Well, maybe
someone is reading this blog after all.
A recent C/NET article begins: "Universities and employers concerned with the state of engineering education should steal a page from popular Internet culture, visionary John Seely Brown said at a conference [December1]."
Seely Brown's presentation focused on internet technology transforming education into a more
participatory form of learning.
"We are learning in and through our interactions with others while doing real things," Seely Brown said.
I have gots to gets me some credentials!
Amazon.com, College 2.0 and the Long Tail
The long tail in a distributionThe concept of the Long Tail as it applies to Web 2.0 is best illustrated by the Amazon.com business model. Prior to Amazon, bookselling was a network of publishers selling in bulk to a network of retailers, who stocked shelves and sold to customers. The limitations of shelf space limited inventory, and even the most basic business model dictates: "stock what sells most."
Amazon turned that model on its head by separating inventory and distribution from the book buyer (the buyer selects titles based on description, title, author, subject, recommendations, cover art, etc. without actually having handled the book physically). Early skeptics doubted that the Amazon model would amount to much - after all, books are tactile things and buyers like to "feel the heft," so to speak. What the skeptics did not take into account is the statistical phenomenon known as the "long tail."
In a distribution curve arranged left to right by quantity, the left-most part of the graph displays the most common or popular items, decreasing in quantity as you move to the right. In many, many distributions, there is a clear clumping at the left extreme, representing the "core" or "head" of the distribution. In bookselling, those would be the Stephen King novels, the Steven Covey self-help books, etc. Exactly what one would expect to find in any Barnes & Noble bookstore. In our higher ed analogy, those are the Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, Associate of Applied Science in Nursing degree-seeking students.
Amazon's business model was not so much focused on the left part of the graph, but the long tail to the right - the area where any one data point may represent an insignificant fraction of book sales, but cumulatively may actually exceed the popular items on the left. Here's how one Amazon insider described it: "We sold more books today that didn't sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday."
1College 1.0 is very much driven by a Pareto distribution (the popularity of the left side of the graph) in both the degrees it offers and the courses it schedules. Limitations in faculty and facility, driven by the classroom-credit hour model, act as inventory restraints.
College 2.0 will find ways to exploit the long tail, to be able to respond to the many education needs of the community that don't currently fit into the left side of the distribution. At the ultimate, a College 2.0 implementation will successfully satisfy a single person's unique need.
Just as a Waldenbooks retail outlet in the mall can't satisfy a unique demand for a title, neither can the College 1.0 model satisfy a single need way out on the thin end of the long tail. A new model based on assessment, demonstration of readiness, constructivism and competency units is required. Where will that model emerge?
The read/write web and constructivism
One key distinction between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is the role of the user. Web 1.0 users are essentially consumers, active searchers, but the transactions are strictly downstream - toward the end user. Web 2.0 users are participatory - adding both content and value to the systems they use. Think
Wikipedia,
Napster,
eBay.
Another quote from O'Reilly: "One of the key lessons of the Web 2.0 era is this: Users add value. ... Therefore, Web 2.0 companies ... build systems that get better the more people use them.
1What kind of college gets better the more students use it? At the heart of College 2.0 is the concept called "
constructivist learning." In the constructivist model, students don't just absorb knowledge, they create it. At one level, College 2.0 provide rich "read/write" environments where students read, think about, write about and comment on relevant topics. A blog is an excellent example of what Will Richardson terms the
Read/Write Web.
On another level, though, College 2.0 is structured in such a way that students using the college adds value in itself. Think of the
Amazon.com model - search for any book title and you'll get a list of other items purchased by customers who bought the book. Imagine students searching for a course, and getting a list of other courses taken by students who took that course. Or, for the full College 2.0 experience, searching for a competency and getting a list of courses that develop that competency, in various contexts and at varying depths.
Someday - sooner rather than later - a college will build an online course catalog using Google's
AdSense technology creating minimally invasive, search-driven content matching. I'm betting that college will be a community college.
--Brad
Course catalog vs. Competency catalog
In College 1.0, the basic unit is the course. In College 2.0, the basic unit will be a competency (or better, a demonstration of readiness. Courses don't go away, but they take on a supporting role. Courses are preparatory sessions for demonstrations of readiness in College 2.0.
Is there a model for this? I think there is.
Western Governors University is an accredited, non-profit institution that provides distance learning and advanced degrees using such a model. Here's a quote from WGU's website:
"At WGU you aren't forced to take required courses about subjects you already know. Instead, WGU's competency-based education model requires you to demonstrate your knowledge through carefully designed assessments, which measure progress in your degree program. The assessments (tests, assignments, etc.) are definitely not "easy," but you can progress toward your degree as rapidly as you can demonstrate your knowledge."
1But can that model be applied at the community college level? I think there are parallels that can be explored. WGU not only acknowledges but presumes its students begin with varying levels of experience and competence. Their enrollment counselors and mentoring program are designed to determine an individual's best path toward the degree. We at Edison are adopting the Individualized Learning Plan philosophy (the need is a bit ahead of the tools right now, but don't get me started on that), and new programs such as the
Adult College Experience concept help students maximize their experience and minimize class time through portfolio credit and proficiency testing.
In fact, I would suggest that the community college is the perfect environment for such a model, as opposed to a residential four-year school, where the "experience" of the campus is as important as the instruction.
The key, of course, is the design of the demonstrations - be they tests, assignments, portfolios, what have you. But well designed demonstrations of competence (or readiness) also take us down the path toward accountability - on our terms.
