RSS, Echo, Wikis, and Personality Wars.

... There are lots of good reasons for using a wiki, of course, instead of a trackbacked weblog conversation. Though both weblogs and wikis support conversational patterns, weblogs are "conversation as published comments" while wikis are "conversation as shared editing." Weblogs tend towards polarized or divergent views, while wikis tend towards convergent ones, which is just what you want for a conversation around standards.

But there is a second reason, under the surface but possibly more important -- wikis denature personality. Echo exists not because there are things wrong with the RSS markup -- there are, but they could be easily fixed. Echo exists because there are things wrong with the RSS process. RSS is having not a technological crisis but a constitutional one, where who decides what concerning RSS is not clear, and will never be clear, because the people doing the deciding don't even see themselves as being part of a decision making body... [Clay Shirky]

This article talks about a recent initiative to "develop a common syntax for syndication, archiving and an publishing API". Clay Shirky also manages to sketch out some important differences between Weblogs and Wikis... [Sebastian Fiedler]

[Seblogging News]
10:30:15 AM  #  

Stephen Downes: The Relation between Ontologies and Schema-languages: Translating OIL-specifications in XML-Schema. "Ontologies provide a shared and common understanding of a domain that can be communicated between people and application systems," writes the author. A schema, meanwhile, "provides [the] basic vocabulary and predefined structuring mechanisms for providing information in XML." Consequently, "Ontologies applied to on-line information source may be seen as explicit conceptualizations that describe the semantics of the data." In other words, a schema defines what properties an object can have, while an ontology specifies the possibile values of those properties. So (very roughly) a schema would say that a car could have a "colour" while an ontology wuld say that a "colour" could be "red, orange, yellow, green, blue or purple." Ontologies can be defined using a language called OIL, or Ontology Interface Layer. The bulk of the article is devoted to explaining OIL, comparing it with XML Schemas, and showing how the two language systems interact. Tough, technical, but well worth reading. By Michel Klein, Dieter Fensel, Frank van Harmelen and Ian Horrocks, Linköping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science, December 31, 200-31 8:33 p.m. [Refer][Research][Reflect] [OLDaily]
10:28:43 AM  #  

The purpose of schooling: What place will learning objects play in realizing the profound purposes of schooling?.

Sebastian Fiedler has a point; we'd better remember the physical and emotional realities, the real system complexities, that we hope our students will master by the time they're through with school. In short, let's not forget the profound things we must teach. To name a few of the primo curricula from which to graduate:

• self understanding
• using legitimate means of persuasion
• making and maintaining friendships
• choosing good over evil action in familiar and unfamiliar circumstances
• distinguishing between nurturant, neutral and destructive social systems
• deploying active and adaptive learning skills

With those pay-offs in mind let's listen as Seb explains the nature and limitations of digital learning objects.

It is important to note that Illich's idea of "educational objects" does not map entirely on the notion of "(digital) learning objects" that is currently quite popular with educational and instructional technology researchers and developers. "David Wiley", for example, offers the following definition of Learning Objects in his chapter "Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy" in the online book The Instructional Use of Learning Objects:

Learning objects are elements of a new type of computer-based instruction grounded in the object-oriented paradigm of computer science. Object-orientation highly values the creation of components (called [base "]objects[per thou]) that can be reused (Dahl & Nygaard, 1966) in multiple contexts. This is the fundamental idea behind learning objects: instructional designers can build small (relative to the size of an entire course) instructional components that can be reused a number of times in different learning contexts. Additionally, learning objects are generally understood to be digital entities deliverable over the Internet, meaning that any number of people can access and use them simultaneously (as opposed to traditional instructional media, such as an overhead or video tape, which can only exist in one place at a time). Moreover, those who incorporate learning objects can collaborate on and benefit immediately from new versions. These are significant differences between learning objects and other instructional media that have existed previously. [David Wiley]

Illich on the other hand looks at things [as opposed to digital abstractions of things, emboldening is mine, Spike Hall] as basic resources for learning. This is a much more radical point of departure. We then have to think about the educational value of artifacts and their accessiblity in a given environment. Illich writes:

... in the city rich and poor alike are artificially kept away from most of the things that surround them. Children born into the age of plastics and efficiency experts must penetrate two barriers which obstruct their understanding: one built into things and the other around institutions. Industrial design creates a world of things that resist insight into their nature, and schools shut the learner out of the world of things in their meaningful setting. [Ivan Illich]

I think that Illich makes a very important point here. Sure, we can use digital representations of all kind of things and processes. We might even be able to create giant (and distributed) repositories of these digital learning objects (see, for example, Stephen Downes proposal for design principlesfor for such a network). What I don't agree with is the current, almost exclusive, fixation on digital learning objects. Illich righfully calls for a different orientation:

The general physical environment must be made accessible, and those physical learning resources which have been reduced to teaching instruments must become generally available for self-directed learning. [Ivan Illich]

[Seblogging News]

Seb finishes by asking that we use our digital connections and systems to bring the world, fully-fleshed--not abstracted , and the learner in closer contact.

