Month: May 2014

Reclaim Humanity

While vacationing in Southern California and evacuating from wild fires, I spotted a store called “Reclaim Humanity.” Sounded really deep and important… until I looked it up and found it was a used furniture store. But the phrase “reclaim humanity” struck me as kind of a personal rallying cry for why I push so hard for certain ideas in education…. even to the point of annoying people at times.

The fight for things like open education, connectivism, Domain of One’s Own, APIs, heutagogy, net neutrality, and other “hot button” ideas right now is not just over a cool tech trend or even who gets to control the meaning of those words (even thought that is important). These ideas represent who we are as a species. We like to educate everyone. Why do you think Facebook is so popular – you get to share for free! Humanity wants to share freely, but there are movements to clamp it all down. We like to own our own digital identity. But there are movements to take your data away from you. We like to be individuals, to be recognized as one that is unique. But there are movements to force everything into one big box. We like to connect and learn collaboratively – but there are also movements to make us sit there and stare at a video for hours and call this boredom learning.

To me, there is a battle being waged in education that has many fronts but two basic sides (with some overlap or sharing of course – education is rarely pure black and white). On one side are those that want to clamp down and monetize everything, force everything into a one size fits all box, set-up coalitions of clones, and generally perpetrate a behaviorist, instructivist, top-down, big business education model. On the other side are the crazy, punk rock, open, collaborative, experimental boundary pushers that really are trying to implement some pretty old educational ideas that were skipped over in the industrialization of the education system.

When people ask something like  “why should I own my own domain – I’m not tech savy enough?” – that is a good question. But I remember when people asked the same things about email: “I can just call/write a letter – I’m not tech savy enough for email.” Now email is second nature to anyone with a computer. Then people said the same things about discussion boards and online communications. Now we almost all do these same processes (on Facebook) as if they were second nature. So, right now the technology might not be perfect enough for easy domain management, or reclaiming your date, or connectivist learning, or combining xMOOCs with cMOOCs, or heutagogy, or adaptive learning, or holodeck communications, or you name it…. but it is getting there. We should push these ideas forward because they represent what it means to be human more than the alternative.

What is the alternative? Think back to the early days of email… before everyone had an account. What was the dominant competition for email? AOL Mail. Remember when people asked if you did AOL Mail or “something else?” AOL tried to push us to accept their system as the one stop place for news, communication, life, etc. But there were much cooler things outside the walled garden they were creating. Things that you get to from any computer with a browser. Remember the days of having to find a computer with AOL already installed, signing on to AOL, downloading email (?), and then signing out to read your messages because you didn’t want to waste minutes? They did their system their way and you had to do it their way to even be in the system. People eventually went down their own path once the AOL hype died down.

Humanity craves personalization, freedom, openness, and uncomplicated systems for doing basic things like communication.

So when I see things like Unizin that want to bundle everything together as a one-stop place to do everything you need in education, I tend to see AOL more than freedom. Or really, I just see another Blackborg looming on the horizon.

Blackboard got the nickname Blackborg initially because of the way they assimilate other companies, but the name has stuck as they continue to advance into all kinds of educationally-related areas to try and become one-stop technology solutions for all size educational institutions. That may look great to people way up at the top (especially those with limited vision for what happens on the ground), but it looks more like mindless assimilation to the rest of us.

So the next time someone asks why I think Domain of One’s Own, or APIs, or Connectivism, or Open Learning, or Sociocultural Theory, or LTCA theory, or whatever it is that I am on a kick about is a good idea, I will just point to the fact that I am trying to Reclaim Humanity from the face of soulless assimilation or continued reliance on a silo-ed approach to learning.

(BTW – Blackboard can be a part of the overall picture as long as it is one option you are giving in a whole toolbox.)

Why Design a xMOOC / cMOOC Hybrid? LTCA Theory

So a lot of interest in the earlier post about creating a dual-layer cMOOC/xMOOC, as well as some of the inevitable backlash. The biggest question rattling around seems to be “why?” Well, my first response is: ask George Siemens – this is all his crazy idea. But I wouldn’t be blogging about the idea and sticking with the team if I didn’t think there was something to the idea. We may run into a huge road block down the road and decide to ditch the idea. But the conceptual part of it is fascinating.

