Last week I put up a P2PU Strategy post over at http://info.p2pu.org/2013/01/18/the-possibility-of-punk/
And I’ve increasingly been posting things related to P2PU over there. Which puts this blog into somewhat of an identity crisis, since most of my work and writing is P2PU related these days.
Ok, I admit it. I’m also writing this here to keep Mako and the Iron Bloggers off my back. There, I said it.
Illich wrote of learning webs that provide access to people, materials and tools to support interest-driven learning. Open source software communities have demonstrated how self-organized communities of practice can function as learning webs online.
I just spent two days with some of the leading people in the MOOC space. There was much agreement about what a future of learning might look like. And there was much disagreement. We are working on a paper that summarizes the confusion.
The event helped me clarify (a little more) what I think the future of learning looks like. It looks like the web, which is to say it looks like communities of practice online. It is huge, but made up of many small communities, loosely joined. joined.
When barriers to participation fall away, the need for artificial schooling falls away. We can participate in “real” work/science/play rather than learning about it. We can be 9 years old and join a research group on Penguins at John’s Hopkins University. We can share our brain scan results and work with an army of amateurs and professionals to find the best way to treat our cancer. Imagine if we could also watch Salman Rushdie write, help a farmer plant tomatoes, or contribute to ideas for self-driving cars. None of these seem particularly impossible or out of reach.
I am not passionate about a learning future in which the world’s best experts (whatever that means) teach millions … or billions. I am interested in a future in which billions help each other and access the resources they need to increase opportunities.
I posted a long piece about analytics and the (lost) art of learning over on the P2PU blog. It is quite a personal reflection and made me think about my own personal journey, and the influence my parents’ have had on the way I think. I had originally considered posting it here, rather than the P2PU blog, but I am hoping it will have more influence on the important conversation about what we should be measuring over there.
I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback >
http://info.p2pu.org/2012/12/09/analytics-and-the-art-of-learning/
I recently downloaded Sketch, an inexpensive vector drawing tool for OSX. I was actually hoping for a pixel / photo editing tool that could replace Seashore, which is free and I appreciate the fact that it exists, but also regularly drives me crazy. So much for careful product review before purchasing.
Good news however: Sketch turns out to be incredibly well designed and user-friendly. Just one minor thing that impressed me is the fact that the Export workflow remembers the size of the export selection. It’s a small detail, but it makes a big difference. And it made me smile.
I’m interested in font design, and am hoping to use Sketch in my course on how to make a font. Some shapes I created this morning, playing with negative/positive space. I was originally playing around with the shape of the greek letter Phi, but it turned into a head.
I’ve been participating in the edtech reading group here at MIT, which brings together people from the Media Lab and CSAIL (Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence Lab). We have mainly looked at technology as a way to increase quality, efficiency, or measurability of learning – similar to a lot of the discussion in the education / technology / policy space these days.
Given that I am a visiting researcher at the Media Lab I thought it would be nice to dig into the treasure trove of past work done right here at the Lab and some of the thinkers that have influenced the way that learning happens at the Lab.
I chose two articles:
Seymour Papert, who was one of the founding academics of the Lab, published A Critique of Technocentrism in Thinking About the School of the Future in 1990. Many of his concerns and insights still apply today as hopes spiral once again that technology will save the education system, asking what the computer can do to our learning. But as Papert writes, “The question is not ‘What will the computer do to us?’ The question is ‘What will we make of the computer?’ The point is not to predict the computer future. The point is to make it.”
And reading Illich’s description of learning webs (published in 1971) I am equal part excited, because of the possibilities to build many of the things he imagined, and deflated because of the slow progress we have made towards his vision. What have we been doing in the 40 years that have passed?
I believe that no more than four — possibly even three — distinct “channels” or learning exchanges could contain all the resources needed for real learning. The child grows up in a world of things, surrounded by people who serve as models for skills and values. He finds peers who challenge him to argue, to compete, to cooperate, and to understand; and if the child is lucky, he is exposed to confrontation or criticism by an experienced elder who really cares. Things, models, peers, and elders are four resources each of which requires a different type of arrangement to ensure that everybody has ample access to it.