--Brad
Proficiency vs. Readiness
Proficiency strikes me as a College 1.0 concept, while College 2.0 would concern itself with "readiness."
Proficiency implies a fixed standard against which performance is measured, and beyond which no further knowledge is necessary. The
standardized tests administered to our K-12 students in Ohio are scored as Advanced, Proficient, Basic, etc.
"Readiness," on the other hand, focuses on the preparation of the student to attempt the next level. Readiness testing has been around awhile - in a sense, the college placement exams from the SAT to the Compass exams we administer to our incoming students are readiness tests.
We are seeing a widening
gap between proficiency results and readiness results.
In the course-centered model of education, we measure students against a set of outcomes - proficiency. In the College 2.0 model, we assess their readiness to proceed to the next step, whether that step be another class in the discipline, another institution of higher learning, or the workplace.
In a proficiency-based system, not being proficient is marked as failure. In a readiness-focused system, not being ready is, well, not being ready to move on. More work is required, or more effort, or better understanding and application. Proficiency is closed-ended; readiness is open-ended.
In a proficiency model, we expect our students, regardless of the skills they enter the course with, to finish at the same time at the same level (or, if you're really old-fashioned, in a neat bell-curve distribution). In a readiness model, when the student is ready, he or she moves on.
Remember the 1970s TV show "
Kung Fu "? "When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it is time for you to leave."
--Brad
Knowledge vs. Learning
There is a movement in higher ed - especially among community colleges - called the
"learning college" movement. Led by the League for Innovation, the mission of the Learning College Project is to help community colleges place "learning first and [to provide] educational experiences for learners anyway, anyplace, anytime."
It is interesting that community colleges are at the forefront here. Traditional, four-year, residential colleges have in recent years emphasized the "college life" aspect of enrollment - the social, cultural and relationship-building aspects of the campus. In no small part as a reaction to the perjorative "teaching college" (a term not heard much these days), the concept of "learning college" was hatched.
But if "knowledge is power," why is is now under attack? I think the answer is simple: the power of knowledge derives from exclusivity. If one group has knowledge others do not, then the knowledgeable can have power over the ignorant. Also, the accelerating rate of change detailed by
Thomas Freidman and others means, more and more, knowledge is both contingent and frangible. Witness poor
Pluto, whose official status as a planet lasted a mere 76 years, barely a quarter of its orbit of the sun. All of us who grew up knowing nine planets are possessed of knowledge now obsolete.
In an age of seemingly instant recall of almost anything, the possession of knowledge is less important that the retrieval, synthesis and application of it. "Knowing" now comes with an expiration date.
And yet, both K-12 schools and higher ed are largely rooted in the business of bestowing knowledge. Professors speak the language of learning - critical thinking, synthesis, evaluation - but what do we measure? Largely, still, recall of facts. We are comfortable with measurability and objectivity.
No Child Left Behind insists that we test our K-12 students, and what we test against is a one-size-fits-all curriculum of facts and basic skills, and then we call that "accountability."
Freidman asserts again and again that in a flattened global economy, the United States will no longer be an economy of labor or productivity, but one of creativity. But how are we measuring (let alone encouraging) creativity in our students? How do we assess inquiry? How we will we be held accountable for learning?
--Brad
To parallel Tim O'Reilly's comparison of
Web 1.0 with Web 2.0, I've attempted to contrast College 1.0 with College 2.0. This is an incomplete list and some may be completely off the mark, but it's as good a place as any to start the discussion.
In Web 1.0, software is a product; in Web 2.0, software is a service, and often a transparent one to the end user. Similarly, I think we may be headed for a similar shift in higher ed - away from "product" (eg., degrees) and toward "service" (a platform or network that helps end users achieve their wants). Now, the world wide web as a business platform has existed for about 15 years, and higher education for centuries, so no one is pretending this change will happen overnight. However, those who think it will NEVER happen are going to find themselves on the back side of a big wave, wondering where all the surfers went.
College 1.0 ::: College 2.0Classroooms ::: Collaboration spaces (physical and virtual)
Knowledge ::: Learning
Proficiency ::: Readiness
Course catalog ::: Outcomes catalog
Semester hours ::: Experience opportunities
Textbooks ::: Wikis, shared bookmarking, original sources
Assignments ::: Unified body of work (portfolio)
Insitutional credit ::: Portability of credit
Semesters ::: Workgroup scheduling
Communities of learners ::: Learning communities
Audience of one ::: Audience of many
Degree as measure of success ::: Attainment of personal goals as measure of success
In the series of posts to follow, I'll explore each of these in more detail.
--Brad
There is no denying that the rapid advancement of communication technologies - led by the world wide web - is irreversibly altering the world, and higher education with it.
We are all struggling to adapt - to know how to harness the power of these technologies to better do what we do. But I think there is a deeper message - that WHAT we do as an institution of higher learning is going to change as dramatically as HOW we do it.
Just as astronomers learn about the structure of our galaxy by observing other galaxies, so to we can learn how higher ed may be transformed by looking at how other information business models (and higher ed IS an information business model) have been and are being transformed.
I began this investigation innocently enough - as Assistant Professor of Internet Technologies at
Edison Community College in Piqua, Ohio, I was keeping up with changes in my field, and found an excellent discussion of the
Web 2.0 by noted technology writer Tim O'Reilly.
In reading O'Reilly's comparison of Web 1.0 with Web 2.0, it struck me the number of parallels that can be anticipated in higher ed. In this blog, I'll explore some of those parallels and invite discussion and comment.
--Brad
