MOOC war is it?

Remember, MOOCs have become a manufactured consent.

I'm not at all surprised to hear the accusation that revisionists have been sanitising the Wikipedia article on MOOCs - taking out the references to the early developers. It was recently revealed here in Australia, that this may be common practice for public relations service now.

Actually, I was quite hurt when the MOOC article was started on Wikipedia, neglecting to take the history that up until then was being recorded in the Networked Learning article. Hurt, but not surprised.

These accusations need looking into.

Brian pointed to an edit by Kmasters0 (note this link goes to the difference, not the version). Kmasters0 left the following comment to their edit:

"Removal of para dealing with Dave Wiley's proto-MOOC. See talk page for more detials". 

The talk page thread carries an interesting message for us in the education world.

"The opening paragraph of this section makes the claim that "David Wiley taught what ostensibly was the first MOOC, or proto-MOOC, at Utah State University in August 2007." There is no reference for this, and the description is simply of a free course that was open to people around the world. This, by itself, does not make it a MOOC. And, if that description is enough for it to be taken as a MOOC, then it certainly does not make it the first. (Using a meaningless concept such as "proto-MOOC" could apply to any form of web-based instruction.) For the statement to be taken seriously, far more independent information and references need to be supplied, otherwise it smacks of someone retrospectively laying claim to something, and should be removed. Kmasters0 (talk) 17:07, 6 November 2012 (UTC)"

Looking at Kmasters0 contributions, I see no reason to suspect their work as untoward, or part of a conspiracy to revise the history of MOOCs. They were simply upholding Wikipedia standards. If anything, Kmasters0' contribution points to the lack of 'credible' literature that was and is being produced that might help preserve that known history. It also shows that the education sector is completely absent of contribution to Wikipedia articles on things in their field.

Just take a quick look at the quality and contribution of the articles for some of the major buzz word concepts we've all been part of this last decade or more:

• Flexible learning - Little more than a stub article, no substantial contribution since 2009, no discussion
• Blended learning - reverted back to a stub due to such poor quality, a trickle of contribution, very littel discussion
• Online learning - redirects to eLearning without challenge. A substantial article however, with very active contributions, little to no discussion however.
• Learning Management System - A reasonably substantial article. Some discussion. Barely an edit in 2013 or 2012Informal learning
• M-Learning - a very strange way to construct an article. Low levels of contribution, with a recent flurry from FeatherPluma.
• Inquiry-based learning- Needs considerable work before it's even useful. Barely a peep on the talk page. Hardly a contribution all year.
• Connectivism - Still in draft form with some odd structure applied. Hardly anything added in 2013 or 12. No substantial discussion since 2011
• Networked learning - Pretty good, if I do say so myself. Am I the only one here who has something to offer this article! Discussion page is practically all me, as is the edit history, and I haven't touched it since 2012.

Do you get the point I'm trying to make? Who among us, that spend considerable time commenting on the commentary through our blogs, Slideshares, Youtubes and the like, take an hour out of each day to check and help improve the Wikipedia articles relating to our work? Who out there, when asked to create a hand out to use as a resource in some staff training session, thinks to edit and use the Wikipedia articles? I try to do it in every place I've worked, but remain the only one I know!

The work of Public Relations professions, seeking to manage the message on any number of things through Wikipedia is unsurprising. If that practice continues to grow, soon they'll overwhelm the capacity of volunteers to control their activities, in fact I bet they have overwhelmed them in many areas already. If we in and around the profession can't see reason to make contribution to the most important reference text part of everyday practice, then we deserve to have our history rewritten for us.

Wikipedia articles inform 'credible' publications, and 'credible' publications are used to refine Wikipedia articles. Can you see where that vicious cycle leads?

Recommendations to La Trobe Uni in its considerations of open education practices

We held a public and open conference on open education last week. One of the sessions at the end of the day was to begin formulating recommendations to La Trobe University. This is a much more complicated task then I first considered. I realise now, my preference to work with the individual staff member up to the executive manager - rather than from the executive down, via policy change and directives.

