Alternate Reality Games (ARGs)

I had not heard of  games of this genre before, but they are pretty exciting and I must thank Ulises Mejias for my first introduction to  this medium. There are many definitions including the one here where ARGs are contrasted with serious games.

Apparently, the first such “game” dates back to 1996! Wikipedia defines it as “is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants’ ideas or actions”.

Think of it as a dramatization parallel to the real world. The organizer, or Puppetmaster, starts by telling a story or leaving a cue, as in a puzzle. Real people and real technology are drawn in to real world dialogue and just like in real life, information is pieced together by the participants. The “game” word is a misnomer, really, because an ARG is very different than a game – in fact ARG creators follow the TINAG (This Is Not A Game) principle. Read about The Beast to get a deeper sense.

If you think of it, some aspects of the CCK08 course run by Stephen Downes and George Siemens in end-2008 resembled an ARG, in fact, hold true to the concept of sense-making in connectivism. I think a new analogy/metaphor of an educator could be the puppetmaster.

Unthinking the network

Ulises Mejias writes a very thought-provoking post Disassembled Spaces. He makes the point that if we are not able to ensure that a substantial part of our social and cultural production over the Internet is controlled openly rather than by a handful of private corporations, should we begin “unthinking the network”? He explores many dimensions of the concept in his post The tyranny of nodes.

He calls upon us to think of “open space as an un-thinking of the digital network”. According to him, the digital network creates inequality. It “(network) undermines productive forms of sociality by over-privileging the node”. He states “to the extent that the network is composed of nodes and connections between nodes, it discriminates against the space between the nodes, it turns this space into a black box, a blind spot” .

By reinforcing a “stay-in network”, the network “(becomes) an epistemology, a way of interpreting the world, a model for organizing reality.” To the extent that, quoting Vandenberghe, “the economy is no longer embedded in the society… society is embedded in the economy”.

I am inclined to believe this is true with my experiences while learning Economics at the post-graduate level. My professor applied game theoretic techniques to try and solve a village-level problem of contracts between a moneylender, a landlord and a tenant. To my then, and still, ignorant mind, it was ludicrous to reduce the problem to strict assumptions of rationality that economists need to make. They ignored the spaces in the network – the politics of fear and repression that exists at the village level in India. Perhaps it contributed to my disenchantment with the subject.

But it is also true of any theory or opinion that seeks to abstract meaning from an otherwise complex world. Perhaps thinking about a “continuum” between nodes is necessary but may not imply that any thinking that doesn’t incorporate these notions is infructuous. In fact, one could argue that since the “continuum” is infinite, it is not amenable to analysis at all.

Ulises agrees when he states “Surely, we cannot pay attention to everything, and as a result we have developed self-interested strategies (predating networks) for making some things more relevant than others” and concludes with the following:

My point is that although self-interest might be a functional principle to organize networks, even at a local level, it might not be sustainable as the basis for a social ethics, which requires a degree of selfless engagement. If we are going to go with the network metaphor, we need a praxis and an ethics, for engaging with the world beyond our interests, which means accounting for the space between nodes, becoming invested in the non-nodal.

eyeOS

For those interested in operating systems for education, such as the OLPC Sugar project, you must check eyeOS out. The OS is completely browser-based and built on open source technologies. Apart from being painless to administer, it has amazing possibilities for the classroom. From their website:

eyeos can provide schools and universities with a full web platform where students, teachers and parents will have a personal yet collaborative desktop to work and, communicate between themselves and get organized inside and outside the school. The students and teachers will have an intuitive and easy-to-learn Desktop System, to work with school resources and communicate with other students and teachers.

One of the interesting features is their re-architecture of how the operating system should look for children of different ages. The interface can be used anywhere. It also has some creative applications for learning support - such as a mindmapping application. It has special affordances for the teacher, for example, an exam mode that blocks off applications that are not permitted to be accessed during exams.

They also have a developer outreach program where developers who are proficient in pHp can build applications for that platform.

This broadly mirrors what Sugar can do in terms of functionality, although their are  substantial differences in their instructional and technical architecture and design.

Picolearning

Check out Microvision’s SHOWWX. The SHOWWX Laser Pico Projector is a pocket-sized projection device that can connect to iPods, PCs and other TV-Out devices expected to be made commercially available in March 2010 in the US. Microvision also offers an evaluation kit for other companies who want to embed this technology in their digital products e.g. mobile phones.

While there are obvious uses, this is really intriguing technology from a learning perspective. For the mobile learning folks, this should be a cause for some celebration because of now the ability to use a much larger and high resolution screen estate for animations, videos and regular learning materials.

For elearning, as such, this becomes another platform for individuals and small groups to learn on. What would be interesting is if Pranav Mistry’s efforts putting a camera + projector + motion recognition could be embedded on top the mobile phone or wearable headsets commercially thus making enhanced learner interaction possible. Perhaps an embedded flip open mouse pad on the mobile phone as one of the connected devices could be invented as an option in the meantime.

Learning that requires physical experiences can also be augmented and supported by this technology. For example, a class taking water samples to check purity, using a laptop with a sensor kit and instrumentation software, could augment physical conditions with other sources of information, such as from a Wiki. (See for example the automobile location charting initiatives).

Using a camera and various technologies to recognize visual objects (that have been demonstrated recently in addition to tag-based solutions like QRCodes and Microsoft Tag), physical information can be marked up and even analyzed across other learners and data sources, thus enhancing the learning experience.

In the classroom, we could have one or more hubs actually sharing out information, if so designed to be used, even while the class is in-session – with multiple displays replacing or supplementing the traditional whiteboards.

Perhaps new media forms will emerge as a result. For example, clusters of pico units could integrate into a central console that instructors could use to flip between for the entire class. The experience itself could result in the classroom experience being captured and rendered with different perspectives in mind.

Perhaps, applications will start becoming gesture-enabled as projects such as Microsoft Natal and Mistry’s Sixth Sense begin to capture commercial and popular interest.

Alternate Education

I have started research on alternative education systems. Right off the bat I found a website that summarizes some of these initiatives in the Indian context - Alternative Education in India. Two really interesting categories were Alternative Schools and Learning Cooperatives. I like the fact that the latter prefer not to be called “schools” at all.

Among the Alternative schools is the Atma Vidya Educational Foundation in southern India. If  you look at the KPM approach (they started in Kerala and now have an extension in Austin, Texas), the focus is heavily on guidance, teacher involvement, learning freedom and experiential learning. I am impressed by the examples - but still need to research on how they really accomplish their goals. I next looked at a cooperative, Bhavya, which also looks like an interesting approach, particularly as it attempts to merge with the mainstream systems at a particular age.  Mirambika is an example of a K8 school with an alternative approach too. I particularly liked the idea that there is a community out there that encourages and provides support for home education. Wonder how that works!

