Ken Carroll

Some Friday afternoon thoughts …

Although there is some original thinking in the edublogs - George Siemens, Stephen Downes - the vast majority of edublogging is derivative. That is to be expected, I guess. It helps to flesh out and disseminate ideas into the broader conversation, though it can lead to conventions that quickly form around ideas, perhaps before they should.

This is partly because activity in the space is still (necessarily) at the level of theory/debate, and less, perhaps, at the level of application. It shouldn’t be so surprising as the blogosphere is ultimately a conversational medium. And of course there is also much to discuss about how pedagogy works on the web. It’s all kind of new and emerging.

But even though the phenomenal rate of change that technology is bringing about isn’t going to slow down, there’s always some reason why social and institutional change takes so long. The same is true in business: Jenna Sweeney talks about mobile learning’s ten year gestation here. Meanwhile, Donald Clark recently posted on how deeply the old teacher/institution centric philosophy is embedded into our language.

So, I think it’s worth asking how we are dealing with all of this. It’s easy to get overwhelmed or lost in the details. Somehow it seems we are hoping to discuss or research our way out of it. I’m looking at a pdf on learning from a recent and influential learning conference, where 40 researchers gathered. 40 researchers? I’m not saying that those findings were wrong, just that if its only about research, then you probably have a bias for theory over application.

Applying it

I guess I see a need for application. This is the only way we are going to test the theory and move on. I am actually an obsessive reader of a pedagogic theory, but I guess my work is about applying ideas. My instinct, then, is to look to the market for validation: to get products into the market and see what people actually want.

Nor would I want to get embroiled in the near impossible efforts to reform education. I think we need instead, to try to look at the problem in another way. Let me offer two facts I heard from Gary Hamel this week:

1. Over 10% of all we know, we learned in the last 5 years.

2. IBM will soon release a supercomputer that performs a quadrillion operations per second.

Our school system is a lost cause (helped along through politics) and absurdly out of step with change in the real world. We will spend years arguing over it, and trying to reform these 19th century institutions, but I’m wondering what the point is. I’m not being flippant. I have a daughter entering 4th grade in September and it pains me to think of the needless but nauseating rigmarole of what she will have to go through.

If I were not tied up with other things, I think I’d be tempted to look for investment to fund a school of New Learning and drop every pretense of the ancient formulas. It’d need a year or two to raise the funding, and get it up and running - faculty, location, connectivist ‘curriculum’ and so on. Any such ’school’ that focused on the reality of digital learning and embraced the unprecedented change that is surrounding us, would have to be more relevant than what now exists. It could even make business sense - to begin it would have to be a private school - but it could simply set the bar for alternatives and that has to be a good thing. (Obviously you’d need to appeal to some progressive parents but it could be done.)

During the recent brouhaha it became clear to me that both DIY and edupunk can mean different things in different contexts. So I guess I’m making a case for DIY (in the positive sense), though by that rate, all entrepreneurship is a kind of DIY.

This just in: As I write I see that the new York Times blogged about ChinesePod today.

Ken Carroll

Am I the only one to find this Edupunk meme ridiculous? The adolescent ethos, music, etc, are matched only by the adolescent narcissism,  anger, wilful non-conformity,  sanctimony, and tirades against authority. Fine, except this is all coming from teachers!  

No seven ages of man here. These guys look intellectually and emotionally indistinguishable from their students. In keeping with that ethos comes their abhorrence for  The Man, the capitalist who is at the root of all Edupunk problems, and the guy who oppresses society, and the downtrodden. Normally, only teenagers take the time and energy to seek out with such vehemence these archetypal injustices. Are these father-figure issues? (You have to wonder at times, what must go on in their classrooms.)

But that rage contrasts with a dopamine credulity towards those who claim that ‘ industrial capitalism is a ridiculous game’ or the depravity of things like the DIY culture.  It was a destitute Marxist trope that animated this meme last week, via a science-fiction novel, written, btw, by a guy who flirted with Naziism.  It is from that novel that they lifted the ugly communist/fascist metaphors - vultures of capital, and captialism’s will to power, etc, to attack, er, Blackboard.  (As if that target were otherwise likely to go unnoticed.) The rebellion as  temper tantrum, had begun.