So in my own suggestions for recommendations, I've included things that ask the executive to look for and acknowledge work that is already taking place, and to resource pilot studies out in the Faculties so we may benefit from each other's more informed positions over time - say 12 - 24 months.

While others are working in a Google Doc, I'm sticking with the wiki, for my part.

• 1.1 Support copyrights that are inter-operable with open educational resources
• 1.2 Align to the Wikimedia Foundation projects
• 1.3 Become an institution of open academic practice
• 1.4 Engage the Learner's Bill of Rights
• 1.5 Update the Intellectual Property Policy and Procedures
• 1.6 LMS turn on the Wikimedia Commons repository
• 1.7 Marketing messages are always educational
• 1.8 Library support of open education and research content
• 1.9 Recognise and celebrate what is already happening
• 1.10 Give the Faculties time to pilot and position

What I've been up to at La Trobe

I've been at La Trobe University for 6 months now.. and things seem to be going ok. As usual I've annoyed a few people and now get the silent treatment, but mostly people are excited and raring to go.

Recently we did something for Open Education Week. A small group of people from different areas across the University managed to pull off what must have been the most open and transparent event La Trobe has ever seen. In the busiest time of the year for teachers, we manage to pack out the space continuously for the entire day. That says a lot for the interest in open education here. But, it was the only Australian event for Open Education Week, which is somewhat concerning.. suggesting to me that while there is interest from staff, central support units are missing it.. again.

My work in the Faculty of Health Sciences is to help teachers and course coordinators imagine, design and implement curriculum and content development. Most of that work can't be shown because university systems preference closed practice. But the open side of the work can be shown, and its the bit I find most rewarding. I'm trying to keep track of the open education work we've been doing in Wikiversity. For example, a team of educational content developers uploaded video on the Wikipedia article for Vertometer. I hope they will review the export quality though. People who work in the disability health sector will soon publish incredibly valuable videos of people living with disabilities, which we hope will demystify their lives some and help improve awareness and the quality of services to them. This team held a forum recently, and the presenters agreed for their recordings to go to Wikiversity.

I find that using Wikiversity helps facilitate a whole range of considerations, from copyright and openness, to audience and communication.. not to mention an awareness of alternative approaches to online education and development. We're having conversations about simple English, the risks and value of transparency, the opportunities in open access, and the principles that might guide us into this way of practice. So far, I couldn't have hoped for a better response.

Using Wikiversity presents a number of challenges though, not simply answered by professional development events, and not limited to the perception of it being an external platform. The university systems are so dense and complex in their own right, that suggesting any change or adaptation is not feasible. Most people simply don't have the time to even learn the existing systems well! Workloads for academic staff are already at maximum, so I can only suggest some things be stopped, and this thing be done instead. Ideally, there would be enough spare time to allow for research and wide ranging professional development, but there simply isn't. Introducing open educational practices in the absence of any system or support for developing that, necessitates an alternative approach.

To address this in a more acceptable way though, I'm continuously looking for ways to reduce busy work. There are atrocious forms upon forms that could be streamlined and improved for example, and simplifying them would free up a small amount of time at particular times in the year. But that's a drop in the ocean of tsunamis pounding academic professions these days.  I estimate 60% of time needs to be freed if we are going to expect teaching academics to make time for research and/or adequate professional development. This is a mountain that some see as impossible!

But in preparation for a miracle, I've been drafting up a professional development program for teachers of health professionals. It is attempting to enable and enhance informal learning, while at the same time setting up more formal channels as well. I'm proposing that badging be trialed, but response has been cool. And I've been using Wikiversity and Wikipedia as development platforms, instead of Word and the Intranet. At some stage we'll have to confront the digital divide this creates.. and I think we'll have to choose between closed and open, and honestly consider the risks and costs of them both.

Examples of assessment in open education

A few people have pulled together an open conference at La Trobe University, about open education. It is coinciding with Open Education Week. I hope to be able to participate in all the sessions, but I'm definitely giving a talk on assessment in open education, for this and a group called Scholars of Learning and teaching (SoLT).

