Month: May 2007

How we measure shows what we value

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Stephen Downes calls it, “a completely useless and misleading piece of non-information” while the Globe & Mail earnestly reports that, “Once formal schooling ends, learning rates drop“. They are both talking about the Canadian Council on Learning’s Composite Learning Index.

Given the CCL’s support of homework without any data to back it up, or pushing formal post-secondary education in spite of what Canadians value, I don’t expect many innovative ideas here. What I see are reports that reinforce the existing industrial education system, with all its trappings. Instead, let me recommend some other sources of information and points of view:

Don’t correlate post-secondary education directly with economic success, either as an individual or as a society.

Educational attainment may not be a useful measurement, according to Richard Florida:

One, the educational attainment measure leaves out people who have been incredibly important to the economy, but who for one reason or another did not go to or finish college. Names that come quickly to mind are Bill Gates. Steve Jobs and Michael Dell, among countless others. My measure of creative occupations counts them all.

Two, the educational attainment measure is quite broad and thus does not allow for nations or regions to identify, quantify or build strategy around specific types of human capital or talent. We all recognize for example that Nashville is the center for country music talent, Hollywood for film, Silicon Valley for technology. And it is clear that nations and regions are coming more and more to specialize in particular kinds of economic activity, so my occupation based measure allows us to get at that.

There are systemic and biological reasons why boys are dropping out of school.

Though the CCL states that “Early adulthood is an ideal period for participation in formal education“, many parents and even educators feel that you don’t have to go to college.

Useless industrial artifacts

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I came across two articles about public education yesterday, one is four years old, the other quite recent.

Here’s a snippet from a long article Why Nerds are Unpopular (2003):

Public school teachers are in much the same position as prison wardens. Wardens’ main concern is to keep the prisoners on the premises. They also need to keep them fed, and as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. Beyond that, they want to have as little to do with the prisoners as possible, so they leave them to create whatever social organization they want. From what I’ve read, the society that the prisoners create is warped, savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at the bottom of it.

The main problem is the system, which creates prison-like conditions, and in the case of this article shows why “nerds” may be so successful in life but are unsuccessful at the school game, and this is what happens:

In almost any group of people you’ll find hierarchy. When groups of adults form in the real world, it’s generally for some common purpose, and the leaders end up being those who are best at it. The problem with most schools is, they have no purpose. But hierarchy there must be. And so the kids make one out of nothing.

We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest. And that’s exactly what happens in most American schools. Instead of depending on some real test, one’s rank depends mostly on one’s ability to increase one’s rank. It’s like the court of Louis XIV. There is no external opponent, so the kids become one another’s opponents.

From Mark Federman is this 2007 case of a high-performing student caught in the feudal power of the classroom:

To me, this is another sad case of a burnt-out, small-minded teacher conveying the well-rehearsed lesson that school is the place in which a love of learning and the value of curiosity, discovery and insightful, abstract thought are to be trampled beyond recognition. These are substituted instead by a discipline that enforces compliance, conformity, and intellectual docility, rewarding the mediocre to create a compliant, easily distracted citizenry for the benefit of the elites.

So why is a workplace performance specialist so interested in public school? One reason, of course, is that I have two children in the system, for now. The more important reason is that almost all workers have come through the public school system. If graduates, especially the high performing ones, are already bitter and jaded, how do you think they’ll react to a training program that mirrors what they had in school?

Courses not related to something that they will need to use tomorrow morning on the job show that management has no real interest in employee performance. They’re just going through the motions.

Performance evaluations not based on observable and measurable criteria will be viewed the same way as school report cards; a popularity or a compliance contest.

Perhaps the best way to change the school system is to set the example by divesting our workplaces of all of the useless artifacts of the industrial age. For instance, how would a Results-Oriented Work Environment (ROWE) translate into our education system?

Power Laws

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The real power is in making others powerful

… is attributed to Ben Zander, author of The Art of Possibility, found on Presentation Zen [an excellent resource on presentation design and worth a check before your next PowerPoint presentation]. Garr then says this about teaching:

In presenting – and certainly in teaching – we need to make certain that the audience is engaged so that they may, with our help, find for themselves what is there to be discovered, including the discovery of the possibilities that may be within them.

