Business and MOOCs

Jay Cross anchored a fascinating conversation on Google Hangouts recently. Thinkers and practitioners on both sides of the MOOC divide (x-MOOC and c-MOOC) such as George Siemens, Stephen Downes, Dave Cormier, Lal Jones-Bey, Jerry Michalski and Terri Griffiths came together. The purpose was to discuss how MOOCs could possibly be used by businesses.

Dave (at around 44 mins into the discussion) responded to my comment about how business regards MOOCs as being non-deterministic and thus non-reliable (the cMOOCs at least), by saying it depended upon the type of organization, really. If businesses want to survive and grow in the years to come, they must embrace uncertainty.

So let us look at what the past couple of years has taught us about online learning (or what it could be).

The first thing initiatives like Coursera have certainly taught us is that there is an audience out there that is serious about online learning and sees clear benefits from it – not just students, but also institutions. The second thing we have learnt is that this audience is global in nature (4-5% of Coursera’s 1 mn+ students are from India itself). The third, slightly implicit insight, is that this audience is ready to engage on learning that impacts them here and now. The fourth insight is that power laws are explicit here as they have been in the past, not just in online learning but elsewhere as well – so scale free networked behaviour is very visible in the interactions we see online. The fifth insight, key for many reasons, is that brands, institutional linkages and employer acceptance are external factors that have a potential to shape/alter the behaviour of the network and release both learning and commercial opportunities.

They haven’t taught us a whole lot about how to design for plasticity, resilience, reliability and growth, but that is because we have really not yet made critical breakthroughs, in any large way, on our understanding of how learning networks (and their environments) operate. This is partially the promise of learning analytics, of communities and networks of practice and the cMOOC experimentation, and partially the further development of the theory of Connectivism and the design of Connectivist environments.

So, there is an appreciation, but as I bemoaned back in 2008 in CCK08, there isn’t a direct connection between what business is looking for and what MOOCs are offering.  Dave’s response to my question seems to indicate that business needs to transform itself (to embrace uncertainty and chaos and to get away from the determinism it is so used to) to really appreciate the power of massive open learning. I think this is a tough ask because it needs some fundamental transformations in how business operates. Some, as Dave pointed out, have done it, but for the most that transformation is not on the radar. It is the same for educational institutions or the enveloping government policy, for whom it is the buzzword that they have needed to replace the existing one – ICT.

So, on the business side, as also most academic institutions and governments, the practice of MOOCs is really the practice of reframing MOOCs to situate them in current operational contexts. On the other hand it is clear that current operational contexts cannot reap the benefits of MOOCs without transforming themselves rather than the MOOCs. This is the status quo.

The two obvious ways that this status quo could end – existing businesses/academic organizations/government policy in need of transformations can transform or die and be replaced by institutions with the DNA that embraces uncertainty and chaos, or MOOCs can be marginalized or die a quick “bubble burst” death. Perhaps a not so obvious way in which both can survive needs to be determined.

I think that the way out is for business to quickly adopt cMOOCs as the underlying system of learning – as the system within which are embedded, and that governs, all “events of learning” (read traditional training courses and xMOOCs). In doing so, the notion of the “Course” in the MOOC moniker, must then be expanded beyond a single structured eventedness, to a larger “systemic” dimension.

What would that really mean? Businesses, academic organizations and government policy makers must live, breathe and eat the MOOC system by being embedded within it and treat existing traditional methods as legacy that will be replaced in future by something more meaningful. By doing so, these actors will build new practice, technology and theory, establish long staying resilient networks and become open to external influences.

In practice, the adoption of the MOOC as a system approach will resolve many things – reluctance to embrace new methods, determinism as key, inadequate training and lack of technology. As the system stabilizes, legacy or traditional xMOOCs will disappear since the system will start evidencing reliable and resilient networks and learning patterns. So today, what requires a 15 day face to face session or a certificate xMOOC program online, will simply become a pattern that the Connectivist system reinforces through certain systemic mechanisms (where that somebody to teach or that face to face experience may be one important, but not the only, factor in learning).

Even here and now, through informal learning, some of these mechanisms are at work in building great organizations and policy.