• Here's the Wikiversity page with slides, audio and notes.
• Here's the audio recording on Archive.org
• Here's the slides in Slideshare

Examples of assessment from Leigh Blackall

MOOCs are a Manufactured Consent

I can't take it any more. All this talk about MOOCs (the simple corporate variety), iTunesU, and the glaring and obvious ignorance of robust and sustainable commons-based projects like Wikipedia, Wikibooks and Wikiversity.

The Conversation seems to have captured a very large audience in Australia. Their bi line is "academic rigor, journalistic flare". I see a lot of "flare" to be sure. Rigor and journalism though. Well, they were made extinct in Australia through the 1990s, clinched in 2003.

Dilan Thampapillai has offered his insights on the flaws in copyright governance in the major Corporate MOOCs. It had to be said, I agree. But Dilan makes no mention of the platforms that manage commons-based copyright, and manage it well. He stays with the manufactured consent that MOOCs are a recent phenomenon and that the idea of open education is held to the corporate platforms that have popped up to capitalise. So, while I'm trying to stay mostly silent on these issues - hoping and praying others will step up in Australia, but for some reason this really gets me, and I expect no one will say anything...

Here's my comment to Dilan's article and the subsequent comments to it as of 11am 5th March 2013.

Re "In ANU’s case, it will enable Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt to teach astronomy students from around the world without a fee, and all at the click of a button."

Brian has been able to teach astronomy to people around the world since the Internet was invented. A corporate entity with a simplistic understanding of learning, and as you point out - poor outlook, wasn't needed. Or was it?

I find it perplexing that corporate and profit motive entities find such an easy way into our education system. I remember when iTunesU made their first wave, and asked all the academics being told to get on board to waver their academic freedoms and sign a non-disclosure agreement.

And while all this goes on, long running, vastly more popular and successful, not-for-profit, volunteer-based and sustained, non proprietary alternatives are sidelined and ignored by the likes of The Conversation writers.

Wikipedia is a good example, and next to it is Wikibooks and Wikiversity. Or if you like a more institutional flavour to your MOOC, Wikieducator. Or if you like a more grass roots and community spirited MOOC, try Melbourne Free University or one of the many Free Universities in a city near you, that have been going since Joseph Beuys started the Free University International in the 70s, and Ivan Illich caught the attention of most educators.

But forget all that ancient history. Still with the techno fetishism of today.

If you were to ready to consider Wikipedia, Wikibooks and Wikiversity (and the many other reference text projects administered by the Wikimedia Foundation) then this copyright issue is managed, and managed very well. Furthermore, unlike the corporate entities we seem to bias our attention to, Wikimedia Foundation projects are not-for-profit, openly governed, with budgets published in detail, and with clear and debatable direction. If Australian universities where to give just 1% of their online learning budget to the Wikimedia Foundation, and pump the projects like they do iTunesU and MOOCs, then we'd have open education on a sustainable, commons-based footing. Oh, and if corporate partnerships are what you need, then the copyright is ok for you to take and do it. Not the other way around though. Funny that!

And will someone in the Conversation at least acknowledge that the acronym MOOC was not invented by Coursera, EdX or any of these. It was coined by David Cormier in 2008 - to name the work of Stephen Downes and George Siemens, who were inspired by people working large and open courses on Wikieducator and Wikiversity in 2006 onwards. This is long before The Conversation writers chose to pay attention to corporate adventures using the name.

This new corporatisation of yet another Commons-based initiative, and the willingness of venues like The Conversation writers to sideline obvious origins needs investigating... "Market forces" you might generalise it as. Or if looking for more detail, I would consider it Manufactured Consent.

Peak Oil Company

Prototype 005

I've very sparingly updated on progress with the Peak Oil Company, but I think I've made a minor milestone worth mentioning. FInally, I've settled on a design for the jacket - 4 or 5 prototypes down. I had this breakthrough after sinking the dollars and buying a walking foot sewing machine and going crazy with it. The jacket design is simple to make, easy to size and modify, gives a good range of movement, and looks pretty cool if I do say so myself. So far I've made it in oilskin, canvas and ventile.