Finding what’s within means needing less direction from without.  And that is the crux of the issue in this emerging world of do-it-ourselves, collaborative work and user-generated social media. Once the learners are engaged, they set new conditions for the teaching relationship.

I started graduate studies over a decade after I completed my BA. By this time I knew what I wanted and was quite clear with my professors what I hoped to achieve in each course. I didn’t care what marks I got, because I had a clear learning agenda. I was still open to new ideas but I was not willing to jump through arbitrary hoops. I didn’t have this sense of direction until I was in my 30’s and had had some life experience.

It took me a while to accept the idea that I could direct my own learning. This is a powerful idea. Control your learning agenda and you have the power to create your own future, not someone else’s and definitely not the future envisaged by any power elite. What happens when this idea starts percolating down to undergraduates, high school students and even elementary school?

 

gaping_void_ideas.jpg

 

A six-day work week – for students

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Most people have a five-day work week.  Now, I know that many people work more than the 35, 37 or even 40 hours per week mandated in their contract, and that it’s common to work through breaks and lunch to get the job done.

I would surmise though, that most of us feel that a five-day work week is about enough to be doing your employer’s work.  So why do we give our kids a six-day work week? From September unti June, students spend pretty well one day of the weekend on homework. This is work that “someone else” feels is important. I can see doing some self-directed activities, or perhaps the infrequent project on the weekend, but my observations show that most high school students have a six-day work week. This is on top of 8 to 12 hour work-days, Monday to Friday.

Come on, there’s more to life than school and we should all start raising a fuss [that’s why I’m raising this issue again]. Do we really want to have kids who know how to do nothing else other than what their teachers tell them to do?

How can they become self-directed learners when they’re too busy being directed by teachers?

Blogging for work

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Do you enjoy reading this blog? Has it ever helped you out with your work? Do you consider it a dependable source of information?

I’ve been writing this blog for over three years and while many of the benefits are personal, the number of visitors indicates that there’s something of interest for others as well. This site is advertisement-free but I still have to pay the bills, and as you probably know, I’m self-employed.

Times are a bit slow in the consulting business so I’m asking my readership for some help. If you’re so inclined, take a look at my consulting services and see if you know of anyone who could benefit from them. I have a fairly wide array of clients and projects. Pass on my name if you like. I’d also appreciate any advice on how I present my services. Maybe I’m missing something here.

What about sponsorship? Would it bother anyone if I sought a sponsor for this blog? Do you know of any company that would like to sponsor this blog? I can share my stats data if someone is interested.

I’ve had some suggestions about other ways to offer services and I’ll float them here in the next while. This blog, my business and life in general is all a work in progress. I intend to keep on learning through more and better conversations and I’ll keep on blogging for as long as I can.

Early adopters make the mistakes first

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At the Internet Time Community we’ve been having a discussion about adopting blogs and social bookmarks for organisations. These kinds of efforts need pioneers to go out and test the myriad of web 2.0 applications and figure out which ones will work in their organisation. With all of the options available, it can be a bit daunting, as Gillian asks:

do you spend a lot of time trying out things that don’t do exactly what you need them to? Or having to upgrade/change all the time to get the better fit for purpose (and hoping for high compatibility?)

My own reponse is that early adopters make the mistakes first and can then teach others, hopefully saving time and frustration. This is what I have previously described as Bridging the Chasm for my clients.  It’s pretty well impossible to explain how all of these small pieces loosely joined actually work unless you have used them yourself. We freelancers have that luxury of not being constrained by an IT department ;-)

Informl Learning Unworkshop Legacy

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We conducted several “unworkshops” on informal learning on the Web last year and learned a lot. We also met some interesting people, several of whom have continued the conversation around the use of two-way web tools for organisational learning.

Jay has now created The Unworkshop Legacy Page as an information resource and has coupled this with the Internet Time Community where the conversation can continue. Please come and join us.

I think that this open forum has the best potential to scale up, as our unworkshops worked well with web-savvy learners but could be difficult for those not used to adding and tweaking web applications on the fly. Anyone who wants just information can read the legacy page while those who are more communicative can join the community social network.