What organizations should do to adopt this system are the following things:

1. Invest in designing the system – systems with emergent (aligned) outcomes can be designed with your business goals as the context
2. Establish massive, open networks and relationships through your people
3. Invest in technology and resources that will analyze, shape and feed the growth and trajectory of these networks
4. Create networks of practice - a continuum of weak and strong ties around practice areas that may also potentially control information that is business sensitive to within a network strand. These networks will be the primary environment for learning.
5. Phase-out traditional learning events – start with the less time and mission critical events, aim for building a network that is so reliable that it meets your existing time-based and expertise-led goals (serviced by current training modes), strategically demonstrate power of the network for learning in a few business mission critical initiatives (particularly at the leadership levels)
6. Establish or conform to standards of system operation (you must look at it as you would look at any other complex system) and enshrine best practices

This, in my humble opinion, is what businesses should do with (c)MOOCs.

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E&Y Higher Education in India 2012-17 Report

I had a chance to review E&Y’s latest report – EY FICCI Higher Education Report Nov12 released at the FICCI Higher Education Summit 2012. I have reviewed their past reports here. The report leverages the UGC report, HE At a Glance Feb 2012.

Broadly, the report shows a picture of growth as a result of the capacity building in the Eleventh Five Year Plan. We now have 659 universities (152 Central, 316 State and 191 Private), 33,023 colleges (669 Central, 13,024 State, 19,930 Private) together serving 18.5 mn students. and 9,541 diploma granting institutions (no Central, 3,207 State, 9,541 Private) serving 3.3 mn students – a staggering total of 46.430 institutions and 21.7 mn students, not including the 4.2 mn students being served by 200 Open Distance Learning / Distance Education institutions (largest individual player with 1/6th the market is IGNOU). Private institutes (about 30,000) comprise 63.9% of the total HEIs and 58.9% of the enrolments. Our GER is now 17.9%, a big jump from the 12.3% reported last year.

General courses account for 2/3rds of students. Undergraduate degrees comprise 84.9% of the total. In fact, there is a dramatic decline as the degree level progresses – from 16.2 mn enrolments in UG programmes, to 2.2 mn in PG and a measly 0.1 mn in PhDs. Diplomas are sizable at 3.3 mn enrolments. Demand for professional courses (as compared to general courses),  and the number of private institutions seem to be increasing faster.

The report is centered around an analysis of the three pillars of our policy – equity, expansion and equity. It does a post mortem (rather just lists the achievements) of the 11th Five Year plan, and proceeds to list the initiatives and critical bottlenecks facing the 12th FY Plan. I would specifically like to call special attention to what is perhaps the first ever public acknowledgement of MOOCs on p29 of the report. Under the title of a meta-university initiative, the report states:

Establish meta university framework to promote inter-institutional collaboration and designing of innovative interdisciplinary programs. This framework would encourage the use of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and access to content, teaching and research support for all the members of a network.

True to style, the report looks at some key levers for enhancing the quality of India’s higher education institutions, namely merit-based student financing, internationalization of education, enabling research environment, high quality faculty, improved technology for education delivery, and employability. Collaboration between industry, academia and government is a unifying theme.

I get really anxious when I see these (like when they called them Game Changers). For example, how does merit based financing through which MIT, USA provides multiple financing methods, assured (?) placement outcomes and scholarships through alumni contributions, really enhance the quality of India’s higher education? In fact, how does taking an MIT example help us at all?

Nor does internationalization of education mean much to me. What if this became a condition for excellence? Amrita University has a tie-up with 50 international institutions – does that make it excellent. Why say MOOCs on one end at all then? Perhaps we are gearing up to internationalize the Coursera kind of MOOCs through institutional collaborations next as I have heard talk on already. But besides that, how is internationalization, as represented in the report (exchange programs, dual degrees, research collaborations) really going to help anyone except the guys who are already at the top? The same holds for “enabling research environments” – true research will happen in India when the entire system is empowered and not just when a few hundred teachers/researchers are involved.

High quality faculty – we are talking of an exemplar here – 150 teachers at ISB of which 100 are visiting faculty from abroad!!! The report also equates technology with tablets. That is a first for me, with examples given of B-schools in USA and Canada. Next in employability, there is no mention of mass employability initiatives. The same comments hold true for the examples of collaboration that they have presented.

The target enrolment by the end of the 12th plan is 35.9 mn students. The report sees critical bottlenecks. It argues for the lowering of barriers to entry by domestic and foreign players, equal opportunity to the private sector in all government programs (now that government seems to be increasing funding avenues), freedom for private players to operate, resolution of conflicting regulations for distance education (which has some valid concerns like territorial jurisdictions) etc.

