Education Innovation

When The Education Bubble Goes...Pop!

John Robb at his blog Global Guerillas has a posted titled Industrial Education?

In the post John Robb claims that as “there is reason to believe that costs of higher education (direct costs and lost income) are now nearly equal (in net present value) to the additional lifetime income derived from having a degree…this situation has all the earmarks of a bubble. A bubble that will soon burst as median incomes are adjusted downwards to global norms over the next decade."

Bubble Trouble
Originally uploaded by howlinhill

According to John, the higher education bubble that is building will burst due to economic factors and the pragmatic educational and economic reality that a high education will not net the desired return in income over a lifetime.

With any problem there lies opportunities to be exploited and built upon. The changes that will result in the education bubble bursting could be a source of disruptive innovation and education change.

John then explains...

"Fortunately, with the implosion of this bubble, the opportunity to introduce improvements will emerge.  The most interesting of these improvements is the ability of collaborative online education to replace much, if not most of in person teaching.  For example:

• Lectures.  Videos of lecture series, plus associated materials, are available for many courses at some of the best Universities in the world (i.e. see MIT's open courseware).  Online videos are not only better than in-person lectures in many respects, they also allow you to get the best.  There is no need to recreate the lecture with tens of thousands of less qualified/exceptional teachers.
• Application.  As MIT is finding out, JIT (just-in-time information) in combination with simulated application of the concept to real scenarios is the best method for success.  The advent of computer simulated virtual worlds for in the computer gaming industry have proven this combination (JIT info and immediate application) can train kids to adults in complicated and complex tasks in a fraction of the time other methods require.  
• Collaboration.  The business world is already shifting on online collaboration as a replacement for most in-person work (the economic crisis will only accelerate it).  In my personal experience developing exceeding complex products, its possible to conduct the entire process from ideation to delivery online without any face to face contact (at great savings in time to direct expense).  Unfortunately, this ability/skill/mindset isn't central to the educational world, despite the fact that students are currently doing much of this already in their private lives with social software."

Technology will create some change in the space left after the education bubble bursts. Forced by economic realities to innovate and experiment with delivery of teaching, creating space to collaborate, and new means of learning.

None of these ideas are new to education. Proponents of like myself of educational uses of technology to reach learners at a time and place of their choosing are legion in education. The difference here is that John is explaining the need through an economic reality that our society is going to be forced to wrestle with in the coming years.

I have advocated here my belief in the Open Model of Education. John focuses specifically on online learning. He believe that as education comes to terms with the economic realities of our society and the lack of net value in higher education over a lifetime, he sees online education as taking a key place in the future of teaching delivery.

He states...

"The shift towards online education as the norm and in-person as the exception will arrive, however, the path is unclear.  It is currently blocked by guilds/unions, inertia, credentialism, and romantic notions.  Here's what could happen:

• Local governments cut costs.  Nearly or officially bankrupt local governments, out of desperation, opt to reduce costs through online education (the single biggest line item in most local budgets).  Drawing from online home schooling systems, the market for these systems explodes (growing at several thousand percent a year).  
• Entrepreneurial innovation.  As student populations at the collegiate level dwindle due to cost pressures, a major University (with a brand as good as MITs or Harvard), opts to offer full credentials to online student (at a tiny fraction of the cost of being in attendance).  Ten million students enroll in the first year to attend Harvard's virtual world.  
• Open source alternatives.  Unable to afford in-person education, the lack of a major brand in the marketplace, and a job market in free fall stunts the growth of online education.  As a result, a massive open source effort develops to develop virtual worlds and other online courseware that rivals the best Universities.  The government is forced, over the objections of established institutions, to confer credentials to graduates that pass standardized tests (in fact, comparisons quickly show that these graduates are the equal and/or better than traditionally educated competitors).   The business world embraces them."

Online education will improve as a model of teaching and learning because the demand for it will simple force it to improve and innovate, what Clayton Christensen calls a "disruptive technology."

Who could argue that the difficult economic times are forcing learners to make difficult decisions about where they want to learn and how much they are willing to pay for their education. Many will see the online learning option as the best means and value for their educational goals.