Now, Edupunks  are starting a movement  to expropriate power from the capitalists (and with cool music supplied by all the major labels!) Apart from that, there is nothing new from them.

 Except that Edupunks are seeking to politicize (and I would argue, infantilize) discussion in this space. Already this has begun. If there is one thing worse than what Blackboard is doing it is the attempt to reduce this discussion to ideology. I don’t know about you, but I do not see counter-culture and conspiracy as serious educational domains. 

 It is also dismaying to see the lack of edublogger critiques. Everybody loves Edupunks, it would seem. (I thought this was all about multiple perspectives, not an echo-chamber.) So here is my take: Allowing Edupunks to define themselves as agents of humanitarian uplift is absurd. Forty year old tenured men in hoodies, talking about revolution is no more than perpetual adolescence and self-indulgence.  By appointing themselves as the Defenders the Oppressed they are pre-empting the right to lecture on the subject. Personally I reserve that right for someone with a grown-up argument and a relatively serious attitude.

Of course they have the right to say whatever they wish and that is fine. Ultimately, however, I would not recommend that we politicize learning 2.0 and certainly not by reducing it to the level of  of DIY culture. Have they raised a real issue after all?

 Ken Carroll

 There are lots of blogs on the subject of learning 2.0. They tend to focus on what is theoretically or pedagogically desirable in the New Learning, as well as the new understandings that emerge from our experience of learning on the network. This discussion remains theoretical because mainstream business and education  have been slow to embrace the New Learning. Examples of these theories in an integrated format, in practice  are not common.

Except, I would argue, with a couple of exceptions. I believe  ChinesePod and SpanishPod are actually rather good case studies of putting these concepts to work.

 An integrated learning 2.0 scenario

There is a general agreement about the need for learning environments, learnscapes, or learning eco-systems, that enable participation, collaboration, and user-input, etc. The central organizing principle should, of course, be the network, with all the attendant network qualities and the right social software. The key thing about a network is that everything is connected to everything else. Connecting the people and all the bits enables the sharing, the discussion, the dissemination of good learning practices, as well as the self-expression, the debate, and all the other things that make human learning possible. 

In this scenario, the learners are necessarily in control because networks  break down hierarchies. The role of the instructor (or practitioner) is that of modelling and demonstrating, rather than as arbiters or controllers.  

Learners are then free to select content on a self-service basis, and at the times that they, themselves choose, preferably from an input-rich environment, with a variety of ways to consume it. (Learning is multi-dimensional.) It also needs to be self-directed and happen through direct experience and personal decisions, rather than through instruction and vicarious decisions.

Within this adaptive, de-centralized, recursive, and exploratory learning environment, content needs to be cognitive, and engaging. An inductive approach that allows learners to participate, to discover meaning, to reflect, and identify patterns, takes precedence over lectures because learning is individualistic, and subjective. All the while, members of the community can communicate on various issues, and threads to pursue their own goals with practitioners and other learners.

 Sounds familiar

In fact, the scenario I’ve just described is pretty much how ChinesePod and SpanishPod actually work. Almost every feature I mentioned exists there. The approach we took has certainly been organic. Lesson topics and other resources (and therefore the curriculum) are generally informed by learner request and not complete without their comments. The environment is dynamic, evolving in collaboration with the needs and behaviors of the learners. Ultimately it functions as an online community of practice.

 Other features include the use of modular learning objects (check) that can be tagged (check) and delivered as an RSS flow (check) when needed (check). This means that the learning is just in time (check) rather than just in case. Meanwhile, the future apparently will be learner-centered (check) immersive (check) mobile (check) democratic (check)  designed for the medium (check) and the environment in which it will be consumed (check). All these elements exist on ChinesePod.

I guess I’ve made my point.

 Was all of this planned in advance? No, it was not. It emerged as we went along  - which is consistent with what network learning theories, such as connectivism, might suggest. 