The report does not see teachers (and students themselves, or edu-leaders) as key levers. It does not call out the fact that we have a crisis of educational leadership that report after report sponsored by the government has emphasized. It ignores the fact that critical bottlenecks arise out of India’s sheer diversity and scale, not from restrictions on private players. It does not mention, except in passing, that the Higher Education and Research Bill plans to cut bureaucratic paralysis, perhaps giving the system a chance to shape up. It mentions once that learner centric approaches need to be followed and teachers need to develop, but does not talk about pedagogy/education technology initiatives, nor about the critical bottlenecks in teacher education so evocatively brought out by existing reports.

In being driven by private diktat, the report pays scant attention to the real problems and needs of India’s education system. Somewhere we need to wake up and realize that the problem of capacity and the problem of the market, is not India’s issue at all. Somewhere it is our inability to accept that we do not understand the problems we face, and therefore continue to drive solutions that ill-serve our system.

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Educational Analytics Conference Session

Recently (Nov 6), I had the opportunity to convene a session at the FICCI Higher Education Summit 2012 titled Powering the Higher Education System through Information and Analytics. Please also see the pre-session page on this blog. A summary presentation is provided below.

I had a really interesting panel reflecting government and corporate interests with people like Pankaj Jalote (IIITD), H A Ranaganath (NAAC), Deepti Dutt (UIDAI) and Sudhanshu Bhushan (NUEPA) [government/education] and Milind Kamat (Ellucian), Trey Miller (RAND) and Ambrish Singh (shiksha.com), and there was huge load of audience participation.

My research for this session (co-instigated by Pawan Aggarwal at the Planning Commission and Shobha Mishra at FICCI) has been extremely rewarding. The two committee reports that I leveraged heavily were the Yash Aggarwal Report and the S Sathyam Committee Report (more recent) that summarize the progress since 1872 in how India has handled data regarding school, higher and vocational education.

The pattern that emerges is no longer surprising. A plethora of data collection & reporting initiatives working sometimes at cross-purposes, led by different government agencies and with no coordination, lack of effective leadership, incorrect/inconsistent/incomplete data coverage, no unifying taxonomies (no international alignment to standards like the UNESCO ISCED), lack of (!) analysts to analyze existing data, centre-state coordination challenges, insufficient attention paid on analytics and proposals that ask the government repeatedly to increase funding, staffing and level of centralization.

Most of all the lament that things are really broken, that previous committees have been either defunct or dysfunctional or completely ignored by planners. A similar pattern can be seen in reports that I have covered in my blog earlier (Teacher Education, Open Distance Learning).

The fact that educational data is a challenged notion in India, does not augur well for stakeholders who need transparency and accountability in the education system. The fact that, as a corollary, research on education analytics is prominently absent in the country (while the world seems beset by it), is curiously anachronistic.

It is also frightening because for us as a nation to rely on such data, ignore recent developments and plan the future of half a billion Indians is suicide. It behoves us to pay heed when people such as Sathyam remark (Sec 7.1/7.2 of the report) that they hope that their findings and recommendations will not fall by the wayside (and they indeed do).

Sudhanshu Bhushan of NUEPA, in a pre-conference discussion, stated correctly that these analytics need to be seen in the perspective of the political economy that they operate in. We agreed that it is not so much of a crisis of intellectual capacity, but that of effective leadership. On the other hand, H A Ranganath, was of the opinion that the change must come from within the system, at the level of the individual, rather than dependence on government initiative while Pankaj  Jalote made the important point that data cannot be collected, it has to be provided.

Deepti Dutt, who with UIDAI, has experienced the pains of collecting and organizing unique identification data for what is now 0.2 bn Indians, had her experience to share on large-scale data management processes. Ambrish Singh brought in special insights into what students are looking for when they compare educational options. Milind Kamat talked about how to use information as a lever to promote institutional viability, effectiveness and quality. Trey Miller talked about performance measures in the context of practices worldwide.

Madan Padaki pointed out the need for the industry/employer as a major stakeholder that needs to be factored in. Another participant from Pearl Academy raised the bar by isolating the creative tension between the tyranny of data and the power of individual intuition.

