So no blog posts for nearly 3 months… but no one really seems to read this, so I don’t think I’ve really let anybody down. This is an assignment I just finished for my Issues in Multicultural Education course, it’s a reaction to an article on Inside Higher Ed that profiles self-proclaimed “White advocate,” University of Vermont professor Robert S. Griffin.

My curiosity was rather piqued by this article, which led me to seek out the writings of Robert S. Griffin. What perturbed me most is his frequent references to his position as a tenured professor and his apparent devotion to scholarly debate and teaching. He repeatedly makes clear that he is not a racist and does not harbor ill-will towards people of other races. In his own words: “Those who know me realize that being a white analyst, advocate, or activist does not mean I harbor ill will toward other people. I sincerely wish every human being on this planet well” (Griffin, 2009). Such statements make him sound like a used car salesman who repeatedly reassures you that you can trust him. Attempts to soften extremist viewpoints is also a tactic recently adopted by many hate groups in order to grow their influence (Conant, 2009).

Even more appalling is Griffin’s constant reminder that he is an objective reporter of the views of “racially conscious” Whites. To borrow his phrase, even a cursory review of his writings will demonstrate to you that he sympathizes with his subjects. Though he writes from the perspective of a third-party observer (he never directly states what he believes, and precedes nearly all statements that could be considered controversial with “white racialists believe…” or “these whites believe…”), his lack of critical examination of the extremist opinions he puts forward make it rather obvious that he shares them. I found this passage to be particularly demonstrative of this:

With blacks, white racialists disapprove of, and have contempt for, their illegitimacy rate, their violent crime rate, the way they fail to keep up the areas in which they live, their educational and work performance, their welfare dependency, and their tendency to hold others responsible for their negative conduct and demand double standards and racial preferences. These whites point out that that 90% of interracial crime is black on white, and are enraged that blacks rape 20,000 white women a year (versus a couple hundred the other way around), and are convinced that these realities are suppressed by those who control the information flow in America (Griffin, 2007).

For Griffin to write that his invented statistics reflect “reality” in any way, shape or form is utterly absurd, and to toss around his credentials only serves to make a mockery of them. Additionally, Griffin justifies his stance by writing about how people of other races share a similar viewpoint and he is subjected to a double standard: “I’m an advocate for whites for the same reasons that others support blacks and Hispanics and other groups… If I advocated for any other group but whites, using the exact same language and rationale, I’d be applauded and rewarded.” (2007). What he fails to mention is that non-Whites with similarly extremist viewpoints have been equally shunned by the American mainstream (such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright during the 2008 presidential campaign).

Unlike the student in the article, I would not feel “awkward” were I to find myself in his class. I would be beyond disgusted and set a speed record for class withdrawal. I would be similarly appalled were I assigned his article Rearing honorable White children (2001) and told it was a “provocative and unorthodox” work. The article paints the portrait of several families who have eschewed the mainstream education system because they feel it has let down White students. According to one of the parents quoted in the article: “Schools are brainwashing white children to feel guilty about their heritage and turn away from it. Our children’s heritage includes Homer, Plato, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Beethoven.” Instead such important figures have been entirely replaced: “Now, our idols are being wiped out and replaced by people like Martin Luther King.” Griffin takes no effort to point out that the addition of Martin Luther King has not displaced any of the aforementioned White historical figures.

I cannot, however, say that I entirely disagree with him or the University of Vermont’s decision to defend his right to freedom of speech. Despite his apparent dislike for ethnic diversity, his studies have taught him to “value intellectual diversity and not shun people who do not accept today’s conventional thinking” (2007). Whether this is an honest statement or simply lip service won’t be revealed until some of his students come forward. Nevertheless, some of my best educational experiences have come with instructors who shared very different viewpoints from my own – though to my knowledge, none of them publicly held such fanatical views.

Conant, E. (2009, April 25). Rebranding hate in the age of Obama. Newsweek. Retrieved June 26, 2009 from http://www.newsweek.com/id/195085

Griffin, R. S. (2001, October). Rearing honorable White children. American Renaissance. Retrieved June 25, 2009 from http://www.amren.com/ar/2001/10/

Griffin, R. S. (2007). On the New McCarthyism. Retrieved June 25, 2009 from http://www.robertsgriffin.com/NewMcCarthy.pdf

Griffin, R. S. (2009). Replies to a White racial activist. Retrieved June 25, 2009 from http://www.robertsgriffin.com/RaceRepliesA.pdf

Lee, S. (2009, June 17). The (pro)-White professor. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved June 25, 2009 from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/17/professor

This past week, I received a strange piece of mail. It was a paper I wrote for one of my classes, one that I have been finished with for almost 2 months.