In the US, the trend in public education around Charter Schools is also encouraging. These schools are set up to innovate within the public school system as this report shows.

More on these systems as I move ahead. Would love to hear from you if you know an educational system or movement that is an alternate.

Centenary Post

For my hundredth post, I would like to focus on a few key questions that attack various aspects of what I have experienced and learnt in the past two years. These questions are extremely important for me to attempt to answer and I hopefully will, atleast in part, as I go on. The questions may seem disjointed, but perhaps have a common set of answers.

The first, and overarching, question is:

Are there (or what could be) education systems that have (or would) worked outside the box (in contrast to what exists today) and have proved their reliability and validity in the context of today’s and future needs?

This is important to me because I need to understand if we can really envisage an alternate system of education – one more geared towards achieving a vision of a just, inclusive and humane society – than the one we have now. Not that an educational system is solely responsible for all that is wrong today, but in the sense that the educational system is an important enough component of achieving that vision.

There are many strands of thought that connect to this question, not the least being whether this disruptive change is at all required, but it is a question worthy of building an informed belief around. I would further acknowledge that perhaps this change could happen in a way that replaces a portion of the existing system.

The second question relates to the qualifications of a teacher in higher education in India. 

Do undergraduate and post-graduate teachers need a qualifying degree/diploma in educational theory, instructional design/methods and learning technology with a model of internship before they start teaching?

As I have noted before, this question puzzles me no end. I can’t understand why this is not a pre-requisite already (rather than a possible refresher down the line). School teachers require certification, but others do not? It is a different matter that existing certifications in India may perhaps need to be effectively revamped to meet today’s and future requirements.

But I think the answer to this question may have huge implications for achieving the overall vision of any educational system. In particular, it may help bring disruptive change that partially replaces the dominant paradigm.

The third question relates to the role of assessments in an increasingly collaborative world.

How does one assess learning based on principles of collaboration, free thinking and reflection?

What happens when we remove the boundaries of formal curricula, competency models and organizational metrics? This is an important gap, I believe, in connectivist thinking. I am particularly interested in this because the traditional model has an answer that can be tied directly to economic models, social aspirations, development and growth paradigms.

To build an alternative, intelligible and acceptable bridge to other parts/components of our world, we will need to answer this question. Lots of these other systems depend upon the ability of an educational system to provide these assessments to be efficient and effective.

And finally, the question:

What will it take for the change to happen?

I believe that a change is needed and that it should be disruptive change. The change has to be wrenched out and has to stand tall. What will  the drivers be? I think we need to look outside the educational system in order to assess these drivers. 

Perhaps we need to ask ourselves what the political system needs, what the justice system needs, what the economic system needs, as inputs that will help reshape their own destinies in the quest for a just, inclusive and humane society.

These are all overall questions that impact my thinking at this point. As is the fact with questions, I am sure many would share them with me. If anyone has what they think could be answers, I would greatly appreciate your stopping by!

3 Idiots: Educational Pedagogy or Fantasy

In case you didn’t know, 3 Idiots is now a record-breaking Hindi movie, that explores and exposes the educational system. As of the time of this post, it has been released worldwide and is the highest grosser in Indian cinema history (about US$68mn in 19 days and also made 43 million pounds worldwide to date).

The movie is based in a “traditional” academic setting in an engineering college, reputed for its excellence and for its no-holds-barred-excellence-is-the-most-important thing principal. The story revolves around 3 students who get to live together in the college hostel and become lasting friends. The story tries to bring to the front the problems created by a severe focus on grades and book knowledge and essentially laments the restriction of freedom of thought and reflection that has become a hallmark of the educational system. The term “idiot” is used to refer to not someone stupid but to an irrepressible free thinker who follows his heart.

It has caught the imagination of an entire nation of learners. And that fact bears important testimony to the popular perception that the academic system discourages free thinking, diversity of opinion, creativity and innovation because of it’s over emphasis on grades, bookish knowledge, competitive spirit and teacher-centricity.

The main “idiot”, played by Aamir Khan, is, in my opinion, the only idiot in the film. Born to the assistant of a rich man, he proxies all the way through engineering college for the rich man’s son. As a result, he gets to go where his interests take him, to whichever subject and teacher that excite his imagination. He is naturally inclined to be curious, his questioning ways earning him the ire of his teachers and the ridicule of his peers. But he is brilliant and ultimately emerges as a scientist with a large number of important patents to his name.

Aamir believes in free thinking, of questioning the dominant paradigm. Ultimately he converts the principal of the engineering college, who is fanatically entrenched in the “traditional” mindset, to seeing things in a different light. The movie ends with shots of Aamir in a “school” in Ladakh doing what he believes – teaching kids to let their imagination, innovation and creativity take over.

But there is a bit of demagoguery here, with no clear indication that the ideas are as revolutionary as they seem. For example, a point of discussion should be what is exactly being proposed. The movie is not clear on what or how this pedagogy and system really to be made possible. If it is argued that ultimately it is a movie and not a research project, I would argue that it is not a trifling matter given the reach and success of the movie and its ability to shape popular perception.

The applicability of these ideas and their sudden, almost inexplicable shift from a higher education setting to a school, is a little puzzling too. There is no evidence of Aamir’s school principal having the same endgame delirium as was the case with Boman Irani, who played the engineering college principal. The dynamics are very different between the two scenarios. 

Also, there is little evidence that creativity, innovation and imagination does not at all exist in the traditional system -sometimes teacher-heroes led and sometimes with an organizational focus. It then begs the question – are we talking of a change from inside the box or are we talking about something revolutionary that is at odds with tradition. I don’t see that debate happening around me. Most of the debate seems to be around how the movie has borrowed more from Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone than anything else.

Conflicting verdict at the end for me, though. It leaves me wanting for more because it was hugely entertaining. And a trifle irritable because perhaps the matter should not be trifled with.

Online Certificate Depository

Finally! Indian minister for HRD, Kapil Sibal, has announced the start of an initiative, to be completed in 2011, of pushing all academic qualifications from school to Post Graduation, to a secure, authenticated online depository. The ostensible aims are to provide electronic access, reduce the forgery of certificates and link schools and academic institutions directly to the depository. This is indeed a welcome step from many perspectives.