I think some of the initial confusion over the idea stems from the divide between theorists and practitioners. As much as I love theory, many theorists tend to get a little too “either/or” minded for practicality. Its either quantitative or qualitative. Its either behaviorism or constructivism. Its either xMOOC or cMOOCs. And so on. In a practical sense, learning never falls along such clean, neat lines. One moment you need to transfer your expert knowledge to a blank slate, the next you need to let your students struggle and construct meaning from chaos because there are just things you can’t copy and paste into their brains.

In my Ph.D. pursuits, I have been exposed to a new emerging theory called Learning and Teaching as Communicative Actions. This theory is being created by Dr. Scott Warren at the University of North Texas based on the works of Jurgen Habermas. Without communication, learning can not happen. LTCA theory breaks communication down into four forms present in learning:

  • Normative communicative actions are those that communicate knowledge based on past experiences, such as statements in class instructions that lay out expectations for student activities.
  • Strategic communicative actions are the most familiar educational communicative actions – these occur most often through lectures, textbooks, and other methods where specific reified knowledge is transferred to the learner.
  • Constative communicative actions are debates, arguments, and discourses that allow learners to make claims and counterclaims. Constative communication is also where social constructivism connects with LTCA theory, as students come to agreement over constructed knowledge through these communicative actions
  • Dramaturgical communicative actions are those that allow for expression. Learners can reflect or create artifacts that express the knowledge they have gained as well as who that knowledge makes them as a person.

Just looking at all four, I think it becomes pretty obvious that each one requires different paradigms, different design, and different technology among other issues. Yet, we need all four to facilitate effective learning. Lately I have been pondering whether some of our problems in education stem from us trying to cram all of these communicative actions into one software solution, one instructional style, one epistemology, etc. Then, beyond that, we tell all students that they have perform all four at the same time as the other students, “because its not time for discussion yet!” or whatever it may be.

So, the idea of MOOC layers is really looking at a four pronged approach to the idea of teaching and learning as communicative actions using LTCA theory. Yes, we could insert strategic communicative actions into constative communicative actions as the instructor sees fit – but are we really going to do that for all students just because two need it? What if a student that needs strategic actions could just duck out and receive that instruction without disrupting the flow for those that don’t need it?

So, the idea I am digging into is that strategic communicative actions are the domain of the xMOOC. And no matter how much you love or hate xMOOCs, you have to admit that this is what they do best. Dramaturgical communicative actions would be the domain of the cMOOC, especially if we could use things like assignment banks and blogs and basically the entire A Domain of One’s Own set-up. Constative communicative actions would be the domain of the design of the course, using activity design to encourage students to interact and debate. Normative communicative actions would be a mixture of the profile system that pulls students together in groups to create their own norms and the instructors vision for the content norms.

The imperative here is that all of this must scale to massive numbers. This is MOOC design, after all. I know there are ways to do all four prongs in one class without dividing out  into layers. But that will only work if the class is small enough. Whatever criticism you have of the whole idea of “massive”… I agree. Education always works better with smaller numbers. But that is not the reality we are being dealt right now. More and more learners are being crammed in our classes – and they don’t even seem to care how this affects their education. So until the customer (learners) wakes up and starts demanding smaller classes, we have to start figuring out this scale thing. That is reality we live in, and that is the reality we are trying to figure out the best solution for.

Designing a Dual Layer cMOOC/xMOOC

So the task is to design a MOOC that leverages the best of both worlds – xMOOCs and cMOOCs. George Siemens put together a team to look at this possibility for the next MOOC he is designing, and had a meeting called “Design Jam.” Since he works at my University now, I was able to beg/plead/bribe my way on the team. The biggest thing I learned from the Design Jam?

George Siemens and Dave Cormier bicker a lot. And it is very entertaining.

But aside from that, we have a lot of work ahead of us. The main design issue seems to revolve around having multiple paths through the content, mostly focused on creating a connectivist, learner-centered group work approach for those that prefer it, and also an instructor-centered path that guides the learners through the process for those that want that.

Easy, right?