John sums it up this way...

"The result of these innovations creates a highly productive educational system that produces high quality graduates at a small fraction (an order of magnitude less) of the current costs.  Decentralization via online education also results in massive STEMI compression for a given unit of instruction and the educational platform created enables a level of flexibility and renewal needed to meet the challenges of a rapidly mutating global economy.  Resilient communities, as early adopters, will become the first beneficiaries of these benefits (which will allow them to accelerate beyond competitors) as subscription access to world-class online educational (virtual worlds, lectures, courseware) drop to less than $20 a month." 

Education as a system will be only the better and stronger through these innovation, and learners will benefit as opportunities increase through these new avenues of learning. Our entire society will benefit as more people have access to the best teaching in world, online, anytime, anyplace, and inexpensive.

As John asks, "An Ivy League Education for less than $20 a month.  Why not?" 

That's Education Innovation.

Open Model of Education: People Power

Teach the People - The People Powered University from Jason Beckerman on Vimeo.

The 4th Way- Teaching and Learning in the 4th "Dimension"

Education in the palm of your hand. That is education in the 4th dimension. That is the 4th Way of Education. Let me explain.

If you haven’t seen the Nokia video on YouTube, you really should take a look. (Thanks to Wesley Fryer for sharing via Twitter.)  In the video Nokia shares the idea they call the “Fourth Screen.” 

The First Screen was the movie screen. People gathered in the public space of the movie theater to see the world presented to them through the lens of the movie camera. History and entertainment were all brought to the big screen. People, together in public, were able to laugh, cry, cringe, cheer, and share emotions together. 

by Roloff

Just as moviegoers watch together, so too, do students learn together in the classroom. But the First Screen and the classroom share some flaws. Both require the people it serves to come to it. Both function off a set schedule. A both limit their offerings. Choice, time, and location are the limitations of the First Screen and the classroom.

The Second Screen was the television screen. People were connected to the outside world through a menu of television programs. People could learn about the world around them and talk about what they were watching. Television was able to reach more people. Those people required a greater variety of programming. But, instead of sharing the screen with the public, the Second Screen was shared in privacy of the home alone or with family and friends. Strangers were not part of the Second Screen experience like it was in the First Screen experience. 

by allhails

The Second Screen and the classroom still shared some limitations. The participant was required to be in front of the television in a fixed location, just as the student is required to be in fixed classroom. While television increased the choice and variety of its offerings compared to the movie screen, the content was still decided upon by others. Just as the variety of subjects students are required to learn has increased, those subjects are still decided upon by someone other than the student. So called experts controlled programming just as so-called experts control curriculum.

The Third Screen was the computer screen. The computer screen changed the way we work and play. The Internet allowed people from all over the world to pursue their particular interests and to form virtual communities on-line. The Third Screen allowed people access to more information than they could have imagined. It opened up access to new types of media and allowed people to participate in creating, sharing, and talking about all types of media. But, though they belonged to “communities” they were still virtual communities. Choice had never been greater and the ability to participate in the creation, consumption, commenting on, or collection of information and media was available to many. 

by Yves Janse

The Third Screen seemed to be the penultimate in screen evolution. However, the Third Screen and the current model of 21st Century Education still share some limitations and flaws. Participants of on-line communities and students are still limited to access to the Internet access, either hard-wired or wireless. The Third Screen is limiting in that much of the community is virtual. No true person-to-person interaction. Virtual space will never match touch space in the most powerful aspect of human interaction. In education, the technology that exists for students is still limited by access for all, the need for the majority of students to be present in the classroom to use the technology, and for education to focus the technology on the individual instead of creating communities.

The Fourth Screen, according to Nokia, is the screen that you take with you. The Fourth Screen allows the user to leave the virtual community behind and take the technology out into their actual community. The Fourth Screen allows the user to take advantage of the ability to create, share, collect, and comment, with their virtual or real community. It takes the user back in the realm of the First Screen, back out into the public. Fixed location, limited choice, being virtual, or being forced to create at a certain location unbinds users. POD's (Personally Owned Devices) as David Truss would call them.

