Learning 2.0 : The Antithesis of What We Know and Do

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Interesting, but not new, observations from a recent Learning Technologies conference. The main speaker was Stephen Downes.

"Gurus are suggesting that the new use-driven web environment is spawning a new form of learning, learning 2.0. Learning 2.0 is the antithesis of learning which those of us who pre-date the Google generation would know as formal learning. Indeed learning 2.0 even seems to throw away the rule book that learning over the internet (e-learning) or the mixture of internet-based learning and traditional face-to-face learning (blended learning) were prepared to obey."

"(Stephen) Downes argues that learning is moving from a centrally controlled provision to a barely controlled group activity. In many spheres the internet is seen to be switching our behaviours from ‘push’ to ‘pull’ and this in one place where it is actually happening."

"We are usually defined as learners by the class we are in, or the educational institution or corporate learning activity to which we belong. Forget those sorts of boundaries with learning 2.0: the group is infinite, self-selecting, open and self-defining. The breaking down of these boundaries – a deconstruction which in learning terms some see as significant as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall – does raise some serious questions. For information professionals the question has to be what does this do to the use of the library resource and the scholarly approach in the process of learning?"

And of most interest to those of us who thought learning objects, modules and repositories offered some movement in this direction, Downes changes the equation...JMS

"...learning 2.0 is not based on objects and contents – the sort of elements we may expect to find stored in a library and which therefore may not be immediately accessible. Instead learning 2.0 is learning where you need it and when you need it. This is more than just in time it is just in time PLUS what you want. It is learned-centered because it is both owned by, and of interest to, the learner.

NMC Aggregator

Check out this link to the NMC - not because this blog is listed in it, but because it contains a wide variety of aggreggated information about a wide variety of stuff.

Sources | nmc

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/#home

A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish. A VoiceThread allows group conversations to be collected and shared in one place, from anywhere in the world.

Six “Key Emerging Technologies” for Higher Ed Profiled in the 2008 Horizon Report | nmc

Six “Key Emerging Technologies” for Higher Ed Profiled in the 2008 Horizon Report | nmc: "Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years. “Campus leaders and practitioners alike use the report as a springboard for discussion around emerging technology,” noted Larry Johnson, chief executive officer of the NMC. “As this is the fifth edition of the report, it also offers an opportunity to look back at the overarching trends over time. What we see is that there are several long-term, conceptual themes that have affected, and continue to affect, the practice of teaching and learning in profound ways.” More than 40,000 copies of the 2007 Horizon Report were distributed in print and electronically last year."

six selected areas for 2008—grassroots video, collaboration webs, mobile broadband, data mashups, collective intelligence, and social operating systems

Geography Emerges in Distance Ed

Here are some interesting excerpts from the article Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: Geography Emerges in Distance Ed. I find the commentary to be relevant and interesting. I'm not sure that all of it is irrefutable, but it is insightful.

"the idea that learning online renders geography irrelevant is challenged by trends in survey data. Two-thirds of the 2,033 representative survey respondents — all interested in online education over the next several years — preferred to enroll in online programs located in their state, but only 47 percent had done so; the rest were enrolled in institutions located elsewhere. The report points to that finding as a signal that better-tailored programs and improved marketing could exploit a market demand for localized online education that hasn’t entirely been filled. Although Eduventures makes its full reports available only to paying members, charts provided to Inside Higher Ed point to a correlation between living in larger communities and a desire for online providers that are based locally."

"A reluctance among potential students to embrace the concept of online education could also come from the way it’s often been marketed: as a convenience to busy adult learners with families and jobs. Much of the growth of online learning comes from people for whom the option is merely their second preference. If institutions start to move away from that definition of themselves, Garrett (Richard Garrett, a senior analyst at Eduventures) said, they might become more open to different kinds of students — for example, younger students who have fewer qualms about learning online."

There were also some comments posted by readers which make salient points. Here are a couple of samples:

People tend to chose what’s familiar to them, and local is more familiar that a program in another state or half way around the world. Some of the most venerated, well-established distance learning programs in the world, for example, the University of London’s External Programme, which has been around for a about a century and a half, learned this lesson long ago, and have a network of local providers in far-flung corners of the world teaching U of L curriculum. The University of Phoenix’s success is built on the principle of local provision, which makes distance learning not so distant — in fact, it’s just around the corner. [Richard Hesel, at 11:00 am EST on November 28, 2007]

Our recommendation is that universities interested in these matters concentrate their efforts on developing and managing fully blended programs and employing geo-targeted regional marketing strategies centering on their campuses. Of course these institutions must be capable of converting the geo-targeted leads effectively. This is the real challenge for most institutions. Sluggish responses to email, web, or phone inquiries with a mailed application packet is a thing of the past, practiced by schools that are already or will soon become marginalized. {Robert Tucker, President at InterEd, Inc., at 12:25 pm EST on November 28, 2007]

I find Mr. Tucker's commentary most relevant. His assertion that institutions must be able to convert geo-targeted leads squares with our own experience at TWU.