Check out full progress at http://peakoilcompany.com.

Maybe you Northerners are interested in getting a custom made jacket for cost price?

Prototype 004

Stop Stealing Dreams - Seth Godin not quite deschooling

Stop Stealing Dreams (the entire manifesto on the web) - Stop Stealing Dreams

I'm reading Seth Godin's manifesto attacking industrial strength schooling, and I think I've found an oversight and contradiction that seems to be common in some people's arguments about current school models being out of date because they don't align with idealistic/futuristic ideas of work.

This quote largely catches it:

If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do, he will find someone cheaper than you to do it. And yet our schools are churning out kids who are stuck looking for jobs where the boss tells them exactly what to do.

The US economy has apparently only offered 600,000 "boss tells you what to do" type jobs over the past 20 years. But are cleaners, sweatshop workers, burger flippers, retail shop assistants, police, the military, students and welfare dependent unemployed really on a downturn in the US as Seth implies? I'm a bit confused to be honest. Is Seth accepting the impact of Globalisation on western economies, and seriously arguing that our mass education system should completely change to fit the work profile of a privileged few? is Seth's manifesto another example of bourgeois writing leaning on working class experience to progress a poorly considered idea that ultimately benefits the bourgeois position?

Why should schools stop churning out factory workers? Seems to me that's what schools were designed for, not much has changed, nor could it be changed. Perhaps schools should be preparing people for military service, scab labor, homelessness and docile unemployment. We can't all be engineers, designers, culture creators and the like. Someone's still gotta take the garbage out, violently steel resources for the State, and make affordable food for those poor impoverished souls right? Or are we accepting that that is all done by migrants (who we assume don't go to school, at least not schools like ours). Unless we succeed at building cheap robots to do that work (and preserve the idea of welfare for those who would be displaced by that), the majority of work remains in that class, and so mass education should as well.

This is the problem with trying to use the vocational education argument back on itself, to prop up a change argument that is less about new work models and more about promoting a different level of social ideals - freedom and conviviality.

If Seth had of referred out to others writing on this topic, he might have at least encountered Ivan Illich, namely but not least his books: Tools for Conviviality, In Defense of Useful Unemployment, and Deschooling Society. A consistent thread through all of Illich's work is the anarchic idea that institutions like school, compel our cultural dependence on those institutions, and that we need to develop a viable alternative to industrialised living entirely, to begin breaking our dependence on those institutions. Reforming those institutions to drive such change is a tail waging a dog. And so it's not until we get much closer to a post industrial society, that we can hope for a more convivial experience of learning from one another, doing valuable, self sufficient and flexible forms of work, relying a lot less on schools to care for kids that must limit their learning to industrial strength vocational application. You might try and change the school system in the hope of shaping that more ideal society, but not without frustrating and disappointing those who are subjected to your engineering. Or you might simply make it more possible for people to forgo school entirely and discover and develop alternative ways of learning and being, but not without some fear and anxiety. We're a long way from either option, because in the end people need jobs to survive, those jobs are still very industrialised, and people caught in that need someone to take care of their kids while they're at work! A cruel and vicious cycle that seems to be getting worse with pre and post school childcare centres booming because both parents and grandparents have to work, just to pay landlords, financiers and banks off!

Maybe Seth will get to all this later in his manifesto - I hope so. It seems to me we have to stop using the "work is changing" argument, and look at the alternatives to our present ways. Those who are trying to break through the dehumanising effects of industrialism have some ideas and examples. The counter culture movement as they once were, the transition towns, the permaculturalists, the homeschoolers, the pre industrialised societies, cottage industries, free universities, small and ethical business, and hopefully many things I haven't found yet. If we can study their models and experiences we may find a way through to a viable alternative for more people, so that unschooling is viable for more people, and deschooling is more possible for others.