I would hope that these discussions continue, in the interest of millions of Indians who live in the hope that there is some intelligence in the way we are operating today. I also hope they result in something, some day.

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The tensions at EDGEX2012

Speakers at the EDGEX Conference debated many tensions and challenges apparent in education today.

George Siemens evocatively questioned the use of the word “disruptive” and asserted that we should call for transformation instead. Given the broad societal transitions to a networked and complex ecology, he talked about how initiatives like Coursera, Udacity and the Khan Academy provided disruptions, but did not transform education.

Forces that are working to transform education have their drivers in economic change, changing perceptions of the university systems, changes in student expectations and needs, and demographic explosion in worldwide student population. In his opinion, there are some forces that may transform education – robots, new school models, cloud computing, new assessment models, new pedagogical models like the Massive Open Online Course and distributed research & discovery networks.

Putting the focus sharply on India, and its challenges of scale, equity and quality, he said that India has perhaps the chance to break from tradition and leapfrog over many of the milestones in the evolution of the traditional educational systems worldwide. That leverage of transformative educational research, was perhaps what excited many of the international and national speakers and delegates at EDGEX.

Bringing another tension to the fore, Stephen Downes talked about Education as a Platform. Instead of focusing on content, Stephen believes that the connections should be given primacy. Knowledge is something that is grown rather than acquired or ingested. Outlining some of the current challenges with MOOCs, such as the size vs. connectedness or the bootstrapping challenge, Stephen felt that their MOOCs were insufficiently focused on connectedness.

Education as a platform would encompass thinking on the personal learning environment and giving fresh meaning to assessments and learning analytics in a networked ecology. Dave Cormier brought a similar tension while talking on embracing uncertainty, using rhizomatic learning in formal education. Dave talked about the shift from content as curriculum to community as curriculum, and how the notion of rhizomatic networks could be brought to bear on the traditional learning mechanisms.

In the conference summary session, we wrestled with another important underlying tension – that of spaces between networks. Typically we build links between nodes in a network by the virtue of which spaces between the nodes get obliterated and become invisible. By argument then, the network should really be a continuum, rather than a set of discrete nodes.

Jay Cross had expounded on how we need to democratize learning. He talked about how the education behind the gates is finally starting to converge with real life in this network era. He bemoaned the state of training in corporate America, stating “training is dead”. He was tremendously excited about the prospects of informal learning to attack the problem of scale with quality in India. In fact, the same concept came up for debate in the conference summary session again – the fact that democratization, which is education by, for and of the people, was talked of more in terms of “for the people” rather than “by” and “of”.

Jay remarked that there is no one solution (and school is probably not the one, in fact schools can be at times non-democratic). Learning is seen as a key enabler for democratization. Stephen said that commercializing learning is antithetical to democracy. Les Foltos brought up affordability in both Indian and US contexts – are we as democracies making the commitment to make education affordable at high quality. The only recourse, then as Stephen remarked, is to rethink the concept of school.

An important tension was that between order and chaos. Do we want order from chaos or chaos from order? Stephen argued that the order exists in the eye of the perceiver and that order is not inherent in chaos itself. As Les Foltos put it, the tension is between the current traditional system that is extremely ordered and discourages risk taking and systems that encourage risk taking and are inherently chaotic. Clark Quinn argued that chaos could be imbued with values and purpose in terms of design and then one must expect movements to and from chaotic states. Dave Cormier highlighted the challenge of fostering creativity in students in chaotic systems and moving away from the tyranny of assessments. Rhizomatic networks are inherently both ordered and chaotic.

The next tension was around technology availability specifically around the requirements or conditions in which the theory of Connectivism could operate. The main challenge in a developing and less developed world context is the availability of technology – technology that allows networks to really exist on the digital scale. Both George and Stephen felt that technology was a sufficient condition, but in terms of theory, not a completely necessary condition.

There were tensions exposed in our thinking of design. Is design (as we know it) dead? The fundamental tension here was that design, as we know it, is focused on creating ordered and deterministic outcomes. Can there be design around complex, adaptive systems that can allow for environments that are emergent, self-organizing and adaptive? Grainne Conole discussed the conception of design, in particular leveraging the network construct, can design today prove useful in creation of open, participatory spaces for learning.

