Month: January 2008

Those of involved in promoting participatory web applications in education must look for justifications. I think this should be true for the sake of credibility, but also for our peace of mind. For example, my approach has been to point to the research on “writing to learn” to support classroom time spent on blogs and wikis. Instead of pointing to research on a practice, we attempt to use another type of research involving an activity similar to the behavior of interest and involve ourselves in “kinda like” thinking.

The characteristics of participatory web applications in education (education 2.0 or whatever the selected buzzword happens to be) go beyond similarities to writing to learn so I continue to be on the lookout for original research or similar research. In the last few days, the online preview of Educause Review (January/February) has become available. Check out the article by John Seeley Brown and Richard Adler (pdf available) entitled Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail and Learning 2.0. Among the topics covered is reference to the productivity of self-organized study groups among college students. I assume the “kinda like” thinking here is that the discussion of topics among bloggers is something like the discussion of course topics that happens within study groups. The references are to the book of Harvard educator Richard Light (Making the Most of College) and to the text of a presentation by Uri Treisman (Studying Students Studying Calculus). Whether or not college students involve themselves in study groups was found to be among the best predictors of academic success. I immediately tried to locate the sources Brown and Adler cite. Making The Most of College seems to have mysteriously disappeared within the UND library. I hate when that happens. I did read the Treisman paper. Interesting, but it was a speech that mentioned research but including no references pointing to full descriptions of the studies. I will have to do a little more digging.

Anyway, another aspect of participatory web experience that may benefit learners may be “collaborative study”. I think the key to the utility of this perspective will be finding ways to move beyond the sharing of ideas and perspectives among motivated individuals with a common interest to classroom situations where many students may be unmotivated in general and/or not intensely interested in some of skills or information they are expected to acquire. Perhaps this is a good argument for personal learning, but less so for mandated learning.

How’s that for “kinda like” thinking?

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Tags: web2.0

National Geographic has a recent feature on North Dakota. The piece was vaguely reminiscent of Poppers’ Buffalo Commons. In both cases, the negative imagery (isolation and bleakness) used to describe N.D. has offended many who live here (e.g., today’s editorial). Perhaps it depends on what one regards as beautiful and whether one regards a low population density as depressing. The complaint here is that low population density has been attributed to negative factors (cold and long winters, flat landscapes, lack of opportunity). Actually, it can be argued a declining population is a sign of progress. For example, farming has become so high tech and functions on such a large scale that it does not require a large number of individuals devoted to the tasks. I guess efficiency and productivity has costs.

It might be argued that these are the best of times in North Dakota. Our state is often on the up swing when other states are experiencing problems. The farmers experienced bumper groups this year and unlike so many years when the crops are large, the prices now are also very high. As I understand the argument, the use of corn to create alcohol for fuels has driven up the price for all grains and influenced the cost of any product directly or indirectly influenced by expensive feed grains. Check out what has happened to food costs as a consequence. North Dakota also has massive coal reserves and some oil. I am not certain I am pleased with the consequences of burning coal and not sure the reason extracting oil in North Dakota is now lucrative is a good sign for the country as a whole, but these industries are booming. BTW – so is wind energy.

We even profit from the down turn in the general economy and the advance of the Canadian against the U.S. dollars. The Canadians are streaming across the border here to purchase inexpensive goods. Hotel rooms were often difficult to come by during the holiday shopping season and all those folks filling up the waiting areas in eating establishments on weekends is annoying – 😉 .

There are some things that bother me about living in a low population state. In some sectors you cannot downsize services to match your population. Small towns are suffering here as in many midwest states. Education in small communities and in the state in general is a good example. I understand this situation through my personal experiences at the University of North Dakota. The reality of critical mass often represents a challenge for us. You need a med school and a law school. You need physics and philosophy departments and fine arts programs. To maintain an institution that offers the necessary diversity of expertise and the breadth of graduate programs necessary to maintain the ranking necessary to compete for external funds is a challenge. If you cannot compete for external funding, you cannot attract quality faculty members and the most elite students and you also have fewer resources to work with. One element in the economics of the institution must be tuition dollars and obviously the more students the more tuition. We know exactly how many kids are out there in K-12 and we know the number is declining. This puts a research institution in a difficult situation – you need to draw students from elsewhere and students don’t come from elsewhere unless you have high quality programs. How do you generate the money to create the level of quality necessary to attract students? You can find mediocre anywhere.

I hope technology is part of the answer. While there is always the danger of assuming the area in which you work is the area to develop, I do think that the opportunities in online education represent a real opportunity for extending the reach of quality programs. I also think I understand the challenges in doing so. Time efficiencies are so often misunderstood. Still, online interactivity has come a long way and quality experiences relevant to many areas of study are now possible and continuing to improve.

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