There are some ideas that capture our imagination and provide us with a way forward or a framework for further action or study. For me personal knowledge management (PKM) and wirearchy are two such ideas. These are not my ideas and even though I may not cite the original sources in all cases that I discuss them, I give credit where it is due. I learned this many years ago as an undergraduate. I remember my History professors demanding, “Source?” whenever we made a bold  statement of fact or brought in some new line of thought. I have a link to wirearchy on my header and I ensure that I add references when I publish or distribute any work that mentions PKM. I will mention work by Lilia Efimova, Denham Grey and Dave Pollard on PKM or Jon Husband on wirearchy.

*** Update: There are some “self-corrections” in the comments pertaining to this next section [how's that for speed?] ***

On a related note, George Siemens posts that The Rhyzome Project fails to even mention the published work of Dave Cormier on Rhyzomatic Education. With the simplicity of adding hyperlinks to web pages, citing your main sources should not be a problem, and this is something that the project could rectify quickly. I wonder how long it will take to give the appropriate citations? This could be an interesting case study of the self-corrective nature of the Web and blogs.

The latest book from Clay Christensen and his team, authors of The Innovator’s Dilemma and others, is Disrupting Class, where they examine education. Tom Haskins reviews the book and provides his own perspectives in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and finally his own assessment on the value of college diplomas.

Tom thinks that the value of a diploma will decrease because knowledge in one field will not be enough for a generation facing multiple job changes and that the economies of scale offered by physical institutions will no longer be as obvious as they were in an industrial, fossil-fuel driven economy. I agree with Tom, and have discussed the challenges faced by universities, most recently in Moving the Ivory Tower to the Web: Part 1 and Part 2:

This is the same problem facing established academic institutions. Current revenues rest with the old way of doing business - students in classes. Going to the new Web model threatens those who make their living with the old model. Therefore leaders in the old hesitate because they are tied to their existing revenue streams. They cannot put the new inside the old. The answer is to locate the new outside of the old infrastructure and let the new unit go after customers who are not served by the current model. This way institutions can hold onto the value of their existing business for as long as possible while building up new capabilities with a different business model.

Furthermore, I would venture that many online universities are not real upstarts in this business, they are just variations on the same theme. Take local Meritus University for instance. An online BBA costs $36,000 for tuition and electronic documentation fees, compared to the average tuition at a Canadian university of $20,000 for four years. Customers pay a premium for the convenience of space and time. This model is not a great threat to traditional universities as it only targets those willing to pay more for flexibility. It may be a threat to more expensive US colleges though and that may be their target market. Still, it isn’t disruptive.

An example of the changing landscape is that participation rates in free learning programs are increasing, witnessed by over 700 members in Work Literacy and over 2,000 in Connectivism & Connected Knowledge. No one is making any money on these, except for the few students registered through the university for CCK08. This is a disruptive model of semi-academic courses being provided to mostly non-consumers (people who would not have paid for it anyway). At this time, these offerings are no real challenge to the existing structure, but acceptance of these programs may prepare the way for an upstart.

The challenge for academia will be in finding where the potential revenue is moving in the new value chain. For example, I give away all of my content on this website, because I know that my revenue is generated through consulting. This has been clear to me ever since I started. The blog helps me learn and connect and raises my profile on the Web. Charging for my content wouldn’t make any sense. Free generates the fees. How will universities be able to meet the challenge of more free content? Would they be able to compete with free tuition, even if it’s not as good? How about free accreditation?

I have some ideas about some new business models, which I’ve discussed with people such as Rob Paterson, and I’m sure that there are other people looking at this challenge as well.

The Institute for the Future published a report last year, that I just came across, on The Future of Work. It discusses the integration of work and technology, which of course is part of my area of focus - learning, work & technology.

Looking at a piece of the Future of Work Map (pdf) I note a good description of many of the themes and issues in my own practice:

future of work - amplified individual

Theme:
the Amplified Individual

Forecast Clusters:
Highly - Collaborative, Social; Improvisational; Augmented

Dilemma:
Collective Creation vs Individual Recognition

Signals:
Co-working Arrangements; Teamwork in Virtual Environments; Social Filtering; Life Hacks; Visualization Tools

Underlying Technologies:
Sense Making & Visualization; Ubiquitous Displays; Amplified Collaboration Tools

There is a lot of food for thought and frameworks for further discussions on the future of work and what it means to our own work. All three documents are available for free download.

I’m speaking in Toronto next month at the SkillSoft Canadian Perspectives conference and have been developing my presentation, which is based on this post and a previous one, on the changing role of training. The presentation is scheduled for one hour but I have taken the highlights and condensed it to less than 5 minutes, which is the time limit for Jing, which I’m trying for the first time. It’s also my first time using Apple’s keynote application.

