Flexknowlogy

There’s some palpable hypocrisy in the response by many educators and administrators to the results of two recent research studies on the 2002 - 2007 efforts of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and NCLB’s Reading First program.

Let me preface this by stating that I do not argue one way or another for either Reading First or No Child Left Behind–I have not examined enough information to be competent to make any conclusion, nor am I sure that current research efforts have been appropriately thorough or scientific. Though I have opinions on what is most effective in reading education, and though I am troubled by a report that suggests our brightest students are languishing under NCLB, I haven’t yet bet on a pony.

Not too long ago we received an interim report from the National Center for Education Evaluation covering 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years. While this report showed some positive increases in the amount of time spent on reading education in the classroom, it found no significant statistical increase in reading scores from Reading First programs. Opponents of Reading First leapt on these results as more evidence to condemn the program itself (and NCLB by simple association).

Reading First is a program that we already know to be beleagured by mismanagement and hindered by internal corruption. So to me, an interim report showing no statistically significant increase in student results is insufficient evidence for termination. Yet popular news reports have called the program “ineffective” and opponents accused it of outright “failure”, when the reality is report shows at least Reading First is at least as effective as existing instructional efforts, though not proven to be more effective. And not surprisingly, Congress and Senate education panels have both voted to drop funding for the program.

What irks me is how opponents of NCLB and Reading First were perfectly willing to accept the standardized test-based results of the Reading First report because it supports their position, and yet then turn around and completely discount a new report out today that finds that since the implementation of No Child Left Behind, student test scores have been on the rise by stating that standardized testing is no way to measure student ability, and is in fact contrary to the higher goals and purposes of education in general.

Am I the only one that sniffs and cringes at the hypocrisy here? Or is it merely that the hypocrisy and hyperbole comes mostly from the lowest common denominator of anti-NCLB bloggers and commenters, made pungent for being broadly accessible and visible through Our Connected Web?

Desire2Learn announced on February 22nd that Blackboard has won its patent infringement lawsuit against them, stating, “the jury has handed down its verdict that the patent is valid and that Blackboard should be awarded damages of approximately $3 million.”

Blackboard filed the lawsuit on July 26, 2006 against competitor Desire2Learn based on intellectual property claims related to it’s Blackboard’s U.S. patent #6,988,138. Blackboard has argued that it had invested 100 million dollars in the development of the educational products protected under the patent. (NoEduPatents.com has made an explanation of Blackboard’s 44 patent claims.)

Backlash to the Blackboard patent by the open source and educational communities has been strong since news of the lawsuit first broke, and will likely continue through communities such as boycottblackboard.org. I personally did not expect Blackboard’s claims would be upheld when re-examined by the patent office, let alone that the lawsuit would be validated by the jury.

Because the patent claims are broad and impact so many common e-learning features, Blackboard’s legal victory is bound to be discouraging and troublesome to other commercial learning management system providers such as Angel Learning, eCollege, and Agilix. Blackboard has previously declared that it would not assert it’s U.S. patents against open source software development, e.g. Moodle and Sakai.

Does this apparent magnanimity bolster my favor for Blackboard? Certainly not; the position is superficial at best, and Blackboard knows it. Anyway, it’s beside the point: though I personally lean towards open source software for educational technology, I am a capitalist, and free market competition and consumer-driven innovation of services and products is important to me. Blackboard’s overblown patent claims are an affront to innovation and competition, taking advantage of systemic failures in U.S. Patent regulations.

And though some will dismiss this news based on the argument that even conceptually the LMS has inherent flaws (failure to keep up with current technologies, inauthentic, lack of learner ownership, creepy-tree-house, etc), I believe the LMS is still a valuable toolset for many. The LMS has has propelled e-learning into a new frontier by standardizing the basic communication and delivery features for an educational audience. The LMS’s ability to provide teachers an easy-to-use set of online educational tools in a one-stop-shopping experience is and will remain considerable for the next 5 years at least. (The unfortunate reality is that alternative networked education “systems” such as personal learning environments are still being thought out and developed–at the very least alternatives are probably not ready for widespread adoption and implementation by faculty members.)

Regardless of whether you’re pro-LMS or anti-LMS in general, I think the larger debate about software patents particularly when applied to education is an issue we in ed tech all have a stake in. At the ITC conference last week I picked up a witty t-shirt given to me by The rSmart Group that signifies the position of many:

Sources

• Desire2Learn’s Patent Lawsuit Blog
• Blackboard’s Patent Info Page
• Blackboard’s U.S. patent #6,988,138
• NoEduPatents’s Explanation of Blackboard’s 44 patent claims
• Groklaw: Reexamination of Blackboard Patent
• Wikipedia: Software Patent Debate
• BoycottBlackboard.org