The newest edition of How People Learn has been released. Much research has gone into this new edition and I’m looking forward to reading it and sharing it with my students (and, ahem, some of those who approach me with edtech products). Chapter 8 in particular focuses on digital technology, but the whole book is worth our attention.
You can download a pdf or read it online for free here.
I want to tell you about a new site that Royce Kimmons is launching: http://edtechbooks.org
This aims to become go-to location for open texts related to educational technology, instructional design, learning design and technology, and related fields. If you’d like to add a book to this collection, bring it to the attention of Royce!
For the most part, the early morning is my favorite time of the day. I like having a cup of coffee or tea, running, reading, writing, and just pretty much doing anything at 6am, than at 10am. This is not a productivity tip. You do what works for you.
What would have worked better for my productivity this morning was to have waited until later in the day to read Donald Clark’s predictions of AI radically transforming instructional design* jobs and replacing instructional designers (“adapt or die” he says). I don’t disagree with everything that he writes. We agree that in a largely interdisciplinary and complex endeavor as online learning designers need to make sense of AI/machine learning/etc, and developers need to make sense of how learning works. We also agree that most of online learning offerings could be amazing, but are often unexciting. And I really like some of his writing, such as his critique of the hole in the wall experiments.
That’s not where the problem lies. The problem is within this snippet:
AI is here. Few argue that is will change the very nature of employment and therefore it will change what you learn, how you learn and even why you learn. We are, at last, emerging from a 30 year paradigm of media production and multiple choice questions, in largely flat and unintelligent learning experiences, towards smart, intelligent online learning, that behaves more like a good teacher, where you are taught as an individual with a personalised experience, challenged and, rather than endlessly choosing from lists, engage in effortful learning, using dialogue, even voice. As a Learning designer, Interactive designer, project Manager, Producer, whatever, this is the most exciting thing to have happened in the last 30 years of learning. Make the leap!
The talk about AI “behav[ing] more like a good teacher” offering “typical cost reductions of 85-90%” is incompatible with the claims that AI isn’t aiming to replace teachers or designers (a claim that Clark also makes in 2016 here, even though he later notes that the time may not be 2018, but soon). If you develop software to do the job that a designer does, you are, to a degree, working toward substituting people with software. There may very well be good reasons to do that, but don’t call upon designers to “adapt or die.” The message sounds more like this: We have developed software to change the functions of your job and we want you to develop a different skill set. If you don’t, we’ll replace you.
We haven’t yet reached the point where an independent AI decided to take on the job of the instructional designer.
I work with instructional designers, and train them. Are there parts of their job that would be better automated? Yes. But here’s the issue: That sort of work is not really instructional design work. That sort of work rarely involves the conceptualization and design of empowering, equitable, engaging, and rich learning environments. If Clark’s notion of the work that the instructional designer does envisions a person who enters text into pre-determined templates, and does similar work, then we aren’t talking about the same professional
Finally, I agree with Clark that it’s prime time for instructional design to undergo a process of transformation. Not for the reason Clark sees (AI), but because instructional designers are now, more than ever, necessary to support the design and development of rich and equitable learning environments. To do so, they need to be empowered more, not relayed to conduct the work that machines could do more efficiently. The preparation of instructional designers needs re-envisioning to support this goal, and that requires not only an understanding of technical phenomena (similar to what Clark calls for), but also a truly critical engagement with what ID is and what it should do. To that end, I am increasingly turning to feminist practices, which is a topic that probably deserves it’s own post.
Now, I’m going to go back to enjoying my coffee.
* Clark calls it learning design, I call it instructional design. The nomenclature varies between the UK (where he is) and North America (where I am), even if there are more similarities than differences between what learning and instructional designers to. For the purposes of this post, the differences are insignificant.
Josh Kim wrote a very kind post today over at Inside Higher Ed, highlighting what he sees as three indictments of the role of technology in higher education. There’s good food for thought there, and I’d like to focus on Josh’s third indictment which states that digital technologies distract.
The crux of the matter (for me) is here: “Nor are students the only people on campuses likely to use technologies in a way that inhibits, rather than promotes, learning.”
This point gets lost in the broader conversation around technology distracting from learning. The broader conversation focuses on learners being distracted by… all sorts of things… laptops, social media algorithmically perfected to demand never-ending attention, and so on.
Yet, we talk little about the seductive appeal of technology that positions it as an easy solution to all sort of problems. That seductive property is what is distracting faculty, administrators, instructional designers, and other higher education professionals, not the technology itself, not technology as an object. Problem-solving – dare I say innovation – can exist without the latest gizmo or platform, and I’ve said that so many times, and heard it so many times, that I feel like we should be past this point. We *need* to be past this point. But, in a practice characterized by historical amnesia as Martin Weller aptly reminds us, we need reminders.