The initiative will spawn an entirely new set of opportunities. For example, IMS Learning Profile and IMS Reusable Competency Definitions standards could be effectively used to model the data in a standard way. Other enhancements could include things like a Learning Styles Inventory, eportfolio summaries (projects, internships data) and extending it onwards, employment information. Obviously, securely used and properly modeled, this could also provide an amazing amount of research information that will help us improve our education system as well.

This could simplify things drastically. Whether it is transferring from a school to another, seeking internship or project work, applying for a job or any other process requiring verification of these records (like maybe a visa application), a secure, signed certificate with these credentials would remove the hassle and authenticity issues at one go.

Obviously, privacy and authenticity would still be major concerns. I would not want this metadata to be turned over to a telemarketing agency, nor would I want to hire someone whose credentials are not proven (in fact there are companies offering just these verification services).

This means that an effective digital rights management programme, a registrar and an ombudsman would definitely need to be incorporated.  

Information could be personally stored and updated on student/employee ID cards as well that could connect up to the depository and be use to “swipe”  information into a form when required.

This is certainly a good initiative in a country of this scale. I would like to see some more thinking around the possible benefits and linkages that this depository could provide, maybe also track teachers and their ongoing certifications/publications as well. Kudos!

Is content king?

I have really been wanting to write about this news article ever since I saw it some time back. The company, Demand Media moved to #24 in the comScore top 50 web properties in the US, owns eHow.com, Pluck and eNom, and has succeeded in attracting 31 million unique page views in July, 2009. Since then, the October 2009 report shows them climbing to #16 with 51mn unique visitors. Interestingly, Wikimedia group sites climbed to 69mn from 62mn across these two months. Looking at the lists, we can see Fox, Ask network, answers.com etc pretty much near the top with the leaders consistently being Google, Yahoo, MS, AOL and Facebook. Twitter was somewhere in the top 100 in July, perhaps still there in October.

Structured content based sites seem to be garnering the market share at least in terms of unique visitors, well above and beyond social media sites such as Twitter. (Disclaimer: comScore doesn’t provide too much intelligence on its methodology or definitions, though, and I am not able to search-verify its accuracy on these reports.)

What interested me about Demand Media was that it’s site eHow.com is a repository of how-to (and other types of) articles contributed by users who also get paid for their contribution. They back this up with editorial teams pumping in and reviewing content as well.  Seems to be over a million pieces of content already in there with claims of being the #1 contributor to You Tube.

So, there is a structured content enterprise that is, in terms of access, somewhere in between search and social tools such as Twitter (with the notable exception of Facebook), and has a working business model.

Is this the face of how learning could possibly look in the future? Content by the community, of the community and for the community – a marketplace not overtly one – powered by advertising (and enrolments?) rather than, or in addition to, by direct trade in/collaborative interaction in learning experiences – augmented by search, exploration and collaboration tools that we know today?

2010 Predictions

It’s again the new year and time to review some of the predictions I had made for 2008 and 2009.

From my 2008 predictions:

• PLEs will be sharable - tools shall arrive on the web that shall allow entire learning experiences to be sliced and shared between users. This shall be followed by ratings on which PLE slices are great. Any learner wanting to learn about a topic will take a PLE slice of a person who the community says has mastered it and follow the learning path.

2009 was slightly better in this regard, although I still did not see many meaningful attempts at conceptualizing this kind of experience. We seem to be meandering more around technology than learning. Once that finishes, that is everyone figures out the base technology behind concepts such as informal learning, it will perhaps be time to think about PLEs and slices. Not much luck here in 2009.

• Hybrid VLE + PLE systems – LMS/VLE enterprise systems shall incorporate many social constructivism inspired features and organizations will pick up this trend.

I predicted that this will pick up in 2009 and it did. And how. Almost every major LMS vendor has integrated social collaborative learning features.

• The first classification systems to manage and search the huge amount of tagging will start to surface. Folksonomies will start getting structured in some way.

Difficult for me to find much about the progress so far in 2009. Would welcome links where I could get abreast. Space to watch. Don’t miss the bit about Powerset.

• The shift to rich Internet applications in e-learning using Flex and Silverlight among other tools, shall become a reality thus providing a boost to gaming and simulations for learning.

Silverlight, now in version 4 Beta, seems to be making solid progress. RIAStats shows a 45% hit ratio over 17mn unique browsers across 84 sites in the past 80 days which is pretty good. I have seen more and more websites start using SL.

• Learning process outsourcing will get established as a business model for small and medium companies.

Expertus seems to have made substantial progress despite the downturn. The top companies seem to be Raytheon Professional Services, Lionbridge, GeoLearning, ACS Learning Service, Adayana, RWD Technologies, General Physics, Intrepid, Expertus and Global Knowledge.

From my 2009 predictions:

• Silverlight (more so) and Flex for learning development and tools will see a significant rise

Yes, really can see that happening. In fact, I have been involved in multiple projects where this has been a requirement.

• LMS mindshare shall start being significantly impacted by Learning 2.0 solutions such as Mzinga and ELGG. As the adoption starts, enterprise measures/metrics will also start falling into place. Adoption of Learning 2.0 approaches will start in earnest in the second half of the year

Yes, sure enough there is now great momentum here. Metrics, I am not too sure about – I don’t think they have gone beyond capturing hits and comments yet.

• LPO or Learning Process Outsourcing will gain momentum in 2009

As I said, the position is not very clear on this one, atleast from my limited research so far.

• The use of the mobile as a learning platform shall see renewed interest – the start of ubiquitous learning being made possible by technological developments in the handset, services and network space

This one is more interesting. I know Nokia Life Tools initiative is making a strong concerted effort in making this happen. I have seen more impact coming in from companies like foursquare.

• The use of virtual worlds for learning will acquire more importance – if things are right, it should mark the beginning of the end for traditional virtual classrooms.

I don’t think this made much headway in 2009 from what I can see.

• Games and simulations will see an increased adoption

I certainly see some increased interest in using games and simulations. See for examples the winners in gaming and simulations for this year’s BrandonHall Awards.

For 2010, I think the following would happen:

1. Silverlight will come into prominence and we will see it taking out some, not insignificant, marketshare from Adobe Flash as a learning technology creation platform
2. LMS vendors will start differentiating themselves by adding on focus for new Learning 2.0 features, maybe advanced PLEs.
3. I am pretty sure this year we shall see some significant mobility-related advancement in learning technologies. Gaming and simulations will keep on picking up momentum, especially as companies are recovering from the downturn.

Will continue to trace LPO and Virtual Worlds, but I think they will make good sustained progress in 2010. That’s it for now. It is the start of another exciting year soon!