This is the first time that I’ve ever had anything like this occur, so I don’t want to blow this up and pretend that stuff like this happens all the time. It really doesn’t. I also don’t want to sound like I’m totally trashing this professor. He made it fairly clear (admittedly not until before the midterm) that he was not really down with delivering the class online, and much preferred lecturing. This became evident the few times I saw him in person, when he was engaging, passionate and funny – really an all-around great lecturer. The Blackboard site for the class, however, was a bit of a mess. Content was scattered, disorganized, and confusing.

I’ve come to understand that professors are busy: they’re under enormous pressure to do original research, teach classes, answer questions. It’s a 7 day a week job where they have to constantly be at the top of their game, demonstrating their expertise. With other such lofty concerns, I can imagine organizing Blackboard content and grading papers probably falls pretty low on the priority list.

I think it just may be a symptom of a systemic problem within higher learning that really has never been addressed. Andre Malan, a student at the University of British Columbia, gave this really fascinating talk about the future of education, where he discusses the paper grading problem.

His argument is that the traditional mode of doing so relies on one person – the professor, who may or may not grade papers reliably or accurately (his picture of papers thrown down a staircase, with the heaviest papers at the bottom and most deserving of an A – is freaking hilarious). He cites Jon Beasley-Murray’s Murder, Madness and Mayhem Wikipedia project as an example of a community-based grading system. In this project, the articles students wrote stayed relevant, even months after their completion. In many cases, student articles became top search hits for particular topics.

I appreciate the 100% the professor gave me on my paper. But 2 months out from finishing it, that grade just doesn’t seem relevant anymore.

Another mile long paper that I wrote last semester for my Foundations of Educational Research class, presented here for the purposes of personal archiving. In my next post, I’ll go into all the insights I’ve gained since turning it in.

(The goal of the paper was to produce a research proposal, but since I am not an educational researcher there are no plans in place to actually produce such research).

Podcasting and the computer-aided in-class presentation: a comparison of their relative influence on student motivation in a graduate Education class.

Abstract

Podcasting is a relatively recent technological phenomenon that has garnered widespread popularity among educators. Large investments have been made, particularly among colleges and universities, to implement podcasting for instruction. Based on existing research, however, it is not quite clear that this investment is justified, given existing models of use within education. Previous studies have shown that instructor generated podcasts are only being used by a small minority of students. Learner generated podcasts, on the other hand, have shown some indications of increasing student motivation, though these studies are frequently found to be lacking in a number of ways. The research proposed in this paper seeks to better gauge the motivational reaction of students creating podcasts and compare it to the (relatively) older but much more prevalently used computer-aided presentation. Participants in the study will be graduate-level Education students, which differs significantly from existing studies that tend to study populations of undergraduate Information Technology students. A quasi-experimental counterbalanced design will be used to study an existing class group, with students creating projects utilizing both technologies. Administration of the Academic Motivation Scale and focus groups following the completion of each project will be used to compare student motivation.

Introduction

The student-led presentation has been a staple within Western education since ancient Greece. In recent times, however, the development of several different technologies has altered the way in which these presentations are delivered. I propose a study that contrasts two of these technologies (podcasting and computer-aided in-class presentations) and examines their effect on student motivation within a graduate Education class.

In the past month, 23 million Americans have downloaded and listened to an audio podcast (Edison Media Research, 2008). This massive use has been in part facilitated by the explosive growth of Web 2.0, a category of technologies which podcasting is apart of. These technologies offer its users greater flexibility in the consumption of its content and the ability to interact with other like-minded individuals. These are trends not lost on advertisers, large media corporations, or educators, who have all been moving to meet this shift in the content delivery paradigm.

One category of podcasts that have garnered significant attention are those dealing with learning and instruction. Educators have been so enamored with the use of podcasting for education that schools such as Duke University, the University of Maryland and Abilene Christian University have given iPods to incoming freshmen (Glater, 2008). What is surprising is that these schools have chosen to spend large amounts of money on technology that has not thoroughly been investigated empirically in the education setting. Gura (2006) makes the argument that this entertainment-based technology has been merely “tweaked” to fit into an educational setting, and little thought has been given to the ways to best exploit it. Consequently, most instructors use podcasting only for the dissemination of class lectures, the idea being that students will be able to review the lecture at a later time.

