Why is this time different? Technology.

jcentury — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:22:43 +0000

This is a blog posting on a blog posting. I’m re-blogging, you could say; I’ll tweet about this blog as well, and then perhaps it will get re-tweeted. And then, who knows what technology will pick it up. That is today’s world. While many haven’t jumped on board, it is undeniable.

A colleague, Marie Bjerede, wrote a posting this week that suggests that technology can support our growing need to build more adaptability or agility into the work of education reform. Her piece is here and I encourage you all to read it. She touches on many key issues raised in both the fidelity and sustainability projects of Researchers Without Borders.

I won’t repeat Marie’s words but rather pick up on her point that the place of technology is what can perhaps make this time different. Those of you who have worked in education reform for years know about the cynics, the people who talk about the “pendulum swing” of reforms and how they never take hold. I’ve worked in STEM education for over 20 years (back then it was just plain “Science Education) and in all that time have seen a continuing effort to operationalize principles of student-directed education that had been articulated many many years before that.

The continuing effort to facilitate learners’ “ownership” of their learning; and their interest and investment in their learning has been difficult. Particularly, in the face of contexts and conditions that counter that effort. But now, we only need open our eyes to see that the goal of having learners direct their own learning and capitalize on their interests has been accomplished - they do it every day as they use technologies to answers to their questions and entertaining ideas; to create demonstrations of their creative abilities and collaborative skills; and to experiment with the natural and man-made environment.

Of course, this is happening more out of school than in school and while it is tempting for some to abandon the social convention we know as “school.” They are focused on what school is, rather than imagining and embracing what “school” can be. I suggest that our time has finally arrived - why walk away now?

We can see the walls of conventional “school” dissolving, so rather than work to keep them up by separating the field into in-school and out-of-school, why not focus on a 24/7 environment for learners? Ideal? Yes. But we must be patient. We’ve waited this long, what is a little more time?

Is Professional Gatekeeping at Odds with Open Research?

jcentury — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:02:50 +0000

I am reading Clay Shirky’s book, “Here Comes Everybody” and find that much of it is relevant to the work of RWB. In it, he writes about the fact that technology has brought about a “mass amateurization” to journalism. At a time when anybody can write a blog (like this one) the lines drawn between who is and is not a professional journalist are becoming increasingly blurry. Shirky discusses how calling something a “profession” brings with it particular norms about what it is and what it should be. These norms are not generated or enforced by the consumers of the profession but by the professionals themselves since they have an investment in maintaining those norms and bringing clarity to who should and should not be part of the profession. He continues to suggest that there are many positive aspects of this including the maintenance of standards and competence.

He points out, however, that in some ways, there is inherent hypocrisy in professional structures. Professionals become “gatekeepers” by providing a “desirable social function but also by controlling that function” and sometimes, “what has once been a service has become a bottleneck.”

So I wonder if our current approaches to sharing and disseminating research have become a bottleneck for the sake of maintaining some of the structures of our profession for the sake of themselves, rather than for the sake of ensuring quality.