[Xmca-l] Re: A new-ish learning platform that may be a way to save adjuncts?

Thu Mar 22 22:31:09 PDT 2018

Hello skeptics and venerable others,

Advocating for ignorance is one thing, but let's not get up on our high horses, shall we?

It is really easy for people to dismiss changing paradigms, and then the tide comes in and increases to a depth where one is caught unawares. I would say this is the moment you might be paying attention and watching what is happening and make your own connections. This is the only reason I made the post.

Namely: make your own connections. Play with the tools, see what they can and cannot do. Study them. Improve them. Discuss their merits and their shortcomings. But be involved!

Thomas Edison once thought that motion pictures would end the traditional forms of teaching and instruction, and he ended up being wrong, but there is something that enriched learning by having media like film available to classroom instruction. Or just being exposed to worldviews through the eyes of another.

If you do not mind, I would push back to the push back that we actually do know how to make learning happen on these platforms, and we are learning what works and what doesn't. People have been doing that for a long while now. It's likely different. I never said it was the same or better. I don't need a degree to sort out that this isn't the same as a core college-lecture-hall-delivered course, or a tutorial with a one-on-on tutor, or anything on that spectrum.

I do not see it replacing classroom teaching, like Edison did; I see it as *different*. That's all. Offering learning in a different package. There is no one way of learning.

Here's the thing: For real niche classes it's possible to create innovative coursework because the constraints are simply not there.

(For example check out GCAS)

see: <https://thegcas.org/> https://thegcas.org/welcome

They have Alain Bardieu as their university president.

https://thegcas.org/alain-badiou

The founder is Creston Davis:

https://thegcas.org/creston-davis

This online university is a very intriguing innovation because they are starting centers all over the world. The online presence is a way of connecting them together.

They have also begun a new concept called a blockchain university:

"GCAS is forming a Blockchain University in Ireland so students can earn money pursuing their degrees and when they graduate they become co-owners."

These are great ideas! Will they work? I don't know. But can't you admire these innovators for trying to get out from under the neoliberal yoke that has dominated so many universities?

I want to make clear that I'm not saying this is the ultimate bread-slicer. I'm saying here is evidence of people putting their careers on the line and making something happen, and trying to do something else for the very reason they are upset with where university education is going.

Will it work? How should I know. Typically in evolutionary processes, experimentation and imagination are critical to moving forward and enabling new paradigms to develop. What is wrong with that?

Study the experiment and make it better.

Just because Open Source MOOCs show a hokey rendition of online learning doesn't mean online learning does not work and should be totally dismissed. I'm really surprise to hear so much skepticism.

I do agree that the marketing is silly (particularly with the idea of an business entrepreneur living on a yacht in the carribean! That is just dumb marketing from a low-imagination vantage point). Don't get so caught in those details. Try to consider the implications. Or don't.

The idea is this: This absolutely can be a way for an educator to be innovative and fund one's own research using existing know-how and expertise in teaching. If course material is created with video lectures, homework, and quizzes, the learning involved can ultimately reach many people all over the world. No traditional university has ever been able to do that.

Once a curriculum is created, that can be online in perpetuity, and people can purchase the access to the course as long as it is current. Or it can be distributed free, or with a request for a donation to pay what you want to pay.

Imagine if Vygotsky had done effective online learning using his theories, and we could access his original lectures 100 years after he is gone. Imagine that the rights to the material could continue to his estate or to the public. It certainly couldn't have been banned.

The point is there are better choices today (than say 10 years ago) and a wider distribution when it comes to online learning.

The problem with most online platforms is that the designers and programmers typically do not confer with instructors, tutors, or teachers, when they design the platform software. From what I have seen, Blackboard being the absolute worst, Academy of Mine is effectively removing the complexity of putting courses online and providing instructors a revenue stream. I'm still learning about it, but it's actually pretty good. It is effectively cutting out fat-cat administrators and the university's demands for a lion's share of research funds or other forms of financial support.

What if you all could be funded by your students tuition directly to do the research that you wanted? And your findings could be produced as online lectures that go directly to the public at large? It starts a virtuous cycle upwards. It's a different form of publishing your work.

Would you want to be an independent researcher? Or do you need to have the security blanket of an established university who will not allow you to teach the topics you want in the way you want to teach them?

There are 7.6 billion people on the planet, and they say half of them are on the Internet. That's 3.8 billion. What if you had an audience of 200,000 for your well-produced online course? If they paid you $1.00 that would be $200K going to you, with a small percentage of that going to your production costs, and payment acquisition. Even if 25% went to that, that's still $175K to you, far better than the typical university salary. And this is just for one class.

Isn't THE POINT of tenure track positions to ensure academic freedom? Tenured positions are disappearing, they likely aren't coming back. I am sad about this, but what can be done if the paradigm is dying? Universities are replacing tenure track professorships with adjuncts, didn't you know?

This possibility might just be a way to push back, by just doing your own school, or an academy of yours. Just like you would write your own book. What if you could design your own curriculums, isn't that the freedom that you want? What would that look like?

With regards to an LMS vs learning. I didn't say that the LMS was learning. It's just a publishing tool, and it's up to the educators to find a way to use them. What is wrong about that?

