Product or Process? e-Learning
Blogs and listservs have been alive today with the news of BlackBoard receiving a patent for Course Management Systems and then suing D2L. I was in a network discussion with some colleagues today, and I found myself hit by a serious question about e-Learning: namely, is it a product, or is it a process? I don’t know that that question much implicates the practices of the U. S. Patent Office, but it is an important a priori question which we have to ask as we begin to look at the larger ramifications of this issue. Let me digress a bit…
When we buy a Course Management System, are we simply buying a product or committing ourselves to a practice? Those of you familiar with my mind-set know that I would argue that it is a homologous relationship—the two are so closely intertwined that to modify one is to modify the other. I began teaching online in 1994 (very secretively, and when I got caught, I got in trouble—big surprise). When the campus I teach at decided to adopt a CMS, my mind-set adjusted. I still had specific unique ideas about e-learning and how it should be done, but the CMS gave me not only a new platform, but a look at tools, ideas and practices I had not considered. Thus, when I began teaching with that tool, we had, in the Hegelian sense, a synthesis. It would be nice if that were the end point, but student performance, student suggestion, ideas from conferences, in short all of the learning I gained modified the e-learning which occurred. This has happened every semester I have taught. At the same time, individuals who created CMS’s were releasing new upgrades—hopefully from looking at the way in which people like myself delivered e-Learning, and their new versions, releases, and upgrades also changed the way I taught. There were other companies building additional tools, and new technologies, and they were shaping the course of e-learning. In short, the CMS was a very helpful addition. It was an addition, however, that got me to centralize my e-learning. I previously used multiple tools, and now looking back, I see that that may not have been the best way to move. Where the e-learning I engaged in previously was wide open and challenged the walls of classrooms and registration permits, the CMS was now restricted to a campus data-base. Makes for nice clean lines and good management from an administrative perspective, keeps workload down from a “faculty as labor” perspective, but doesn’t really contribute to the student on the learning perspective. The more contacts we build, the more people we can interact with, the more points of view we’re exposed to, the more we can learn. The CMS was a cyber version of a locked classroom.
If you know my work, you’ve heard me scream “RENOUNCE THE METAPHOR!” That statement does not mean renouncing the tenor or the vehicle, but renouncing the connection between the two. When we stop basing e-learning on brick and chalk dust, we can get to the learning that this new semiosphere is capable of. That being said, let me return to the original topic. Does Blackboard now own the teaching or learning process? (Did the prior art search neglect to find Heraclitus, Socrates, Peter Abelard, or assorted others????) If e-learning is the evolving ongoing process that I believe it is, then what point in the evolution does this patent cover? Does it only apply to late 90’s early products, is it the CMS as it stands today? (If it applies to all future discoveries, I need an episode of the Jetson’s and a patent attorney real quick! We’ll file for everything then launch a major suit against Spacely Sprockets!!!)
Putting the sarcasm aside, there are many who agree with me that the CMS and its limitations is becoming obsolete. It does a nice job in a mass production, up and running quick idea, but its course has run. We are beyond the age of the CMS and into the age of the PLE (Personalized Learning Environment). Faculty need to kick down the walls that inhibit their teaching as students need to kick down the walls that inhibit their learning, and when that happens, we will see that they kicked down the same wall, and it is the same one that separates them. Faculty should develop an e-Learning tool box; students should develop an e-Learning tool box, and what we call a course should be a community of learners driven to share ideas and common points. A true learning experience does not last 15 weeks, but continues throughout a life-time. The best courses I had as a student are still with me, not only in what I learned then, but in the questions they raised and my continuing struggle to seek answers to those questions.
In short, let them have their patent. Let them have their product. If someone patents the stoa as a place of learning, we’ll move to the plaza. I made a list of available tools on my white board. I look at it now with over 50 available tools we can support our faculty and students on. The CMS is only one. We’re already moving on, let them patent the rock we were sitting on.
