JOHN MILLNER

Three models of post-industrial society

Information Society

• Term first used by Fritz Machlup in the 1930s, but the main Info Soc theorists are Daniel Bell in the 1960s and 70s and Manuel Castells in the 1990s. Info society is seen as a successor to industrial society.

• An info soc is one in which the dominant activity is the creation, manipulation and distribution of information. An info soc typically has a knowledge economy in which knowledge is the main input and product of economic activity, and therefore the most important source of wealth

• Information technology is the defining technology of this type of society – replacing physical manufacturing which is the defining technology of industrial society

• An info soc needs a steady supply highly-educated, flexible, knowledge workers, so education and training are of paramount importance in such a society

Network Society

• Term first used by Jan van Dijk in 1991 and later taken up by Manuel Castells. It developed from the idea of a ‘wired society’, described by sociologist James Martin in the 1970s, which focussed more on the physical telecoms infrastructure of such a society than on the socio-cultural impact.

• A networked society is one in which the prime mode of organisation and structures at individual, organisational and societal levels are all shaped by a web of social and media networks. The operation and outcomes of economic production, social experience, power and culture are all modified by a new "networking logic".

• Van Dijk contrasts the "social co-presence" made possible by the networked society with the mass character of industrial society in which groups, organisations and communities take shape in "physical co-presence".

• Van Dijk argues that whereas information forms the substance of post-industrial society, it is networks that shape such a society's organisational structures and forms.

Risk Society

• Risk theory introduced by Ulrich Beck and developed by Antony Giddens -both in the 1990s. Giddens sees Risk society not as a new form of society but as a result of modernisation - as the latest phase of 'modernity'.

• Key trends in modern society - global networks and interdependence, the diffusion of knowledge/information throughout society and the prevalence of what Giddens calls 'abstract systems' - make everyone more vulnerable to, and acutely aware of, man-made risk.

• Both the risks themselves and the acute risk-consciousness which results are products of the rapid change and discontinuity characteristic of late modern societies. 'The notion of risk is central in a society which is taking leave of the past, of traditional ways of doing things, and .. opening itself up to a problematic future' (Shaw, 1995).

Pumpkin-head Society

This model was developed by Jack O'Lantern, many a long year ago...

Sources:

Shaw, Professor Martin, 1995. The development of 'common risk' society: a theoretical overview' [online] http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/hafa3/crisksocs.htm (accessed 30/10/06)

Wikipedia: Information Society [online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_society (accessed 28/10/06)

Wikipedia: Network Society [online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_society (accessed 28/10/06)

Wikipedia: Risk Society [online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_society (accessed 28/10/06)

Three definitions

Professional

There are 3 parallel strands of meaning associated with the term 'professional' - usefully summarised in Becky Warrior's paper (Warrior, 2002).

1) The idea of being paid (often very well) to do something which others do purely for enjoyment - the antonym of 'amateur'. Virtually any human activity can be done for either pleasure or for pay, so this strand of meaning does not have any special applicability in the eLearning context.

2) A bundle of meanings to do with carrying out a
- highly valued public service, which
- requires a high level of knowledge and skill, and therefore
- a high level of education and/or training, and which
- involves the exercise of personal judgement, and in which
- quality assurance is achieved via CPD and some external monitoring

3) A related but distinct bundle of meanings which include (2) but which also foregrounds
- mastery of a fixed body of theoretical knowledge, and
- upkeep of 'professional standards' by maintaining an exclusive association
of practitioners, which is
- to some extent at least self-regulating and self-certificating

These three strands of meaning of course overlap and bleed into each other, so that it is impossible to use the word 'professional' without bringing all of them into play to some extent at least.

eLearning

Is sometimes used synonymously with distance learning, online learning and web-based training. However I think I prefer the distinction between these and eLearning drawn by the European Institute for ELearning (EIfEL), which describes the distinguishing features of eLearning thus:

1) where distance learning, online learning and web-based training all highlight the technologies and delivery mechanisms involved, eLearning focusses on the enhanced learning quality that these technologies can achieve.

2) eLearning exploits the potential of Knowledge, Information and Learning Technologies (KILT) in order to meet the learning needs of a knowledge society.

3) eLearning is a "transformation process" supported by these technologies, and affecting individuals, communities, or organisations.

4) eLearning is open and flexible, and can be face2face or at a distance, individual, collaborative or social, formal or non-formal.