There was another tension in terms of design in the context of scalability. Inherent in traditional systems of design is standardization and bureaucratization of design processes. Dave Cormier raised the question of how we can distribute design expertise in a way that can scale. Grainne talked about more participative and innovative methods where teachers and experts are able to use design tools and processes based on networked collaboration techniques in a manner that is very different from business process like mechanisms that institutions typically follow.

Martin Weller, who had talked about digital scholarship in an open, networked and digital world, talked about his experiences in teacher education where he talked about yet another dimension – problems with using social media and innovative design. Les Foltos talked about physical challenges that teachers face in terms of the support they need to be innovative and risk taking. They also need to apply techniques and experience success in their contexts in order for them to believe the grand visions. Stephen brought in another tension – that of over design – and believed that design should be used as a syntax to be interpreted by individuals, in a minimally prescriptive manner.

 

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EDGEX2012 – Nearly There

Less than two weeks to go for EDGEX2012!

EDGEX is conceived as a platform that would connect people with different passions for education to come together. There are plenty of disruptive things happening in education around the world and EDGEX aims to kindle some conversations within and across learning communities - whether they be organized in some way or not. Most of all, EDGEX aims at breaking the silos that exist and aims to allow discovery of shared passions and goals.

I have already talked about the speakers that are joining us, and they need no introductions! Alec Couros, Alicia Sanchez and Jon Dron could not unfortunately join us this year, but, like with Etienne Wenger, we hope there will be an EDGEX2013 where they could join the conversation.

It is the speaker list from India and their enthusiasm that gets me really excited too. There is Sahana Chattopadhyay from ThoughtWorks, who I have frequently encountered over the social web, but only got a chance to touch base with recently. I look forward to her sharing her thoughts on Communities of Practice and Community Management, as well as her experiences working and interacting with people like Jay Cross. Freeman Murray, who set up Jaaga.in, a network led approach to support and facilitate social learning paths for students, is a great discovery because he adds that layer of implementation that will manage and massage the learning network.

So many entrepreneurs will converge at EDGEX2012 including Dheeraj Prasad, from BraveNewTalent, who is building a community based platform for skill development; Rajeev Pathak from eDreams and Venudhar Bhatt from Learning Revolution, who are engaged in making learning personalized and adaptive; Girish Gopalakrishnan, from inSIRcle and Satya Prakash Ganni (who could unfortunately not come this time), from LearnSocial who are both engaged in ideas that will make a real impact on social, adaptive learning environment; Jagdish Repaswal from Mangosense, who wants to using his vision for mobile and social learning applications, to redefine learning - all people with disruptive ideas and a burning passion to make an impact.

Jatinder Singh, from Atelier, is focused on scaling simulations to enterprises, perhaps national levels and beyond through a set of ideas around frameworks and low-cost delivery mechanisms. Siddharth Banerjee, from Indusgeeks, is a great champion of virtual world based learning and play paradigms. I have had the good fortune of connecting with Rajiv Jayaraman (who unfortunately could not make it to EDGEX this year) from KnolSkape, an exciting company that is focused strongly on simulations and serious games, and to Debabrata Bagchi (of Sparsha Learning) who has come out with simulation based products for the Higher Education space, Prasad Hassan from RightCareer with his vision of building innovative game based psychometric assessments for both urban and rural students; and with Amruth BR from VitaBeans who is taking his efforts at creating behavior profiles through gaming. I would have loved to have folks like Vraj Gokhlay from TIS and Madhumita Halder from MadRat to have also been able to attend. But this gives me hope that the simulation and serious games capabilities in India are growing and there are more entrepreneurs and sponsors willing to invest time, money and effort into raising the quality of education.

Manish Upadhyay from LIQVID, who has forever engaged in being passionate about learning and technology, brings with him his experiences of building mobile, tablet based education systems for the K12 space. Anirudh Phadke’s enthusiasm in building BeyondTeaching with the slogan No teacher left behind, is at once provocative, relevant and intriguing. Surbhi Bhagat and her passion to make an impact in rural education through UnivExcellence; Rajeevnath Viswanathan from EduAlert talking about his concept of an Inclusive Learning Graph; Rajat Soni, from Eduledge with his learning platform called Eruditio; Satish Sukumar (the technology man behind EduNxt, SMU’s digital learning platform) and Shanath Kumar (who heads eLearning at SMU and is the learning guru shaping the development of EduNxt); Rajeev Menon from MeritTrac, who is forever pushing the boundaries of product development in the Assessments space are all entrepreneurs and passionate people intent on creating disruption in the way we do things in education.