In contrast to podcasting, in-class presentations aided with computer programs such as Powerpoint have been around for a (comparatively) long time and have seen significant usage throughout education at all levels. Despite this, Powerpoint has drawn serious criticism from several sources. Most noted is outspoken designer Edward Tufte, who argues that the program “elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch” (2003). This is not particularly surprising, given its origins in corporate America, but Tufte argues against its use in education, where he believes students might learn more by writing.

Despite these criticisms, Vallance & Towndrow (2007) make the argument that Powerpoint’s critics take little consideration of the things that it affords instruction. Central to their argument is the absence of “informed use” of technology within education; that is, the use of technology to accomplish an instructional task rather than the use of technology for technology’s sake. They describe several of the interactive features that Powerpoint offers that go beyond the linear progression model of presenting that most users are familiar with.

Literature Review

In spite of the theoretical debate that rages on over the use of these technologies, little empirical research has been generated regarding their effectiveness. A majority of what research does exist focuses primarily on instructor-generated materials with very little discussion of student-generated materials. This is in spite of a general consensus that “in order to achieve meaningful technology integration, learning must be designed from a constructivist approach that encourages students to learn in a social context and help them to develop an ability to readily create new knowledge, solve new problems and employ creativity and critical thinking” (Sadik, 2008).

Lee, McLoughlin, & Chan (2008), have produced a qualitative study that seeks to consider learner-led podcasting from a collaborative and knowledge-building perspective within a population of first year college students. Content analysis was performed on two focus groups following completion of the podcasts, which led the researchers to conclude that there was evidence of collective and progressive problem solving, knowledge building discourse, and in-depth engagement. They attribute these not only to podcasting, but also the pursuit of a common goal and a commitment to sharing ideas on the students’ part.

Lee et al. do qualify the findings of their study by acknowledging the extremely small sample size (5 out of 8 total students participated in the focus groups), but this is not the only factor contributing to the incompleteness of the study. Absent from the data is information regarding the characteristics of the research participants, who attend a relatively small university in rural Australia. Participants were volunteers, who may already have had extremely high intrinsic motivation in gaining experience working with this new technology (all were students in the Information Technology program). Additionally, there is no data regarding what grades the students obtained in the class or information on what prior knowledge students had about podcasting. Though this study raises extremely pertinent questions, it must be taken as only a first step towards the investigation of student-created podcasts.

Similar omissions were found in another study by Lee & Chan (2007), which appears to be an inquiry into the use of these same student-created podcasts by other students. In a survey of students in an online distance learning class, 83% listened to 7 out of 9 podcasts provided in their entirety and generally found them to be useful to them in their studies. It is important to note that the sample size was 18, and the response rate was only 47% – it is reasonable to assume that students responding to the survey were more engaged and motivated by the class in general, and not specifically to the podcasts. Much like the study discussed previously, no data is given on student grades, characteristics, or location.

While studies in student-created podcasts are rather rare, there have been large-scale implementations of podcasts of lecture recordings that would seem to point towards their ineffectiveness. In 2005, the University of Washington configured several large lecture halls for the automatic recording and podcasting of lectures, the results of which are presented by Lane (2006). In a survey distributed to over 7,000 students in these podcast-enabled courses, only 5.5% responded. Of those students, nearly half listened to 25% or less of available podcasts, while 20% listened to 76% or more. Though the extremely low response rate makes these findings somewhat inconclusive, they indicate a significant diversity in student usage, though with a definite skew towards non-use. The automatic implementation of the technology may have also contributed to results – responses by participating professors seemed to indicate an apathetic attitude towards podcasting, which may have been passed on to their students.

Grabe & Christopherson (2007), found similar non-use in their study of 329 Psychology students who were provided lecture outlines, lecture notes, and lecture podcasts. They found participants accessed only 3% of available podcasts, in comparison to 61% of lecture outlines and 19% of lecture notes. The researchers posit that compared to printed material, podcasts cannot be reviewed or accessed as efficiently. It is possible that the provision of outlines and notes (a luxury not provided in most college courses) aided in the non-use of podcasts by students.

Bell et al. (2007) approached instructor created podcasts from a different angle, providing supplemental podcasts for two freshman Computer Science courses. The podcasts provided informal discussion of topics covered in class, current events related to those topics, answering student questions, and interviews. Much like the other studies mentioned, the response rate to a questionnaire was low (38%), and of those that responded, 66% had not downloaded any of the podcasts at all. Requests for feedback were also ignored, for the most part. The researchers make the argument that if students were listening to podcasts while occupied with another activity, responding immediately may have been difficult – though based on the data, it seems students are simply not listening to the podcasts to begin with. Despite all this, the researchers still make the claim that podcasting is an “attractive tool to help engage students.”

