and how the medium employed effects these variables is what educational technology researchers should be doing. Although I think it is important to remember the role of the teacher in this debate. Technology can have a tremendously negative impact if it supports bad instruction. Technology is not the answer, but as Kozma suggests, technology (media) is only as valuable as the learning design that underlies it.


References:

Clark, R.E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445-459.

Kozma, R.B. (1991). Learning with media. Review of Educational Research, 61(2), 179-211.

From The Onion:

Congress Abandons WikiConstitution

September 28, 2005 | Issue 41•39
WASHINGTON, DC—Congress scrapped the open-source, open-edit, online version of the Constitution Monday, only two months after it went live. "The idea seemed to dovetail perfectly with our tradition of democratic participation," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said. "But when so-called 'contributors' began loading it down with profanity, pornography, ASCII art, and mandatory-assault-rifle-ownership amendments, we thought it might be best to cancel the project." Congress intends to restore the Constitution to its pre-Wiki format as soon as an unadulterated copy of the document can be found. (Copyright The Onion, Inc. All rights reserved).

------

One of my most favorite web/news sites The Onion, recently publish the above "article" parodying the notion of a wiki-based constitution.

Quite an ingeneous thought when you think about it.

It also reminds me of a similar argument: allowing learners to define their own learning objectives.

George Siemens notes in his weblog (re: learner-defined objectives):

the designer includes required competencies in the creation of the learning ecology. Instead of designing courses, we need to design learning environments.

In many ways, the Constitution could be thought of as a well-designed learning ecology. It was designed in such a way that both fosters required competencies (e.g., the Bill of Rights) and allows for discussion, interpretation, and amendations (i.e., an active, evolving, ecological system). It is THE environment that all U.S. citizens exist within, subject to its definitions and peculiarities.

Fortunately or unfortunately, citizens must elect others to "write" the wikiConstitution, otherwise the Onion story above might actually ring true.

Perhaps once the United States 2.0 is invented, we'll have the opportunity.

Godfrey Parkin provides an interesting perspective on the future of e-learning, also known as e-learning 2.0 (ugh... enough with the jargon 2.0 stuff!).

Granular solutions presents a number of questions for me. It is not necessarily the size of learning that matters, I believe it is more of a design issue.

Think of a fresco; small, individual tiles are assembled according to a design and voila! if you stand back, you have a recognizable picture. If you get too close, you lose the whole picture or the designer's intent (See Chuck Close's work as a wonderful example).

So while granularity is cool, it is only one part of the equation that we call learning or knowledge construction. Micro-learning experiences sound promising, but Godfrey is not exactly providing any evidence for their effectiveness.

If knowledge is water, vaporizing it promises nothing but steam. How will the water be condensed into something meaningful? This is where I believe George Siemens is going with his notion of creating learning ecologies; environments where meanings expand, contract, and take on useful forms.

Ideologies are fun, and thinking about the future of learning is one of my favorite pasttimes. But I'm getting a little tired of the sound and fury which ultimately signifies nothing.

For me, Parkin's use of vapor as an analogy for the future of micro-learning is nothing but vaporware.

[Memo to self: choose your metaphors carefully.]

"It's only work if somebody makes you do it."

I found this quote while eating breakfast this morning. My local paper is running old Calvin and Hobbes comics which generally brightens my day.

This quote triggered my mind as it relates to teaching and learning on a number of levels.

David Wiley recently talked about Gagne, Games, and Learning on his weblog. His question "what type (or types) of learning are best promoted by game-like instructional conditions?" made me think about Calvin's quote.

Wiley goes on to suggest:

when students are learning about complex systems, games are a great condition under which to learn.

Can't say I agree with him more.

Ask a child if they want to play a game or play a lesson, and see how they respond. Culturally, playing a game connotes fun, unless you've lived under the tyranny of an older sibling....

I also belive there is a certain connotation behind the word play that is not associated with learning in the traditional sense.