The Fourth Screen is the Open Model of Education. Users and students can be in public, interacting with the world or their communities. They can be both can exist in both virtual space and touch space. They can introduce their virtual community to their touch space community. And it can happen anywhere, at anytime. Choice, unbound by time and geography, accomplished with portable technology. Information and knowledge unfiltered by experts and content created, consumed, collected, and discussed without limitations. This is the Fourth Screen and this is the Open Model of Education. Learning at anytime, from anyone, in anyplace, and is meaningful to the student. It’s the fusion of the in person and in public First Screen, with the at home in private Second Screen, and the virtual space of the Third Screen. The Open Model of Education and the Fourth Screen are the future and it’s going to change everything.

It is the 4th way of education. The remix of the previous 3. The 4th way is the power of the remix, the blend, the fusion of all elements.

That is most definitely Education Innovation.

Recommended Reading:

PODs

The Ugly Side of Open Education?

Is there such a thing as “too open”?

Failure Is An Option In The Open Model of Education

The Open Model of Education

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality Part 1

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality: Part 2

Open Education blog

Connectivism and Connectivity In Education Explained

Crowdsourcing A Textbook and Disrupting The Textbook Publishers

A focus on standards and objective is different from focusing on a textbook.

Good teaching focuses on the standard or the objective that students should know, not the textbook being used. This leaves space for innovation in the creation and innovation of textbooks. Let's look at a regular published textbook vs. a text produced through crowdsourcing.

A textbook is limited.

Texts are limited to the current edition. It is static.

Textbook companies are limited in the amount of time and energy that can be put into a textbook because at a point the cost will be too prohibitive.

A textbook is limited as to the number of standards that it can cover.

A textbook is limited because of production costs.

Textbook use is limited due to copyright laws.

A textbook is only a good as the limited number of authors who work on it.

A textbook is limited to the number of leveled versions it can produce.

A textbook cannot meet the needs of every student.

A textbook is limited to the adoption cycle of a state, district, or school. In California that is every 6 years, give or take. Students could be learning 6-year-old information. Mistakes stay until the next printing.

The textbook costs schools millions and millions of dollars each year.

A crowdsourced textbook could be different.

by wishymom

A crowsourced textbook would be digital. Being digital would allow for re-mixing, re-purposing, incorporating other types of media, and make it very easy to innovate new ideas.

The crowdsourced textbook would discriminate against contributors based on credentials. The crowd discriminates based on the idea. The crowd member is essential anonymous on the net. The crowd cares less about who you are than what you can contribute.

The crowdsourced textbook is not reliant on the known reputation, skill, or specialization of its authors. It relies on the crowd to pick the best idea regardless of author.

The crowdsourced textbook is not limited to the number of standards it can cover because it will be digital. Thus, it is ever expanding.

The crowdsource textbook has not limits to the number of leveled versions that could be created. The crowdsourced textbook could be differentiated for individual student need in almost limitless ways.

The crowdsourced textbook can utilize an infinite number of graphic organizers, movies, sound, leveled stories, and translations to meet the needs of each and every student.

The crowdsourced textbook is not limited to an adoption cycle. It can change instantly. Mistakes can be corrected the minute they are found.

The crowdsourced textbook can change in a day, updated with the best ideas and the newest knowledge and information.

The crowd could make every sort and style of assessment.

The crowdsourced textbook does not worry about copyright, but instead relies on Creative Commons licenses.

The crowdsource textbook is inviting, inclusive, participatory and collaborative. 

The crowdsource textbook would eliminate the need to spend millions and millions of dollars each year. That money would be directed into the classroom and the teachers.

The crowdsourced textbook could be the future. The published textbook will be the past. Is it time to give the crowd a chance?

Recommended Reading:

Open Text Book

Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog

California Open Source Textbook Project (COSTP)

Flatworld Knowledge

Back to School: Open Textbooks Gaining in Popularity

open... open source, open genomics, open content

The New Educational Reality: Part 1

What do you get when you combine a meatball sundae, home/school communication, brand management, the long tail, the New York Times best sellers list, Google, homework, outsourcing, and the definitions of literacy? Let’s put them in the Education Innovation blender and find out.

by puppethead

In his book Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin describes 14 Trends of New Marketing. I put these trends under the lens of education and call them the New Reality.

