PolivkaVox

I take strong issue with the first part of your co...

2011-05-23T08:27:06.501-04:00

I take strong issue with the first part of your comment, where you say that I'm one smart cookie (Although I do not take offense!) And of course you're right about politics, you never know what may happen. But the bipartisan support for blocking these regs happening right now in the House tells me that it is harder than anticipated to draw any meaningful line between the for-profits and not-for-profits, other than their 501C3 status. Which is to my main point... there is not so much difference between them now as once there was. Thanks for the comment!

You are one smart cookie, however I believe you po...

2011-05-22T21:58:25.692-04:00

You are one smart cookie, however I believe you pointed out the obvious, the schools may be regulated out of existence before they have the opportunity to
show their stuff. Politics in the USA as usual.

Here is an alternative to video that is very power...

2010-12-14T20:49:55.006-05:00

Here is an alternative to video that is very powerful: http://play.goldmail.com/zv5od3afbr83

2010-12-14T20:48:10.439-05:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

Because most video on the web is compressed with l...

2010-12-13T22:06:27.924-05:00

Because most video on the web is compressed with lower resolution make sure you are framing your subjects properly. Primarily focus on using medium shots and close-ups -- that is if you truly want people to see your work.

Bryan - Great post, thanks. I've made a simi...

2010-11-29T22:35:12.441-05:00

Bryan -
Great post, thanks.
I've made a similar argument in a number of conference presentations over the last few years. Criticisms of textbook publishers tend to be made without an understanding of why the industry emerged in the first place (OER zealots, I'm talking to you). The historical conditions that gave rise to textbooks are, to a large extent, still in place (standardization of curriculum; lack of rewards to faculty for teaching-related activities, the need for content produced by specialists, low costs generated by economies of scale, etc) . That's not to say that the industry doesn't need serious adjustment - it does. And other than a few mavericks (e.g. Flat World Knowledge), the industry has responded to the opportunities created by technology with limited imagination. But the common argument that textbook publishers have no role in "Education 2.0" is overstated.

Hi Bryan, While I found your thesis interesting,...

2010-11-14T06:34:15.575-05:00

Hi Bryan,

While I found your thesis interesting, it seems to be built only on the assumption that every adult attends a classroom to learn something that is applicable to 'real life'. And this is simply not the case. Many adults embark on educational endeavours later in life merely for the love of learning or for intrinsic motives such as interests in the subject-matter like art, Latin, philosophy, even astrophysics.

And even if they are learning something applicable to real life, there are numerous factors that account for their temporary loss of interest or failing attention span in class - a boring teacher or uninteresting learning materials are the obvious ones. Other reasons, however, might include mismatches between the teacher's teaching style and the student's learning style, preoccupation of the mind with life's problems, poor health, mandatory course completion for work, and so on.

There is also a lot to be said for the difference between pedagogy and andragogy, but that's another topic.

Thanks for this view Bryan. I'm in the unique...

2010-11-14T05:16:22.157-05:00

Thanks for this view Bryan. I'm in the unique position of being both a teacher in a classroom with adolescent / adult students, and an adult student undertaking a distance course. I've done three units, and just starting my last. The unit I'm taking is a graduate course about designing adult curriculum for technology, and for distance learning. I often think that designers of online learning programs don't actually know what it's like to take an online course themselves. But the technology, and the ease of access and participation has improved a lot.

What I need most in an online study experience is connection with other students, and sad to say, there are rarely more than a few people who participate in the discussion board threads. However, this unit, the course designers have made discussion board posts part of the assessment. Even teachers need to be induced to be active participants in their own educations.

Sometimes adults are just as reticent as adolescents. It's risky to make generalizations about adult learners, just as it is about adolescents. Look forward to your next post, and an example.

Dr. Jennifer Mitchell, University of Melbourne

Amazing article. I hold similar views in my blog

2010-11-10T04:17:47.280-05:00

Amazing article. I hold similar views in my blog

If you are looking for cheap college books I recommend visiting CheapestTextbooks at http://www.CheapestTextbooks.com

hey, bryan. can't imagine not being able to ...

2010-08-02T17:00:30.936-04:00

hey, bryan.

can't imagine not being able to write notes in the margins of a textbook. in college, i could recall my handwritten synopses during tests - the notes i'd made in the books' margins, and those often allowed me to "look over" at the actual text in my mind.

so, what are we going to do for us kinesthetic learners? making notes in a notebook is close, but no cigar. no link to the text. and typing doesn't form the same connections in the brain. i know. i forget most of the promo copy i type every day.

cheers.

Tell em what you are going to show them, show it, ...

2010-03-26T13:53:53.048-04:00

Tell em what you are going to show them, show it, then tell em what you showed ... Geico.
People have to know the subject and something has to grab their attention so they want to watch it. Self-interest usually works, but there are other interest grabbing devices.
Unexpectedness is the key to humor. Blindside them with something they didn't see coming (even if you told them it was).

