The Long Tail, PLE’s, VLE’s, and Blackboard v. Facebook
I have been thinking how I might relish being the person who reviews good work being done in educational podcasting, screencasting, and vodcasting. Perhaps this is the first of many posts concerning those media.
Consider this screencast from Alan Cann’s Microbiologybytes and the quote below that screencast. In this screencast Cann proposes that the “long tail” applies to higher education much as Chris
Anderson said it applies to ecommerce. It is a claim that is intriguing but is not thoroughly followed up in the screencast. I am only guessing here, but the conventional wisdom goes like this: a small number of popular online undergraduate courses could make possible a large number of small, less popular, more specialized face-to-face or, I suppose, online courses. This is Pareto’s 80-20 rule and the ‘long tail’ is the directly opposed to it. The ‘long tail’ suggests that there is a huge, catalogue of smaller courses for which there is a huge, albeit widely distributed market.
This discussion is carried on here, and here, and here.
Or you can plug in some search words into this custom search engine:
Or maybe John Seely Brown’s take will interest you futurists/irrealists.
The most important distinction Cann makes in his screencast is the VLE’s (virtual learning environments, aka Blackboard, Moodle, WebCT) are about control and that PLE’s (personal learning environments like Facebook, iGoogle, MySpace, WoW, ad infinitum) are…well…personal and about learning. I don’t mean to be snarky here, but Cann is just making sure that we get it. He is using broad strokes of the brush to define the canvas. He points out the strengths and weaknesses of both and plops down clearly on the side of PLE’s which he suggests in a bold understatement that we “encourage”. I love how he characterizes the big CMS’s as suffering from “software sedimentation” although I might have preferred atherosclerosis of the ‘tubes’. It is also clear that VLE’s equal virtual teaching environments. Nothing wrong with pointing this out at all. In fact most systems like BlackBore(d) are all about the control– illusive and ephemeral and, in the end, illusory. Cann intimates that once again we have gotten the wrong end of the stick in the whole “I teach therefore you learn” Cartesian calumny.
I think the whole affair can be put in perspective with Facebook’s newest of an endless parade of apps–Study Groups. (Thanks to Jane Knight’s uber-excellent E-Learning Pick of the Day.)
Here are some interesting things I can do in Study Groups.
I can invite former students to join the Study Group. I have invited two former high school drama students to be in the course. I have invited a colleague in my Department to join. I have invited a long time web friend to join so that he can see what is happening techologically with this. Many-purposed, open by invite and open to all, (and I will be able to invite all of my winter term students to join), and already familiar to most of my students.
Compare that to the Blackboard’s walled garden. I can easily provide access only to students. I can push content to all. I can grade content shove back to me. It’s kind of a cool technological air hockey table only without the puck slapping action. It is about teaching first and learning second. The emphasis is upon the finite game of school and all the strategic moves that this implies– how do I get me an “A” teacherman and how do I cheat without getting caught and how can I get the most for the least. Yet…it is the devil we know.
Facebook has its problems, but one thing it does very well is that it squashes the hierarchy. I think that anyone can add tasks and post discussions and manage and share stuff. That could lead to choice, mayhem, and many an intellectual cul-de-sac, but it could also infuse the class with a sense of holy chaos and purpose. Study groups also has problems because it is a new app. With personalization comes bugs. For example, I tried to join another English group and got an error message. When I check my Dashboard I see, however, that I did indeed join. And I find out that is run by an eleventh grader at South Miami Beach High School. Spiking the authorized class with authorized interlopers could be damned interesting so I invite her along with the others to the mix. New metaphor–teacher is a chef.
We have gone far afield here, but that is my purpose here–I am demonstrating my own PLE. In fact my blog here has become more of a public PLE than a well-oiled publication. So thanks to Alan Cann and his screencast. I am richer and deeper for it. I don’t know if I will habitualize the path I trod here, but I will have at least blazed the trail for return visits.
Personal Learning Environments
A PLE (personal learning environment) is: a system that helps learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to set their own learning goals, manage their learning, manage both content and process, and communicate with others in the process of learning.
In contrast, a virtual learning environment (VLE) or learning management system (LMS), such as Blackboard or Moodle, is:
a software system designed to help teachers by facilitating the management of educational courses for their students, especially by helping teachers and learners with course administration. The system can often track the learners’ progress, which can be monitored by both teachers and learners.
Notice the difference? A VLE/LMS is all about controlling how you learn. A PLE is about giving you control over how you learn.
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tellio :: Dec.31.2007 :: Good Reading :: No Comments »