Trend 1: Direct Communication and Commerce Between Producers and Consumers
Consumers demand speed. Businesses need to respond quickly to consumer demands or the consumer will go elsewhere. Consumers can now connect directly to the top of an organization. They expect a response. Technology is changing the way organizations and customers interact.

Our students and parents live in a world with the ability to communicate with an organization and expect a quick response. Is the use of technology in your school changing the way you interact with students and parents? Are you responding to the needs of your students and parents and communicating that response effectively? If students and parents can communicate directly with the school, how important is the response you give back? How quick do you respond? Do you view it as a burden or an opportunity to spread your educational vision and message?

Trend 2: Amplification Of The Voice Of The Consumer and Independent Authorities.
Every interaction with a consumer is an interaction with a critic (or potential critic).
Everybody, student, parent, community member has a voice that can be amplified through technology. What are they going to say about your school?  What are they going to say about your educational brand? (You do have a brand, whether you like it or not.)

The web remembers forever. A poorly written email can be posted in minutes to the web.  Blogs allow students, parents, and community members into instant publishers. YouTube allows them to become movie producers. What are the publishing or producing about you? You may have a point of view on an issue, but who is better able to get their message out, you or the student run blog posting pictures, YouTube videos, and podcasts? Your schools reputation is always on the line and on-line. What is being said about you?

Trend 3: Need For An Authentic Story As The Number Of Sources Increases
Stories spread, not facts. So what stories are being told about your school and your teachers? A story is a symbol of who you are. Do you know your symbol? Do you care? Why would anyone want to go to your school? What makes your teachers so great?

Technology is allowing for students and parents to share their stories about you. Are you sharing your own stories? Do you have an educational brand that you trying to spread? What kind of message is your school trying to spread? There is a story about your school, the question is, is it your story or somebody else’s version?

Trend 4: Extremely Short Attention Spans Due To Clutter
There is a multitude of choices and a deluge of interruptions for students and parents. Commercials went from a minute to thirty seconds to, in some cases, three seconds. A bestseller was on the New York bestsellers list for 22 weeks, now it’s on the list for two. Books are shorter. Not enough time to read the book, listen to the audio version in the car. YouTube has over 7 million video. Most are only watched for less than 10 seconds. If it’s not good we move on.

That is the world you student is living in. If the don’t like it, the switch it, drop it, or change it. They don’t have to wait for something better. They are in control.

What about in the classroom? How much time do you get to grab their attention, make it meaningful, and engage before they drop you? They may be forced to sit there, but they aren’t forced to learn. The world is catering to their desire to move on. Your teaching can’t afford to be good enough. It must be great or it won’t cut through all the clutter or the world they are living in. You can’t count on their attention and engagement. You have to compete for it and win it.

Trend 5: The Long Tail
“Any market of people with sufficient resources will get very pick on you.”
People want choice. Students and parents want choice. Education does not have to provide that choice. (For now) Students have to go to school. They have to go to school in your district. They may be allowed to move within your district, but for the most part, they are assigned to you. You didn’t have to earn them, they were just sent to you. But you can’t rely on that forever.

Your students and parents live in a world where they can find nearly any book they want at Amazon. More of them are watching YouTube videos than the top ten television shows. Online they can find a hundred times more inventory than a retail store. You can find nearly anything on Google. The digital world means products are easy to store and easy to customize to the individual need.

So, if they can find nearly anything they want or need online and have it customized to their needs, what makes you think they need your school? They can find the learning they want online, learn what they want, when they want, where they want, and at the pace they want. So why should they want you? What is it about your educational brand or story that makes them want to choose you?

Trend 6: Outsourcing
You assign the project or the paper and then your student goes home and out sources the work online to some student in India or Sri Lanka. Why not? A report you want, a report you shall get. It costs your students and parents to connect with people in any part of the world to share skills, abilities, and resources. Homework for sale via the Internet is a reality. There is not sense trying to stop it, it’s already out there. The question is how can you adjust your assignment to make them meaningful and engaging so the student won’t outsource the work. Disruptive Technology is going to allow for all sorts of changes like this.