I'm not suggesting that learning should be easy or effortless; but couching it in terms of play, of exploration, of activity, seems to tip the scales towards learning as interesting as opposed to abject.

Wiley provides a facile argument in terms of the design considerations one must consider when designing a learning game which I encourage you to consider.

Otherwise, you might risk "making" learners, rather than piquing their natural curiosity.

Just received this letter in my inbox: We are writing you today to directly communicate some momentous news. Earlier today, WebCT and Blackboard signed a formal agreement expressing our intent to merge our companies. OMGWTF Could this signal the beginning of the end for corporate, one-sized-fits-all learning management systems? Has open-sourced solutions broken the giants' backs? Perhaps. Although these two mega-players control a majority of the market share, neither have been completely successful in convincing colleges and universities that their solution is the best one. Can't wait to see how this plays out. I wonder when Yahoo and Google plan to get into the VLE market? var site="s20wilco" Blogarama << edublog list >> _uacct="UA-xxxx-x"; urchinTracker(); http://elgg.net/csessums/weblog/GOOGLE38addab1f6183693.

Liberation and the Internet:
Communities of practice and the power to connect.


In her essay “Reflections on Liberation,” Suzanne Pharr discusses liberation politics as a means of “breaking down the barriers that prevent a large portion of the population from having access to economic and social justice” (Pharr 2000, p. 450). She goes on to outline the challenge of such politics:

This is the challenge for all of us. The work of liberation politics is to change the hearts and minds, develop empathy with and the sympathy for other people, and help each other discover how we are inextricably linked together for our common good and our survival on this planet (Pharr 2000, p. 450).

Given this call to action, the Internet – a global system of interconnected computer networks – presents a unique opportunity for linking people together for a common good, as Pharr suggests, as well as a chance to redefine social power.


The Power of the Internet

The Internet allows information to be stored, retrieved and exchanged over great distances between people of all types and persuasions regardless of sex, race, gender, sexual identity, and age [the question of ableism is still being addressed by a number of national and international committees working to insure equality of access; however, there are still many technological hurdles to cross]. The Internet and the World Wide Web (i.e., the web) provide a powerful means of organization and communication that is fast, global, and growing rapidly. Current estimates (2004-5) of global Internet usage (http://global-reach.biz/globstats/index.php3) reveal that over 700 million people around the world are accessing the web. This powerful and relatively new force in our culture presents numerous opportunities for people of all political stripes to organize, connect, communicate, reflect and act for change on both local and international stages.


Communities of practice

One way that the Internet provides an opportunity for social power is the idea of “communities of practice” (Wenger 1998). Online communities of practice can be organized as a means of connecting people with shared interests regardless of time and place. An essential tenet of the communities of practice model is that individual members form communities, not a centralized organizing body. Their strength is connecting members to each other and not necessarily disseminating information.

Communities of practice have the potential of bringing people together to work on common causes. This interconnectivity can lead to the collaboration of multiple voices that can create and support democratic values and discourse. An example of such a community includes the National Society for Black Engineers (http://www.nsbe.org/), an online student-managed organization designed to foster culturally responsible black engineers “who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community” (http://www.nsbe.org/aboutnsbe/mission.php). Another example is dotOut (http://www.dotout.org), a grassroots, political organization representing gay and lesbian voters in Dorchester, MA. These communities were formed by their members via the Internet to assist others who share a similar identity or agenda. Such online communities of practice can be politically liberating in their ability to assist individuals in connecting and building relationships, in gathering and sharing information, and in their ability to be autonomous and self-governing.

As Pharr points out, such communities of practice do run the risk of being misused and disingenuous. Pharr suggests “[a] danger of diversity politics lies in the possibility that it may become a tool of oppression by creating the illusion of participation when in fact there is no shared power” (Pharr 2000, p. 455). The communities of practice mentioned above (Black engineers, gays and lesbians) are commonly recognized by their “identity politics,” whose members seek to connect to those who share a single, common identity. Pharr warns us that this type of politics may be a “limited, hierarchical approach, reducing people of multiple identities to a single identity” (Pharr 2000, p. 455). On the other hand, organizing by identity provides a point of focus, self-reflection and education outside the dominant culture, as well as development of camaraderie and group cohesion. Thus, identity politics can bring marginalized people and groups to the fore, providing visibility and collective strength; but these communities must be sensitive to those forces that helped to form them in the first place.