 ChinesePod and social networks

I believe ChinesePod points to a distinctive type of social network, and one that will become more prevalent once it becomes more widely recognized for what it is. I would distinguish (for the sake of argument) three types of social network. First, you have Facebook, Linked In, etc, where the social object is to connect with people and serve some social purpose (finding a job, making new friends, etc).  

The second type of social network is what we might call the content communities. The social object here involves sharing information, photos, music, or something else - examples, Delicious, Flckr,  Youtube, etc. As with the first type of social network, you register, get your own page, and get on with it.

I believe we may define a third category -  the social network as an online Community of Practice that exploits the learning-friendly qualities of the network. (This can extend beyond the internet itself, for example, into the mobile context.)  The social object is learning a language, a process that requires very high levels of participation.  

The Big Bang of 2005  yielded Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and so on. In terms of learning, the results were more patchy.  The ’small pieces loosely joined’ approach has led to new ideas about personal learning environments in the manner that Stephen Downes has described. That has more to do with managing for the individual. I would argue, however, that we are the clearest example of an integrated approach to what the participative web has to offer in learning in specific subject area. I beleive the community of practice is a powerful way to do that.

Our goal now is to set the standards for the online language learning industry. This is just the beginning, but I hope we’ve taken the first steps.  

 Ken Carroll

 Although they come in an infinite variety, all networks are ultimately about nodes and connections with things (like data, for example) passing through them. (The flow can be two-way, such as on the internet, or a cell-phone network, or one-way, as with broadcast radio.)

Apart from information flow, networks exhibit other learning-friendly properties. We see these clearly on the internet. From random access data retrieval, to an endless array of presentation formats, the network allows us to learn in unique ways.

Networks have emergent qualities
Sometimes these properties are more than the sum of their parts, and emerge in ways you cannot predict. A thousand networked computers are not the same thing as a thousand computers without the connections. The connections mean that data can be shared and the learning can begin, which is good because human beings are pre-disposed to do just that if the environment supports it. I find it remarkable to see how people instinctively look for ways to collaborate (a powerful way to accelerate learning) in these contexts, so the trick is, obviously, to design for the possibility.

This chicken/egg relationship between the technology and the pedagogy (nature/nurture) has been a revelation to me. There is an element of simply starting out with an effective network and working from there. (The origional design must, obviously, know what its purpose is.) The academic team at ChinesePod know that the learning properties are sometimes invisible, but inherent to the network, so often it is a matter of uncovering them. What emerges, then, is not just the knowledge itself, but the knowledge also of how to go about learning it, and of the knowledge of how networks lead to learning in context. The learning is a product of the interaction, rather than something pre-packaged . 

Learning groups versus networks
Learners necessarily behave differently on a network than they would in a learning group. Stephen Downes recently pointed out how groups tend towards unity, coherence, segregation, and ‘focus of voice’. They require hierarchical organization, a central authority, and a pre-determined sequence of activities. They act in a synchronized way, as with a school, for example, because the knowledge to be imparted exists in advance (it is the teacher’s possession). The upshot is that a particular viewpoint is magnified by the perspective of the teacher, or external agency such as a textbook. 

By contrast, the ChinesePod or SpanishPod users are not  really  groups at all. Those networks are about diversity, autonomy, openness, and individual pursuit. Although there is constant and endless interaction in the communities, no two of the users follow exactly the same path. In this sense, the learning is not managed by some external agency, but by the individual, based on his own needs. This, to me, is important. I beleive the element of choice, personalization, and autonomy will inform  the standards of the next phase of online learning.

Ken Carroll

 The subject of online language learning has been in the news, particularly since Live Mocha received funding some weeks ago. Yesterday, my company, Praxis Language  appeared alongside them, in the New York Times (the same story appeared in the International Herald Tribune today). 

There is a deeper undercurrent to this story. It concerns how the future of online language learning is being played out.  After a career in the industry I know change when I see it: After a somewhat slow start, Moore’s Law and the internet are starting to rattle its foundations. This will result in change - change in how, where, and with whom we learn languages - and it will reach all corners of the industry, including those who may now feel immune to it, Berlitz, Rosetta Stone, the language schools, and universities.  