Frydenburg (2006), found student enthusiasm for lecture podcasts to be similarly low in his study of 54 Information Technology students. Though students downloaded podcasts enthusiastically at the beginning of the semester, downloads dwindled as the class neared midterm. For the second half of the semester, students were offered extra credit to create video podcasts based on class topics. Though early podcasts were relatively simple, students soon made discoveries and developed innovations based on previous podcasts, leading to a “friendly competition” among students on who could make the most creative podcast. Though Frydenburg omits actual documentation of this effect (such as hyperlinks or transcripts of the podcasts), the existence of such competition would certainly indicate an increase in motivation and engagement of learners when introducing student-created podcasts. A survey was taken at the end of the class to gauge student usage of the podcasts, but no questions pertained to the motivation or the engagement of students as a result of creating podcasts, certainly the aspect of the study that seemed to merit the most exploration.

There have also been some studies done on the use of student-created multimedia in teacher education. Though the technology is slightly different, the concept of student-generated media and the use of non-linear digital editing tools are in the same vein as podcasting. Sadik (2008) studied student creation of digital stories (a basic type of video created with audio and still photos) by 13-15 year old Egyptian students. Though the results of assessments on the students’ projects indicated personal reflection on the topic, what is not made clear is how the use of technology was an improvement over more conventional constructivist instructional techniques, such as writing. There is brief mention of negative issues with the technology (such as distracting special effects) that would not occur in such traditional mediums, but these are downplayed. An attempt was made to control the variable of teacher experience with technology by only selecting teachers who already made use of technology in their classrooms, but during the study it was discovered that the teachers (it is not made clear what percentage of them) lacked proficiency with multimedia editing software.

It is clear that there are several significant issues with the research that has been done on this topic. The first is the low response rates in some of the studies using surveys. Lane (2006) faced distribution problems due to lack of interest from instructors, Lee & Chan (2007) had problems of distance, and Bell (2007) could not elicit feedback even when offering free coffee. Additionally, there is the sole reliance on the survey – with the exception of Sadik (2008), no other study uses triangulation to lend credence to research findings. Then there is the complete lack of data regarding the characteristics of the learners. Considering the fact that few studies had controls for extraneous variables (control groups, random assignment, etc.), it is surprising that potentially influential characteristics were not taken into account. Several studies, such as Bell (2007) and Lee et al. (2008), also expend a considerable amount of space discussing the nature and history of podcasting. Though the technology is relatively new, there are a significant number of articles that provide background and anecdotal evidence. A majority of the studies also focus their research on students within Information Technology programs. This would seem to be a logical decision, given the basic technological skill required, but podcasts can potentially encompass any academic subject. Finally, with the exception of Grabe & Christopherson (2007), there is very little comparison of podcasting with other forms of instruction and instructional technology.

Methodology

Based on existing research, several questions have been left unanswered. The results of Lane (2006), Grabe & Christopherson (2007), and Bell et al. (2007) seem to point towards a lack of student engagement when it comes to instructor developed podcasts, while Lee et al. (2008), and Frydenburg (2006) point to the potential motivation benefit of peer and learner developed podcasts. In this proposed research study, the focus will be on studying the motivational response of learners when developing podcasts as part of their class.

There is also the issue of studying podcasts in a vacuum. Without comparisons to existing modes of communication, much of the existing research does not shed any light on whether or not podcasting offers any kind of benefit over what already exists. In this study, a quasi-experimental counterbalanced design will be employed to compare podcasts with computer-aided presentations. Students will create one project of each of the two types, with random assignment determining the order in which they complete them. In order to measure motivation, two measures will be made after the completion of each project: First will be a focus group involving all the students in each group, with content analysis used to identify levels of motivation and amotivation. Second is the administration of the Academic Motivation Scale by Vallerand et al. (1992). With a fairly high test-retest reliability of .79, the AMS can be counted on to reliably measure changes in motivation.

Computer-aided presentations were selected because they are similar in format (one is presentation in digital form, the other is presentation in person), difficulty, complexity, and the use of non-linear editing software in their development. Though computer-aided presentations are relatively new, it does not quite match the newness of podcasting – thus there will need to be compensation for a novelty effect, which may affect internal validity. The instructor(s) participating will need to be aware of the potential for this, so that one technology is not presented in a more positive light than the other.