Liberation or continued oppression?

Pharr critically acknowledges the dual nature of diversity/identity politics. While giving a voice to the disenfranchised, this type of politics does not embody the needs and concerns of others who are marginalized or oppressed. Pharr reminds us that oppressions are interconnected; they are social and systemic, where one group can assert control over another, denying people fundamental rights. Can the same be said regarding control over the Internet? Given the Internet’s capability and potential to connect people and ideas around the globe regardless of sex, race, or creed, will it serve as a potent vehicle for the redistribution of power or will it re-focus power along dominant class and racial lines?

In the Journal of Black Studies, author Colin Beckles notes: “[a]s the benefits of Internet use become concentrated primarily in the hands of White society, a worldwide de facto state of cyber-segregation may become manifest” (Beckles 2001, p. 312). Beckles makes a critical point: he sees Internet use in socioeconomic terms. This argument calls into view a greater question of what has come to be known as the “digital divide,” i.e., the socioeconomic gap between communities that have access to computers and the Internet and those who do not. This “divide” clearly presents itself as a barrier to those without access to computers and the Internet and limits certain forms of participation in liberation politics. Will being absent from cyberspace lead to continued forms of racism, classism, exclusion and isolation from social and economic power?

Bridging the gap

So how are leaders of the many political communities addressing the problem global Internet access? Perhaps admitting there is a gap is a good first step to addressing the problem. Building alliances is another positive step sited by Ricky Sherover-Marcuse in targeting oppression (Sherover-Marcuse 2000). Following the communities of practice model, the Digital Divide Network (http://digitaldividenetwork.org/) serves as a community for educators, policy makers, and concerned citizens dedicated to bridging the digital divide. Their web site provides links to communities that focus on ways people can become pro-actively involved, articles, weblogs, discussion boards, and events calendars that encourage and support access to cyberspace and its potential for educating and liberating all people. Such organizations recognize the importance of generosity, fairness, responsibility and freedom that is requisite for building an agenda that seeks to foster diversity and eliminate oppression.


What can educators do?

In terms of liberation politics, how can educators make a difference in their classrooms? How can the Internet be used effectively to address issues of diversity and oppression? The Internet can only be as effective/affective in the classroom in terms of how lessons are designed. As a resource, the Internet fosters access to online communities, readings, images, arguments and opportunities to get involved in any number of specific topical/political arenas.

A fellow doctoral student who is a full-time elementary school teacher recently shared with me her students’ online weblogs. She constructed a space on the Internet where her students could share and reflect on each other’s work. In August, her students were assigned to take several African proverbs from other countries and interpret them in terms of their own cultural understanding. This provided a multicultural way of connecting social aspects of a different country and cultural to students’ own culture. While students could have easily done this activity with paper and pencil, the Internet gave them a chance to become familiar with a different part of the world by literally visiting sites and people in Nigeria. Students had the opportunity to see that although they may be separated by thousands of miles and have different cultural heritages, there were certain ideas (and morals) that people share no matter where they are, no matter what their socio-political context is. This is a powerful initial step in terms of getting a dominant, privileged culture to recognize and empathize with a marginalized group. Could such an exercise or lesson be conducted without the Internet? Of course it could. However, since the instructor had access to computers and the web, she saw an opportunity to take advantage of the technology as well as engage her students in developing a link to others for a common good.

