IPT 692R Notes – Tues Jan 13, 2009

Jan 13, 2009 at 3:02 pm, Jared Stein

It wasn’t snowing heavily like it was last Tuesday, and I had extra time to get to the BYU campus, but I decided to save myself some future headaches by learning to take the bus. I got on the right line, but going in the wrong direction. Thirty minutes later, I switched buses and made my way just in time to the second live meeting of David Wiley’s IPT 692R: Intro to Open Education course. Here are my notes.

Dr. Wiley introduced this segment with a quote from T.S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral:

The last temptation is the greatest treason
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

Motivations are fluid (Important to admit). (JMS: How are they tied to benefits and incentives? I think this is how motivations change, especially as sustainability rears its head.)

(JMS: I spotted a copy of “The Social Life of Information” on John Hilton’s desk. Bumping it up on my “to read” list.)

Four Case Studies for Motivations in Open Education

  1. Learning Objects

    LOs are “any digital resources that can mediate learning” described by “scope and sequence” (size and ordering/structure) and analogized by pearls on a string. Problem of mashing up or changing LOs; reuse : if (c) this means “as is”. But adaptability is critical — (c) is the culprit(?) in restricting adapt/remix. In the world of universal (c) gaining permission to use product is too hard/too expensive. So folks give up, or break the law, (JMS: or make your own).

    Ted Nelson as the “godfather of learning objects” — “how about … micropayment system”? (since mid 60s) e.g. Xanadu
    DRM is too hard and too expensive (JMS: and unpopular re. changing culture of medium consumption/participation). based on the (inhibitive idea), “If you can’t protect you can’t collect” (i.e. $ is the only incentive[?])

    LO + “freely adaptable” = OERs

    (JMS: Why is Hippocampus sometimes referred to in the same breath as open educational resources?)

    (JMS: this revisits the classic Web conceptualization of content vs. presentation vs. behavior.

  2. MIT OCW

    Q: “How do we remain ‘MIT’?” (i.e. preserve reputation and advanced [brand] placement in the world).

    A: “Give it away!” — but “giving” is not the same as “lending”, just as McGill et al note that “sharing” is not the same as “exchanging”.

    “…knowledge as a public good for the benefit of all … [MIT] can make a difference” (? MIT President ? someone help me out here)

  3. Missing Title

    72M kids don’t attend school. “Today [2007] there are over 30M who are fully qualified to enter a university.” Sir John Daniel.

    (JMS: Beware Article 26.1′s “education should be compulsory” for it may easily trample on the rights and liberty of the individual. In the USA I don’t think that “opportunites” as opposed to “obligations” to obtain an education in the first half of our nations’ history has been detrimental to our society. It is clear that contemporary government education programs view it’s obligation as that of socializing students as a part of education. But top-down socializing may not fit the beliefs or ideals of the family, and the family, not the federal government, is the critical social unit in society. Fortunately Article 26.3 “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”)

  4. LDS Church

    “Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.” (Isa. 55:1). Motivation 4 is to lift up (and prepare to receive the gospel).

    “Gospel methodologies, concepts…”

    Hope for motivations of charity and love.

Discussion

Brand as a proxy for quality. (JMS: Also, increasing brand visibility shores up conversion rates, especially for “unknown” institutions. Also, brand is a way of maintaining attribution–a way of maintaining ego.)

Seth (basically) asks, how is OCW valuable to the institution by itself, especially in competition with Bb hosting?

Short answer: get rid of Bb. Longer answer (adapted from list collaboratively authored on the whiteboard):</P

  • Transparency (e.g. world can see some of class content out.
  • Accessibility (e.g. Blackboard is not accessible on mobile devices, and is cumbersome, and is slow to load)
  • Academic advising becomes more accurate (may lower drop rate), cheaper (self-service).
  • Provides landing points for post course review.
  • If wiki-ish, collaborative authoring of content (amongst faculty peers, or amongst instructor and students).
  • Better course materials built more efficiently when based upon past curriculum.
  • Reusability at a more modular level within the institution: Blackboard templates still don’t work. But OCW as a template does
  • Cognitive apprenticeship possible when faculty collaborate in view.

3 Responses to “IPT 692R Notes – Tues Jan 13, 2009”

  1. Betsy Says:

    Thanks for your helpful summary! I should be well prepared to watch the slideshow now.

    January 13th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
  2. Jeremy Browne Says:

    I’m following David’s course from a distance, and your summary really helps. (BTW, try to convince David to live-broadcast a class or two via justin.tv or something.)

    A few notes: 1. I like that opening quote, but I don’t see it reflected much in your notes. Were there occasions where someone opened up for the wrong reasons? I blogged about that almost 3 years ago: http://brownelearning.org/blog/?p=41 .

    Also, do you have any more resources on the opportunity vs. obligation distinction? I’m familiar with the rights vs. entitlements discussion (the right to marry doesn’t entitle me to a wife), but that’s not the same as what you wrote.

    January 14th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
  3. Mr. Jared Stein Says:

    @Betsy Thanks! I’m glad to post these.

    @Jeremy Yeah, the opening quote was subtly referenced throughout, though I must admit I was too slow to benefit from the full impact of it. I think the primary thrust was to warn us away from just doing things without proper forethought and motivation.

    Re. opportunity vs. obligation, I can’t point to anything precisely, though I’ve read a number of writers and bloggers and left-leaning scholars speak about society’s obligation to educate and socialize youth, and that’s what I was getting at. It’s not a new concept. Off the top of my head I was thinking of an article that argues teaching intellectual subjects as well as moral subjects, a passage in Christiansen’s book “Disrupting Class”, and the now infamous long, video post by Stephen Downes against home-schooling, and, really, against parental control over their children’s education (I think the phrase he used was “parents do not own their children”). Again, I can’t point to any specific posts off the top of my head, but I would expect the antithesis of that position might be found on Matthew K. Tabor’s blog.

    January 15th, 2009 at 10:19 am