The development of podcasts and computer-aided presentations is an involved task, and they do not feature in a large number of instructional settings. Therefore, intact class groups of graduate Education students will be used to simplify implementation of the study. This population was also selected because a majority of the previously mentioned studies (Frydenburg (2006), Bell et al. (2007), Lee & Chan (2007), and Lee et al. (2008)) focused their attention on students in Information Technology or Computer Science undergraduates with mixed results. In comparison, graduate Education students may lack some of the technical skill, but be more adept at the presentation, content, and research aspects. In fact, thanks partly to easy to use software and readily available tutorials on the web, the technical aspects of these technologies are rapidly becoming a non-issue.

The class selected to take part in this study will have to meet several criteria. First is the class will need to be taught primarily in a classroom environment in order to facilitate the computer-aided presentations. The content of the class will also need to be broad enough so that students can choose project topics that do not significantly overlap. Though it may seem counterintuitive, the main focus of the class cannot pertain to technology, as one would expect students in such a class to be motivated to use technology to begin with. Potential classes for this study at the University of South Florida will most likely come from the “Educational Foundations” set of courses that include approximately 30-40 students from all majors in the College of Education. Examples of possible courses include Foundations of Curriculum and Instruction (EDG6627) and Foundations of Educational Research (EDF6481).

Conclusion

Based on the amount of money being invested in podcasting in schools around the country, the amount of research that has gone into studying best practices of using the technology has been woeful. Though it is touted as the latest thing to revolutionize education, it is apparent that current incarnations of the technology really provide nothing new. The ultimate goal of this proposed study is to reverse this trend, in order to determine if podcasting really does offer educators any real benefit not found in existing technology and where it might best be utilized.

References

Bell, T., Cockburn, A., Wingkvist, A., & Green, R. (2007). Podcasts as a supplement in tertiary education: An experiment with two Computer Science courses. In D. Parsons & H. Ryu (Eds.), Mobile Learning Technologies and Applications (MoLTA) 2007. Auckland, New Zealand: Massey University. Retrieved October 27, 2008 from http://molta.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms//Molta/Bell.pdf

Edison Media Research. (2008, April). The podcast consumer revealed 2008. Retrieved October 16, 2008, from http://www.edisonresearch.com/home/archives/2008/04/the_podcast_con_1.php

Frydenburg, M. (2006, November). Principles and pedagogy: The two P’s of podcasting in the information technology classroom. Paper presented at ISECON, Dallas, TX. Retrieved September 18, 2008 from http://www.isedj.org/isecon/2006/3354/ISECON.2006.Frydenberg.pdf

Glater, J. D. (2008, August 20). Welcome, freshmen. Have an iPod. The New York Times, p. C1. Retrieved October 19, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/technology/21iphone.html

Grabe, M., & Christopherson, K. (2007). Optional student use of online lecture resources: Resource preferences, performance and lecture attendance. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 24, 1-10.

Gura, M. (2006). Moving instructional podcasting beyond coursecasting. Perspectives: New York Journal of Adult Learning, 4(2), 31-33.

Lane, C. (2006). UW podcasting: Evaluation of year one. Seattle, WA: University of Washington, Catalyst Research and Development, The Office of Learning Technologies.

Lee, M.J.W., & Chan, A. (2007). Reducing the effects of isolation and promoting inclusivity for distance learners through podcasting. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 8(1), 85-105.

Lee, M.J.W., McLoughlin, C., & Chan, A. (2008). Talk the talk: Learner-generated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(3), 501-521.

Sadik, A. (2008). Digital storytelling: a meaningful technology-integrated approach for engaged student learning. Education Technology Research & Development, 56, 487-506.

Tufte, E. (2003, September). PowerPoint is evil. Wired, 11(9). Retrieved October 26, 2008 from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html

Vallance, M., & Towndrow, P.A. (2007). Towards the ‘informed use’ of information and communication technology in education: a response to Adams’ ‘PowerPoint, habits of mind, and classroom culture.’ Journal of Curriculum Studies, 39(2), 219-227.

Vallerand, R. J., Pelletier, L. G., Blais, M. R., Brière, N. M., Senécal, C., & Vallières, E. F. (1992). The academic motivation scale: A measure of intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivation in education. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52, 1003–1017.

