Seth Godin, in his book, Lynchpin, notes how the country of France made a conscious effort to not follow the factory model that was present in the industrial revolution, particularly in England. They focused on the refinement of handcrafted goods which are of the most desirable sort, even today (p. 64). Godin also notes how today’s education system trains us to be cogs in the machine, to be part of the factory system as replaceable and non unique as possible to make us simply one of the interchangeable parts.

I agree with everything Godin writes about this particular subject, though there is one logical extension of his writing on which I would like to expand. Not only does the education system of today perpetuate this factory ideal, the education system itself has developed this factory mentality to such an extent that any choice or attempt to create great, unique learning is squashed by the factory system.

It is easy to recognize how the modern educational system in the United States is like a factory. Student enter in grade K and are passed along the educational conveyor belt gathering the parts of an education along the way. At certain points along the conveyor belt, literacy is added,  and some math and maybe a little more of on or another depending on the day of the belt, but generally everyone gets the same amount as the preceding and following student. The conveyor belt stops somewhere around the students 18th birthday and the student walks and talks and functions just as her educational instructors designed.

Somewhere along the line, a teacher, fed up with this factory system attempted to educate this student with a unique piece of instruction, a hand crafted instruction, if you will. But the system shuns such ideas. The hand crafted lesson doesn’t conform to the scripted curriculum or the students IEP or the states standard of learning. And it most certainly doesn’t appear on the federally mandated end of grade testing syllabus!

So what we are left with is just the factory, plugging along making parts for itself without regard to any other ideas.

It is time to start hand crafting education again.

Its evaluation time here at eGagne. What does it mean to evaluate something? Why do we evaluate anything?

It seems to me that the heart of any educational endeavor is the evaluation phase, either pre- or post-. When designing lessons, the key component is evaluating what you want learners to know — the design of the curricula takes care of itself,as if by rote if the evaluation has properly occurred. Post evaluations determine the effectiveness of the learning outcome. Did it work? Again, at the heart of the matter.

Initially, I was hesitant about all of this evaluation, on both sides– it seemed boring and monotonous– but now I understand that it is the KEY component in ID as well as many other things in life…

I now know this; do you?

So after many years of email, I have come to a conclusion: It takes too long to type. I find that as we progress in technology we sometimes move backward in progress as we forget about previous technologies. Case in point: the telephone. How many times have you written an email that takes five minutes to explain something that could have been solved with  phone call? Why do we not pick up the telephone anymore? What makes us sit in front of the computer and  “hide” from our students and colleagues? It may be that we simply don’t want to be bothered ,but it may be just a habit that we can easily break.

I resolve, and you should too, to use the telephone more often. It is simpler and quicker than email. Its a great technology, why don’t you give it a try?

The much-hyped Apple iPad was announced today by the professorial, Steve Jobs. While it will be scrutinized on every level well before its release to well after, I would like to say this: education will e changed forever. Having a multi-touch table will enable the creation of interactive textbooks like never before. Don’t imagine the iPad as a teacher killer. Think of it as a textbook killer.

Who really wants to lug 3 science texts around campus? Which is better, reading about your astronomy assignment, attending lecture and then seeing the stars at night through a telescope one at a time or having an interactive text which would allow you to do it all and use the lecture and lab as a clarification session, rather than a learning one?

Imagine reading a Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette, deciding that you are tired of reading, hit a key and have it performed at your fingertips — the way it was intended. Then when you are not quite sure what is happening (after all you are a ninth grader in high school) you can touch another button and a summary of the section is presented to you by scholars of the subject.

Interested in art? Take a visual tour of the Musee D’Orsay with your classmates in an interactive classroom.

Education developers have never had the tools as they do here. They have never been able to bridge hyperlinking texts and education. It has been used increasingly, but never with the success that could be imagined. The iPad and the SDK tools that Apple has provided has changed all of this.

Textbooks will become an electronic medium, with differentiated instruction, levels of difficulty, remediation, expert analysis through video and podcasts (down-loadable to your iPhone of course) and interactive chapters and markers.

All we have to do is build it.

Ben

So, I have had a bit of a lay off, after the summer break. I have been spending my time building and rebuilding and starting over creating website in order to hone my web skills. Unfortunately, much econtent is not very good looking.
After having watched numerous DVD supplements that come with textbooks I have decided that learners get bored not from the content, but simply from the production value! Much of these supplements, whether they be online in some form or a DVD are simply horrible. I think as a community, we have to strive to fight this… it will be the first step in creating great econtent. It is simply too important to ignore.

Animoto Time!

I just tried my hand at Animoto to create this promotional short for UNC Wilmington. I found the process extremely easy considering what you get in return. I wish there was the option for advanced users so you could tweak some timing adjustments, length of the shot shown, zoom factor on pictures and the like. But considering all that you have to do is upload and order pictures the result is incredible! let me know what you think!

Ben

Hello elearning community,

So I have been spending a great deal of time analyzing a course with John Keller’s ARCS model Handbook. While it has been both informative and interesting, my question has to be posed: When designing courses for elearning, how much analysis is involved in terms of analytical tools that are applied and how much time is spent making the course “look cool” with various software programs? Certainly both would see much attention in a perfect world, but it seems to me that elearning designers always have TONS of work to do, (since no one else can understand what they are doing:).

But does great interactive multimedia trump instructional design?

So, it has been motivation time in my learning career. But what has been neglected is motivation in the online environment. I am sure that many of the principles involved in traditional instruction is applicable in a n online environment but what principles are not? What extras are out there in an online environment?

It seems to me that it is easier to motivate in an online environment with the multitude of visual arrays that can be implemented. There is still the ooh and aah factor involved online. THAT can be a powerful motivating force. Certainly it is easy to capture Gagne’s first factor of attention!

I dare say that professor Keller and his ARCS model would similarly approve.

Any thoughts?

Here in my little bit of cyberspace, I am hope to lead you on my voyage of elearning discovery. Throughout my journey, I will post ideas, thoughts learning module and everything else that matters to my education. I hope you enjoy and follow along!