The Others.

At the risk of sounding cynical (which is a very real thing with annotations), reaching a global market can be very imperialistic a move, regardless of who makes it.

Much hiding in this passing comment. As adjuncts, our contributions to the system are perceived through the exploitation lens.

Though that may not really be the core argument of the piece, it’s more than a passing point. Watters’s raising awareness of this other type of “military-industrial complex” could have a deep impact on many a discussion, including the whole hype about VR (and AR). It’s not just Carnegie-Mellon and Paris’s Polytechnique («l’X») which have strong ties to the military. Or (D)ARPANET. Reminds me of IU’s Dorson getting money for the Folklore Institute during the Cold War by arguing that the Soviets were funding folklore. Even the head of the NEH in 2000 talked about Sputnik and used the language of “beating Europe at culture” when discussing plans for the agency. Not that it means the funding or “innovation” would come directly from the military but it’s all part of the Cold War-era “ideology”. In education, it’s about competing with India or Finland. In other words, the military is part of a much larger plan for “world domination”.

Don’t know what the stats are for “non-profit universities and colleges” but it does feel like an increasing portion of their budgets go to marketing, advertising, PR, and strategic positioning (at least in the United States and Canada).

Somewhat surprising, in the current context.

In education as in health, things get really complex when people have an incentive for people not to improve.

Though it’s not exactly the same thing, you could call this “instrumental” or “pragmatic”. Of course, you could have something very practical to amplify learning, and #EdTech is predicated on that idea. But when you do, you make learning so goal-oriented that it shifts its meaning. Very hard to have a “solution” for open-ended learning, though it’s very easy to have tools which can enhance open approaches to learning. Teachers have a tough time and it doesn’t feel so strange to make teachers’ lives easier. Teachers typically don’t make big purchasing decisions but there’s a level of influence from teachers when a “solution” imposes itself. At least, based on the insistence of #BigEdTech on trying to influence teachers (who then pressure administrators to make purchases), one might think that teachers have a say in the matter. If something makes a teaching-related task easier, administrators are likely to perceive the value. Comes down to figures, dollars, expense, expenditures, supplies, HR, budgets… Pedagogy may not even come into play.

How about Higher Ed.?

Valuing the teaching profession.

Wish they said more. No-cost solutions are neat for one-offs, but pedagogues should be wary of building their practice on services which may start requiring payment.

First part of the full text

No.

This Systems or "factory farming" approach to education seems antithetical to (and virtually guaranteed to flummox) a community-based, engaged, serendipitous and spontaneous learning explosion in traditional Higher Ed. Where are some cracks and crevices where the System has failed to snuff out the accidental life of learning?

While this may be true, it sure is sad. Especially as the emphasis on cost is likely to have negative impacts in the long run.

You mean it’s not just about the price of textbooks??

Cost of textbooks and what students are able to spend.

This may situate the problem quite deeply in the history of educational ict and support claims relating to the persistence of this problem in the face of numerous interventions.

But, but… Eric said it wasn’t marketing!

One sure does.

Hoping for interprovincial collaboration on the development and indexing of educational resources. Lots of potential and maybe a few less hurdles.

How many units of learning per dollar?

In direct opposition with the model for most universities, these days. So that may be the fork in the road. But there are more than two paths.

Who came up with such a scheme? A mad scientist? We’re far from Bologna.

There might be something about the connection between learning and “health & wellness”.

And the shift away from “access to content” is still going on, a decade and a half after Napster. If education is a “content industry” and “content industries” are being disrupted, then education will be disrupted… by becoming even more “industrial”.

The battle is raging on, but the issue is predetermined.

One linear model, represented in something of a spiral… Agreed that the transformative experience is tough to “disrupt”, but the whole “content delivery” emphasis shows that the disruption isn’t so quick.

There are a few key cases, here. a) Public Education (much of the planet) b) Parent-Funded Higher Education (US-centric model) c) Corporate Training (emphasis for most learning platforms, these days) d) For-Profit Universities (Apollo Group and such) e) xMOOCs (learning as a startup idea, with freemium models) f) Ad-Supported Apps & Games (Hey! Some of them are “educational”!)

The idea that there’s a “Great Unbundling of (Higher) Education” needs not be restricted to the business side of things, but it’s partly driven by those who perceive education as an “industry”. Producing… graduates?

More consolidation in the LMS market?

In all the platform news, we can talk about “learning management” in view of instructional and course design. But maybe it even goes further than design into a variety of practices which aren´t through-designed.

Important claim, probably coming from the need for reports which answer the “But does it scale?” question.

The reverse of the typical “goal displacement”. Instead of focusing on ensuring our continued employment as “instructors”, we want to make sure learning happens. Deep down, we know we’ll find ways to work, no matter what happens. The comparison with health can be interesting. If doctors had an incentive to keep people sick, society wouldn’t benefit much. Allegedly, Chinese healthcare provides incentives for doctors to help people stay healthy. Sounds like it’d make sense, somehow. Yet education and health are both treated like industries. We produce graduates, future employees, etc. Doctors produce people who fit a pattern of what it means to be healthy in a given social context. There’s even a factory-chain metaphor used when some people apply “lean management” to hospitals or colleges. Not that the problem is with the management philosophy itself. But focusing so much on resource allocation blinds us from a deep reality: as we are getting healthier and more “learned”, roles are shifting.

Among the most useful summaries I have found for Linked Data, generally, and in relationship to libraries, specifically. After first reading it, got to hear of the acronym LODLAM: “Linked Open Data for Libraries, Archives, and Museums”. Been finding uses for this tag, in no small part because it gets people to think about the connections between diverse knowledge-focused institutions, places where knowledge is constructed. Somewhat surprised academia, universities, colleges, institutes, or educational organisations like schools aren’t explicitly tied to those others. In fact, it’s quite remarkable that education tends to drive much development in #OpenData, as opposed to municipal or federal governments, for instance. But it’s still very interesting to think about Libraries and Museums as moving from a focus on (a Web of) documents to a focus on (a Web of) data.

Used to be the core model for Quebec’s Cegep system, a mix of high school graduates and “non-traditionals” (especially divorcées going “back to school”).

Education, she sure is changing.

Student-driven beginning for universities.

How do you get inside the mind of a college student?