When we buy a Course Management System, are we simply buying a product or committing ourselves to a practice? Those of you familiar with my mind-set know that I would argue that it is a homologous relationship—the two are so closely intertwined that to modify one is to modify the other. I began teaching online in 1994 (very secretively, and when I got caught, I got in trouble—big surprise). When the campus I teach at decided to adopt a CMS, my mind-set adjusted. I still had specific unique ideas about e-learning and how it should be done, but the CMS gave me not only a new platform, but a look at tools, ideas and practices I had not considered. Thus, when I began teaching with that tool, we had, in the Hegelian sense, a synthesis. It would be nice if that were the end point, but student performance, student suggestion, ideas from conferences, in short all of the learning I gained modified the e-learning which occurred. This has happened every semester I have taught. At the same time, individuals who created CMS’s were releasing new upgrades—hopefully from looking at the way in which people like myself delivered e-Learning, and their new versions, releases, and upgrades also changed the way I taught. There were other companies building additional tools, and new technologies, and they were shaping the course of e-learning. In short, the CMS was a very helpful addition. It was an addition, however, that got me to centralize my e-learning. I previously used multiple tools, and now looking back, I see that that may not have been the best way to move. Where the e-learning I engaged in previously was wide open and challenged the walls of classrooms and registration permits, the CMS was now restricted to a campus data-base. Makes for nice clean lines and good management from an administrative perspective, keeps workload down from a “faculty as labor” perspective, but doesn’t really contribute to the student on the learning perspective. The more contacts we build, the more people we can interact with, the more points of view we’re exposed to, the more we can learn. The CMS was a cyber version of a locked classroom.
If you know my work, you’ve heard me scream “RENOUNCE THE METAPHOR!” That statement does not mean renouncing the tenor or the vehicle, but renouncing the connection between the two. When we stop basing e-learning on brick and chalk dust, we can get to the learning that this new semiosphere is capable of. That being said, let me return to the original topic. Does Blackboard now own the teaching or learning process? (Did the prior art search neglect to find Heraclitus, Socrates, Peter Abelard, or assorted others????) If e-learning is the evolving ongoing process that I believe it is, then what point in the evolution does this patent cover? Does it only apply to late 90’s early products, is it the CMS as it stands today? (If it applies to all future discoveries, I need an episode of the Jetson’s and a patent attorney real quick! We’ll file for everything then launch a major suit against Spacely Sprockets!!!)
Putting the sarcasm aside, there are many who agree with me that the CMS and its limitations is becoming obsolete. It does a nice job in a mass production, up and running quick idea, but its course has run. We are beyond the age of the CMS and into the age of the PLE (Personalized Learning Environment). Faculty need to kick down the walls that inhibit their teaching as students need to kick down the walls that inhibit their learning, and when that happens, we will see that they kicked down the same wall, and it is the same one that separates them. Faculty should develop an e-Learning tool box; students should develop an e-Learning tool box, and what we call a course should be a community of learners driven to share ideas and common points. A true learning experience does not last 15 weeks, but continues throughout a life-time. The best courses I had as a student are still with me, not only in what I learned then, but in the questions they raised and my continuing struggle to seek answers to those questions.
In short, let them have their patent. Let them have their product. If someone patents the stoa as a place of learning, we’ll move to the plaza. I made a list of available tools on my white board. I look at it now with over 50 available tools we can support our faculty and students on. The CMS is only one. We’re already moving on, let them patent the rock we were sitting on.
posted by Bob Clougherty | 7:00 PM
1 Comments:
the classroom has been a means to an end for the last several centuries, but we've confused the menu with the meal.
just like early tv ads featured old radio announcers stating the obvious ("i'm standing next to the new ford convertable here in the showroom at smith brothers' ford." well no shit, i can see that because i can see YOU.) the earliest attempts at a digital learning environment got hung up in the metaphors, and therefore the limitations, of the methods we were comfortable with.
the best learning occures wherever minds can meet to share ideas, generate some creative synergy, and make some new discoveries. just because the traditional classroom has been the most convient method doesn't make it the best.
my own personal educational evolution has bennifited most greatly from continuing relationships. these relationships, for the most part, were forged initially in a classroom setting but quickly took root in my "real life". i think that's the particular wall you're talking about kicking down.
but, this also calls into question the whole idea of a university as we presently know it. students go to class to get a grade, if they get enough good grades, they earn a piece of paper stating that they have invested enough of their time and someone's money to quantify their worth, in an accademic sense.
so the model you see us moving towards requires a new type of student, or at least an existing type of student that is largely marginalized by the current model.
you're looking for intellectuals in a system that currently attracts and produces accademics. i know plenty of intellectuals who never bother entering "higher" ed because they are turned off by the current accademic model. so how do we get the students to embrace the new paradigm?
if the intellectuals are who we need, and they are currently a minority on our campuses, how do we mutate enough of the accademics into intellectuals so that our new model is not destined for failure (or at the very least a very rough beginning)? how do we get the word out to attract new intellectuals when we're still surrounded by the stench of accademics?
maybe the trick is to find the quality students and the quality faculty we already have at our disposal and get them together. maybe that should be a guiding principle of the ILO. the faculty is a smaller pool to pull from, so in theory that should be the easy part. attracting the quality students is what will make or break us.
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