It’s not just assignments. When I can hire online tutors, watch educational videos, or get language lessons through my web cam, outsourcing teaching is here too. What are you doing about that reality?  Maybe just you are just going to rely on the old model of, “You have to go here. You live here.”  That may work for you, but that is not the world your students are growing up in.

Trend 7: Google And The Dicing Of Everything
Having the teacher in your classroom is no longer a reason to believe that is where the teaching and learning is going to happen. Students are a few clicks away from being connected to people all around the world who are willing to teach and tutor.

Google has allowed us to find any piece of information or facts we would ever want to know. In fact, in the new reality, it is not the piece of information or fact; it’s how to find it. Students don’t want to memorize names, dates, formulas, etc., that they can just look up in Google. Why? Why memorize what is right at my fingertips? They key is learning how to find the facts or information. Google has changed literacy? It not longer memorizing the “what”, but knowing where and how to find the “what.”

We will look at Trends 8-14 tomorrow.

Catalytic Questions:

How might your view of parent/student communication change if you knew it was being used to judge your school or yourself?

In what ways are you using technology to communicate with students and parents to spread your educational vision and brand? 

Is it effective? What might you change, add, or subtract from what you are currently doing?

Do you know what is being said about you and your school online?

Do you have an educational brand and are you managing it effectively?

In what ways are you or might you leverage technology to communicate your educational brand and your school’s story?

What is your school’s story?

How might your teaching change if you understood that you must compete and win your students’ attention?

What might this look like in the classroom?

Are you relying on the current lack of choice parents and students have, or are you thinking and preparing yourself for the power of choice they will soon demand?

If students and parents could choose, why would they choose you?
How might your thinking on assignments change based on the knowledge that students can outsource the work?

What might you do differently?

In what ways might the definition of knowledge and literacy change based on what Google has provided to every student?

Recommended Reading:

Literacy in the 21st Century

Why My Gym Is The Future of Education

The Questions We Choose To Ask and Answer: The Open Model of Education

The Future of Education

The Future of Education: Send the Lecture Home

The 4th Way For Education

If you haven’t seen the Nokia video on YouTube, you really should take a look. (Thanks to Wesley Fryer for sharing via Twitter.)  In the video Nokia shares the idea they call the “Fourth Screen.” 

The First Screen was the movie screen. People gathered in the public space of the movie theater to see the world presented to them through the lens of the movie camera. History and entertainment were all brought to the big screen. People, together in public, were able to laugh, cry, cringe, cheer, and share emotions together. 

by Roloff

Just as moviegoers watch together, so too, do students learn together in the classroom. But the First Screen and the classroom share some flaws. Both require the people it serves to come to it. Both function off a set schedule. A both limit their offerings. Choice, time, and location are the limitations of the First Screen and the classroom.

The Second Screen was the television screen. People were connected to the outside world through a menu of television programs. People could learn about the world around them and talk about what they were watching. Television was able to reach more people. Those people required a greater variety of programming. But, instead of sharing the screen with the public, the Second Screen was shared in privacy of the home alone or with family and friends. Strangers were not part of the Second Screen experience like it was in the First Screen experience. 

by allhails

The Second Screen and the classroom still shared some limitations. The participant was required to be in front of the television in a fixed location, just as the student is required to be in fixed classroom. While television increased the choice and variety of its offerings compared to the movie screen, the content was still decided upon by others. Just as the variety of subjects students are required to learn has increased, those subjects are still decided upon by someone other than the student. So called experts controlled programming just as so-called experts control curriculum.