Of course, Madan Padaki, my co-conspirator in creating EDGEX and the man behind the largest assessments company in India, MeritTrac, will also present his work with Head Held High, an initiative to leverage the power of education to transform lives.

A special thanks to one of our other entrepreneurs, Piyush Agrawal, who leads Aurus Networks, who with great enthusiasm offered to webcast EDGEX2012 live (details will be on the website soon). Also to Bakary Singhateh, who is coming all the way from Gambia where he researches Connectivism! The Entrepreneur Showcase on Day One of the conference will also showcase students from Manipal University, as part of MU’s Technology Business Incubation division, where Amruth and I went to learn from students what they thought would be potentially disruptive.

With over 35 speakers, the Entrepreneur Showcase, workshops on networked based learning, mobility and serious games, and plenty of opportunities to network with a diverse set of entrepreneurs, thought leaders, investors, companies and other stakeholders, EDGEX is going to be fun!

Let’s disrupt!

 

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The EDGEX2012 Primer

Over the next few weeks, as the countdown to the EDGEX Disruptive Educational Research conference to be held in New Delhi from March 12-14 begins, I hope to bring to you all news and updates about the conference and its themes.

The EDGEX 2012 Conference has been carefully and collaboratively constructed to bring cutting edge educational research to participants. There are two major themes – Learning X.O and Simulations & Serious Games. The Learning X.O theme essentially tries to synthesize the fairly amazing and disruptive research and experimentation around Connectivism, Informal Learning and Communities of Practice.

For something that I joined up in 2008 (with the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge [CCKO8] “course” led by George Siemens,Stephen Downes and Dave Cormier, featuring a unique open-ended format called the Massive Open Online Course – MOOC) to co-experiment with over 2000 people across the world, to have advanced so much and to have directly or indirectly inspired systems thinking on education (witness the Stanford AI “course” experiment and the recent announcement – MITx – by MIT) by traditional brick and mortar institutions, is no mean achievement over such a short period of time.

What makes Connectivism and all the associated themes so disruptive is just that – its potential to arm an entirely new generation of theorists, researchers and practitioners with the thought paradigm and tools to comprehend the impacts of disruptive technology, over abundant knowledge, demographic pressures and changing social relations among other important trends. Underlying it, in my own interpretation, is the tremendous principle of democratization - of education to be by, for and of the people. Though it is heavily steeped in technology, the essence of it is like “the principles behind the steam engine” as Stephen would say.

George and Stephen continue to raise the bar. Their continued work, and that of able partners and fellow researchers like Dave Cormier and Alec Couros, not only on the CCK MOOCs, but on various others, like the Critical Literacies MOOC, the EdFutures MOOC, Alec’s EC&I 831, the Change11 MOOC, the Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference, Stephen’s technology development and many other initiatives, are inspiring thousands of educators worldwide.

Etienne Wenger, with his disruptive work on Communities of Practice, is one speaker who we shall miss terribly on this platform. We did not get his availability on the dates for the conference, and would have loved to have him, so as to, at least in my mind, complete the conversation. But I am fairly sure, his intellectual presence will be felt strongly through the themes of the conference.

Quick switch to Corporate Learning and the one name that immediately comes to mind is the person responsible for really starting it all – Jay Cross. In his work with the Internet Time Alliance, Jay, along with Clark Quinn (who we are honoured to host at the conference), Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Charles Jennings and Paul Simbeck-Hampson, are redefining the boundaries of what learning can be. Their work on Learnscapes as learning ecosystems that promote complexity instead of eradicating it, is path breaking because it offers another way for us to think about how workplace learning can be transformed.

Even as this disruptive research and experimentation impacts our conception of how learning will be and how learning systems will be, the work of three of the expert researchers at EDGEX2012 - Grainne Conole, Jon Dron and Martin Weller – is of crucial significance. Grainne is researching ways in which new pedagogies and approaches to design can harness the potential of social and participatory media. Martin is investigating the implications of scholarship in a digital world. Jon is looking at learning environment design and investigating the “shapes of online socially enhanced dwellings that are most likely to lead to enhanced knowledge and, in the process, uncover some of the nature of technologies and our intimately connected cyborg relationships with them”.

