Will Educators Own the Future?

Posted on by Brian Hughes

Likely not.

I just finished reading Jaron Lanier’s ‘Who Owns the Future?‘—about a year after the rest of the world, it turns out—and I’m not optimistic.

It was an excellent read, especially due to Lanier’s broad experience with technologies and his interest in economics. He offers educators a lot to think about, such as:

Will teaching be a middle class job (at least) in the future?

Will humans even be paid to teach?

How will education be limited by software? And how will that software hide the contribution of humans?

These are some questions at the core of his ruminating, and the thesis of the book (that the world is generally headed in the wrong direction with respect to how networks are designed and used) opened up these questions in new ways for me.

I am afraid I am quite sympathetic to his worries. Unfortunately his bleak vision of the future isn’t well-balanced by his ideas for how to mitigate the present dangers of technology and create a better world for humans.

In general, I’d like to think I’m working on a solution just by working in the education sector. But Lanier gives me pause, and a lot to think about.

Flashcards for training

Posted on by Brian Hughes

Earlier this year we implemented a new staff-side training tool at the Gottesman Libraries: flashcards. That doesn’t sound progressive (it’s rote learning!), but we’re using a very cool tool developed by Teachers College alum Andrew Cohen: Brainscape.

Our library has a public knowledge base (FAQs), and a staff knowledge base that is more extensive, but with the variety of services we offer, it’s difficult to include nuances (even very important ones!) in these resources. So we use flashcards to extend and deepen staff knowledge of key services.

For example, the library hosts and supports the TC community blogging on Pressible, which is built on WordPress. There are a myriad of details that a library patron might want to know, especially if they are familiar with WordPress. Since our system includes many customizations, flashcards cover issues such as:

  • Q: “How do I get an image on my bio page?” A: Pressible uses Gravatar.com — a tool built and run by the company that supports WordPress. If someone has a Gravatar, Pressible will use it automatically.
  • Q: “Can anyone sign up as an author on Pressible?” A: No, only individuals with TC or CU emails can sign up. However, site administrators can manually add anyone (with any email) as an author using the “Add User” menu.
  • Q: “Why is there a big empty gray bar across the top of my site?” A: This is automatically filled with links to posts when authors use Categories (displayed as Topics).

Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions has helped staff better understand our tools (we’ve confirmed this via various anonymous surveys). Anything that makes staff more confident in correctly answering questions is very helpful—more responsive staff means a better (more accurate and speedier) experience for our learning community.

We’ve already developed dozens of flashcards on a variety of topics to date, and our experience with Brainscape has given us the confidence to continue to develop flashcards as key staff training tools.

Opening Up Museums

Posted on by Brian Hughes

I really enjoy Nina Simon’s blog, and her recent talk is especially exciting: Museum 2.0: Opening Up Museums: My TEDxSantaCruz Talk.

With an upcoming year-long exhibition highlighting the 125-year history of Teachers College, EdLab designers are focused on eliciting “audience” participation in our exhibition environment – three floors of Russell Hall (nearly 30,000 sq. ft.!).

I like how Simon frames the issue of participation around the challenge of making it meaningful – because it’s all too easy to create meaningless activities. But at the same time, she suggests, the hooks for engagement have to be simple enough that people are willing to try something new.

That’s tough to do!

I find that easy and interesting are often at odds. For example, our current goal is to use Twitter as a tool of engagement. But what do you ask people to contribute? 160 characters is already technically simple for folks with a Twitter account, but what kind of content should we elicit?

Photo of a library event by Diana Diroy

For me, solving this issue for a particular content is the essence of an exhibition design process – a process that should result in a unique and engaging solution that serves as a great foundation for learning.

One strategy is to aim to make the results of small contributions cumulative – either in a way that creates one large result, or as a mosaic showcasing individual contributions. Another is to make them personal (perhaps identity-oriented is a similar but useful way to think of this).

Another strategy is to offer an extrinsic reward – to offer a prize, for example. But this seems to be less genuine, or at least less likely to relate to learning. On the other hand, this could be a hook that engages a contributor to do more.

Giant Firefly by AMNH

One recent example of a bad interactive solution that comes to mind is from the recent Creatures of Light exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History (sorry guys). While the exhibit had some nice elements, I was disappointed by the gigantic firefly (six feet long?) that hung from the ceiling and glowed at the press of a button (working from memory here) at the entrance of the show. What did this accomplish?

I assume it was supposed to echo the bioluminescence theme of the exhibit, but for my 3-year-old it really just raised the question, “Are fireflies really that big?” I’m not saying that elements need to work for everyone, but really: aren’t there dozens of more exciting ways to show off the mechanisms of science while creating a stronger foundation for learning? (Wouldn’t a six foot magnifying glass aimed at a life-size firefly been many times more awesome? Aren’t there ways to use lighting to better effect?)

Using a traditional exhibition toolbox (scale, lighting, drama, etc.) alongside newer technologies is a big challenge. I’m excited to see what we can come up with here at Teachers College!

Epistemic Games… and GAPS?