We have made an awful mistake if we disproportionately fixate on what we can teach with digital representation--this is far too small a subset of necessary and central learnings in the curriculum of living. We must target our developmental and instructional efforts upon these important, personal world-making, capabilities and teach them things in ways that we know to work.

With great teachers to interpret and guide (Virgil to the learner's Dante) immersion in the world of the real as a preparation for deep, effective life participation is, IMHO, still, and by far, the more proven and the more consequential of the prerequisites for teaching profound things. [Spike Hall]

I am glad that Spike took the time to elaborate on my post. There is so much to think and write about in this context. Yes,"we disproportionately fixate on" digital representations without a deep reflection on our very concept of "representation", we increasingly confuse information with knowledge, we ignore the conntection between knowing-thinking-acting, we ignore the "embodiment" of human knowing and its physical and emotional qualities, and we are in love with information-processing metaphors because they fit so nicely with the world of machines that we have built up. It sounds trivial... but knowing always requires a knower... and humans, as other living systems, construct knowledge for adaptive reasons in the contact with the world around them. It would be hard to imagine how anyone could build up the simplest concepts like "in and out" or "up and down" without a body operating in time and space... and with real physical objects to interact with. There is loads of evidence that we are literally "thinking with our hands" on many occasions... and that much of what is often called "implicit" knowledge cannot easily be externalized, represented, and encoded in abstract sign systems. I am a bit tired of all the knowledge capturing, knowledge sharing, and knowledge distributing bla bla that is floating around in the knowledge managment literature. What exactly are you capturing? what is shared with whom? and what is supposed to happen when what is distributed? ... will try to write about this in a more coherent manner in the next few days. [Sebastian Fiedler]

[Seblogging News]
10:25:07 AM  #  

Reference Guide for Instructional Design and Development.

Reference Guide for Instructional Design and Development via Ray...good resource detailing an instructional design process (based on the Dick and Carey Model). Of particular value are the resources that detail questions to ask, information gathering processes, learner characteristics, etc., and a series of links to additional resources. Quick side note: for additional info on various instructional design strategies, see Instructional Design in Elearning

[elearnspace blog]

Mer om evaluering av digitale læremidler se PLUM: Evaluation Methods and Procedures for studying learners' use of media
10:23:12 AM  #  

Reference services for educational objects.

I have recently cited Ivan Illich in posts like Technologies for deschooling society? and Learning Webs. Among other ideas Illich suggests reference services for educational objects as one of four approaches

"...which enable the student to gain access to any educational resource wich may help him to define and achieve his own goals." [ Ivan Illich]

It is important to note that Illich's idea of "educational objects" does not map entirely on the notion of "(digital) learning objects" that is currently quite popular with educational and instructional technology researchers and developers. "David Wiley", for example, offers the following definition of "learning objects" in his chapter "Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy" in the online book The Instructional Use of Learning Objects:

Learning objects are elements of a new type of computer-based instruction grounded in the object-oriented paradigm of computer science. Object-orientation highly values the creation of components (called [base "]objects[per thou]) that can be reused (Dahl & Nygaard, 1966) in multiple contexts. This is the fundamental idea behind learning objects: instructional designers can build small (relative to the size of an entire course) instructional components that can be reused a number of times in different learning contexts. Additionally, learning objects are generally understood to be digital entities deliverable over the Internet, meaning that any number of people can access and use them simultaneously (as opposed to traditional instructional media, such as an overhead or video tape, which can only exist in one place at a time). Moreover, those who incorporate learning objects can collaborate on and benefit immediately from new versions. These are significant differences between learning objects and other instructional media that have existed previously. [David Wiley]

Illich on the other hand looks at things as basic resources for learning. This is a much more radical point of departure. We then have to think about the educational value of artifacts and their accessiblity in a given environment. Illich writes:

... in the city rich and poor alike are artificially kept away from most of the things that surround them. Children born into the age of plastics and efficiency experts must penetrate two barriers which obstruct their understanding: one built into things and the other around institutions. Industrial design creates a world of things that resist insight into their nature, and schools shut the learner out of the world of things in their meaningful setting. [Ivan Illich]

I think that Illich makes a very important point here. Sure, we can use digital representations of all kind of things and processes. We might even be able to create giant (and distributed) repositories of these digital learning objects (see, for example, "Stephen Downes"'s proposal of some design principles for for such a network). What I don't agree with is the current, almost exclusive, fixation on digital learning objects. Illich righfully calls for a different orientation:

The general physical environment must be made accessible, and those physical learning resources which have been reduced to teaching instruments must become generally available for self-directec learning. [Ivan Illich]

Could we use (networking) technology to built reference services that make physical objects and processes accessible to people who want to learn about them? Digital learning objects might offer some nice entry points for a personal learning project. But wouldn't it be great to be able to locate a local company or individual that provides some junk bike parts one could actually try to work with after the review of a couple of digital learning objects on the topic of "repairing a bike"? We should not forget that physical things are basic resources for learning, too.