Meanwhile, the other theme, Simulations and Serious Games, is really a veiled approach to unravelling how rich digital media and delivery platforms can combine to produce rich digital learning experiences. The work of Clark Quinn and Alicia Sanchez, and other speakers such as Sid Bannerjee and Jatinder Singh will lay the foundation for rethinking digital media. Clark, of course, brings in a much wider perspective – he is rethinking our conception of learning and systems for learning and is investigating models such as spaced practice, social learning, meta-learning, and distributed cognition.

Les Foltos brings in focus to teacher education and how educator communities can use peer coaching as a technique to continuously learn and evolve. Shanath Kumar, Satish Sukumar, Rajeev Menon, Manish Upadhyay and Amruth B R bring in yet more perspectives on design, content, new age assessments, semantic web, mobility and technology, thus rounding off this theme.

And this is not limited to Higher Education alone. The principles and precepts are fairly universal, although the practice and implementation will definitely vary between contexts. K12 educators will find a plethora of disruptive opportunities in the conference.

The conference has one other dimension worth noting. We are inviting startups and entrepreneurs who believe that they are contributing disruptive innovation to education. You will see some of these entrepreneurs showcase their ideas at the conference.

I am hoping this conference acts as the melting pot for disruptive research and practice and marks the start of new level of collaboration between participants.

In my mind, all this research is connected by one common theme – we are looking the ways to change the dominant paradigm, because the dominant paradigm will fail (and indeed, is failing) to achieve a vision of a meaningful and capable system of education in the face of the challenges we face today.

Particularly for countries like India, the timing of these disruptions could not be more apt. And this is where we hope your vision and expertise at the conference and around it, will pave the way for open and concerted dialogue on how we can embrace change in our society.

The website for the conference is up at http://www.edgex.in. The website features speaker bios and a set of resources to get started on the many topics that will be covered in this conference. You can also connect with us  prior to the conference through email or the links below.

• Conference Google Group  (send us an invitation request)
• Follow us on Twitter

Please do feel free to drop me a line at edgex2012@edgex.in if you are interested and I will get right back to you! We look forward to hearing from you!

Let’s disrupt!!

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Parallel Universe of Education

Thanks to Aradhana Sharma’s article by the same name in the Times of India, I got some more information on the informal/formal coaching/tuitions marketspace in India. I have always believed that this marketplace place is under-represented, specially the informal side of it.

First, some background. Coaching is an inclusive term defining academic interaction on commercial terms outside the formal school and college/university system. The Coaching industry is a parallel universe. Some formal system teachers teach less in the formal classroom, and more in this informal classroom; many times it is the same students that are being taught inside and outside. Tutors include not just professionals from education, but students, graduates, housewives with a degree etc. I would include non-academic coaching (formal and informal) within the ambit of this term. This includes sports, performing & fine arts etc. at all levels starting from children of age 2. As Aradhana says, “no stream is sacred, no area untouched”.

The marketplace is as big as the marketplace for textbooks in terms of the number of consumers. Coaching is associated with performance, accountability and adaptability. Parents are paying additional sums of money to tutors, who come home for individual attention or are located close by (for groups), because of many reasons – school educational system is less rigorous, there is peer pressure, parents have increasing less time and ability to coach their own children, teachers in school are ill-equipped or incompetent, personal attention/accountability in coaching etc.

The marketplace is, by nature, fragmented. For the more visible publicly competitive exams like the IIT, MBBS, UPSC, MBA, Law and CA entrance exams, the preference would be large established players - Career Launcher, Aakaash, FIITJEE, Rau’s - who are at the top of the pyramid and gross over INR 100 cr or USD 25 mn annually, with a pan India presence. The second level of players are also few in number, another 10-odd who gross between USD 2.5-25 mn annually.

The vast majority of coaches, however, are the ones operating in the neighbourhood (just imagine how many neighbourhoods exist in India), supplementing their main source of income or carving out spare time from other chores. Their income could range from 0-20 lakh INR or 0-50K USD annually. Not only that, there is fierce competition for students as well in a particular neighbourhood. An important aspect is the rising standard of living, which makes the coaching profession a viable and lucrative one given the poor conditions of pay in the traditional system.

This is a high level of fragmentation which should inform and impact any thinking or action in this area. I am not sure what the rural-urban spread is, but that is another really important factor.