My own experience has been that face-to-face workshops, where participants have a laptop and Internet access, work best for the mainstream. A little bit of explanation, some concepts and a chance to play in a controlled environment with personal assistance, seems to be a good mix.

What is weighing down learning?

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Two years ago Albert Ip wrote how our schools are failing us. The other day I was reviewing some of my online bookmarks and re-read Albert’s post.

My own criticism of our current school model is that it too closely resembles the industrial economic model of the past and is not suited to our current societal needs. Albert’s post shows that the baggage encumbering our education system goes back much further than the industrial era. It seems that we need to critically question the entire foundation of our education systems as we prepare for an age requiring creativity at every level, in an information-rich world.

Albert refers to the work of William Spady, a somewhat controversial figure in outcomes based learning, but with an interesting take on our current system, which Spady calls an iceberg, weighed down by layers of inertia:

education-iceberg.jpg

The iceberg metaphor shows how much work there is to do below the surface in order to achieve systemic change. I’ve seen this with relatively small changes such as reducing homework in schools. It makes a learner-centric, process-oriented education seem even that much more inaccessible. But then, no one expected the fall of the Berlin Wall. We can change it, but first we have to understand what we’re up against and be ready with an appropriate option when the system cracks.

Business Plans in 2009

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Three years ago, Seth Godin wrote about what the future might hold in 2009 and I wondered how this would change anyone’s business plan. We’re more than half way there, so are these assumptions coming true?

There is no doubt that hard drive space is getting cheaper, and Gmail’s 2.8 GB of free space is a good indication. It sure is getting harder to sell storage space.

Wi-fi connections are not everywhere but many of us wish they were. Some cities are more advanced than others, but my recent travels to the US and larger Canadian cities found it to be expensive, whereas I can get free wi-fi down the street in our small town.

Yes, it seems that everyone has a digital camera or at least one on their cell phone.

Connection speeds have improved (mine have doubled) but it will be a great leap to be 10 to 100 times faster.

I’m not sure about Wal*Mart’s sales but at least the company is going to opt for compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

Compulsory retirement ages seem to be a thing of the past and I think that they will be gone in a few years,. When I was in the military, the compulsory retirement age was 55 and in 2004 it was raised to 60. There is little doubt that this trend will continue.

As for the assumption that our current professions will be gone or totally different, I believe that change will be uneven. In my own area of experience, I think that Instructional Design as a field will all but disappear.

So what does this mean for business plans?

  1. Don’t try to build another #$%* portal, because people have lots of places to put their stuff and they are getting information from a whole bunch of sources. Think small pieces, loosely joined.
  2. Anywhere can be a hotspot so adding wi-fi just might get some interesting people to gather around you and that’s what’s really important.
  3. All of those digital pictures are looking for a place to be shared. They might even improve your organisation’s learning about itself and its environment.
  4. Remember those folks that you thought would leave with all their knowledge? Well, they’re not leaving, or they’re probably interested in a new relationship, so get them while you can.
  5. Job? What’s a job?

Bridging Troubled Waters

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It’s Friday, and if you have some time you may want to watch the keynote speech by Jennifer James, at the BCEd Online Conference. It’s a streamed presentation and is over an hour long but I found it fascinating. James is a cultural anthropologist and discusses how technology and people have been interacting for thousands of years and links this to the role of educational technologists.

Near the end of her presentation, James talks about the stages of human adaptation to major new technologies, such as the Internet.

First the technology concentrates energy and changes our definition of intelligence. For instance, emotional intelligence is becoming more important in an environment of limitless data and information.

Second, the economic system adapts to the technology. This results in population and demographic shifts.

Third, the demographics adapt to the economics.  James – “If you have an international market; you have an international labour pool; you have an international gene pool. And wait and see who your kids and grandkids bring home for dinner.”

… and then there is a long time lag … (this is where we are in relation to the Internet economy/society)

Finally, the culture changes when the old mythologies break.

Take some time, put your feet up and have a listen. Please comment, if you have the urge.