So the basic idea is that learners would enter the course and be presented with the option of going through one of the two routes. Maybe at some point an Artificial Intelligence data-driven program will even be able to recommend the path for them. Learners would enter one of the two paths and follow the paradigm presented. At any time that the learners on the cMOOC track need help (or at some point, when the AI data identifies a need), they can be directed towards the appropriate part of the xMOOC track for help. At any time the learners on the xMOOC track start to get comfortable with the idea of interacting with others (or the AI data identifies this), they can move into the cMOOC track. These movements could be a one time switch at any point, or a constant movement back and forth depending on the learner. Or the leaner could stick on the track they prefer the most. Or do both. Or lurk on one or the other or both. The system would basically look something like this:

dual-mooc

(edit – not sure why I designed the original image from right to left. But click on the image for a larger version)

The idea is pretty straight forward, at least at a conceptual layer. This is an idea that I have been batting around in my head for a while and that many others at the Design Jam identified.

The technology behind it is another question.

The xMOOC path is pretty much in place with EdX. They have a good module-based system for presenting and assessing instructivist knowledge. Add on top of that they have connected to other systems through single sign-on and they are down with APIs… they have a system that is ready to connect with other systems as well as allow learners to move in and out as need with ease.

The cMOOC system that sits alongside that? That is another beast. Technology exists to create a learner-centered system (see A Domain of One’s Own)…. but how does this scale to possibly tens of thousands of learners?

Dave Cormier spoke of a system of community managers that he has found success with and that reminded me of something I read about the largest church in the world several years ago. This church in South Korea has close to a million members, yet connects every one of them to the community through a system of small groups that they call cell groups.

The idea of cell groups is an interesting one because it is based on the idea of organically formed groups that change, grow, die, combine, and otherwise fluctuate as needed. They can form based on location, shared interests, existing relationships, common goals, etc. The groups basically process the teachings of the church together and what they mean for their lives. If people join the church, they can join an existing cell group or form a new one. If existing ones grow too big, they can multiple into two or more. If a group dwindles, it can shut down and the remaining members can join other ones. Each group has about 8-20 members and one or more volunteer leaders that guide the group and run weekly meetings.

Every 8-20 groups are organized into sections, with the volunteer cell group leaders in the section meeting once month to go over issues. Every 8-20 sections are group together into districts, and so on. After a while this may not apply to education in a course that runs for maybe 5-8 weeks. But the idea would be to create a support system for the volunteer cell group leaders that could be based on, say, Teacher Assistants (aka “section” or “district” leaders) instead.

So the idea could be to organically form cell groups in the cMOOC, with each group forming based on location, shared interests, existing relationships, common goals, or whatever they like and they self-selecting a group leader. Roles for group leaders can be laid out a head of time. These could then be further grouped into sections under TAs as needed to deal with bigger issues that may arise. groups can then work together, grow, multiple, dies off, etc as needed for the life of the course, sending issues to the TAs as needed. Volunteer cell group leaders could meet in groups occasionally or as needed for guidance and help.

The problem comes with the software needed to do this. Kin Lane was brought to Design Jam to discuss APIs, and the idea of learner profiles was brought to the table during this discussion. These profiles could be used to help learners identify interests, goals, relationships, etc. Learners could then use their profiles to start forming groups as well as identifying these groups to the profiling system. The data behind the profile system could also identify potential group members. As groups grow, they could multiply (especially as new learners enter from the xMOOC strain). As other groups dwindle from drop-outs, existing members could use the system to identify new groups to join.

This software would also need to identify and map the cell group system in order to group cell groups into sections. It could also identify outliers that haven’t joined a group and see if there is an issue (some may just want to lurk, but others could be confused).

Further design of this system could even create a system for creating interactive spaces that don’t rely on third party products like Google Hangouts or Skype. Not that those are bad, but a lot of important data could be lost in those systems. If something like WebRTC could be integrated into this API driven profile system, learners could form, interact, and leave groups as needed throughout the lifetime of the course and just use the profile system to interact with video, text, etc through their browsers instead of a third party service. Since the cMOOC, xMOOC, social, and pedagogical systems would all be connected, massive amounts of helpful data could be collected throughout the entire class, further refining the system down the road. What leads to new group formation? What leads to groups dissolving? What leads learners to switch from cMOOC to xMOOC or vice versa? On and on.

This is not a fully realized idea or system. But its like we are working on the Sharknado perfect killing machine combination of xMOOCs and cMOOCs. Interesting stuff.