the sweet spot for education
DESCRIPTION
In this I argue that there is a 'sweet spot' between web 2.0 and higher education, which combines the best of personal/public, fun/work, institution/individual, etc and that we should work to exploit this.TRANSCRIPT
Finding the sweet spot between web 2 and education
Martin Weller
Overview
• Web 2.0• HE• The sweet spot• Facebook apps• SocialLearn• Edupunk and the gift culture• Twitter networks• Conclusions
Web 2.0 characteristicsTechnologyUser generated contentInformal learning
Democracy
Bottom-up
Socially oriented
Web as platformHarness collective intelligencePerpetual beta
Higher education characteristicsControlled technology
Us generated content
Accredited learning
We know best
Top down
Individual achievement
Review before releaseFiltered intelligenceAim for perfection
Finding the sweet spot
Personal Professional
Informal Formal
Fun Work
Content SocialThis is the future of work/learning/recreation
OU Facebook apps
Tony Hirst, Liam Green-Hughes, Stuart Brown
What we learnt
• About facilitating dialogue• NOT controlling learner path• Viral spread • Support issues• Official endorsement?• Letting go of some control• Sweet spot: study-social, fun-work,
institution-individual
SocialLearn: A new OU?
What principles should it embody?
Openness
Flexibility
Disruptive
Perpetual beta
Democracy
Pedagogy
<dnwallace http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnwallace/848001061/>
A reversal
Student adapts to educational system
System adapts to the learner
Microlearner
2Learner
Cloudworks
Profile
Writes to and imports goals, resources, stream
Create goals, tasks
Pull in and publish relevant content
Pull in and publish relevant courses/designs
Publicise study and learning story
Making connections
What we are learning
• Existing business models quickly unravel
• Existing boundaries soon blur
• Different competitors
• Different audience
• Sweet spot: informal-formal, content-social
Edupunk
What I learnt
• Prepared to do more when it’s fun
• What you give away is what counts
• EdTech is at a threshold now
• It’s about how we use existing tools, not tools we create
• Sweet spot: Fun-work, learning-creating, legal-illegal?
Twitter networks
What management can learn
• Informal groupings based on interest
• Way of fostering belonging
• Physical location less relevant
• Institutional boundaries blurred
• How do organisational structures adapt?
• Sweet spot: Personal-Professional, Fun-Work, Informal-Formal
Conclusions
• Make learning a gift economy
• Embrace the social
• Experiment (and create room for this)
• Accept there will be mistakes
• Think of technology as the metaphor for understanding new social processes
Links
Course Profileshttp://apps.facebook.com/courseprofiles/index.phpMy OU Storyhttp://apps.facebook.com/myoustory/index.php
Me: Edtechie.netTwitter.com/mwellerOuseful.infoLiams blog- http://www.greenhughes.com/Stuart’s blog -
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/SocialCommunications/index.php
SocialLearn - http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/socialearn/