[Seblogging News]
10:18:11 AM  #  

Weblogs at Universities.

Dave Winer, Starting Weblogs at Universities:

"Here's how you get weblogs started at a university like Harvard or Dartmouth. First, know that universities thrive on having their experts visible outside the university. Not just publishing in academic journals, which most alumni don't read, but being called in as experts on radio talk shows, esp NPR....So how do you get your professors on the radar, as acknowledged experts who can communicate to everyday people? With a weblog of course."

I think the key phrase there is "at a university like Harvard or Dartmouth." My gut feeling is this approach won't work at a institution that's not a "blue chip" university. This approach (as well as a load of other Ivy League approaches) isn't going to translate to John Doe Community College or Southwest Backwater State University.

It's odd that there's so much going on with education and weblogs -- more than I've seen at any point in the past -- but Dave seems totally oblivious to it. He's still thinking like a software company CEO and programmer, not like an educator. Or maybe he's hanging out with too many lawyers! ["Greg Ritter"]

Greg is right on with his comment here, I believe. Of course, Universities and the people who work in these organizations have public relations needs and can greatly benefit from using personal Webpublishing technologies. But then you really use the technology to support the business side of higher education. You want to sell yourself, your department or institution to the larger public?... ok, that's a valid use... I will not argue against it... but that has only little to do with all the hard and creative work of the people who actually try to enhance teaching and learning processes with personal Webpublishing technologies. [Sebastian Fiedler]

[Seblogging News]
10:09:35 AM  #  

Getting up to speed on wikis, part 2.

Last Thursday's post on wikis generated quite a bit of good feedback. Comments from a number of readers offered pointers to more wiki related materials.

Doug Holton, a graduate student at Vanderbilt, offers these three wiki-specific entries from his blog (which looks to be a useful reference in general):

Here are some more thoughts (and actual research) on wikis: http://edtechdev.org/blog/archives/001181.html http://edtechdev.org/blog/archives/001172.html http://edtechdev.org/blog/archives/001173.html

Bill Seitz is experimenting with a cross between a wiki and a weblog he calls a WikiWeblog. He points to his notes there on self-organizing aspects of wikis at Wikis for Collaboration Ware.

Denham Gray gently reminded me of his KmWiki which was the first wiki I ever posted anything to and is a wonderful resource of KM related materials. Denham is a zealous advocate of the collaborative opportunities found in knowledge work.

Jonathan Smith points to Joi Ito's wiki experiments and an evolving section on Wikis vs. Blogs

Jenny Levine at Shifted Librarian posts a pointer to Blogging, RSS, and Wikis - Presentations, Papers, and a Pathfinder

Elwyn Jenkins at MicroDocBlogger throws his 0.02 in with Blogs, Wikis, and Knowledge Building. He offers the interesting notion that "blogs turn people into webpages" and "wikis turn communities into webpages."

And finally Ross Mayfield reminds me of the work he is doing at socialText.com which is both a source of great info on wikis and social software in general and an ongoing experiment in the same.

Obviously blogs and wikis are not an either/or proposition. I see them both as examples of grassroots, bottoms up approaches to making knowledge work and knowledge workers more effective. If you lower the barriers to participation and make it easier for individuals and teams to narrate their work, then you start to get the possibility of getting knowledge management as a desirable side effect.

Instead of trying to cram a centralized knowledge management system down everyone's throat, you focus on helping individuals and teams do their own work more easily and more effectively. If you give some thought to how you design and shape the environment, the benefits of knowledge management sought by vendors of solutions in search of problems will emerge from the work itself. [Jim McGee]

More food for thought on the Wiki-Weblog relationship. Can anybody point me to implementation and evaluation projects of Wikis within formal educational settings? [Sebastian Fiedler]

[Seblogging News]
9:33:43 AM  #  

Getting up to speed on wikis, part 1.

Wikis are now on the radar screens of many of us grappling with using technology effectively in knowledge work. Ward Cunningham's book,The Wiki Way:Quick Collaboration on the Web, has been on my bookshelf for some time now and I've visited a handful of public wikis. Lately there's been a spate of posts in the blog world about wikis. I've gathered up and made a first pass at organizing the ones I've encountered into what might be a reasonable order (based on my current level of ignorance).