His challenge to us still stands: “Technology is available to develop either independence and learning or bureaucracy and teaching.” Which brings me to the title of this post. Let’s look for the the ideas that will read as fresh and insightful in 2050 as Illich sounds today, and let’s execute on bringing his vision to live with technology that didn’t exist when he wrote, rather than focus on increasing efficiency of the industrial education.
Paul Tough’s recent book “How Children Succeed” weaves together a broad body of research with stories of students, teachers, and principals to propose that there is hope for improving the disaster that is education in low-income communities. I am mostly convinced, but have been thinking a lot about the implications of his findings on my own work.
Tough finds that a set of non-cognitive skills, like grit and character, might be more important to help us succeed in life than IQ. The bad news is that traumatic experiences during early childhood can make it hard to develop these skills, which is where low-income kids have a special disadvantage. The good news is that there are ways to learn them later, unlike IQ which is pretty fixed at a relatively young age.
A lot of the research is not new, and for those working in low income communities some of the ideas might seem obvious. Traumatic family environments make it harder for kids to learn. Duh! But even if the problems may be obvious, the solutions have been elusive so far.
Tough describes the challenges, but doesn’t stop there. He argues that through a series of straight-forward interventions at home and at school, kids can develop non-cognitive skills and habits that will help them succeed in college and life. After many misguided attempts to improve education for those who need it most, Tough’s book may lead us in a better direction.
There is much in the book that rings true, based on what I have seen in the success of Ikamva Youth in South Africa. At Ikamva, young university graduates, who come from townships, tutor the next generation of high-school learners and help them enter and succeed in college. The academic support is important, but more important is the ability to imagine a better future, and seeing a clear path that leads there through committed hard work.
What is success?
The book mainly defines success as completing a college degree. A college degree is an ambitious goal for kids in low-income communities, and college degrees are correlated with better health, higher income, and other positive outcomes. Yet somehow, developing the character skills that help us graduate from college, doesn’t really seem enough. What about creativity, the arts, sparks of invention, or ethics that form our moral compass?
I feel ambivalent about bringing this up. Because, when I read about the aspirations of some of the kids in the book – being able to get a job, renting a flat, providing a safe space for siblings to grow up – my arguments why a college degree might not be enough sound hypocritical. I have a degree, and it has made it easier to take for granted things that these kids aspire to, like a job, a flat, and a safe space to life (I also have a pretty impressive track-record of academic dead-ends, but that’s for another blog post).
That path we travel to get a degree will often include steps that spark our curiosity, help us develop grit, and bring mentors and role models into our lives. Those are the things that count and I would have enjoyed Paul Tough unpack what’s in the degree a little more – maybe in his next book?
Beyond grit
Most conversations I have had about the book ended up returning to grit and conscientiousness, because it comes as such a surprise that those are the skills that determine success and not IQ. It worries me that some readers may hone in on grit as the *only* solution. I believe that grit can be a big part of the solution, but it is not enough (and I don’t think Paul Tough suggests it is enough).
Tough’s stories of kids who beat the odds are not just about grit. There is something special about the relationships that they have been able to form with mentors, be they parents, other family members, or teachers. Adults approached them with empathy and a true commitment to helping. As a result these kids received the feedback, the critique and the encouragement that they needed. It’s not grit itself that the book focuses on, but the structures and environments we have to create, to enable kids to develop their sense of grit.
Relating the book to my work
Peer 2 Peer University starts with an interest or a passion to learn something. It operates outside of many of the traditional carrot or stick mechanisms of formal education. And the Lifelong Kindergarten Group where I am visiting has a great track record or creating environments for creative and interest-driven learning. Real-world spaces like the computer clubhouses or the computing environment Scratch allow kids (of all ages) to build, tinker, make mistakes, and to learn from their mistakes. Developing grit hasn’t been an explicit goal of P2PU or these LLK projects, but I don’t think that means it isn’t there. In fact, I think kids and adults who follow their passions and interest, and operate in spaces that allow them create things, often develop extreme persistence. We just don’t think about grit when we are spending our evenings and weekends trying to solve a problem we deeply care about. We call it grit if it’s something we’d rather not do.