The Third Screen was the computer screen. The computer screen changed the way we work and play. The Internet allowed people from all over the world to pursue their particular interests and to form virtual communities on-line. The Third Screen allowed people access to more information than they could have imagined. It opened up access to new types of media and allowed people to participate in creating, sharing, and talking about all types of media. But, though they belonged to “communities” they were still virtual communities. Choice had never been greater and the ability to participate in the creation, consumption, commenting on, or collection of information and media was available to many. 

by Yves Janse

The Third Screen seemed to be the penultimate in screen evolution. However, the Third Screen and the current model of 21st Century Education still share some limitations and flaws. Participants of on-line communities and students are still limited to access to the Internet access, either hard-wired or wireless. The Third Screen is limiting in that much of the community is virtual. No true person-to-person interaction. Virtual space will never match touch space in the most powerful aspect of human interaction. In education, the technology that exists for students is still limited by access for all, the need for the majority of students to be present in the classroom to use the technology, and for education to focus the technology on the individual instead of creating communities.

The Fourth Screen, according to Nokia, is the screen that you take with you. The Fourth Screen allows the user to leave the virtual community behind and take the technology out into their actual community. The Fourth Screen allows the user to take advantage of the ability to create, share, collect, and comment, with their virtual or real community. It takes the user back in the realm of the First Screen, back out into the public. Fixed location, limited choice, being virtual, or being forced to create at a certain location unbinds users. POD's (Personally Owned Devices) as David Truss would call them.

The Fourth Screen is the Open Model of Education. Users and students can be in public, interacting with the world or their communities. They can be both can exist in both virtual space and touch space. They can introduce their virtual community to their touch space community. And it can happen anywhere, at anytime. Choice, unbound by time and geography, accomplished with portable technology. Information and knowledge unfiltered by experts and content created, consumed, collected, and discussed without limitations. This is the Fourth Screen and this is the Open Model of Education. Learning at anytime, from anyone, in anyplace, and is meaningful to the student. It’s the fusion of the in person and in public First Screen, with the at home in private Second Screen, and the virtual space of the Third Screen. The Open Model of Education and the Fourth Screen are the future and it’s going to change everything.

It is the 4th way of education. The remix of the previous 3. The 4th way is the power of the remix, the blend, the fusion of all elements.

I found this great picture from David Armano's amazing blog, Logic+Emotion. His is one site I cant' do without. David asks Have We Come Full Circle? 

This picture touches nicely on this evolution of education. People using all of the tools of technology and networks is the 4th way, the Open Model of Education.

That is most definitely Education Innovation.

Recommended Reading:

PODs

The Ugly Side of Open Education?

Is there such a thing as “too open”?

Failure Is An Option In The Open Model of Education

The Open Model of Education

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality Part 1

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality: Part 2

Open Education blog

Defending Mediocrity and Other Thoughts of Seth Godin

Just into to Seth Godin’s new book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us and thought I would share of few quotes that stood out to me.

“So here we are. We live in a world where we have the leverage to make things happen, the desire to do work we believe in, and marketplace that is begging us to be remarkable. And yet, in the middle of these changes, we still get stuck.”

“Stuck following archaic rules.”

“Stuck in industries that not only avoid change but actively fight it.”

According to Seth, organizations, and I include education, are going to have to adjust to what I call The Big Change and The New Rule.

The Big Change
“The big news is that this has changed. People yearn for change, they relish being part of a movement, and they talk about things that are remarkable, not boring.”

Current education system = boring, unremarkable, and change resistant.

The New Rule
“If you want to grow, you need to find customers who are willing to join you or believe in you or donate to you or support you. And guess what? The only customers willing to do that are looking for something new. The growth comes from change and light and noise.”

Education is losing the public’s belief and support because they are looking for something new. They are looking for change. Education is breaking the New Rule and losing support and belief.

“Is there a difference between average and mediocre? Not so much. Average stuff is taken for granted, not talked about, and certainly not sought out.”

Are you sought after? Are people pounding down the doors of your school, your district, or your education system?  Or, do they just take it for granted that the doors will be open, the teachers will teach, and the kids will have somewhere to go from 8:00 to 3:00?

“The end result of this is that many people (many really good people) spend all day trying to defend what they do, trying to sell what they’ve always sold, and trying to prevent their organization from being devoured by the forces of the new.”

Sounds like a job description for district, county, state, and federal education administrators, union officials, and bureaucrats.

“It must be wearing them out. Defending mediocrity is exhausting.”

Somehow, I don’t feel sorry for them. They are just doing what they are told to do right?