Reverse Search

I have a special interest in reverse searches. It has been used in many forms such as reverse looking up IP from domain name , looking up a phone number using an address etc. But I have seen a couple of examples lately that go a step further.

Straight or forward search involves entering key words or phrases and then finding an assortment of different media results – get web pages, definitions, images, videos and other resources.

Reverse search, as implemented by Google Goggles and TinEye, uses the very result of a search as an input. While Goggles lets you use a photo as an input, TinEye lets you use an image as an input to your search. I have read about similar technology for videos too somewhere.

I am pretty sure things can get complex with patterned searches – say – find videos where a speaker is addressing a large crowd and there are more than a million tweets relevant to that event and bring up the associated communities – maybe do that temporally (like Zoetrope) to see how popular a leader is over time.

What I am also interested in is, for want of a better phrase, anti-search - a mechanism whereby information finds me rather than me having to painfully enter keywords or upload symbols and sort through a large number of results (by the way that method can be and is still  a very useful way in which I learn from diverse perspectives) to get the information I need.

I am still thinking how that can happen. It would be like some gigantic personalized database which could understand my digital context and provide intelligent inputs.

I am sure there are existing agent driven architectures (and semantic web agents?) that can contribute to this. Maybe then I should also be worried about getting information overload and thereby argue for effective (network trust based) filtering mechanisms.

But perhaps, this is still not what would I mean by anti-search.  What happens in a case where I need to solve a problem? Search has become central to my problem solving ability, sometimes bypassing in no small measure whatever necessity I had to think critically & apply commonsense. Further it has become one of the most time-consuming activities in my schedule.

Anti-search would probably start by promoting critical-thinking in problem solving situations suggesting views/dimensions that could be possibly related to solving my problem. Almost certainly, the inputs to such an engine would be complex. For example, when creating a website and looking for help, I could upload a flowchart of my home page instead of, or in addition to, some key – words/images/audio/video/webpage. That way, I would set context for an intelligent agent or community or network to “feed me” information that helps me create a really good website.

That’s a thought, really. How about if I upload a business document and it not only finds me information-about, but also templates, designs, best practices, seminars, training……

I am not sure how much of this makes sense right now. But definitely something that needs more articulation from my end.

The god in Education

Am reading Neil Postman’s The End of Education. Was particularly struck by his separation of the engineering of learning from the metaphysics of learning. While the engineering of learning involves the how (the methods, techniques), the metaphysics of learning involves becoming a “different person because of something you have learned” (p. 3). The metaphysics of learning then acquires a narrative of its own.

Postman talks about gods we serve, not in the religious sense, but in the sense of images or figures that signify narratives. For example, the god of Economic Utility signifies a particular narrative – that “if you pay attention in school, and do your homework, and score well on tests, and behave yourself, you will be rewarded by a well-paying job when you are done” (p. 27). Or the god of Consumership (‘Whoever dies with the most toys, wins” (p. 33)) with the advertising on the television (and now also the social culture of the internet) becoming the biggest impact on young minds (italics: my addition). Or the god of Technology (p. 38) which we know takes on an almost all-pervasive function of a filter through which we view society and learning.

We have such gods emerging and fading out all the time. We now have the Facebook god and the Google god and the Microsoft god and the Web 2.0 /social networked learning god and the SCORM god and the WBT god and the Blended Learning god…

Postman contends that “the narratives that underlie our present conception of school do not serve us well” (p. 61) and goes only not only to present his gods but also ways to use them to provide a purpose (“end” (p. 63)) to schooling. I would generalize school to cover adult learning too in variety of contexts.

It’s wonderful reading so far. I was particularly struck by his point that “all gods are imperfect, even dangerous…a belief too strongly held, one that excludes the possibility of a tolerance for other gods, may result in psychopathic fanaticism.” (p. 11). He quotes Niels Bohr who said that “the opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement. But the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth”. We must have tolerance to accept sometimes contradictory narratives.

Social Networking – the last innovation wave

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in  Facebook makes a provocative statement in a report by New Scientist. He says:

I believe that the computer age culminated in the internet, the internet culminated in social networks, and that we’ll have to look extremely far afield for what is next…My view is that the last wave of innovation is social networks, and that after that you have to go back to the science fiction of the 1950s for what’s next.

That’s interesting. He is not negating other possible histories that advances in social networking may spawn, just that an innovation as momentous may not happen anytime soon. Not quite what Kurzweil would say, though, when he talks about singularity (“there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, real reality and virtual reality”).

Realization that the network is a crucial dimension and the accompanying technology shifts that enabled (and will continue to enhance and enable)  the impact of this realization, has been the key driver for this innovation. Perhaps the realization that we will enter “an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today” may birth new histories. Perhaps other ideas and realizations may negate Thiel’s assertions too.

I would be optimistic. The reasons are many. I think we have barely scratched the surface of the implications of the network across multiple disciplines. Much will be discovered on the way as networks evolve. And that will spawn many specializations, many new opportunities for cross disciplinary research and development.

Personalization could be one of those areas, with the network and singularity concepts contributing immensely to its evolution. For instance, in learning, if I could get exactly what I need, in the way I need and when I need to help me learn by some complex of systems, that would be effective personalization.

I would go so far as to state that this innovation is not the end, rather it is one of the first enablers towards a larger, much more fundamental change. And that change is not too distant or “far afield”.

The 21st century LMS

I recently read a report compiled by eLearning Network from their Next Generation Learning Management Event held in September, 2009. It is an interesting report.

Personalization of content is a base expectation with an element of learner’s control or choice over what she wants to learn coupled with added intelligence from the system to provide relevant content.

Access, to the degree of ubiquity, seems to also come up as a key requirement with pressure on LMS vendors to resolve user experience and tracking challenges across devices.

Search, to make content available easily, and the corresponding improvements in taxonomies, is a key requirement. So are classroom management tools.

A key shift is from the learing management system from an administrative and management function to a communications function, lowering barriers to knowledge flow within the organization.

Competency definitions and links to HR systems for a variety of tasks (such as talent development) find their way as other key requirements. Similar to the IMS standards for Reusable Competency Definitions and Learner Information Package, a need is voiced to make transcripts transferable (from organization to organization).

The report ends by stating:

At first glance this may just seem like a long wish list, but a more detailed reading demonstrates two things. Firstly, pretty much everything here is already available elsewhere in some form, and LMS vendors need to catch up with wider developments. Secondly, long development cycles and expensive development resource are not acceptable. It seems that LMS still has a key role to play for many organisations, but the terms of their engagement with vendors needs to change.