I was surprised however that in the book, chess turned out to be an example of something that kids seemed to find such passion for. One wouldn’t think of chess as very high on the list of interests of teenagers (especially in low-income communities). I’d be curious to find out more about this example – is it possible that the school created such a strong culture around its chess program (think football program at a major state college) that the kids were passionate about chess coming into the program, or was there an onboarding process that helped kids discover a passion for chess they may not have known they had? What is that spark – that ignites a passion for learning?
Fairly harsh critical feedback (coupled with the encouragement to try again) was described as one of the reasons for the success of the chess project. Translating this type of critique into online environments, or more creative learning environments is a challenge we are working on at P2PU. In the case of the chess project, there was a deep sense of trust that was developed over a period of time. On the foundation of that trust and empathy, even hard criticism was accepted and constructive. In online environments we lack many of the clues that signal empathy, and it’s harder and takes longer to develop trust. That’s one reason why we often focus on positive and supportive feedback, to help new users develop the confidence to take the next step. At what point does this approach fall short, and the positive feedback actually limits what students will push themselves to achieve?
There was one thing I found truly annoying about the book. While its main focus was on students from low-income communities, it occasionally detoured into the world of posh private schools. The argument was that even there, students sometimes don’t develop the important skills they need to live fulfilled lives. So what? I couldn’t really get myself to care about the rich privileged students who didn’t have enough opportunities to fail. If that drives them into boring careers in banking and law, so be it.
Acknowledgement – Almost nothing in here is just mine. Thanks go to the great folks in the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab whose ideas got all meshed up in my head. This blog post is a great example why the world will be easier (and maybe better) once Nate Mathias has figured out a way to make acknowledgement work on the web.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the Shuttleworth fellowship is gold-dust for people interested in starting a venture at the cross-section of technology, learning, and “open”. Word seems to have gotten around and I frequently get asked for advice on how to apply, what “they” are looking for, and any other tips. I am a fan of the model, and I am happy to help others apply.
Here are some general tips that I personally think are useful (but I can’t guarantee they work for everyone, and you should definitely check in with the Foundation early on – see tip 1):
Speak to the Foundation early on. Most proposal or application processes work like a black box. You submit a proposal that is some mix of what you want to do and what you think will get funding and then you wait. I recommend the opposite approach for the fellowship application. Spend some (but not too much) time to review the guidelines on the website and check out other fellows’ projects to make sure your idea broadly fits. Then ask one of the existing fellows for an introduction to the foundation or email fellowship@shuttleworthfoundation.org to set up an initial conversation. If possible I would do that on the phone because it gives you more flexibility to try out a couple of ideas, ask questions.
Treat the foundation like a partner, not like a funder. The trick is to get the foundation interested in “building this together” not in “giving you money”. All the fellows understand that they are facing big challenges and they operate with a high level of uncertainty. Sharing some of your big questions is a great way to get the foundation involved in answering them. If you don’t have any questions, and you have it all figured out already, you probably don’t need the fellowship.
Build something. There are lots of interesting research questions. There are lots of interesting experiments. There are better places to do research and experiments. What the fellowship is fantastic at is helping you “build/start” something. You’ve got a big idea, you’ve played around with it enough to know that it has legs, but you need time and some seed-funding to prove it out and lay the foundation for scaling: apply!
Let your passion show. When you record your application video, don’t forget to bring your passion. When we explain our work we often focus on the problems we are solving, the strategies we implement, the progress we hope to make. Those are all super important, but in my opinion, what swings it, is often the person behind the idea. And there is nothing as convincing as excitement and passion.
Commit! In eggs with bacon, the chicken is invested, the pig is committed. The fellowship is great for people who cannot not work on their idea. It is not the best model to create the first spark, but an awesome mix of fire-starter and lighter-fuel.
