Imagining multi-roles in Web 2.0 Distance Education

“Imagining multi-roles in Web 2.0 Distance Education” is the title of a chapter that I have written with my colleague, BJ Eib for the George Veletsianos (Ed.) book to be published in early 2010 by Athabasca University Press titled:  

Emerging Technologies in Distance Education

We have just finished this work, which was started about a year ago…. and the big questions in our minds at the beginning have grown over the past few months. Our initial premise was related to ideas from Clay Shirky, Charles Leadbeater (and others) but turned to shed some light on Web 2.o possibilities in distance education, something that BJ and I have in our lives on a daily basis. As we’re working more and more with the new tools, our excitement is growing and we see it in our colleagues and friends as well.

“Are we experts and amateurs, audience and authors, learners and educators– all at the same time? Perhaps Web 2.0 and our ‘role(s)’ in distance education are causing us to reinvent ourselves.”

I’ll certainly be using this blog to point to more information about the book (which I understand will be offered as an online book as well as in print) when it becomes available.

Us Now

“Us Now”

This video, freely avaiable at: http://www.joiningthedots.tv/main.aspx?content=761772201985

has ideas from Tapscott, Leadbeater, Shirky (and more) and it really hits the heart of why I have hope for the future.

I hope that all educators will watch this!

A bit like Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody”, “Us Now” explores technology’s role in citizen participation — allowing for collaborative concepts to be implemented in ways impossible before.  Zopa is one example –  a social network for finding lenders. And the lenders are just everyday people willing to lend small amounts (really small) for projects they believe in. Rates are negotiated and you might require several lenders but, (sort of like an online dating service) if the match is made, you’ll be able to fund your project. Any project! — it’s borrowing money from people not banks 🙂

“Us Now” has many other examples, from couch surfing to government.

Here’s a quote from the video’s web page

“we have become the authors of our own information and knowledge, sharing what we care about with others rather than merely being swayed by the latest marketing of a product or lifestyle.

Most powerfully, we’ve begun to trust each other again.”

It’s a full-length production (59 min) and it  inspires me to want to do everything possible to educate the next generation to be ready and able to use the potential of citizen participation to its fullest!

Can we model this in K-12 education? in colleges and universities? Can our learning environments be dynamically constructed with our learners and include the greater public to become engaging and collaborative places of ongoing formal and informal personalized learning, preparing citizens for their larger participatory roles in the future?

A challenge, yes — but what amazing rewards if we meet this challenge!

Why this blog?

Twitter seems to require an underlying blog so you can TinyUrl to a more complete explanation of What You Really Think. I must say that it’s a useful, thought clarifying challenge to condense big thoughts down to the 140 character tweet. And a release to then be able to have the details gushing out in another place 🙂

AND… the reason I started on Twitter at all was to see if I could follow folks who are involved in the big theme-y things that seem to define my life (of course my goal is see whether/how these might be pulled together — and to contribute to that if possible):

• education
• education as impacted by technology (social change, critical thinking, information literacy)
• the participatory web and roles of the citizen (e.g. sharing our cognitive surplus)
• peace/conflict resolution
• creativity over destructiveness
• civic responsibility/resisting unwanted influences
• the role of culture and the arts in all of the above

Some of the key thinkers are Phil Zimbardo, Clay Shirky, Charles Leadbeater, Michael Wesch, Matt Langdon, etc. (ooh, where are the women here — I guess that’s another topic — I do follow Yoko Ono and a few female educators – but they offer something different). It’s very cool who’s out there, what they’re saying, who will actually answer you back, etc.

Another place where I am having conversations along these lines is the Ning site  http://echoesfromthesquare.ning.com/ I’ve put together with my children’s book (“Echoes from the Square”) as a central organizer. But the conversations at that site are intended to be mainly on the education-for-kids side, so this blog is required for when I drift into other things.