Brian, I know this is belated, but I truly found t...

2010-02-05T16:20:10.181-05:00

Brian, I know this is belated, but I truly found this to be an enlightening post. I guess I'd never thought of it, but in spite of all that we attempt to do to focus on better learning outcomes, many of us teachers do still see ourselves more as content area experts, and at times this is at the sacrifice of becoming experts in learning (particularly in the post-secondary realm).
Education, in practice, is loathe to practice anything outside of the status quo. Part of it is due to the aforementioned reason, and part of it is the apathy toward anything new. Every new proposition is met with staunch resistance. Every time a new best practice is proposed teachers have the immediate response that they have already seen it and that they need not change because the pendulum will swing the opposite way again soon. If I had a penny for every time I've heard that over the years I certainly wouldn't need to be a teacher any longer and could retire to somewhere warmer than Michigan! As you mentioned though, the failure on the part of many new propositions plays into this pendulum effect and the overall aversion to anything new.
Another part I feel plays into the slow uptake of anything new in education, particularly when it comes to technology, is the continued existence of the old guard. I suspect that in the coming years with the baby boomers increasingly going into retirement that we will see a pretty significant change in educational practices. I cannot say whether this will be for the better or not, but I do imagine that the face of our schools will be quite different. That said, unlike in any other field, we teachers have spent our entire lives indoctrinated into this system, and the teaching methods our own teachers have provided a latent model for us that is hard to overcome and will continue to lend to the relatively slow change.
Lastly, I wanted to comment on educational technology as a whole. After having spoken to the slow uptake of technology in the classroom, I must admit that I am not all to certain that this is a bad thing. In my experience, many teachers who use technology do so incorrectly. It is oftentimes viewed as a replacement for good instruction and at best a crutch. In practice, I feel it rarely does anything to bolster the students' learning. Certainly, they may be more interested in what is going on so by proxy they may learn more, but the activities themselves rarely are of true value. One of my colleagues once said that if you can't teach when the power goes out then you're not really teaching. I try to keep this in mind each and every time I bring technology into the classroom. I do think, though, that with the changing of the times we will quickly see more beneficial usage of ed tech in the classroom.

The way I heard about the "spaced ed" pr...

2009-12-29T20:12:12.409-05:00

The way I heard about the "spaced ed" process was 1)present material 2)repeat in 10 mins. 3)2hours 4)8 hrs 5)2 days 6)14 days or something like that. It was in Peter Russell's Brain Book in about 1988.

Whatever the correct timing turns out to be, I don't think classroom or Web2.0 is what makes the difference. It is simply the timed interval for review of the material. All the current Web offers is the ability to automate the timing. You can do it just as easily with flash cards put in piles to be reviewed after the appropirate interval. Whether the learner uses piles of papers or email messages the learner still has to show up at the right intervals to do the review.

For some additional ideas about how to use the Web to alter the basic structures of educational systems, check out my wiki at:

www.openeducativesystems.wikispaces.com

Please don't hesitate to join the wiki and add your thoughts, responses - both positive and negative and further ideas.

Sorry...here is the link. http://www.aleks.com/abo...

2009-11-27T14:56:10.025-05:00

Sorry...here is the link.
http://www.aleks.com/about_aleks/research_behind

Sir, Please read the .pdf. Pearson and others ar...

2009-11-27T14:21:30.497-05:00

Sir,

Please read the .pdf.

Pearson and others are doomed, the paper explains very clearly why.

Knowledge Space Theory is an invasive species knowing no real predators.

google math Illinois and look at how they do placement.

Then check ALEKS and math at UT Austin, ASU,. Arizona, Montana, Boise State, FAU, FIU Florida, Iowa State, and on and on.

I mean this in the nicest way: get with the program.

Great comments, thanks much! --Bryan

2009-11-14T12:40:44.551-05:00

Great comments, thanks much! --Bryan

Bryan - Outstanding article! I could not agree mo...

2009-11-13T15:48:05.254-05:00

Bryan - Outstanding article! I could not agree more. In fact, from my perspective I would say that we ARE going there. The "want to be" intellectual elite haven't figured it out yet. While they still agonize over digital rights management, copyright, content control... the world moves on. Whether they want to accept it or not, it it no longer the Big that Eat The Small.. it is The Fast That Eat The Slow.

In my own area, Public Safety Training and Education, there are over 75,000 Google searches per day for online training and/or certification. While bricks and mortar institutions scramble the F-18's to roll out TEXTBOOKS! - the FAST put together online courses with industry certification. By the time they are ready.. the material is ancient.

The other hindrance the traditional model faces is its reliance on things not related to education like dogma, ideology, political correctness, administration, funding, the institution as a social tool, and more...

In the end, learning will be delivered as you suggest. The variable is how long it takes to drag these guys kicking and screaming into reality.