I was walking around downtown last Friday and managed to see a surreal sequence of people hanging out on the sidewalk (surreal at least, for Tampa) in front of the new Skypoint condo building. First I walked past skinny hipsters sprawled out on outdoor couches in front of a trendy-looking wine bar. About 15 feet later, I walked past an overweight homeless woman doing a word search on a bench crammed with grocery bags (filled with what I assumed were all her worldly possessions).

A couple questions sprang to mind: First, where the hell did this wine bar and all these hipsters come from? Second, how do both these sets of people coexist footsteps apart, seemingly oblivious to each other?

For about 4 months, I worked in downtown Tampa and frequently spent time after work aimlessly walking the city, occasionally dropping by the library or going to the Forum to buy hockey tickets. The one thing that seemed pervasive, even after big events or after 5pm when most of the workers would leave, was the homeless. I think this may explain just why Tampa’s homeless is probably the most chilled out homeless population I’ve ever encountered – they pretty much own the place.

In places like New York or Chicago, I have been harassed – even after handing over the change in my pocket. In Orlando (the only other downtown I have spent significant time in), I was once bothered by a guy who kept calling me “Mr. Wally” and wouldn’t leave until I gave him five bucks.

I’m glad that there are hipsters moving in, spending their money, and injecting some semblance of life into the place at night. But at the same time, I’m a little concerned that maybe they’ll end up displacing those who are already there after 5pm.

Yes, the blog is called “design:learning” so I’ll bring it back around to the topic: in last summer’s Interactive Media course I had to do usability studies on an instructional website, and the one that I found was gcflearnfree.org, a killer site run by Goodwill that has free instructional modules for learning basic computer and life skills. It’s a great example of the positive things that we can do in this industry.

Web-based instruction may seem like an improper delivery method for helping the homeless, but all of the homeless using computers inside John F. Germany library downtown would seem to suggest otherwise.

Photo is of the Maas Bros. Dept store, which was tore down in order to build new condos almost 3 years ago. Unsurprisingly, there are no condos there yet, just a vacant lot. It felt like an appropriate photo.

I’ve finally gotten around to adding my video project from this summer’s Interactive Media course to YouTube. My professor called it the “best video” he had ever seen in the class, so I guess it must be good right?

We were limited to still photos and audio, so there wasn’t a whole lot I could do with it motion wise. I didn’t base it on any particular source, but rather drew on a lot of my job interview experiences (most of which I’d like to forget).

This was part of a suite of job search instruction materials that can be found here.

Click here to open in a new window. This was the end-result of a group project for the Development of Technology Based Instruction class. The goal was a short module focused on giving entry-level new hires an introduction to the various sales techniques used at Best Buy. It was intended for use in a blended learning situation, so nothing comprehensive here. I think the informal way in which it’s written, and the way it’s presented by “fellow employees” (actually stock photographs of people who have been Photoshopped to look like it) give it a nice touch.

A research paper written for my “Development of Technology-Based Instruction” course. Every post on this blog will not be a mile long and written in APA format, but in the interest of creating my own “personal content management system,” I have included it here.

Ubiquitous computing and its associated technologies have forced theorists and designers to reconsider the very nature of our systems for knowledge and learning. A majority of the debate centers around what to do with “Web 2.0,” a marketing buzz-word developed to describe a vision of the Internet as a space for social connection. A study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 93% of teens use the Internet, and of these, 64% participate in some form of content creation activity (Lenhart et al, 2007). Universities and corporations are beginning to catch-up, and are aiming to alter their practices in order to engage the generation of Americans who have grown up with such technologies. Connectivism is a new learning theory has emerged with the goal of meeting these challenges. I posit that including Connectivist learning theory in the process of designing instruction will result in more effective learning that bears greater resemblance to learning outside of the classroom.

Connectivism is primarily the result of work by Siemens (2005), who found the three existing learning theories (Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism) did not properly account for recent advances in technology. Additionally, the exponential increase of available information through the Internet means that the process of finding information and determining whether or not that information is valid has become just as important as actually knowing something. Informal learning through communities of practice and social networking are also aspects not addressed by existing theory.

Central to the idea of Connectivism is the growth in importance of the network, which Siemens believes “fundamentally [alters] the hierarchical structure found in many traditional institutions” (2008). An epistemological framework for Connectivism can be found in Downes’ concept of Connected Knowledge. Downes (2005), makes the assertion that everything is distributed – “every entity is composed of additional entities, and the properties of the entity in question are not all mere reflections of the smaller entities, but rather, unique properties, that come into existence because of the organization of those entities.” Learning is the recognition of connections and patterns of organization within these separate entities. The truth, however, is impossible to guarantee when what is seen as truth is really a fragile interpretation of patterns.