How the money works. Almost nobody seems to understand how the funding actually works. It’s unique and brilliant, like VC funding for social projects. You get an amount X (let’s say 50,000 USD) that is designed to roughly cover your life expenses so you don’t get distracted by another job. From that money, you can choose to reinvest some funds into your project. Your investment is multiplied by the foundation at a factor of 10, 15 (if you invest above a certain amount) or 20 (for collaborations with other fellows). So, if you put 5,000 USD back, your income goes down to 45,000 USD but you get 50,000 in project funds (5,000 * 10) to hire someone, organize a workshop or use in other ways to build your project.
Hope this is useful. Feel free to drop me a note anytime. Always happy to help bring more awesome people into this fellowship (better fellows make me and the other alumni look smarter). Also, feel free to leave questions below and I’ll try to answer them here for everyone.
Failure drives learning. Or rather, debugging drives learning. Not getting it right the first time, making strategic changes, and observing their outcome lets us learn. This is all second nature to engineers, artists, and poets, but it is the complete opposite of how most of education works.
The path is more important than the destination. If learners are told that getting it right is the only outcome that counts, they won’t experiment. And they won’t learn. It is worth redefining the destination of learning and trying to explain what we hope learners will take away from a course. But it is more important to create the space for creativity, exploration, and collaboration that allows them to do things we didn’t expect.
What would a fail-safe learning environment look like?
Stakes are high, but not too high. Learners need to have a stake in their learning. Having a stake means getting frustrated when things go wrong. But the stakes should never be too high, failure in learning should never be catastrophic. It’s important to know when something didn’t work. Having to face mistakes can be frustrating. But it’s not frustrating if each mistake is seen as a small step towards success.
Tinkering encouraged. There are no “no U turn” signs. Good problems don’t have one right answer, but multiple solutions. Fail-safe environments celebrate experimentation as long as it is reflective. Getting it right is secondary. Understanding what went wrong is key.
Fast useful feedback. Feedback needs to be fast, so that we know when things are going wrong while we are doing them. And it needs to be useful so that we can identify different, more successful strategies for the next experiment. How do learners know if they are making progress if there is no feedback and opportunity to revise, improve, iterate?
And here is the crux with MOOCs. MOOCs are too big to support individual constructive failures. The moments that my colleague Natalie refers to as “flopportunities”. MOOCs require a focus on “right” answers, because dealing with ambiguity is hard at the 10,000 user level (let alone the 100,000 user level). This is why in our Mechanical MOOC experiment we added small groups and hope that they provide a safer space to ask questions and get things wrong. And who celebrate effort and experiments over final results.
And the same is true at the institutional level. Many of the early stage MOOC projects build sophisticated platforms, invest large amounts of money in content development, and are basically trying to take over the world. That approach doesn’t leave much space for experimentation, for failing constructively, and for letting more people participate in finding lots of different good models.
In a culture obsessed with “winning” and “success” it can be hard to accept that failure is what drives learning. But as Shimon Schocken said in his TED talk, “grading takes away all of the fun from failing … and a huge part of education is failing”.
There is a lot of noise about badges at the moment with opinions ranging from “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges” to “badges will lead to global peace.” I have been one of the original instigators (PDF) of the badges for learning movement (is it really a movement?), but my favorite session at the recent DML conference was Mitch Resnick’s panel “Are badges the answer” which looked at the wide range of factors that motivate learning and discussed possible negative effects that badges could have on motivation.
Here is my nutshell summary of the panel:
Research suggests that introducing an extrinsic reward (in the form of a badge) will decrease existing intrinsic motivation. We also know and understand that many other factors can provide intrinsic motivation for learning. In order to avoid lowering participants’ desire to learn, we should therefor focus on understanding and increasing the development of the intrinsic motivation and refrain from introducing extrinsic rewards.
I am glad to see people like Mitch and his panelists add their thoughtful voices to the conversation. He is right that there is a risk that we get badges wrong. And he is right that the hype around badges may lead to the development of poorly designed badge systems that will at best not improve learning, and at worst hinder it.
But I believe that there is more to badges than their role in motivating learning. And that through careful design choices we can try to avoid the negative impacts he describes. After all that’s what his team at Scratch is already doing – experimenting with aspects of rewards that are not that different from badges, such as showing points for discussion forum participation and counting remixes.