The industry is estimated to be between 10-20,000 cr (I think this is a gross understatement) or USD 2.5-5 bn annually. We spend about USD 10 bn on the public school system annually, so these estimates are really not insignificant. The players are very adaptive – they respond quickly to changes in the formal school/college system – and know enough to adopt techniques to bring about better reliability in terms of results.

That’s one thing I would ask Aradhana to change – her conception of this universe as parallel and as shadowy/murky. It is really neither. It is a service that fulfils a need within the educational system and the teachers are no less competent than their counterparts (in fact, in many instances, they are shared resources which is an obvious conflict of interest – but that is another story).

But it cannot be parallel, since there a singular accepted assessment and certification systems in the school boards, entrance exams and university assessment frameworks. It cannot be shadowy because it does not operate under the hood – it is an accepted service, whose value is fairly well established.

Aradhana points out that this marketplace is not regulated. This has many consequences: the benefits of good regulation in terms of quality, redressal, financial schemes, quality of learning environment etc. are lost, and, there is no structured way to reach out to the coaches and help them innovate. I would add to this the loss to the government in tax revenues which could be staggering and the issues with equitable access in the coaching marketplace.

By structuring this sector, we could well eliminate our teacher shortage problem. By incorporating best practices or providing some way of merging the two operations – we could gain standardization, make existing educational system more relevant – basically improve the aspects lacking in both types of operations. For example, allowing coaches to utilize school infrastructure would improve access to students for coaches while at the same time allow better learning infrastructure/conditions for students.

There must be a way to integrate in an industry that is so large and obviously needs regulation or at least some sort of organized mentoring. The same industry could be then grown to do online tutoring for foreign students, filling in for absentee teachers, providing academic support to students, research and so many other things.

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CBSE schools to go vocational

When I wrote We don’t need no education in mid-2010, I urged:

cut down school content, start school later, end it earlier, focus on growing the mind, building teamwork and other “21st century” skills, enabling our children to become responsible and knowledgeable citizens with a global perspective, reshape the assessment tools and frameworks that we have today to evaluate richness and variety of expression in our young minds, build new avenues and focussed curricula to strategically align with what we really need, get industry to recognize vocational education on par with regular degrees – basically – give our children a break, they don’t need this education.

Little did I know that our government would move so fast in this direction with regard to the introduction of vocational education curricula in schools. Kapil Sibal, the HRD Minister, has done it with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools in India. He plans to introduce vocational curriculum from grade IX to XII (ages 15-18).

There are many possible reasons and implications of this move. Vocational education in IT and other sectors has traditionally been addressed by private sector and government schemes at largely the class 10+ or 12+ levels. With 2-4 years of vocational training at the school level, these post school training courses will become more or less obsolete.

For the employability issue that India faces with the kind of demographic dividend that we have, this will also reduce the number of students that need to be trained to become employable through these courses at the +2 level.

The language that Kapil Sibal is using also targets sectors like Automobiles, which if you look at the National Skill Development Council reports, is among the largest skill requirement sector for the next 10 years. This shows a clear alignment between different parts of the government and the hope that there is increasing cohesion among decision makers today.

That it will also be instrumental in providing students specifically from economically weaker sections (EWS) to pursue non-academic careers that result in direct employability post school, also seems part of the strategy. It is perhaps a pacifist act as well given the non-cooperative attitude of the private school system towards the Right to Education law.

But vocational training will require infrastructure provision that schools are not equipped to achieve. This will require them to invest on acquiring new set of skills and adapt to the new requirements if they want to remain affiliated to the CBSE. Like the Right to Education, this will thus, be also subject to delays and obstructions adding to the general chaos around the Right to Education Law implementation.

Some interesting possibilities may ensue. OEMs, private training companies and public vocational training bodies may be called to play a greater role in the new curriculum. The same organizations may then be better placed to exercise influence over the rest of the school curriculum and this presents great opportunities. At the same time, they would have to update their existing programs to provide a curricular path post the 4 years of vocational training and this is has its attendant problems in infrastructure provision, availability of instructors, new vocational degrees etc. 

I would have also like a bridge system for students who would want to cross-over between pure academic and vocational streams at some point of their education or work, like in Australia. This does not seem to be addressed.

But meanwhile, Mr. Sibal, please read this blog post and give in to my other demands as well !

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