“On a recent trip to India, this mind-set was made crystal clear. Ask almost anyone there what the perfect job would be, and the answer is: working as a government bureaucrat. Not only do you have air-conditioning, but you aren’t even asked to take initiative. The job is steady, the pay is good, and there are no surprises.”

I think Seth would agree. Education could use a few surprises. Here are a few of mine.

Education Piracy

The 4th Model of Education

21st Century Education, Meet The 19th Century Reality

4 Ps For Innovation in Education

Crowdsourcing In Education

What surprises do you have for education? I am sure you have some.
Understanding the Big Change and correctly answering The New Question is one way to find Education Innovation.

Rock-N-Roll High School and The Punk Rock Pirates

Imagine Joey Ramone as your principal, a punk rock principal for a rock-n-roll school. Scary? It shouldn’t be. That is what you might get when you combine Matt Mason, pirates, punk rock, do-it-yourself, and the Open Model of Education.

I previously blogged about Matt Mason (Teach Students to be Pirates and Plagiarists?). According to Matt Mason, author of The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism, “The punk rock perspective is a subversive mind-set we can all use, especially now that we have equally subversive technologies.”

From the punk rock philosophy comes three separate ideas that will spell trouble for the future of education, but complement the Open Model of Education. Beware of pirates.

^{by bog_king}

Philosophy 1: Do It Yourself (D.I.Y.)
“Today we live in a world where doing-it-yourself doesn’t seem that radical at all. We accept that anyone is capable of becoming a change agent.”

And that includes students. Students no longer need to wait for you to teach them what you think they need to know. Students can go create their own Personal Learning Networks of teachers, mentors, friends, and anyone anywhere who has something they want to learn. Choice, freedom, and change. Students crave it and with technology, they can get it. Our outdated notions of teaching students locked in a classroom will have to give way to the Open Model of Education that is focused on the student and their learning because, “Limitations suck.”

“It seems that ownership of the means of production—the backbone of capitalism—is falling into the hands of the masses. But soon the notion of ‘owning’ the means of production may itself be redundant.”

In other words, nobody owns teaching anymore. Nobody controls what students want or need to know. It’s now about the learning and that means nobody owns our students minds or bodies.  They get to learn from anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and for their own reasons, not yours.

“DIY is about becoming more independent. The more independent we become as a society, the more industries become decentralized. Indeed we may reach a point where there is no ‘industry’ left at all, in its place many vibrant local markets producing value, but not controlled exclusively by big players.”

Big Education has a problem. We have Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Drug Companies, Big Tobacco, etc. I say we have Big Education, and it’s is going to have to adapt to D.I.Y. learning.

Philosophy 2: Resist Authority
“Punk resisted authority and saw anarchy as a path to a brighter future. Punk capitalists are resisting authority, too--by leveraging new D.I.Y. technologies and the power of individuals connecting and working together as equals. This twin engine of the new economy is creating new ways all of us can live and work, leaving old system for dust. Technology + Democracy = Punk Capitalism”

Students are going to pirate their own education. You figured out the best way to teach subjects, now they are going to use your “best practices” for themselves. Teachers and professors have developed research based teaching methods for ensuring the best learning. Now, students and educational entrepreneurs are going to pirate those ideas and do it themselves. The Open Model of Education leverages technology and best practices to give learning and teaching anyone. They are not stuck in your system, following your rules they are following pirate rules, which means there are no rules.

Philosophy 3: Combine Altruism with Self-Interest
“Punk had high ideals—it looked aggressive and scary, but through its angry critique of society and subversion of it, it sought to change the world for the better.”

The Open Model of Education can look at little scary to someone who committed to Big Education. It takes their power away by changing the focus from teaching to learning. It allows students and other to pirate the best educational practices and methods and use them to meet their needs and interests.

But this is going to make education better. A focus on every student learning in manner and style that is uniquely best for that student. What could be altruistic than giving a person the best education possible? What could be more beneficial than giving every person a chance to succeed to their highest potential? As a country, is not in our best interests to ensure that our students receive the best learning possible? It is in our self-interest that we change. It is in our self-interest that Big Education be pirated by its students.