The issue is not, “badges or no badges” The issue is how we can design badge systems that foster great learning practices. We will learn a lot more about how these systems work in the next year as the DML badge competition projects kick into implementation, but for now I would suggest two simple design principles to get us started in the right direction:
1 – Use badges to define roles rather than as rewards. In many learning communities users take different roles. Mitch actually mentions the importance of taking roles within a community like Scratch, but he sees roles as separate from badges. I believe that by recognizing roles – for example a mentor role – through a badge will signal to a new members of the community that mentorship is a valued practice within the community, and helps them identify those who can help with problems and questions. And finally it may encourage users to strive to become mentors themselves. So rather than give badges as rewards they can help diffuse awareness of roles within a community.
2 – Anchor badges within community. The relationship between issuer and recipients will influence perceptions and expectations around badges. Badges that are woven into the fabric of a community of learning will be perceived less as extrinsic motivators, but as representation of core practices within the community. When the badge recipient feels ownership of the design of the badge, because she fully considers herself a member of the community that defines and issues the badge, the badge can provide an effective marker of learning pathways that help the learner to orientate herself within the landscape, and can act as a marker and pointer for new members of the community following in her steps.
For those who’ve been here before you know that I have been fortunate to hold a Shuttleworth Fellowship. One of the (very reasonable) expectations to fellows is to share progress on a quarterly basis. I like to use these occasions to step back and reflect but I’m on the conference circuit (went from DML straight to SXSWedu and then SXSWInteractive) and will do the reflecting after I get back to Cape Town. A slightly shorter than usual report below:
Community – The P2PU workshop is a highlight of my year and 2011 was no different. We returned to Berlin and a smaller sized group (more similar to 2009) and it was amazing how much we got done. We also dug into the idea of P2PU as a lab and what that means and I am building on those early discussions in my preparation for the April board meeting where I will present the lab strategy to the board. I can’t stress enough the importance of a vibrant community and I love seeing new things pop up that are driven by community members. More non-English courses were added including two in Dutch and Webmaking challenges in Spanish. Poets are learning to hack. And our science friends are recruiting more citizen scientists.
Team – I continue to spend a fair amount of time trying to find, hire, and keep amazing people. So far i’d say it’s been successful and I completely love working as part of this awesome team – and learning new things from them everyday. One of the areas where we were a little under staffed is development and I am happy that we are about to add a full-time software developer to work with Zuzel. Lack of development resources has been a challenge and this will go a long way to addressing that issue. Another realization I’ve had during the last few months is around the importance of a learning position. Chloe Varelidi has been working with us on badges, assessments, and overall learning design and having someone with her background as part of the team made a huge difference. But she came on board as a consultant and we realized that we really need someone to build out a full-time and long-term position around “lead” and grow it into a core pillars of our work. I’ll write more about what that means shortly.
Platform – John has been doing a great job refining our product development pipeline. On this trello board you can see the development projects that are underway. We try to scope things into manageable chunks (2 weeks development time roughly) and eerything goes through a community review process. But we’ve set it up in a way that still let’s us get a lot of great input and feedback, but still move fast and not get bogged down in endless discussion. Some of the things we’ve rolled out in the last months are v2 of the learning challenge model, better badge issuing support, and a redesigned user profile. Much of this work was kick-started at the Berlin workshop.
Schools – The new schools are not quite ready for sign-ups yet, but School of Data (an initiative we are working on with Open Knowledge Foundation, run by another Shuttleworth Fellow) made a big splash and we are getting close to launching the School of Open together with Creative Commons soon. And School of Ed, a project with HUGE potential, launched its second round of courses.
Party Time – We continue to be excited by the “learning challenges” model to online learning. So much so that we first had an online party that was BYOW (bring your own challenge) and are about to go all real-world. If you are in London this weekend - come and hang out with Chloe and Bekka and make a learning challenge. A few good example challenges to get your toes wet are these, this one, or the one over here (Webmaking 101, DIY U, and Writing for the Web respectively).