Along with this evolution,there will necessarily be new methods of evaluating knowledge. The PhD is already proving to be an obstacle in some fields. It means you are too tightly focused and your material is at least 10 year out of date. It does not prove you are "battle worthy" ... nor does it demonstrate your ability to navigate the new paradigm. Competency based exercises will become the norm. And competency testing will be widely outsourced since organizations are often not equipped to measure the very position they offer. Ie.. If you knew what to ask and evaluate in order to hire the best person for the job, then you would have to already be able to understand and execute those functions within your organization. The person with that kind of knowledge, then, would be wasted in an HR role.

I think that times have never been this exciting. I can't wait to go down this road. I've waited all of my life for performance to win out over dogma. It seems we are finally there.

Bryan - thanks for this. I recently came across a...

2009-11-12T10:14:38.905-05:00

Bryan - thanks for this.
I recently came across a business that adopts certain elements of the intelligent "crowd"- Guaranteach.com. This venture is associated with Innosight, the organizational umbrella for Clayton Christensen's "Disruptive Innovation" - which also produced the 2008 book, "Disrupting Class".
http://www.guaranteach.com/

good experience

2009-11-11T05:35:12.190-05:00

good experience

From my personal experience, I learn from videos m...

2009-11-04T02:40:25.885-05:00

From my personal experience, I learn from videos more than books and articles. Books are sort of a monologue and don't make you feel a part of it. Like someone talking to you. Also books lack a critical learning component: discussion.

Textbooks, like news papers are gonna go away with increased adoption of the internet. The Internet will be the secondary[and in significant cases, primary] classroom for many learners. Textbooks already have lost a lot of significance since they can cover only that much of a subject.

Also, the internet has made a subject matter expert, your neighbor; just a step away.The content creaters are online and they stream their thoughts and ideas over the wire day in and day out. Now you dont wait for an expert to write a book. Just follow his blog or his tweets. You have an idea of what he is into.

ex. If you follow Seth Godin's blog, it almost completely covers what he writes in his books.

People are learning more from peers and peer recommended online assets than books. This is only going to get better in the future.

Technologists goal should be to bring the quality of content in the textbooks accessible to students all over the world at affordable costs.

A thought on the blog's design: The content is great. It would only get better if the background color is white. Right now, I feel that readability is reduced in this background/foreground combination. Its hard on the eyes.

Anyways, All the best for your presentation. Share with us your presentation if you can. good luck.

Bryan, All the best for your presentation! That is...

2009-11-04T01:11:22.797-05:00

Bryan, All the best for your presentation! That is indeed thought-provoking. With people becoming more environmentally conscious, the fewer eucalyptus trees cut, the better! :)

When pedagogy catches up with technology (or the other way around), that's when we'll see exponential growth in "non-paper" based content delivery.

You may also enjoy using DigitalChalk. The video ...

2009-11-03T21:38:22.276-05:00

You may also enjoy using DigitalChalk. The video chalkboard studio is browser based and content is hosted free. Many instructors assign their content as e-books that students purchase online.

Interesting thoughts, Helen, and I'm pleased t...

2009-11-02T09:35:24.379-05:00

Interesting thoughts, Helen, and I'm pleased to have helped prompt them! Regarding your last thought, "wrapper programmes," I believe that this is exactly what textbook publishers should be doing now. Rather than publishing a book, they should be creating this sort of collection of digital media, carefully organized in much the same way a textbook is, but without the paper and cardboard. Then they could provide a "print button," which would obviously have to be a little more sophisticated than that, allowing whichever portions to be printed as needed.

I was surprised by my initial reaction to your com...

2009-10-31T08:01:54.981-04:00

I was surprised by my initial reaction to your comments – something along the lines of “not another attack on books as a method and medium of learning”. But as I read on I started to think about the textbooks I have had the misfortune to pay for recently (part time PhD in organizational learning – forced to study statistics) and I found I actually agreed with a lot. Here are some of my reactions (and rants) to some of your points.

1. Why are textbooks organized as lessons? From my own experience, people don’t read textbooks, they use them to look for solutions, answers to questions and to clarify doubts. There simply isn’t time to read textbooks and the sad fact is that some, especially technical ones, are not written in accessible language that supports learning.
2. E-books may be unwieldy, but there are about a million and one advantages over paper books. Being able to copy sections is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. By having everything in digital format I am able to use programmes like Zotero to save a copy, metatag it, write notes and attach them to the file, metatag those as well and link and categorise everything for easy reference at a later date. This is an incredible step forward from notes in a margin.
5. The future sounds amazing when you put it like that – textbooks as information sources that actually do what you need them to be able to do. Perhaps if that were to happen books could go back to being books – sources of stories and inspiration, prompts for reflection etc rather than simply tools of learning.

I wonder whether there is also an argument for the greater use of ‘wrapper programmes’ which allow educators to draw together diverse electronic sources as a reading list, review them and use them to encourage learners to find and network their own learning sources, rather than relying on a single, or limited number of sources.

Thank you for making me think!