The eLearning Professional

While the second bundle of meanings associated with the term 'professional' have a good fit with the practice of eLearning, the third does not. Most people working in eLearning would be happy to think of themselves as educated and skilled public servants who exercise personal judgement and practice CPD, but few if any would see their profession as an exclusive, self-regulating association - and the idea of a fixed body of knowledge is inappropriate to a field in which technologies and behaviours are changing so fast.

Because it is impossible to use the word 'professional' without in some sense evoking these inappropriate associations, I prefer instead the term 'eLearning practitioner' - meaning by that simply

someone who works in the field of eLearning, sees it as a public service demanding high levels of technical and pedagogical skill requiring ongoing development, and who embraces the idea of eLearning as a flexible, transformational process designed to enhance the quality of people's learning.

Main sources:

Warrior, B, 2002, Reflections of an Education Professional, JoHLSTE Online vol 1 number 2 [online] Available from http://www.hlst.heacademy.ac.uk/johlste/vol1no2/practice/0030.html (accessed 24/10/06)

European Institute for ELearning [online] Available from http://www.eife-l.org/publications/eifelglossary/elearning (accessed 24/10/06)

A professional ruling class?

Reading the Perkin extract this week (Perkin, 1989) I found his analysis fascinating but in the end unpersuasive. His account of the 3 great revolutions in human society - the neolithic agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution of the 19th century and the post-industrial revolution of the late 20th century, each one bringing to power a new elite group - is a little too neat and uncomplex to be accurate, at least in the case of the last revolution and its characteristic professional ruling group.

For example Perkins argues that the rise of the ruling professional elites are associated with post-industrial societies in which the source of wealth is no longer land or capital but knowledge or expertise. This sounds plausible - until you consider that 'professional' elites (in the form of ruling party members) also assumed power in societies like Soviet Russia or modern China which were and are still in the industrial rather than the post-industrial stage of development.

I think Perkin's analysis of the role of professionals in post-industrial society mistakes influence for power. Of course professional experts have enormous influence and authority in a society whose economy is knowledge-based. But that doesn't mean that they are that society's ruling group - a description which fits much better those who own and run the multinational corporations who dominate the world's economies, and who cannot be sensibly defined as a professional group.

In a similar way, during the European middle ages professional churchmen held a virtual monopoly on literacy and learning, and wielded enormous ideological influence and secular power - arguably more so even than today's knowledge professionals. But that does not mean that mediaeval Europe was a hierocracy. The real rulers in that society were not the priests but the feudal aristocracy and royal families that sprang from them.

Sources:

Perkin, H. (1996) Chapter 1 of The Third Revolution: Professional Elites in the Modern World, London: Routledge.

ePortfolio thoughts

This week was about looking at different ePortfolio products and comparing/critiquing them. I started by looking at the ones listed in the Week 7 resources list, most of which are proprietary, commercial products - and I started to get a bit depressed, as they all seemed to be in their own ways almost as restrictive and pre-programmed and 'closed' as ePortaro.

So I started to wonder what the the open-source community had to offer in this area, and discovered that there are some open-source applications which are a) as good as or better than the proprietary products, b) that they are supported by committed networks of educators, and c) that some are scaleable to enterprise level and already in use in significant educational institutions.

This was a bit of an epiphany... these open-source systems were free up-front, adaptable to local needs, inherently more flexible and extensible - and offered surely the best hope of being able to achieve a level of technical standardisation and interoperability.

Seems like a no-brainer, as they say. Or have I missed something?

A coffee machine moment

Waiting for the office coffee machine to do its thing today, I got into conversation with a colleague who also works in online learning. I was telling him about my work on this course - he seemed really interested - and as I did so I began to think how strange it was that so many of my colleagues in a large, market-leading organisation are doing brilliant, cutting-edge, envelope-pushing things in the field of elearning - and doing it almost in the dark as far as the wider theoretical or policy contexts are concerned. We have occasional talks from visiting internet or education gurus, and we try to keep up with what's going on on the www - and that's about it as far as intellectual context goes.

I realised then that one thing I'd quite like to get out of this course is the ability to inject more of an eyes-open, strategic, academically-informed approach to the work we do here. If the MAODE modules can help me to do that, even in a small way, it will have been worthwhile indeed...

