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Weekly UpdatesChapter Two
Technology as cause: information technologies, learning and collaboration
One of our roles has always been to make knowledge more visible to a large number of people. And collaborative technology just gives you another way to do that. People worried about me when I first started saying this. But now people come to me and ask how they can do it too. Dr Michael Wesch (48)
The spread of internet access, and more recently broadband, the phenomenal popularity of social networking sites and the use of 'collaborative' tools have been connecting people in new ways. They have generated self-expression, conversation and creation on an unprecedented scale. As a means to facilitate collaboration, these new information technologies have been drivers of economic and social innovation.
As universities feel the impact of the 'perfect storm' of increased demands and fewer funds, these technologies are changing how people can learn and research. Higher education institutions are now one source among many for ideas, knowledge and innovation. Google opens up vast resources to many more people, but at the same time it undermines the role of universities as stores of knowledge.
The implications for universities are enormous. Open and collaborative learning and research might seem a threat to universities (since both can be done outside such institutions) but it can also emphasise their importance. The noise of information and knowledge needs filtering; students need guidance and expertise. They also need the 'brand value' of institutions and the validation they provide. Universities have to capitalise on the connections and relationships made possible by the new information technologies.
Information for free
The percentage of households with access to the internet in the UK stands at around 65 per cent; 56 per cent of all UK households had a broadband connection in 2008, rising from 51 per cent in 2007. (49) Having access to the internet is now seen as a necessity for everyday life, not a luxury. Home access is just the tip of the iceberg. Mobile handsets are ubiquitous--in 2007 there were more mobile phone subscriptions than people in the UK (118.47 mobile subscriptions per 100 people). The International Telecommunications Union estimates that the number of mobile subscriptions worldwide recently surpassed 4 billion. (50)
Such connectedness makes it easier to utilise the collective imagination of more people in the development of an idea, service or product. (51) There are obvious implications for education. Universities were once the primary portal for anyone wishing to pursue a subject in any depth or to engage in collective research endeavours. Now, scholarly journals can be a Google search away, rather than a 20-mile journey and requiring membership of an academic library.
A Google search for 'Plato Republic' yields more than 370,000 results. A search for 'Plato Republic commentary' yields more than 18,700 results. Searching for 'Plato Republic free essay' provides 68,500 leads, many of which link to sites such as 'megaessays.com' or 'goldenessays.com'.
Open access
It seems odd to think that, until very recently, the physical limitations of storing information and helping people access it were real problems. They have melted away. Information management deals with the consequences of the ubiquity of information, of it being readily available, not its inaccessibility. Students can and increasingly do look to new spaces like Google to access, sort and organise information.
Information is not just more available--it is more searchable. Searching is a constantly evolving service, becoming 'smarter', more able to provide us with the kind of information we are looking for. For example, Google is working to make its Technology as cause results personal by fitting someone's search profile, while new sites such as Wolframalpha', whose stated goal 'is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone', are taking new approaches based on automating the process of computing data. (52) An emerging phase is the linked data and information of a 'semantic' web. This is a disputed term, but at its simplest it provides new ways to sort huge amounts of seemingly difficult to navigate information. It combines information given meaning through the way people describe it with technologies that can process and filter the resulting connections.
These initiatives extend beyond written material. Technology, Entertainment and Design conference (known as TED) began uploading videos of its talks a few years ago. The website quickly gained cult-like status in those interested in ideas. More than 400 videos are now available under a Creative Commons Licence, including speakers as varied as Al Gore, cutting-edge researchers from MIT, and the television and film producer JJ Abrams. TED claims the site attracts millions of users.
When services such as Google Books and Google Scholar are coupled with the vast array of audio, visual and secondary sources available online, the traditional idea of the library stacks seems quaint.
Learning in an immaterial world
Second Life, an immersive virtual world in which people control avatars (digital projections of themselves), has been accorded much attention; for example its local currency, the Linden Dollar, (53) has generated news stories about the large amounts of money that exchange between participants. Second Life is an example of technology bringing people together from disparate places to communicate 'synchronously'.
Social networks are more everyday examples of this. Twitter, the 'micro-blogging' site, is developing past its 'what I ate for breakfast' phase into a useful resource for sharing links, brief ideas and commentary. It forms part of a suite of often free to use online learning tools. The website aMap, for example, allows people to create their own visual 'mind maps' of their arguments and ideas for others to see and debate. (54) EduFire is a tool to help teachers run live video classes with one or many students at the same time, with groups set up around topics. (55)
Initiatives like Bettr provide a hub for this activity, by facilitating meet ups and best-practice sharing for those developing educational tools. (56)
Using the internet to get offline
Many of the most compelling examples of social media do not involve replacing real world communication with online forums.
They use the network technologies to make offline meetings and interaction happen. Many of the most innovative applications of technology are taking place in this field. For example, there are many location-aware applications which can help people use maps and location information combined with contextual details. Google Latitude allows users with mobile phones to see where friends are. Technology in this case is specifically changing or supporting interaction in the real world, rather than providing online spaces to replicate or replace it.
Such social media create an enthusiastic culture of informal learning, whether through book clubs, public lectures or social networks. Sites like Meet Up and UpComing are encouraging groups to form and organise around common interests. Meet Up provides calendars, message boards, member profiles and the ability to share files. There are over a thousand Meet Up groups in London, ranging from large language and cultural exchange groups like the London Japanese Language Group and the London Life Drawing Society, through to the London Semantic Web group. All are based around a passion or hobby or field of work. You could see them as bespoke, self-organised course modules or as book club culture on steroids.
Some sites are dedicated specifically to education. The School of Everything, for example, helps people who want to learn something find those who can teach it, as does EduFire.
Such social networks are designed around the specific purpose of connecting learners and teachers. The searching happens online, but the teaching and the interaction usually happen offline. The technology is in the service of the relationship, rather than defining how it works.
It is hard to imagine a topic on which there is not a range of instructional material, videos and openly available knowledge easily available. And it is equally hard to avoid finding people who want to tell you more about a subject, and learn it with you.
Collaborative research
We can now see the tangible and significant effects of the new collaborative technologies as people find ways to create and find information and ideas, and connect with people to get things done. Only recently this would have seemed the vague wishes of a techno-utopian. In the pamphlet Network Citizens, Demos reported that companies reap huge benefits from finding ways to capitalise on networks of people who may not formally sit within their organisations. As one interviewee for the research said:
The idea really is that Einsteins live everywhere, but you don 7 necessarily invite them to your meeting. They might be junior, ex-employees, associates or outside your organisation. But you need to engage them. Matt Chapman, Imaginatik (57)
Collaboration has had an immediate impact on research, since researchers have found the tools to develop their existing propensity to work together. (58) That has seen the emergence of virtual research communities, which are helping collaborative research flourish. Demos' Atlas of Ideas project mapped the changing landscape of innovation and science. It found that the landscape of research is being redrawn. Companies are setting up huge R&D facilities in India, China and Korea. In Daejon in South Korea geneticists equipped with the latest genesequencing machines are generating world-class stomach cancer research after three years. (59) The report noted:
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