One thing that did help me get a better grasp on wikis was listening to David Weinberger's talk at Seabury Western two weeks ago. David was drawing attention to the collaborative effort to produce the Wikipedia, which is essentially an open source model effort at creating an online encyclopedia. I had always been puzzled by the free-for-all editing capability inherent in the wiki technology. The analogy that finally made it clear for me was to a whiteboard in a conference room. Those frequently become shared design spaces as markers change hands. Wikis are the same idea moved to the web, which suggests to me that they are likely to be more useful inside organizations than elsewhere.

• Why Wiki Works - [link courtesy of Corante: Social Software, which has been following the Wiki discussion in depth]
• Why Wike Works/Not
• Why I Don't Like <s>Wikis</s> Email - [Also from Corante: Social Software] - Some interesting observations about visual presentation in wikis and email vs. better laid out web pages and how this interferes with the usefulness of wikis (at least on the public web).
• Email Doesn't Self-Organize - [from Ross Mayfield] - quoting Ward Cunningham

  Cunningham also points out that you can go away from a wiki and come back at any time to pick up a conversation without much inconvenience, which isn't the case with e-mail-centric group discussions. "E-mail doesn't self-organize," he emphasizes.

• The Cunningham quote comes from What's a Wiki? an overview article by Sebastian Rupley at Extreme Tech.
• Wiki as a PIM and Collaborative Content Tool [via Sebastian Fiedler] - which appears to be a good overview with lots of links.
• From the other Seb in my aggregator (Sebastien Paquet at Seb's Open Research) comes Why Meatball Matters.

  Meatball Wiki is a little-known gem in the jungle of online community-related material on the Web. What is it about? A whole lot of fascinating stuff - in founder Sunir Shah's words:

  It philosophizes about the nature of hypertext, government, and identity. It talks about user interfaces, community building, and conflict resolution. But it also contains technical analyses of indexing schemes, wiki architecture, and inter-wiki protocol design.

  Sunir has recently been busy writing up a nice summary of what's significant about Meatball, as part of a work portfolio he's preparing to get into the Knowledge Media Design Institute at the University of Toronto.

  I believe Sunir understands Wiki philosophy better than anyone else I know. His contributions to framing the concept and patterns of soft security that underlie the social architecture of Wikis are what made me an early convert to Meatball. If only Sunir had kept a blog instead of a home-brewed diary page, he'd surely be well-known in social software circles today.

  Hopefully, as the Wiki way slowly seeps into the mainstream Internet mentality, its perceived weirdness will subside and collaborative hypermedia communities like this one will get the recognition (and linkage) they deserve.

[Jim McGee]

Jim shares another one of his link-rich, topical posts. I am looking forward to unpack this nicely wrapped up package as soon as I get home... [Sebastian Fiedler]

[Seblogging News]
9:33:11 AM  #  

Shaping a personal learning domain.

Some of you already know that I am particularly interested in non-institutionalized, informal, self-organized forms of (adult) learning. Tonight I was thinking about the role personal Webpublishing could play - or might already play for some of us - for the shaping of a personal "learning domain."

Traditionally, a learning domain is often perceived as the sum of all the learning opportunities an educational environment or workplace has to offer. Of course, this limited view already excludes many resources for learning that are waiting outside of school or the company you happen to work for.

Now, if I am following my own learning project beyond institutional boundaries I am facing the task of defining, developing, and refining my personal learning domain without the support of some educational (or training) authority. My learning domain contains ideas, concepts, know-how,etc. which might be represented in books, documents, Websites, videos, courses, and so forth. I will create a conception of my learning domain based on all the possibilities and resources I am currently aware of.

This is where externalizing my growing and expanding understanding of a personal learning domain via Webpublishing and the search for Webloggers with similar and apparently overlapping interests can prove rather benefitial. Not only that these people can either directly or indirectly point me to valuable sources and resources, they often can become part of my personal learning domain themselves, too, serving as important human resources for my ongoing learning. If I am lucky they might even be willing to create special learning opportunities for me based on their experience and knowledge... or at least, they might help to define how, what, and where learning opportunities might be created for me.

Can a traditional learning domain be in conversation with itself? Hardly, I would say. But what happens if a personal learning domain is inhabited by a good number of available Webloggers who read, listen, elaborate, repeat, amplify, mix, and contextualize materials in a constant flow? I have feeling that such a loosely coupled network of people who share some overlaping areas of interst can accelerate and qualitatively alter the necessary shaping of a personal learning domain?

What do you think? [Sebastian Fiedler]

[Seblogging News]
9:32:03 AM  #  

Har begynt å abonnere på Sebastian Fiedlers blogg. Jeg har lest den en stund, men ikke fått den i min egen newsfeed i Radio før i dag. Regn med at det kommer endel postinger fra denne i løpet av dagen. Ellers er bloggen min, som du ser, bare en samling av lenker jeg synes er interessante.
9:28:55 AM  #