Conclusion

The Internet is a powerful technology that creates an opportunity for people to organize and communicate around the globe regardless of time and place. This technology can serve as a liberational means for linking people together for a common good as well as providing a chance to redefine social power underlying structural oppression. Communities of practice are regularly forming to connect people and ideas of mutual interest. Critics note that there is always a risk that these communities can become “limited, hierarchical [in their] approach, reducing people of multiple identities to a single identity” (Pharr 2000, p. 455). However, if online communities remain sensitive to the politics of oppression, they stand a strong chance of providing collective strength and visibility to their causes unimagined by earlier generations of people.



References:

Beckles, C.A. (2001). Black liberation and the internet: A strategic analysis. Journal of Black Studies, 31(3), 311-324.

Pharr, S. (2000). Reflections on liberation. In M. Adams, W.J. Blumenfeld, R. Castaneda, H.W. Hackman, M.L. Peters, & X. Zuniga (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice: An anthology on racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and classism (pp. 450-457). New York: Routledge.

Sherover-Marcuse, R. (2000). Working assumptions and guidelines for alliance building. In M. Adams, W.J. Blumenfeld, R. Castaneda, H.W. Hackman, M.L. Peters, & X. Zuniga (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice: An anthology on racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and classism (pp. 486-487). New York: Routledge.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

A fabulous story in the Guardian with Gilberto Gil, Brasil's Minister of Culture (!), and one of my all-time favorite recording artists.


For several years now, largely under the rest of the world's radar, the Brazilian government has been building a counterculture of its own. The battlefield has been intellectual property - the ownership of ideas - and the revolution has touched everything, from internet filesharing to GM crops to HIV medication....

[T]he left-wing administration of President Luiz Inacio da Silva, or "Lula", has announced that all ministries will stop using Microsoft Windows on their office computers. Instead of paying through the nose for Microsoft operating licences, while millions of Brazilians live in poverty, the government will use open-source software, collaboratively designed by programmers worldwide and owned by no one.

"This isn't just my idea, or Brazil's idea," Gil says. "It's the idea of our time. The complexity of our times demands it." He is politician enough to hold back from endorsing the breaking of laws, for example on music downloading, but only just. "The Brazilian government is definitely pro-law," he grins. "But if law doesn't fit reality anymore, law has to be changed. That's not a new thing. That's civilisation as usual."


Several concepts worth noting here:

1) Commercial OS licenses are expensive, almost prohibitively so;

2) If your country is mired in debt and poverty, finding an OS solution that is not prohibitively expensive makes sense (i.e., employ programmers and keep your money invested in your community);

3) Employing open source solutions is "the idea of our time;" Web 2.0 is not a fad; technology will continue to change and develop more rapidly than a licensing scheme will adequately allow; and

4) the Revolution will not be televised -- it will be uploaded and downloaded by millions of people around the globe.

An interview in Fortune with Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy.

Two interesting items stood out for me:

1) Sun is launching a new software partnership with Google:

Google’s got the platform, and we’ve got the computing environments, so it’s a natural. We target the big problems. That’s what Sun is good at. That’s where Microsoft doesn’t scale and where IBM gets too expensive.

So what are they going to develop together? That's the $2.2 billion dollar question.

2) McNealy defines Web 2.0, as "the participation age:"

If you ain’t on the Internet, you aren’t participating in the greatest accumulation of creativity on the planet ever—look at Wikipedia, instant messaging, blogging, podcasting, home shopping, telemedicine, home banking, distance learning, voice over IP. The problem is that three in four folks on the earth aren’t there yet. There’s a huge digital divide. Our mission is to provide the infrastructure that powers the participation age. But our cause is to eliminate the digital divide. That’s personal.

And that's a nice thought.

Coupled with sub $100 computers and low cost wifi access, we will be set to enter a new age, perhaps a new look for democracy as we know it.

1. When should I answer a question and when should I reflect it back to the asker?

2. What are we constructing in class? Knowledge, ability, skills, strategies, points of view?

3. How do I get students to do the construction?

4. Is construction different from comprehension? If so, how?

5. What's the best way to teach students facts?

6. How do I assess what students construct?

7. How do I balance the interests of the individual student against the structure of a particular discipline?

8. What are the social or moral issues inherent in what I do?

As I sat pondering Stephen Downes latest report on E-Learning 2.0 I could help but wonder about the rest of the story, i.e., getting today's (and tomorrow's) faculty and universities up to speed.

