(2008-12-07) Pesce Liquid Learning

Mark Pesce on "Fluid Learning" (Network Of Learning based on the Network Economy).

This one site (RateMyProfessors) has undone all of the neat work of tenure boards and department chairs throughout the entire world of academia (College Education). A bad lecturer is no longer a department's private little secret, but publicly available information. And a great lecturer is no longer a carefully hoarded treasure, but a hot commodity on a very public market. The instructors with the highest ratings on RateMyProfessors.com find themselves in demand, receiving outstanding offers (with tenure) from other universities. All of this plotting, which used to be hidden from view, is now fully revealed. The battle for control over who stands in front of the classroom has now been decisively lost by the administration in favor of the students... This rating system serves as an archetype for what it is about to happen to education in general. If we are smart enough, we can learn a lesson here and now that we will eventually learn - rather more expensively - if we wait. The lesson is simple: control is over. This is not about control anymore. This is about finding a way to survive and thrive in chaos.

Why not create a new kind of "OpenUniversity", a website that offers nothing but the kinds of scheduling and coordination tools students might need to organize their own courses?... In this near future world, students are the administrators. All of the administrative functions have been "pushed down" into a substrate of software. Education has evolved into something like a marketplace, where instructors "bid" to work with students... In any case, this does not look much like the educational institution of the 20th century - though it does look quite a bit like the university of the 13th century, where students would find and hire instructors to teach them subjects.

Recommendation #1: Capture Everything. I am constantly amazed that we simply do not record almost everything that occurs in public forums as a matter of course.

Recommendation #2: Share Everything. These resources are your calling card, these resources are your recruiting tool.

Recommendation #3: Open Everything. There is no off-the-shelf tool (Educational Technology) that is perfectly equipped for every situation. Each tool tries to shoehorn an infinity of possibilities into a rather limited palette. Rather than going for a commercial solution, I would advise you to look at the Open Source solutions... Given the extraordinary pressures education will be under over the next few years, openness is a necessary component of flexibility... Openness is also about achieving a certain level of device-independence. Education happens everywhere (Mobile), not just with your nose down in a book, or stuck into a computer screen.

Recommendation #4: Only Connect. Students must be free to connect with instructors, almost at whim. This becomes difficult for instructors to manage, but it is vital... Finally, students must be free to (and encouraged to) connect with their peers. Part of the reason we worry about lecturers being overburdened by all this connectivity is because we have yet to realize that this is a multi-lateral, multi-way affair. It's not as though all questions and issues immediately rise to the instructor's attention.

Update: he notes that RateMyProfessors needs to get more granular to Rate My Lecture (Product Review, Learning Object).