This report is interesting because it provides an insight into how the participants were trying to accomodate recent developments in social networking, talent management, Web 2.0 and technology with specific bottlenecks that they have experienced using an LMS. They are also seeing the LMS as part of a wider ecosystem with closer linkages between learning, talent development and performance. They are seeing the roles of the vendors changing to more proactive and technologically updated levels.

My personal opinion, though, is that we are flogging a dead horse. The changes we are seeing around content, personalization, search, collaboration, learning experiences, ubiquity, mobility (just to name a few), pronounce the need for LMS vendors to fundamentally re-architect their systems, not just technologically. Mere addition of social networking or Web 2.0 features does not cut any ice for me. 

A key shift in perspective could be the one from “management” to “facilitation” or from “courses” to rich “experiences” or from “common structure” to a much more delegated, learner led self organized environments.

Brandon-Hall 2009 Award!

Winning a Silver at the recently concluded Brandon-Hall 2009 Awards is something special! We were nominated along with our fantastic partners at ICICI Bank in the Best Use of Games for Learning category. Our “work of art” was a game that allows sales people to sell banking products to a set of customers. What was great was this was something built over a framework that we specially created for the bank. This framework has been leveraged to create more games and simulations since we created it.

All in all, I don’t think we could have done it without the support, vision and encouragement of the brilliant team at the bank. Kudos!

LMS and SNS

Interesting contribution and ensuing discussion from George Siemens post on the Future of Learning: LMS or SNS. Had this brief discussion not long ago on Wilko’s blog.

What has Facebook taught us? That “social connections and information sharing” is the model that will be “successful in the long run”? I am sure George is not saying that it will be the ONLY successful model there is going to be. Also,  George lets out a fear of not using a Google service, for fear of it being revoked by Google if not successful – are we to worry too?

Was also really interesting to follow Ulises Mejias’ post on the tyranny of nodes. Ulises argues that “network undermines productive forms of sociality by over-privileging the node.” That is, by focusing on the nodes, we are obscuring the spaces that lie between nodes. Context is important, the ability to make connections and explore these dark spaces is what is important.

I am forever confused, though, why discussions on tools should precede discussion on the model. The tools will follow if the model or framework is defined, should not be the other way around. Janet does point out the amazing work around social media that some vendors are putting in to their LMS systems in her reviews and the challenges they face running both in parallel in an organization.

But to get into a discussion of whether ELGG is the best way or Moodle is really it is bringing the tools before the concept. The concept is NOT fleshed out yet. We do not have a working understanding of an implementation of networked learning beyond the collaboration tools we have today, much less an appreciation of how organizations can really implement it. For example, we do not know how to reconcile or present in alternative ways the nouns and verbs of a traditional LMS (and processes).

Medium – the Massage

Reading Marshall mcLuhan’s the medium is the MASSAGE. Deep. The impact of media - the wheel as an extension of the leg, clothes as an extension of the body, electronic circuitry as an extension of the brain - has powerful impacts on the way we are.

He makes the point about “electric technology” presenting a unifying force, “recreating in us the multidimensional space orientation of the ‘primitive’” unconstrained by the dictates of the primarily visual and pushing us to become aware of the integration of time and space – “an acoustic, horizonless, boundless, olfactory space”.

“Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible.”  This is crucial to us when we think about creation of learning environments. To be able to use “multiple models for exploration – the technique of suspended judgment” is key to these environments.

We cannot approach now by looking into the rearview mirror or use new media to do old things or things the old way. We need to understand how that impacts the way we “do learning”.

Writing in 1967, mcLuhan exhorts us – “it is a matter of the greatest urgency that our educational institutions realize that we now have civil war among these environments created by media other than the printed word”.

The book, and the wonderful visualization by Quentin Fiore, is a call to action. And action it should provoke among us!

Network Analysis

This is getting to be very interesting. I was just trying to get up to speed with Graph theory and networks, ended up reading a great article by Valdis Krebs and going through other related articles.

One of the things I was able to put a finger on as I read through the mass of statistical measures on networks/graphs, was that nodes in a social network are not the same e.g. boundary spanners may be critical in a network because they connect groups of nodes, however, they may often be the limiting factor in the growth of the network itself.

I am guessing that perhaps no two neurons would ever behave in the absolutely the same way. But this is perhaps a question left for future research.

But, importantly, think of communication and knowledge flow being inhibited by many frictions. These frictions could be at the nodes or “in the pipes” and play an important role in the efficiency of the flow or the ability to make connections.

Makes me remember the game of Chinese Whispers – the entire group of people spread out in a linear chain with the leader whispering a phrase in the ear of the first person in the chain, exhorting him to repeat the same in the ear of the person next to him and so on. By the end of the chain, the message had distorted many times over!

As another example, navigating a Johari window in a group takes serious and sustained effort. It also requires subsuming many frictions and the capability of the group to be guided and facilitated.

Measuring the strength of ties is important but difficult in practice – e.g. how do you measure trust in a network, if trust fosters effective collaboration? Then again, how does one counter/accomodate human and technological sources of friction  among others while measuring strength of ties?

Networked Learning Environments

So are LMSs now part of a technology trend that is headed south? Will incorporation of Web 2.0 features make them more enticing? Will learning really become more effective if Web 2.0 happens to these LMSs? Will they start working on a networked learning SCORM advanced API soon, maybe by defining standard runtime Web 2.0 interactions with services such as Facebook and Twitter? Do we bid adieu to learning objects?

These are uncomfortable questions that must be asked. Scholar360 attempts to be one effort to move away from LMSs as we traditionally know them by keeping the social network at the core.

Let us try and visualize what would really happen if the network really was the core and learning, the process of making connections.

Firstly, the definition of what constitutes content would change. It would become highly personal. This is because it would be pieced together from every learner’s perspective from the content already available to her.

Secondly, content would generally come from connections, which is to say that each learner would share her raw or synthesised perspective with her network and those who have access to that network will learn through evaluating the content and perhaps engaging in discussion. Perhaps rather than a learning object with pre-filled content, it would become a network map of ideas and concepts peppered with individual insights. So a “course” written by an “expert” would become a “network of ideas” weaved together by a “weaver”.

Not only would it be personal, but it would also be dynamic with very little control by the “weaver” in determining the boundary or tone of the ideas, once it is “out there”.

So a new learner who “enrols in the course” (read, “decides to learn”) would, around the broad parameters of the learning experience, start building certain types of awareness.

The first awareness would be of the mass of ideas. The second would be of the people. The third would be of the technology that enables her to navigate between people and ideas. The fourth would be a growing awareness of the learning process itself.