Edubloggers are an interesting breed. We spend countless hours reading, reflecting, testing and playing with the variety of tools offered by Web 2.0 developers. That makes us, in essence, a breed apart.

I work regularly with many university professors. Some see the possibilities of encorporating new technologies in their daily teaching and learning environments. They do what they can to build their courses in a fashion approximating Siemens' connectivist theory. Most faculty I work with on a daily basis choose to ignore these theoretical and technological advances simply because they are quite comfortable doing what they have done for the past ten to twenty years.

Is their a tipping point inherent in e-learning?

With the university still providing the credentials necessary for many professions, their existence is still fundementally requisite, no matter how archaically/glacially they approach the fluid dynamics of real world needs.

If only universities operated on a Business 2.0 basis, working with industries to determine what strategies, skills, abilities, and technolgies graduates need to possess that foster success. Perhaps this is an overly idealistic view. Such a model might bring an end to the concept of a liberal education. Where will all the poets and philosophers go? (Why into educational research, of course.)

Although I readily embrace Seimens' philosophy of a learning ecology, I am troubled when I look around my campus and see professors clinging to their business-as-usual model. For me, e-learning represents the "perfect storm," the perfect opportunity to literally re-think how we teach and learn. This notion of critical reflection provides an opportunity for educators to not necessarily change others, but to change ourselves, to achieve a greater understanding of ourselves and our roles that consequently change our actions and our thinking. E-learning represents the ability for educators to transform our ourselves, our practice, and our world in ways that foster creativity, deeper learning and possibly even an opportunity to end various forms of social and economic oppression.

Whew!

Am I asking too much of e-learning? Perhaps the tipping point is closer than I am imagining. Those of us involved in edublogging are connecting and spreading the gospel worldwide, faster than Dewey could ever imagine a century ago. So I encourage you all to blog on. Share your knowledge and curiosities with others around you; assist your colleagues in building a more critical mouse-trap; challenge your professors to think differently about how they teach and learn.

As Downes notes, learning and living are merging: The challenge will not be in how to learn, but in how to use learning to create something more, to communicate. In essence, learning is all about communicating, something large universities struggle with. The university of the future will need to tear down the walls that currently envelop educators. And educators themselves will need to become active participants in a collaborative/inquiry environment that supports critical reflection and social action.

Until then, I believe that E-Learning 2.0 will be viewed by many in academia as a passing trend, another educational fad. And I believe it is our duty as educators to not let that happen.

Hats off to Stanford University for providing open access (via iTunes) to a number of interesting lectures, interviews, music and sports.

Let's hope this catches on with other universities.

You can find the link here.

In a few years, you might be able to speak Spanish, French, and English.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Karlsruhe are about to unveil new software/hardware that could make it easier for people who speak different languages to understand each other.

This could be the end of one of my favorite jokes:

What do you call somebody who can speak three languages?

Trilingual.

What do you call somebody who can speak two langauges?

Bilingual.

What do you call somebody who can speak only one language?

An American!

The rest of the story here.

Here's an article from CNet regarding why there is little diversity in the video game industry. Why don't girls play video games? Perhaps they have better things to do. Perhaps they rather talk with somebody rather than pretend to shoot them. The video game industry is truly interested in female players because they represent another set of pockets to pick. There is no real social equality thing here. The bottom line is money. Not being a gamer, it's hard for me to relate to. I find there are so many other things that I want to do with my time. Can someone explain the attraction of video/computer games like Halo, or Katamari D., or Madden Football? What am I missing?

For a class assignment, I have attempted to put together a primer re: RSS aggregators.

Please take a look and tell me what you think needs to be included/excluded; what works and what doesn't work. All comments are welcomed.