This week I'm trying to both complete my Wk7 assignment on portfolio products and prepare my first TMA for submission, as I've suddenly realised it's due in next Monday!! I'm having a lot of problems working out how to get my webpages and this blog into a format which will work within the dreaded ePortaro, as web archives don't work at all well. I'll sort something out no doubt, even if I have to resort to PDFs. Worse things happen at sea.

DIY multimedia

Week 6 has certainly been intense. I've been working with Berta and Helen to make a series of DIY step-throughs for building a simple website - one using Frontpage, one using iWeb and one using html and a basic text editor - and at the same time making the website itself to submit as my multimedia assignment for this week. I've done all the individual tasks involved before, but not for quite a while and it's been hard work remembering how to do things, doing them, and keeping up a dialogue about doing them all at the same time!

It's also been thoroughly enjoyable though - reminding me how much fun it is to make the simplest web objects, and well-worth the effort and late-night sessions. I've also enjoyed collaborating with my colleagues who have both done a really good job in explaining a complex process. Between us I think we've made 3 documents in completely different formats which together would enable a complete beginner to take their first steps into webspace no matter what hardware or software they are working with.

We also learnt something about not thinking collaborative projects through to the end, since 2 of the 3 documents we made can't be displayed in the wiki environment, making collective editing impossible. Tonight I'm going to attempt to upload them to my .mac public folder so we can at least all see them in the same place at the same time!

The little site I have made as my Week 6 multimedia assignment suddenly seems very tame (no audio, no video!) but will at least be useful to me as a collection of practical examples of ways that opportunities for reflection can be built into formal learning programmes.

What is reflection?

This is my dog Zinny reflecting on the nature of "ball" - trying to figure out what Thomas Aquinas would have called the quidditas of ballness. Zinny tends toward the Platonic view that every fleeting instance of actual ball (fleeting because they always get lost) is no more than a shadow or reflection of an ideal, permanent and perfect ball that she can never see - Essence of Ball as it were - which exists only and eternally, as St Thomas' pooch might have put it, in the mind of Dog.

Plato says that the instances of our perception, the thousand different particular 'dogs' that we actually see, are but shadows - as if cast upon the wall of a cave, and which we humans mistake for the real thing. The real thing is actually not any one instance but instead an ideal - a universal idea of pure dogness. It's really not much cop as philosophy, but still there maybe something here for us reflective learners.

When we learn by simply absorbing or memorising information what we are doing is learning lots of individual instances, lots of separate statements about the world which have no underlying connection with each other: these are the shadows that dance upon the wall of Plato's cave. And when we step back and reflect on what we have learnt what we are doing is comparing and relating all the individual statements, and figuring out what the underlying idea might be which gives meaning to all the individual instances we have seen - a kind of universalising process. You don't need to subscribe to the theory of Platonic ideals to see in it a metaphor for deep learning...

Looking back from Week 5

Well - it's been a steep learning curve: what with having to read all those papers and absorb loads of new information and ideas AND getting used to studying in a virtual classroom AND wrestling with ePortaro! But I have to say I've really enjoyed it.

I now feel I have a good grasp of the theory and practice of ePortfolios and reflective learning, together with the factors driving take-up of portfolio-based learning in statutory and post-statutory education - and feel really quite excited at their potential for empowering learners and enriching their learning experience. I enjoyed the work on reflection theory in week 4, and am really pleased to have encountered Jurgen Habermas who I think is pretty cool. Personally I think the week 5 reading has been rather boring (why are academics so often such dull writers I wonder?) but I managed to get through it in the end! And this week is the one where I'm beginning to feel at home with the portfolio, wiki and blog applications - and beginning to really enjoy messing around with uploading images etc..

But the best bit to my mind has been how well the whole conferencing and eTutorial system works. First Class is a brilliant bit of software I think (unlike ePortaro!) and the ability to read students' posts, get feedback on yours, exchange ideas and information and just chat at any time of the day or (given our geo-locations) even night has been really great, more than making up for the lack of opportunity for realworld meetings.

And although I've felt a bit lost at times, I think the way we have been more-or-less left - with some remote whistles and prods - to figure things out for ourselves has worked well. I feel like I am learning to be a more independent learner..

Here we go...

That's me, late at night, staring at my laptop as if the paper on Reflective Learning in the PDP Context makes any sense at all to my tired brain. And this is my H808 blog, which I'm going to use as a course journal. Each week I will blog my thoughts about the course - what I'm learning, how assignments are going, and what I'm feeling about my progress on this particular learning journey.