This is an Adobe Flash file (*.swf), including audio, and should open in a new window:

21c_training

References:

Dave Snowden

Cynefin

Wirearchy

Related: Complexity, Connection & Learning by Dave Pollard

I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching Integrating Technology into the Secondary Curriculum here at my uni. Not having taught this course before presented a number of challenges associated with the types of assignments that might be most beneficial for students as well as determining what types of skills might serve students best.

I initially started out by focusing on teaching and learning basics, lesson plan design, and instructional strategies (i.e., pedagogical content knowledge), with the idea of inserting technological pedagogical content knowledge through different learning experiences and class activities. I found after the first few weeks that I was spending too much time teaching students how to create lesson plans and not enough time showing how technology might be integrated into the lessons they were creating, as well as giving students opportunities to practice what they have learned. Assignments were constructed in such a way as to have students actually using technology experientially (e.g., weblogs, wikis, PowerPoints, Moodle, Googledocs, Google forms, polls, spreadsheets, YouTube, Slideshare, Flickr, discussion forums, podcasts, Wordle) on a daily basis; however, students seemed unaware of how what we were doing transferred to the lessons they were creating. After much reflection and one bungled lesson plan assignment, it occurred to me that I was trying to do too much. The mid-term evaluation I asked students to complete showed me that I was doing well on many fronts, but that I was moving too quickly. Students wanted the opportunity to slow down so they too could have some time to think more deeply about what we were doing and how they might apply what they've learned. Armed with this new knowledge I made a few adjustments to the syllabus so that we could concentrate on why and how technology could be used effectively in a teaching and learning environment. As such, students have warmed up considerably to our new pace and are showing me and each other a number of new ideas and strategies that indicate that the content we are covering is beginning to become their own.

I also took some time to talk with my colleague who teaches a similar class for elementary education students to see how he managed both the course in a way that seemed to benefit students best. I quickly picked up a few strategies that I will incorporate next semester, including adopting Jonassen's Learning With Technology text and having students "teach" the text to each other. This term I chose Bransford's How People Learn as the course text which seems to be serving the students well in terms of providing them the requisite pedagogical knowledge necessary to talk about how to teach students. I believe combining this text with Jonassen's next semester will give students a solid foundation and understanding of both pedagogical content knowledge and technological pedagogical content knowledge that is clearly the goal for this course. I have also been supplementing students' reading with selections from TED, Henry Jenkins, Clay Shirky, danah boyd, Will Richardson, and others which allows us to keep abreast of the social complexities associated with teaching, learning, and technology in our brave and ever-changing world.

Overall, I feel I've come to a greater understanding and appreciation for going deep as opposed to going long. In other words, it feels like both the students and I are getting more out of the class when we take our time and truly explore course concepts deeply as opposed to covering more, if that makes sense. I am finding that I sometimes forget what it's like to be a beginner and end up approaching the class too much like an expert which in turn does not help students new to teaching and learning with technology. I am also glad I am able to take some time to reflect on my thinking. I want students to feel confident about when, where, how, and why to use technology in their classrooms and I want to be able to model it for them so they can use their experience with me as a powerful example as opposed to a powerful non-example. We still have a several weeks to go in the semester and I am happy to be able to take what I've learned and make the necessary adjustments to make this experience better for them and me.

Image: Ode to Joy

I have a total of 199 results from the survey. You can view the results here (the tables simply won't display in Blogger - some weird default or script, I know not what).

I received many text comments as well, the vast majority of which said things to the effect: don't change anything.

Last month, in Learn the language before you speak to me, I said that you have to understand what it’s like to be a node in a social network and that there is almost nothing like it in the industrial workplace or school system to prepare you for this. The basic premise is that you have to walk the talk before you can criticize.

A recent post by Dave Pollard highlights what can happen when the older generation [my age cohort of which many are in positions of authority] does not engage with the same media as the younger generation. It seems that most young people in the workplace (generation millennium) use IM, text messages and especially their mobile devices to connect with their peers. This generation is ignoring the desktop and the organisational knowledge bases and turning to their own age cohort for timely help and advice. This is a real cultural and age gap that can have a detrimental impact on our organisations:

Aside from the wasted content effort, this means that most young people will learn from peers, not from mentors. How much of what senior people know will never be learned by younger workers, simply because the networks of trust necessary for valuable conversations will not have been forged (and given that Gen Millennium workers are expected to change jobs on average every four years, might never be forged)?

Our generation should know better than to just ignore this situation. It is up to us to engage younger workers, not to complain that they don’t get it. Leadership by example is required, but first we have to be able to communicate. That means observing communication behaviours in our organisations and seeing how we can best connect. It may mean getting a Twitter account and a mobile device so that we can see that quick post about an issue that someone is facing.