That's like saying a book isn't learning. Who doesn't know that? And a big book isn't more learning than a small one. The book is simply a tool for distribution and the book is one component used to aid in learning. Why can't the same be said for an LMS? Why couldn't it be a way that makes it easy for instructors to ensure payment for their hard work? Like publishing a book?

I'm not really surprised by the negativity. I am surprised by the lack of imagination.

Put your thinking caps on!

How could this actually work and be rewarding for all involved? You can't tell me there is no way?

Is that what you are saying?

Kind regards,

Annalisa

________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Greg Mcverry <jgregmcverry@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2018 9:21:14 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: A new-ish learning platform that may be a way to save adjuncts?

Advocating for ignorance always seems to be a strange position to take.
Though it is a position those in power have often adopted through out
history.

I would also push back that we have no idea how to to make learning happen
in these environments. What we might say is we have no way how to make
learning happen in these ways that is both scalable and profitable with
hockey stick growth.

There are many folks in Open Source communities who have long created
classes nothing like MOOCs. What is StackOverflow but a large (and
sometimes rude) learning community? Cormier's #Rhizo classes, #DS106,
#walkmyworld are all small scale classes in the education and art spaces
that have been researched (though more comparative case studies and
autoenthographies).

I also think we need to stop the false distinction between our offline and
offline learning environments. I think part of the reason hybrid learning
comes out favorably in meta-analysis isn't just because of the role of the
instructor but the computer aided yet tactile environment is an interesting
artifacts of tools.

Finally the only way an app would help adjuncts would be if it had two
buttons, "Pay me a living wage" and "create a "Tenure Track Position"

On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 2:44 PM Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> Hi Annalisa and all others interested,
>
> Thanks for the link to the video, but I have to say it is pretty
> problematic.  First it calls itself a learning management system when it
> really has nothing to do with learning.  It is instead a course management
> system.  So why do people use the phrase learning management systems -
> because companies that sell learning management systems want them to.
>
> The distinction is important because while all this hardware and software
> is really wowsa, we pretty much have little idea how to use it to create
> actual learning experiences. We just think it will happen because person A
> has knowledge, person B could use knowledge, transfer knowledge, done and
> done.  I tend to think of the transfer model as being not very good as a
> teaching learning model.  But there are a whole bunch of other issues which
> we are just beginning to explore like teacher presence in online
> situations, student relatedness (the four walls actually do play a part),
> individual agency, collective/collaborative agency, cognitive presences -
> the list just goes on.  The guy on the boat (you have to watch the video)
> probably isn't going to be that successful.  Who is going to be successful
> - why academy of mine will be!
>
> We went through this with xMOOCs. I'm old enough to remember when they
> were going to be the new model for education.  I still have discussions
> with people who say MOOCs do good things. They reach all these people with
> information from experts.  I ask, is there a good thing?  People say, of
> course it's a good thing.  I ask is there any evidence of this? They say
> well it's better than not reaching them with information.  I ask are you
> sure. There actually is some evidence that it's not that good a thing from
> Participatory Action Research. I think one of the things we have to
> question ourselves about is why this sounds so good to us.
>
> This is not to say the Internet is not going to have stunning effects on
> the way we teach and learn.  We need to do the hard work of figuring why
> and how.  But this....
>
>
> Michael
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Annalisa Aguilar
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2018 12:56 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] A new-ish learning platform that may be a way to save
> adjuncts?
>
> Hello Xmcars,
>
>
> A few days ago I learned about this new online learning platform "Academy
> Of Mine"
>
>
> I think that it portends what future learning might entail. It may be a
> way of bypassing the calcified learning patterns that no one seems to be
> able to escape, thanks to the neoliberalization of higher learning.
>
>
> This platform is also about doing business in education, but something
> about it seems more palatable than paying presidents and other
> administrators several hundred thousand dollar salaries to run a university.
>
>
> Here is an intro video for the platform, which I think is using wordpress
> for its online architecture.
>
> https://vimeo.com/92334633
>
> [https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVP.rKgA__knRtrA5l2yfST4XAEsCo&pid=Api]<
> https://vimeo.com/92334633>
>
> All-In-One Learning-Management-System - Academy Of Mine<
> https://vimeo.com/92334633> vimeo.com If you're going to be offering a
> course online you'll need Learning Management System Software (LMS) for
> your online educational environment. But if you're an ...
>
> This might be a way in particular for adjuncts to "hold on" to their
> course material, and perhaps at some point monetize their courses in such a
> way they can create another income stream.
>
>
> I've not really thought this through, but I think this could be
> paradigm-changing because Academy of Mine seems to really address the
> technology difficulties for non-technical instructors and teachers.
>
>
> I am curious what you think.
>
>
> I am not affiliated with Academy of Mine, but I have an opportunity to use
> the platform and am just learnign about it. I was so impressed I thought I
> would let you all take a look.
>
>
> It might make possible courses that are hybird in nature, and it could
> possibly make experimental learning easier to set up, which would allow
> educators to do the things they have always known works with successful
> learning experiences, and just walk around the Maginot Line of university
> hegemonies.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
> Annalisa
>
>
>