Posted on by Brian Hughes

This is an intriguing new marketing direction for the Epistemic Games Group: GAPS

Games and Professional Simulations [GAPS] is a cooperative group comprised of six research groups across the country. We are headquartered by the Epistemic Games Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

(Love the idea, dislike the acronym?) Also check out this vialogue featuring Padraig Nash’s recent talk on “distributed mentoring” at the EdLab. Cool stuff!

A Democratic Agency

Posted on by Brian Hughes

For me, the story about EdLab—its purpose, vision, and strategy—boils down to the goal of democracy. This post is a reflection on today’s seminar by Gary Natriello, but I think it may also resonate with anyone who’s a part of a similar organization.

Gary articulated a vision of the future of the education sector that follows from a few basic assumptions about learning, economics, and technology. Namely, that the so-called “digital revolution” is ringing in a new age of “networked learning” (think: low-cost, p2p learning). He also shared his concern that while we ought to want to help shape this future, it seems unlikely that we at EdLab—as products of the current educational system—can feasibly do so. Why exactly? Because it would be too hard for us to participate in the midwifery of this new sector: pay cuts, lay-offs, new (possibly lower, or non-existant) educational standards, and so on.

Sound bad? It sounded even more bleak when he said it in front of a Keynote deck that juxtaposed glamourous visions of childhood with the realities of work at Foxconn. . .

But I don’t really follow his line of thinking all the way down that bleak path, and I’m particularly skeptical about two of his basic assumptions (and let me acknowledge that it’s easy to be skeptical—it’s hard to be the one in front of the room).

Assumption #1: We currently prioritize uniformity as an educational outcome.

Well. . . I guess so, but it seems like uniformity is just one of many outcomes of the current educational system. I agree we value it, as it seems integral to a democratic ideal of equal opportunity, so it’s hard to imagine a successful democracy without a shared sense of history, science, culture, etc. Perhaps Gary’s view of education can aptly be described as post-democratic.

Assumption #2: The expense of the current educational system makes it unsustainable.

I don’t know enough about economic principles to mount a compelling counterargument, but what the heck, it’s a blog, right? I don’t buy it, and here’s why: Somewhere there must be a principle of modern capitalism about potential and purpose of “creating new markets,” and the point must be that when everything is accounted for, there is a huge surplus of labor in the world. That is, the amenities of capital-generating activities seem to be diverse enough to support a virtuous circle of labor. (Sure wealth is distributed unequally, but hey, a lot of people are willing to work to afford the data plan on their iPhone.)

Why should this come to an end? And why shouldn’t education—even in its increasingly expensive forms—partake in this economy? My response to Gary is that the current education is sustainable. But I wouldn’t want to suggest that it’s deeply democratic. In terms of the cost of education, I think the education sector is already incredibly diverse (though we don’t like to admit it)—if only because education is so unevenly applied (note: additional skepticism about uniformity). So it’s going to become more interestingly diverse as different types of education are increasingly acknowledged as legitimate. In this way, I think Gary’s view is overly pessimistic about future economic conditions.

Conclusions

When I reflect on where my views intersect with Gary’s, I’m confronted by a surprisingly optimistic view of education. It’s a view that counterbalances the news cycle—how putting iPads in kid’s hands is going to empower them and “save schools”—and affords us a different, more democratic space to work (at EdLab, and similar do-tanks). Yes, it’s a technology-rich space, but that’s not the point. Our goal is to locate or create cheap tools that give more learners access to key knowledge. It’s not about the best education. It’s probably not even good yet. But it’s getting better, and more real every day.

Further Questions. . .

  • Isn’t the Internet itself enough? It’s cheap, and it provides key knowledge! But let’s make it even better. . .
  • Can or should educational organizations compete with no-cost, advertising-driven technologies?
  • Can or will the anti-democratic effects of high-cost education ever be overcome through other social means?

A Paywall for the New York Times

Posted on by Brian Hughes

A nice summary by Pamela of the NYTimes paywall debate. I am very interested in how this will play out—to see if the current price point will work for the Times, if they’ll ride this into the ground (laying off staff, etc.), or relent as Ruaridh imagines (see first comment). Either way, it will be a glimpse into the future of journalism. Oh, and while we’re here… let me add that I hope they kill off the ridiculously classist Real Estate and Fashion “reporting” first.

Selling Magic, Not Technology

Posted on by Brian Hughes

“Magical” seems to be the best way to describe technology products in 2010. Behold Apple’s iPad:

And now Google, upon launching Instant Search, claims that their search tool “should feel like magic” (0:16).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElubRNRIUg4

Should technology feel like magic?

According to the Oxford American Dictionary, magic is “the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.”

If that’s the intention of technology companies, then that’s pretty sad. It’s the equivalent of giving up on a certain kind of technological literacy. In these ads, we’re seeing the marketing departments of two of the most influential technology corporations in the world deciding that people are more comfortable in the middle ages. Indeed, it’s a little too reminiscent of recent marketing campaigns in other sectors:

Couldn’t technology literacy be an exciting marketing strategy? Imagine:

“The iPad. It’s a step forward in software/hardware integration.” Or: “Google Instant Search: Searching ought to give you more results.” For example:

I guess literacy just doesn’t make for a good ad campaign. But when it comes to buying technology, are a majority of folks really hoping to buy magic? I’d love to see a company challenge this pathetic state of affairs with ads showing that excitement can come with understanding.