This awareness would continue to grow through the “course”. The process of learning as mandated by the “weaver” would be a responsible contract between the learner and the ”weaver”, as would be unwritten rules of conduct in collaboration and communication in the network. Certain technological  peculiarities may also need to be learnt or adapted to.

Imagine walking down a road all times of a day and night over many different seasons. Imagine watching a kaliedoscope of people, houses, shops, all change over time. Imagine recognizing something new in the landscape that has changed since you were last there. That is how the network of ideas that the learner creates will change in response to the evolution of the learning experience that is being woven as the “course” progresses.

The weaver’s job will be to acclimatise the learner to the changing landscape, provide an understanding of the environment through initial idea networks and through an empowerment in terms of tools, technologies, processes and social conduct perhaps. It will be the learner’s job to practice and reflect.

The job of technology then transcends the social network provision or the provision of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis. Technology should now be harnessed “network” each dimension of the learning experience, to help the network really become the core.

For the weaver, technology should provide a way to negotiate the changing nature of interaction/collaboration, of the explosive network of ideas that she set the seed for, of the mechanisms for maximum impact of these ideas on learners. Not only that, it must allow for her the ability to derive a measure of her effort.

For her, the “weaver”, the experience will repeat multiple times. But each time, her network is enriched by the thought processes of her learners – past and present, so that it is never the same experience.

Technology’s greatest challenge will be this immersion into the network, both visually and conceptually. It will not be simple. Atleast not as simple as pushing Web 2.0 collaboration over a social network or inserting a social network (and tools) into a course.

NBT – Networked Based Training Solutions

NBTs, the natural evolution (in my opinion) from WBTs, are a solution worth evaluating. Let us look at NBTs from two aspects – one within a learning context and the other from outside that context.

Typical online training involves the use of self paced digital media or virtual classrooms. The major aspects are:

1. The very nature of self-paced training is that it is a solo effort at learning for the learner.
2. It is also confined, in terms of the experience it offers, to the expertise, imagination and skill of the subject matter expert, instructional designer and visual designer.
3. The course structure is fixed and typically the core learning tasks happen inside the framework itself.
4. Episodically, if designed so, there are assessment sections which then can send information to the LMS.
5. Course managers then print off reports on who did, when and how well.
6. This is sometimes backed by evaluations conducted with learners on course parameters and these are collated to report on overall effectiveness.
7. The course itself is episodic, a snapshot reflecting the state of knowledge at that time. New developments need periodic updates.

The basis of Connectivism is that learning is connection forming and knowledge really is the network. Simply put, it is the exact inverse of what is a WBT paradigm. Course becomes the ”un-Course”. And then it percolates right down to the reporting on effectiveness thus rendering the role of LMSes in the new paradigm, obsolete, especially as they relate to WBTs. So does, SCORM, more so in implementation than the actual concept.

So in an NBT,

1. The very nature of network based training is that it is a collaborative effort for all learners.
2. There are no barriers (except those that may be imposed by corporations for protection of intellectual property and confidential information), in terms of the experience an NBT offers. Learners can also bring in diverse perspectives and updated information to the learning process for the benefit of all learners. The expertise, imagination and skill of the subject matter expert, instructional designer and visual designer can form a starting point and tools exist (or should be created) that can enable learners to contribute complex media.
3. The course agenda may be fixed, but the structure may be flexible enough to allow these interactions. The core learning tasks happen inside and outside the framework.
4. Assessments undergo a change themselves. More emphasis is placed on an individual’s contribution to the network, her “ranking” and techniques for group assessment such as peer review.
5. Course Managers – the role changes to a facilitator, someone in-charge of providing and ensuring network characteristics such as diversity and autonomy, as well as facilitating inclusion and access.
6. Overall effectiveness would need to get measured very differently as a consequence. For the first time, possibly, the course manager and SMEs would need to take on-going responsibility for supporting the course and making sure the network is strong, flexible and reliable.

The nature of this debate could extend to virtual classrooms as well. Although, for the duration of the class session, there is a collection of individuals. However, the remaining characeristics remain virtually the same.

Both the WBT and  the VC (virtual classroom) are teacher-led places or “sites of instruction”. That is, a WBT is launched from an LMS (or portal) and is a direct one-way instructional experience. The VC is situated in a virtual environment, but is still a place for teacher led instructional mechanisms. This is a direct result of porting other physical experiences (live classroom, text book) to new (and enhanced) delivery formats enabled by the digital revolutions.

They should really be “sites of collaborative learning” instead with a vastly different role for the teacher. An NBT could be a learning resource that becomes a part of a site of collaborative learning. And the site could itself be a framework that allows multiple NBTs and other learning resources to seamlessly inter-operate and share each other’s data.

So imagine a “place-site” of collaborative learning where content, context and networks blend. Some have called this, or aspects of this, a Personal Learning Environment.

So what happens to WBTs or VCs. Surely organizations have spent too much effort, time and money building these to just throw them away when a new way appears. NBTs can fit the gap with an intermediate solution if there is a way that it can pull and push/share data with network aware services. Just like SCORM was build to standardize the runtime interactions, maybe we can come up with a way to integrate the network (and thereby, collaborative learning) into an existing WBT or VC so that it genuinely provides a meaningful way forward. This is the within-the-learning context.

Of course, a full fledged “place-site” of collaborative learning, would need to include both these NBTs but also WBTs, VCs and social media as well. This would be a view from outside the learning context. This site would then need to integrated with many different systems and content types. It would also start innovation in terms of new collaboration techniques, new authoring tools, network analysis and management tools and so on.

Maybe we will have a Learning Network and Content Management System (LNCMS) at some point?

Nokia Life Tools

Nokia has recently launched this service in India. Nokia Life Tools are rich iconic applications that use SMS as the backend on inexpensive (sub $50) models such as the Nokia 2323 and 2320 classic.

As Mr. D Shivakumar, Managing Director, Nokia India says,

We believe this is the beginning of a historical journey that will take mobility to grassroots and make a positive difference to the lives of people in the areas that are crucial to them.

This is an interesting development. Nokia is a leader in the India market. It has got the support of  a state government and has companies like Pearson ready to share content apart from a host of other partners. It has also first established viability and utility through prior pilots and made the service relevant. It is also affordable in that income group (Rs. 30 per month or little over half a dollar a month).

I also read about SMS Gupshup from Webaroo (Gupshup means conversation/gossip in Hindi) making waves with its tie-up with Facebook India – the core idea being that SMS could replace/augment computer access to the website seamlessly. Similar companies include Google smschannels, Vakow and myToday.

