What's going on in NY?

This is a blog post from ahead-of-the-curve Dave Winer, a journalism scholar.
It's part of a series of post where I simply cut-and-paste stuff here with a few minor alterations - as minor as I can make them without removing all sense. All the altered words are italic. I occasionally have to use a little poetic licence, especially with Proper Nouns.

But that's not all.

All my career there's been a tension between technology and education. Very early in my career I saw they'd meet, and I made a good choice to put myself firmly in the technology world, because that's where the growth was. I don't think that's where it is anymore.

I also don't think the growth is in education, believe it or not. I don't think the big organizations are going to turn the corner. I think they're finally coming around to that belief too.

But if it isn't tech and it isn't education, what is it? Ahhh.

We don't have a name for it yet. I call what I do "education hacking" and like the new Japanese doctor on Lost, I am using a phrase that only approximates what's going on.

Here's what's going to happen, imho.

There are a bunch of smart, mostly young, people who work either in tech startups or inside big HR and Learning & Development departments who will, in a few years, form the companies that are hybrids of technology and education that will lead us into the future. They won't be like Google, Facebook, Twitter or Apple. And they won't be the MIT Open Courseware, the Open University or even University of the People or Connectivism or Connected Knowledge. But they will learn from all of them.

Intuitively, I feel North America is where this is going to happen.

I also think a university will play a role, like Stanford and Cal did in the various tech booms, in bringing people together. That's where I belong right now, and that's why that's where I am.

Vague? Yes. But it's a Ouija board. Lots of people get to shape the future, and only ideas that work will be part of that future. The way to get there is to try lots of things out.

As I used to say in the early days of the Web boom: Zoooooooooooooom!

And Coooooooooooooool.


Disclaimer: this is blatant nicking from Dave Winer. But unlikely to 'steal' anything from his work. If you disagree, I'll take it down. This is Dave Winer's blog and you should go check it out.

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Disposable Universities

"Teaching staff, like hamburger-flippers, will be disposable, because the real power is in the degree-granting monopoly, not the hoarding (or delivery) of knowledge."

This is Stephen Downes on a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education ridiculing the idea of corporations replacing traditional universities. This is how Gina Barreca, the author, signs off in her piece:

Which leads us back to the original idea of universities: some projects -- like a genuine education -- are not best if you DIY. Sometimes you need a professional. Sometimes you need a professor.  

Top o' the mind to you, darlin's!

And, no doubt, she's right-ish. I'm not sure about a 'genuine' education, but a good education might need a professor.

Might.

But to assume that universities are about a 'genuine' education is plain weird. Universities are about degrees and research. None of the corporations moving into the higher education field will be competing with 'real' universities on teaching, but on offering cheaper, more efficient methods of accreditation.

In terms that Gina Barreca, a professor of English and feminist theory, will understand, there are no barbarians at the gate, no corporations storming the campus and nobody's trying to usurp the primacy of a 'genuine education'.

Universities are just one of many options, so they're subject to generic analysis:

. . . 'genre foregrounds the influence of surrounding texts and ways of reading . . . More specifically, it confirms reading as [function] rather than [thing]'. Genre analysis situates texts within . . . social contexts, underlining the social nature of the production and reading of texts.

In relation to news media, Norman Fairclough notes that genre analysis 'is good at showing the routine and formulaic nature of much media output, and alerting us, for instance, to the way in which the immense diversity of events in the world is reduced to the often rigid formats of news'.

Or learning is reduced to the rigid format of 'education'. Universities are used to being the library. But soon they'll be a genre of education, hopefully deserving of their own sub-section, but one of many options nonetheless.

I value professors of English and feminist theory, but millions don't. That's why I'm kind of okay with the fact that they're cross-subsidised in opaque keiretsu-fashion - it saves me the bother of having to actively patronise them and give them my attention.

But if they can't be bothered to pay attention and apply their erudition and analytical skills to their own situation, then they deserve everything they get.

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Education and Newspapers

There are remarkable parallels between the recent history of the newspaper industry and the imminent future of the education industry. But just because something is remarkable, it doesn't mean it's necessarily accurate.

However, neither does it mean that it's not true.

This blog's going to play with the idea that newspapers are merely the canaries in the information coalmine. It'll frequently be wrong. There'll be cognitive biases, errors of both omission and commission and plain old hyperbole. But sometimes there'll be understatement.

Most of the time, we'll just take stories about 'old media' and re-imagine them in an alternative reality where the education system went first. Just to see how it sounds.

Disclaimer: This product is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real futures, living or dead is purely coincidental.

There'll be a fair amount of fair use going on in this blog. If you think we've gone too far, please @reply me on Twitter or email me on bunchberryfern [the_at_sign] gmail.com.

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