Four years ago I gave a talk at the University of Edinburgh. It was a wonderful event, with many amazing people, but I’ll always remember one comment that Jen Ross made. I’m paraphrasing, but she essentially said: We can be frustrated that we have to remind people of the history of the field, of the role that technology plays in education, of its potential and shortcomings. Or, we can be excited that more and more people are joining the field, and more and more people need to learn that “technology” isn’t the one and easy solution.
She was, and is, right. The needle is slow to move, but, at this moment, I choose to be excited.
One of the courses I teach examines the foundations and histories of the field. Writings about the histories of educational/instructional technology/design predominantly identify and examine particular technologies that were in vogue at particular periods of time. For instance, Martin Weller discusses the use of streaming video in his 25 years of edtech series. One might do the same with radio, overhead projectors, mySpace, and so on. Here, I want to share with you a personal story, a story about a particular VHS cassette.
VHS tape – By Evan-Amos – Own work, Public Domain
My Twitter bio identifies my location as Canada and Cyprus. Cyprus is where I grew up, and where I tell people I am from when they ask me the seemingly innocuous but loaded question “Where are you from?,” as if people can be from just one place. Growing up in a divided country like Cyprus, I was constantly reminded of conflict, war, occupation, fleeing, and loss. I grew up with textbooks emblazoned with the slogan Δέν Ξεχνώ, a nod to a national policy aiming to convince GreekCypriot children to “never forget” the occupied areas of Cyprus. It wasn’t just the not-so-hidden national curriculum. I know of many people who were and are refugees and people who were directly or indirectly impacted. Friends. Friends’ parents. Uncles and aunts. My parents. My maternal grandparents.
In the 1980’s my grandparents were given a tape. Someone – an acquaintance of an acquaintance of a family member – visited the occupied areas and drove for hours, recording what they could from their car. I don’t remember the details. I do remember that the video was grainy and mostly uninteresting to a pre-teen. But, it brought us together to discuss issues more important than the roads, farmlands, and abandoned villages depicted in the tape: war, coup d’état, peace, borders, the “other.”
My aunt and uncle owned a video store in the 80’s. I spent many days in the summers there and watched my fair share of tapes. But that tape, that grainy tape, is forged in my memory. The impact of video on education reveals a worthwhile pedagogical story because it often culminates in how video replaces other media and rarely causes pedagogical change. Particular artifacts though, in particular situations, at particular times, with particular participants, do. That may not be the norm in formal educational environments, but I can at least point to one instance where a tape had impact.
Do you have any similar stories?
I live in a blue-collar, rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.
That’s not completely accurate.
The neighborhood I live in defies my penchant for classifications. It’s the home of a “west coast fusion” taco truck and a new pizza place that serves curry coconut pizza. It’s also the home of a graffiti-adorned high school, a vibrant skate park, a few community gardens, and countless little libraries. It hosts decrepit houses surrounded by chain-link fences and many newly-built townhomes. Three of my neighbors have lived here, in the same houses, for twenty-plus years. Same houses, somewhat-same neighborhood.
A friend who lives in Austin, Texas called the townhomes “progress.” It’s what happened to Austin, too, he said. He scoffed at the taco truck though.
The neighborhood I live in is a reflection of the paradoxes, binaries, tensions, and contradictions of the city.
I walked toward downtown last night. I walked past condos that still being build a few weeks ago. They’re fully occupied now. I walked past people who are homeless and congregate close to downtown. Past Magic – the most gentle and loving dog I met. “She’s friendly” her owner said. That was an understatement. Past a soup kitchen. Past the bike lanes. Past two paramedics on bikes – a frequent sight given the city’s overdose crisis.
I walked past, until I stopped.
The bowtie-wearing bartender chiseled away at a block of ice. I skimmed the menu: Southwest-spiced grilled shrimp cocktail, marinated in chipotle peppers and fresh lime juice with fresh mango salsa fresca… flash fried Humboldt squid, creole dusted with fried banana peppers and remoulade sauce.
I order a craft beer made by one of the many local breweries, and reflect on progress. And contradictions.
I was tagged in doing the black-and-white photo-a-day-for-a-week Internet meme this week. I don’t usually participate in these things (I know, I know… life of the party right here), but this one was interesting because of the current research that we are doing on understanding how and why faculty social media practices change or don’t change over time. Back in 2009, 2010, 2012 even, a few colleagues used to take a photo a day, and share those photos online, usually in flickr groups. Some still do that, but a lot has changed since then. Over the last week of taking and sharing these photos on Twitter, some of my thoughts included the following:
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