“Pirates create positive social and economic changes, and understanding piracy today is more important than ever…” 

Punk rock pirates of education. That's Education Innovation.

Nokia's 4th Screen and The Future Open Model of Education

If you haven’t seen the Nokia video on YouTube, you really should take a look. (See the bottom of this post) In the video Nokia share the idea they call the “Fourth Screen.” Thanks to Wesley Fryer for sharing via Twitter.

The First Screen was the movie screen. People gathered in the public space of the movie theater to see the world presented to them through the lens of the movie camera. History and entertainment were all brought to the big screen. People, together in public, were able to laugh, cry, cringe, cheer, and share emotions together.
by Roloff

Just as moviegoers watch together, so too, do students learn together in the classroom. But the First Screen and the classroom share some flaws. Both require the people it serves to come to it. Both function off a set schedule. A both limit their offerings. Choice, time, and location are the limitations of the First Screen and the classroom.

The Second Screen was the television screen. People were connected to the outside world through a menu of television programs. People could learn about the world around them and talk about what they were watching. Television was able to reach more people. Those people required a greater variety of programming. But, instead of sharing the screen with the public, the Second Screen was shared in privacy of the home alone or with family and friends. Strangers were not part of the Second Screen experience like it was in the First Screen experience.
by allhails

The Second Screen and the classroom still shared some limitations. The participant was required to be in front of the television in a fixed location, just as the student is required to be in fixed classroom. While television increased the choice and variety of its offerings compared to the movie screen, the content was still decided upon by others. Just as the variety of subjects students are required to learn has increased, those subjects are still decided upon by someone other than the student. So called experts controlled programming just as so-called experts control curriculum.

The Third Screen was the computer screen. The computer screen changed the way we work and play. The Internet allowed people from all over the world to pursue their particular interests and to form virtual communities on-line. The Third Screen allowed people access to more information than they could have imagined. It opened up access to new types of media and allowed people to participate in creating, sharing, and talking about all types of media. But, though they belonged to “communities” they were still virtual communities. Choice had never been greater and the ability to participate in the creation, consumption, commenting on, or collection of information and media was available to many.
by Yves Janse

The Third Screen seemed to be the penultimate in screen evolution. However, the Third Screen and the current model of 21st Century Education still share some limitations and flaws. Participants of on-line communities and students are still limited to access to the Internet access, either hard-wired or wireless. The Third Screen is limiting in that much of the community is virtual. No true person-to-person interaction. Virtual space will never match touch space in the most powerful aspect of human interaction. In education, the technology that exists for students is still limited by access for all, the need for the majority of students to be present in the classroom to use the technology, and for education to focus the technology on the individual instead of creating communities.

The Fourth Screen, according to Nokia, is the screen that you take with you. The Fourth Screen allows the user to leave the virtual community behind and take the technology to their actual community. The Fourth Screen allows the user to take advantage of the ability to create, share, collect, and comment, with their virtual or real community. It takes the user back in the realm of the First Screen, back out into the public. Fixed location, limited choice, being virtual, or being forced to create at a certain location unbinds users.

The Fourth Screen is the Open Model of Education. Users and students can be in public, interacting with the world or their communities. They can be both can exist in both virtual space and touch space. They can introduce their virtual community to their touch space community. And it can happen anywhere, at anytime. Choice, unbound by time and geography, accomplished with portable technology. Information and knowledge unfiltered by experts and content created, consumed, collected, and discussed without limitations. This is the Fourth Screen and this is the Open Model of Education. Learning at anytime, from anyone, in anyplace, and is meaningful to the student. It’s the fusion of the in person and in public First Screen, with the at home in private Second Screen, and the virtual space of the Third Screen. The Open Model of Education and the Fourth Screen are the future and it’s going to change everything. That is most definitely Education Innovation.

Recommended Reading:

The Ugly Side of Open Education?

Is there such a thing as “too open”?

Failure Is An Option In The Open Model of Education

The Open Model of Education

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality Part 1

14 Trends Of The New Educational Reality: Part 2

Open Education blog