So, in principle, the social network can now go to the grassroot level without Internet access. That’s how I see it anyways. This could be the greatest advantage in the educational space. So the best kind of Learning 2.0 applications would be those with small footprints (data size) and high on sharing and connecting, especially with established social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook.

At the higher end, this could be supplemented by PC-based or smartphone-based access to richer internet educational services such as collaboration tools, learning management systems etc. for those who do have the access, even in rural or semi-urban settings.

I agree with Pradeep at watblog who is worried that voice recognition/activation is not a core feature in Life Tools. This could be a key differentiator.

I am not seeing voice as a key element in online “2.0″ conversations using the mobile phone. I am surprised because it seems like such an obvious idea. Let us say you are having a discussion with friends. In the physical space, you would share points of view around a topic with one speaking after the other (like in a discussion forum online) or in response. In a discussion forum, you would scan through and write your interjection in response to someone else’s comment etc.

Why not on the phone? It is very natural. So you could get an SMS or call that someone replied to your comment on a  topic and you could call back with your reply. Someone accessing online could seamless see your response coming in and respond through a text message or a voice one. Anybody else could replay/watch your conversation in the form of a podcast and add her own notes.

Leverage connectivity. Leverage voice. Leverage small byte sized content for learning. Leverage tools and Web 2.0 technology. Leverage new instructional models. Rethink the paradigm and come up with new thoughts. The space is dynamic and challenging and there seems to be no dearth of companies or individuals taking the plunge to cover it!

The temporal internet – Zoetrope

The vision of the web as a site of history may not be old or far-fetched. Check out the Wayback machine at www.archive.org. They even have a K-12 Web Archiving Program!

We all know that content on the web changes constantly. How do we maintain a track of that content change? How do we play back history? Zoetrope points the way.

The Web is ephemeral. Pages change frequently, and it is nearly impossible to find data or follow a link after the underlying page evolves. We present Zoetrope, a system that enables interaction with the historical Web (pages, links, and embedded data) that would otherwise be lost to time.

Zoetrope uses technology to search and analyze data in an Internet archive. The search can be on a specific section of a web page (say, for example, a news headline section on a web page).

A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words zoe, “life” and trope, “turn”. It may be taken to mean “wheel of life” or “living wheel.” (Wikipedia)

The search can be then correlated with other contemporary (to the original search) searches and a picture of the search domain at that point of time becomes available.

Of course, this picture is as fallible or accurate as the web content can be.

What does this kind of technology imply for education? There could be multiple applications. I could trace the way the world political map has evolved or how a city’s traffic system has evolved by simply playing back such images from the Zoetrope system. I could investigate multiple factors affecting a certain economic situation which occurred 20 years ago. The possibilities are enormous. The technology then becomes a guide through digital memory and the playback a conversation that the “guide” could have with a student.

Interestingly, this is the second time in a few weeks that the term “playback” has crossed boundaries for me. First it was Google Wave that played back email conversations temporally, now Zoetrope.

What would be lovely is to have digital visual immersion into the past as well (or sensory at some point!). The context for the learner would be considerably enhanced by virtualizing the past rather than reading it from a book/online or listening about it from a teacher. This in turn would create vastly more effective learning environments. (Add Project Natal and we could even “be” in that world!)

The power of this technology may also manifest itself in forecasting. When engines become powerful enough to traverse this huge database and generate many more relationships/variables hitherto unavailable in research, temporal data could be modelled to generate predictions of future behavior using time series or other advanced analyses.

Google Chrome OS

It’s nice to hear of a new operating system coming up. The central idea here is to use a lightweight Linux based kernel and the Google Chrome browser (that is built over the WebKit engine) to offer “speed, simplicity and security” to the end user.

The OS is targeted at initially at netbooks and eventually will power high end desktop systems. Of course, all applications on this OS will then be Web applications. Google Gears will be an important component for offline applications.

MS is incubating Gazelle, a possible next version of the browser. Gazelle uses Windows as the backend.

HTML 5 (“the second coming of the web”) is another standard on its way although it may take many more years from now to release. Boasting impressive capabilities and blurring the lines between online and desktop apps, some features of HTML 5 have already made its way into Firefox, Chrome and IE8. What is interesting to watch out for is that it brings 2D drawing and video capabilities to the browser, potentially threatening proprietary frameworks like Flash, Java FX and Silverlight! 

All in all, the thought that the browser be at the center of the new operating system is an interesting thought. As is the thought that browser capabilities may enhance to a point that traditional operating systems may become obsolete.

What does this augur for learning? For one, it lays the basis of a more connected world – the web at the center of the learning experience. Secondly, training developers will need to be aware of the power that these new technologies can bring on, reshaping how we create and deploy online learning today.  Thirdly, LMS/LCMS providers, if they live to see that day (sorry, could not resist taking that dig!), will need to adjust their systems to take advantage of these new standards and technologies.

If we thought Web X.0 was it, think again. These new standards and technologies have the power to reshape the Web and users’ experiences on it drastically.

On the other hand, I have written previously about the Sugar OS. This one is a different approach altogether, combining HCI with technology to achieve a new OS experience altogether. I would daresay that this is the more genuine claimant to a new operating system than Chrome OS would be.

By the way, the moniker for this blog – learnos – stands really for Learn OS – an operating system for the learner just as the standard OS today is today for the computer user. The thought is that we need something that reshapes, personalizes, connects and empowers us to learn and teach, but that something needs to be an environment by itself.

Seriously Unreal: Microsoft’s Project Natal

You have got to see this! MS is working on a new technology that promises to revolutionize the human computer interface. Project Natal is a hands-free motion sensitive controller integrated with the Xbox system. You definitely want to check out the videos – here and here.

The ability for a person to use physical movements and immersively interact with the digital medium brings a live experience to us like never before. It boggles the mind to think how much learning and training would get influenced by the availability of technology like this. Now the only thing that remains, I guess, is the fourth dimensional simulated experience (feel the cool breeze, the ground shaking under your feet, the smells of the desert)!

What is incredible is the amazingly enhanced potential for live collaboration that you should see in the videos. This simply beats everything I have seen so far in terms of the possibilities it opens up. Wow!

The Open Screen Project

I am a little ambivalent about this one – the Open Screen project. Adobe is leading this initiative along with other majors such as Nokia. Their dream is to unify and defragment our experiences with internet, devices and media by providing a “consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications”.

The runtime enviroment is one thought-out combination of device (PC, mobile phone, kiosk etc.), operating system, browser and media (read Flash) capabilities that they hope will get users “richer, more interactive, and universal user experiences across devices”. Basically cross-platform both in terms of viewing experiences and interaction possibilities (interoperability) that the new Internet engenders.