I have no idea who will dominate the new landscape, but some things strike me as inevitable. Web 2.0 has yielded  new learning insights and practices that will almost certainly be widely adopted going forward. The whole nature v nurture (technology v pedagogy) debate has been opened up again and it is proving fertile ground for innovation. I cannot imagine, for example, any online learning system that failed to use RSS going forward. On ChinesePod and SpanishPod, that technology has created a whole new conception of  what a lesson is. RSS turns the daily lessons into learning events, something you don’t want to miss, rather than a chore you have to do, and a place where your community of learners hang out an work to the same beat.  (This is also described as pull v push by Charlie Gillette in this excellent article.) This type of learning as an event was impossible just a few years ago, but I believe it will prove itself indispensable for any future developers.

And while we’re on the subject of community, it’s clear that social software, though still in its infancy,  has a huge role to play in learning.  Learning alone from a black box will no longer cut it,  because now there is an alternative: the community of practice, with a clear social object, a purposethat everyone in the learning ecosystem shares. 

Things are going to look different, three years from now. Mark my words!

I also refer you to this excellent overview of some interesting trends/developments by my friend, the excellent  Dr Curt Bonk. 

Ken Carroll

There’s lots of start-ups in the language learning space, mostly variations on the social networking and Skype models. Most of them aren’t very good though, and many miss the point entirely. What, imho, are they doing wrong?

 Medium and message

These are early days for Learning 2.0. There’s  still an overall lack of understanding of how new media enable learning. Designing content for a podcast, cellphone, or web application is a new discipline with new challenges, but a lot of the content that I see is simply old-style content stuffed into the new channels.  (Content decisions are frequently coming from software developers, rather than teachers.) Simply putting learners in front of some content and expecting them to learn isn’t enough. You would not, for example, film a newspaper and put it on TV - the medium determines the message. In the same way, learning content has to be  created, written, and designed for the medium through which it is consumed. Too often that isn’t happening.

 You can usually spot this problem on the interface, but I also got to see it up-close when I recently visited a multi-million dollar start-up (language instruction again) and met their leadership team. The team didn’t have anyone with any real concept of how learning was to happen on the platform. The result will almost certainly be a content dump.

Misunderstanding social networks

I think there’s a lot of  confusion about the role of social networks (SNs) in learning. One common start-up approach is to simply create a SN (with random extras thrown in) and call it a language learning community. This is naieve, as quite often there’s neither a business, nor a learning case for it: SN features in and of themselves have no intrinsic value or interest. Nor do you create value for learners simply by allowing them to register and sort through random lists of people who are equally at a loss as to how to learn a language. They need more guidance than that. 

Note: I use the Facebook SN to connect with professionals in my field. It definitely has value. But Facebook is a destination site so the value is in the connections. In a language learning context, by contrast, the SN is a feature, not a destination. 

There’s another class of language instruction sites that are being called SNs but aren’t. Mango Languages offers free lessons - 100 of them translated into various languages. It’s not bad as a free resource but it’s kind of 1996 in its approach - static lessons, a closed system, highly structured and didactic, heavy on the software, etc. No idea where the SN tag comes from there, but their press release assures us that Mango is ‘quite literally opening up a world of possibilities to people worldwide’. I think that’s more naievete (and poor word chioice) than arrogance and it says something about the maturity of the genre.

Global ambitions

Another tendency I’ve seen is aiming way too wide. The hope is obviously to create VC appeal and consolidate a global market, etc. English is the obvious market, since there are millions of English learners around the world and no dominant market player. (That’s because there is no single addressable, global market for English - there are hundreds of them.) Yet even this is oftentimes not ambitious enough for some.  I’ve seen some fairly zany collections of people with the most wide ranging, if not irreconcilable, agendas in some of these places. This willingness to throw focus to the wind is evidenced in plenty of other ways, for example, the music videos, particularly when they’re not formatted for learning and could be found in dozens of other places.  