The issue of truth comes up frequently in debates regarding the importance of one major development that has come out of Web 2.0 – Wikipedia. Wikipedia has drawn harsh attacks from academics, who criticize its openness and inclusion of unverifiable information. Downes (2005) sees Wikipedia as merely a better example of connective knowledge than its traditional counterparts. Wikipedia relies on the successive interactions of a community of people, while encyclopedias rely on an expert, who has internalized the knowledge of a community through education and professional practice. This concentration of authority, however, can lead to the acceptance of knowledge that is merely politically expedient or promotes the dominant subculture. According to Dede (2008), “experts may sometimes ‘speak truth to power,’ but too often ‘experts’ are anointed, funded, and rewarded to provide rationales for politically expedient actions.”

Eijkman (2008), sees the battle over Wikipedia as part of a larger war in determining who controls knowledge. The two competing factions see the world from a Foundational perspective (where certainty, objectivity and the authority of academia are the guiding principles) or a Non-Foundational perspective. In a Non-Foundational arena, academics are not the gatekeepers of information and learning, but rather the “representatives-in-residence” of a community of practice that acculturates students in the customs of the field. Eijkman sees the architecture of Web 2.0 directly supporting such communities, making the implementation of non-foundational learning much easier.

Fueling the battle between Foundationalist and Non-Foundationalist thinking may be the inherent fear that comes with significant change. Kop & Hill (2008) see Connectivism fundamentally altering and eventually eradicating the role of the instructor. They see learners ultimately eschewing the requirements of the institution in favor of pursuing their own goals and interests. This seems to be a rather extreme viewpoint, and one that may never fully come into fruition in our current societal setup, where institutional certifications are prerequisites for entrance into most career fields. What is more likely to happen is the movement of traditional institutions to fulfill the demands of learners who have become more savvy “shoppers” of education and will seek out the methods of instruction that fit their needs best.

Connectivism and Web 2.0 have been in existence for only a few years, but communities of practice have existed for far longer, according to Brown & Adler (2008). The studio model in Architectural education forces students to work together in a common space, where they “peripherally participate” in each other’s work. Architecture students are notoriously placed under intense pressure and working together in such close quarters frequently creates both competition and cooperation among students (Cuff, 1996). In a virtual setting, communities developing open source software have become extremely prevalent and have resulted in a quality of software equivalent (and in some cases, superior) to commercial products. New members are initiated by taking up simple tasks, and can gain increased responsibilities by demonstrating their skills and achieving the trust of other members of the community. These communities alter the traditional pattern of learning by allowing students to be active participants in their field, acquiring tacit knowledge at the same time that they are acquiring explicit knowledge (Brown & Adler, 2008).

According to Brown (2008), the plethora of niche amateur communities that exist across the Internet can provide a model for implementing communities of practice within the existing educational framework. Harvard Law School offered a course in 2006 that involved learners at three different levels: the students taking the course in person, non-Law School students enrolled through the Harvard Extension School who could participate in discussions through Second Life, and the public-at-large that could access course materials and lectures at no cost. Projects such as the Faulkes Telescope Project (faulkes-telescope.com) and Hands-On Universe (handsonuniverse.org), allow students to remotely access data and images from observatories and collaborate with working scientists. The BugScope project at the University of Illinois (bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu), allows K-12 students to send in insect specimens to be examined on a scanning electron microscope (Brown & Adler, 2008).

Gaining widespread support for such communities may be more difficult than many of these authors tend to believe. Currently, distance education is dominated by course management systems (CMS) such as Angel or Blackboard. Though many CMS packages include the technologies that are considered a part of Web 2.0, they limit content access to the instructor and students for the duration of the course. Alexander (2008) argues that these limitations force students into developing “dual digital literacies,” wherein the student must negotiate the CMS model (the student is fed content by the instructor) and the open Web model (the student must make choices about how to find, manage, and assess credibility of content). In the case of student-generated content, the open Web also forces students to deal with writing to a global audience, who are not able to access CMS content. Brown & Adler (2008), provide anecdotal evidence from a graduate seminar at Utah State University, where the quality of students’ blog writing improved when the instructor posted links to students’ blogs on his own blog and encouraged students to read and comment on each other’s writing. When one student had a post mentioned by a prominent blog, writing improved further, pushing the walls of the discussion beyond the class and involving the discourse of the international community-at-large (Alexander, 2008). Camplese (2006) has re-imagined blogs at Penn State University by considering them not merely as tools for writing and sharing, but rather, “personal content management systems.” As personal content management systems, blogs become online portfolios, repositories for class notes, a way to submit a term paper, and perhaps most importantly, a searchable, organized personal archive that can make evident a student’s intellectual development.