Why am I ambivalent? A $10 mn fund for developers over 2 years should perhaps be reason enough to realize the commitment of these players to the strategy. Moreover, a brief look at the supporting partners must rank as the who is who of telecom, computing and software. Not only that I saw that Adobe has committed to making AIR and Flash player open.

The response on the Silverlight side is also very interesting. Perhaps that is the reason for the ambivalence I have. I am sure there is space enough for two (or more) technologies to operate in the same space. However, this debate and struggle may result in greater defragmentation and lesser interoperability than before.

More to come…

Google Wave

Check out Google Wave. The concept is striking and ambitious. Also very relevant to what we have been talking about in terms of PLEs.

At the core, there are a few important architectural dimensions.

Firstly, content structure. A few years back I had designed an architecture for a content management system that structured out content in a tree format. Essentially blocks of content could be hierarchically structured. For example, A pre-requisite would have two child-nodes – the statement and the explanation. Or, a topic could have a note and many individual pages. Google Wave does something similar with content. It allows you to take rich media content (images plus text plus…) and mark out / embed rich media content within that content.

Imagine a conversation that happens over time. Somebody starts it. Other people respond to statements made by the initiator and the conversation starts. Wave makes it extremely easy to do that within a browser environment (reference website has been built using Google Web Toolkit, GWT). Wave also provides a mechanism to add additional attributes such as those for privacy, tags (metadata) and workflow making it extremely malleable as a data structure. Obviously, the data structure allows nesting of these complex conversations as well (wave within a wave). It also allows tempral or user based playback for a conversation for people to see how the conversation evolved if they come in late, which is extremely useful.

Secondly, collaboration is heavily focused upon. Google intends to make this open-source so that developers can build extensions to those hundreds of social collaboration tools that exist today (e.g. Orkut, Twitter and Facebook). They have showcased how a wave (a collaborative conversation) can be embedded in a blog site in an interoperable manner. Editing is a great strong feature with extremely fast instant messaging where other users can see your keystrokes as you write or as you embed content.

Thirdly, live collaboration is made possible, not only within a single wave deployment but across multiple Wave server deployments through an open protocol.

Fourthly,  live time collaboration and Wave extensions (through the Wave API) make it possible to design collaborative work or play. For example, playing chess together, editing a document collaboratively in real time (this was so cool!), running a poll with instantaneous results etc. This has real important connotations for virtual classroom environments (imagine an Adobe Connect Professional environment merged with Google Wave merged with a SABA Centra!).

For the personal learning environment (PLE), this offering from Google could eliminate countless hours of effort as well provide a rich mechanism for understanding context.

Kudos to the creators of Google Maps for whom Google Wave has been a two year effort! Here is to your enduring innovation and continued success!

UK diaries

In the UK for a few days. Cool and windy on the streets of London right about now and it can get more than a little cold at times!

eLearningAge features this early May story from Caspian Learning, Caspian Learning offers Thinking Worlds to business, that offers easy 3D based simulation authoring that blends into the LMS. Read more at the thinking worlds site.

Virtual Classroom augmentation

I have been thinking and researching about how to enhance traditional virtual classroom platforms. The obvious improvements over the years have been in standardized tools such as whiteboarding and application sharing, or in terms of modalities such as quizzes, surveys and breakout rooms, or in being able to accommodate audio, video and chat streams.

Not so obvious are the improvements in terms of providing tools to the instructor to teach a particular subject effectively. From what I have seen so far, at the content level instructors and/or students could benefit immensely from adding generic or subject specific online interaction – sort of bringing  multi-user games/simulations/interactions into the virtual classroom. Of course, traditional web/desktop applications on which teams could collaborate through application sharing and control, are still very useful in many situations.

However, what I am referring to is to bring structured and creative solutions into the virtual classroom platform itself.

An example of this could be in Sales. When it comes to selling a product, you would need to not only understand what the product is (etc) but you would also need to profile your customer needs in order to suggest the best product for her requirements. When we focus on developing this skill in a virtual classroom session using a simulation or game that multiple participants can use to profile the customer and implement sales techniques effectively, facilitated by an instructor/expert, virtual classrooms can come alive.

These augmentations could be built into the platform, but I would rather that the platform allows plug and play integration and service providers continuously build and innovate to come up with new ways of collaboration.

Obviously, this need not only be restricted to a simulation or game built using Flash or Silverlight, but could be one or more Web Services that could be integrated. These applications could leverage the virtual classroom context – users, presenters, groups, participation data etc. For example, imagine adding emoticons (I think elluminate has those) or blogs or tagging services to a virtual classroom session.

As a corollary, since many organizations like to record and store these sessions for future consumption by its learners, the same web services could be used by individual learners or formal/informal groups  to make the recording come alive, perhaps reliving the live session sans the instructor.

I believe that this kind of an augmentation is really important to consider as more and more organizations move towards the virtual delivery platforms. I would love to hear examples of other platforms that have adopted similar approaches and augmented their platforms. Please do let me know if you have come across any.

Our shame

Violence in the classroom. How many of us realize how unsafe our children are in their classrooms and schools? How many of us are still silent spectators to child sexual abuse, corporal punishment and all forms of safety violations for children going to our schools?

The recent horrifying stories of corporal punishment (15-year-old girl assaulted by teacher dies in coma, Delhi girl in coma after school punishment dies, Student abuse: School sacks teacher), sexual abuse (Teacher gets death for rape, murder of student, 10-year-old raped in MCD school) and the state of legislation/policy (Despite law, no sparing the rod, Finally, strict norms to curb child abuse, Teacher hitting child may become crime), leave me stunned.

In an environment where the child’s personal safety cannot be ensured, how can any learning happen?

Linked Data

Tim Berners-Lee’s passionate exposition on Ted Talks on linked data starts with his expression of frustration with silos of content and proprietary nature of formats 20 years back when he first started working on the idea of creating a virtual repository of documents accessible anywhere. He thinks that this time around linked data (see semantic web) is a solution around a similar frustration, this time with data. Will it be as revolutionary as the World Wide Web?

For teaching and learning, perhaps it may offer some completely new analytics. For example, who has the same or closest matching initial conditions for learning as I do when I am about to learn something new and which resources did he or she use to learn? Who teaches the way I do? Which teacher would best suit my learning preferences? If this kind of information – curricula, learner profiles, teaching methods – all could be made widely available as a linked data resource, imagine the newer applications that could be made available on the basis of these new analytics!