Skype - leaving it to chance

I’m seeing a lot of new Skype-based start-ups. Again, the hope is to consoildate a global audience, generate advertising, or take a cut of tuition. However, the act of connecting people is now a very easy thing to - online platforms of this sort have become commodities, so it’s hard to wring value out of it. Most see one of two options. The first is to connect teachers with learners and take a cut of the tuition. But teaching over Skype is difficult, and not terribly rewarding, even for experienced practitioners. It is and will remain a skill that is relatively scarce, and Skype doesn’t allow you to scale that up, as lessons tend to be one-on-one.  Whether you plan to make money from advertising on the platform (ouch!) or take a cut of the tuition, it will require one hell of a lot of teachers to reach any scale. 

The second option is to allow to individuals to create language exchanges, i.e. no teachers in the equation. The problem here is that there is no revenue, apart, again, from advertising. But worse still is the fact that you have  amateur teachers, with cross-cultural and language barriers to overcome, and no accountability to speak of. I’m afraid this is a case of leaving it too much to chance.

Clearly these new market entrants will mature and iterate, but we do have a ways to go at this point. But it’s also interesting that many of these iniatives are being tagged as if they were new, and original ideas. In fact, however, by September of 2005, we had put into practice all of the main ideas behind web 2.0, the social networking, and yes, even a Skype-based business model into practice.  Both ChinesePod and SpanishPod are fully-fledged communities of practice that have devloped the elements of social networking way beyond what many of the start-ups are now grappling with. I might be biased but I at least I can claim to speak from experience!

 Ken Carroll

  Obligatory pic of horrific looking 19th cen school that should add impact to the post.

In a previous post, I talked about what language learning 2.0 meant to me. In the coming weeks and months I’ll try to elaborate  through examples from projects that I’ve been involved with. I begin with a description of a key concept in learning 2.0 - its non-linear nature. I’ll try to outline my thoughts on this before showing how it has affected the design of ChinesePod and SpanishPod in the next post.

Linear learning 

Textbooks, curricula, and our educational system itself are the products of a mechanistic past.  School knowledge is pre-determined by a centralized authority, and delivered in a linear format to a mass audience. The system is standardized, mass produced, scheduled, etc. In the classroom, the emphasis has been on teaching - it is expected that the learning will simply follow. The act of teaching, then, is seen as transfering information in a controlled sequence, a process that eliminates context - all learners receive the same content in the same format - but fails to accommodate variations in learner needs.  

At the individual level, traditional learning is also ‘linear’. Most textbooks stagger information - you can’t proceed to Unit 2 until you’ve learned Unit 1, type of thing. Let me give you an example: English languge textbooks for decades, have begun with present tense (aspect) verbs with an emphasis on the 3rd person. It’s always the first lesson. Thereafter the books invariably proceed with simple past tense, then past continuous, and so on. In fact, however, most learners of English do not ‘acquire’ the earliest items until they reach an advanced stage of fluency. It’s obvious that these sequence of items are presented out of expediency. The question is, however, whose expediency - the teachers’ or the students’? (There is no natural order of language learning that can be described as a linear set of morphemes.)

Non-linear learning 

 In nature, linear learning doesn’t exist. Children learn their mother tongue through random exposure and make sense of the language by identifying patterns.  Our brains are designed to work/learn this way, but it is a subjective process because each individual experiences distinct social and psychological phenomena.  

If there is a metpaphor for learning in the natural environment it may be the network rather than the line: our neural networks forms the basis of memory/knowledge and even the brain itself. Which is interesting because all networks come down to two elements: links and nodes. (This is as true for the internet as it is for the human brain.)

The internet is changing the way we learn and that’s because of its  network qualities. I believe we’ve moved beyond the Mechanical Age, and beyond the Information Age, to the Age of Networks, and therefore to the Age of Networked Learning. Networks are every where and, as Jay Cross persuasively argues, they are changing everything, including how we learn. The last time that happened we had the Enlightenment on our hands.

 In the next post I’ll try to show how we’ve applied these insights in the real life design of our learning programs. In the meantime, feel free!

 Ken Carroll