Sometimes a meme on the web gets caught in reverb and bounces around for weeks, inflating its importance beyond all reason. The web amplifies gossip. Check out the blogrolls of Übloggers, and you will note that they all read each other. Clay writes something, Doc comments on it, Dave chimes in, Ross links to it, Jon gives the tech angle, David finds the philosophical side and a joke, Barlow may notice it, Rubell will publicize it, Joel will critique it, Seth will market it, and so on until it has been blogged into the ground. You read the same story a dozen times. Eventually it shows up in the New York Times and, six months later, in Fortune. The A-list blogosphere is an immense echo chamber.
The training and development world sometimes suffers the same narrowmindedness. Seven years after a few of us said “the e doesn’t matter,” people still get up on stage and repeat it as if they were saying something. Learning objects (it’s pronounced ob ject’) are still au courant in some circles.
Thinking independently takes getting out of the mainstream to examine what real people (as opposed to presenters) are talking about out in the country. As John Seely Brown has said, to look ahead, begin by looking to both sides. Cultivate non-traditional sources.
In that spirt, I commend to you The Distance, the newsletter of the ADETA, the Alberta Distance Education and Training Association. Look at the Spring issue. It’s more than 30 pages long! First up with George Siemens’ A Learning Theory for a Digital Age, followed by a bevy of how-to articles.
Disclosure: I am biased. On page two, editor Camille Jensen writes,
Through the month of March, I had the privilege of joining a group of instructional designers, educators, and learning managers in a online session to explore the new Web 2.0 technologies. The Unworkshop was hosted by informal learning expert, Jay Cross. We met synchronously twice weekly and asynchronously for three weeks. Together we explored the wows and woes of all things Web 2.0. I made many new friends on my Web 2.0 adventure. Several of them have been generous enough to share their experiences, expertise, and knowledge with us in this issue.
George Siemens’ paper on Connectivity anchors this issue. Harold Jarche writes of learning flows and provides a list of Web 2.0 learning technologies. Dave Ferguson describes situations where job aids fare better than teaching, with specific examples. Travis Seaman reflects on ePortfolios. There’s even a tiny rant from yours truly.
Dues for annual membership in ADETA are $40/year (Canadian). Want to get published? Email the editor.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Following up on your comment that educational blogging is a giant echo chamber, it is interesting to ask where the noise is coming from. I clicked on all the individual blogs starting with A to D on Stephen Downes’ RSS list, and, if there was a picture, I saved it. It turns out that out of 22 pictures, only one was of a woman, and the rest were all middle aged white guys, with about half having substantial visible facial hair (like you and me). So, my question is: Given that almost all the educational blogs are about a NEW vision for education/training/learning, why is this demographic so interested in promoting disruptive practices in this sector?
My theory is that this is one of the few arenas that middle-aged white guys can play in as prophets and protestors without being seen as oppressors. What do you think?
An interesting theory, but it might just be that the middle-aged white guys are blogging while the gals are meeting somewhere else on the web or in person. Stephen’s RSS list is hardly a random sample, seeing how it is self-selected and run by yet another guy with a beard.
My consciousness was raised not long ago about the paupacity of women speakers (other than Esther, Kim, and Margaret) at high-tech events.
Gotta think about this.