The value of Connectivism goes well beyond the realm of higher education, and there are a number of examples of its use in the corporate realm. The subject of our group’s project, Best Buy, is one example. Blue Shirt Nation, the company’s internal social networking site, provides a platform for its vast network of employees to share ideas. Initially developed to gain more insight into customer behavior, the site has become a place where the teenage cashier in their first job can exchange information with executives at the highest levels of the company. Turnover for employees engaged in Blue Shirt Nation are 8%, an incredibly low number given the nature of the retail industry. The site has also managed to turn the company’s culture “upside down,” to a certain extent, by providing a space for voices not generally heard in a traditional corporate hierarchy (Maruggi, 2008).

There are some companies, however, that are taking much more revolutionary approaches to the traditional corporate arrangement. Cisco Systems, a company dedicated to selling networking hardware, began reorganizing its management structure following the economic downturn in 2001. Like most corporations, Cisco was vertically organized, with a strict hierarchy that fed all decisions through the top levels of management. In order to gain efficiency, the company began spreading decision-making responsibility across working groups involving around 500 executives (McGirt, 2008). Financial incentives were re-worked as well, rewarding managers for collaboration facilitated by the company’s in-house social networking tools. Such tools allow employees at all levels of the company to share knowledge and find potential collaborators. Though Cisco believes the new structure has generated a significant amount of new ideas for the company, the absence of a traditional productivity metric has made analysts unsure of whether or not Cisco’s radical departure will result in profits. The company’s structural changes also created some level of discord within the company, leading to the departure of as many as 20% of Cisco’s executives (Kimes, 2008).

Skepticism for Connectivism and its associated tools come from a variety of sources. A Deloitte study of companies maintaining online communities for employees and/or customers shows mixed results about their effectiveness. While these communities allow companies to find new talent, help design products and services, and improve brand image and awareness with customers, a number of key roadblocks prevent most companies from realizing these gains. Companies are frequently relying on metrics such as “number of visitors” or “page views” that are not significantly related with the potential benefits of the medium (Deloitte, 2008). Better measures may be inbound links or Google search rankings (Worthen, 2008). Finding resources to manage online communities, especially as companies continue cutting back in order to deal with current economic recession, may prove to be even more difficult to overcome. A third of the companies in the Deloitte study only had one part-time person managing their community, and a majority of the others delegated the responsibility to a marketing professional with little prior experience (Worthen, 2008). When companies are spending money, they’re often purchasing the latest technological bells and whistles that may not even be used. The developers of Best Buy’s Blue Shirt Nation recommend involving end-users to determine specifically what the community needs in the design stage of the project implementation. What they discovered was that spikes in user growth had less to do with technology and more with management support and user-generated content (Maruggi, 2008).

Connectivism has also faced criticism on a more fundamental level. Verhagen (2006) has argued that Connectivism is not a learning theory at all, in that it does not deal with how learning takes place, but is rather a pedagogical view that belongs at the curriculum level. Many of the ideas presented in Connectivism are simply parts of existing theories, and Verhagen questions “why in this combination they should justify the introduction of a new approach.” Siemens (2006) has fired back that between the time his first article on Connectivism was unveiled in 2004 and the time that Verhagen’s response was written, the digital landscape was altered drastically with the rise of blogs, wikis, podcasts, and YouTube. Additionally, he points to the absence of any mention by Verhagen of the conversation that took place on the educational blogosphere following the publishing of his initial article. Siemens believes that by ignoring the dialogue surrounding Connectivism, Verhagen has effectively proven his point: That “static, context-less, content-centric approaches to knowing and understanding are fraught with likelihood of misunderstanding.” Dede (2008), takes the middle road in this debate, by arguing that educators who dismiss Web 2.0 outright may be just as wrong as those who dismiss Classical epistemology outright.

Certainly, the Classical model of education has failed in some respects, particularly in the high-stakes tests that do little to prepare students for the challenges of life. While Connectivism offers hope of a new solution for this problem, it is just as likely to create new problems, as yet undiscovered. For Instructional Designers, it provides another tool that requires careful consideration before deployment. The vetting process will continue as it has in the education community, a task conveniently suited for employing Connectivist concepts.

References

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