The State of Digital Education Infographic

Knewton has just released an infographic showing the growth and success of elearning in US academic institutions.


Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Social Media Revolution

I'm focusing on my ECA (end of course assignment, in place of an exam) at the moment. I'm designing specifications for learning activities using web2.0 tools and assessment practices. I'm obviously not allowed to post what I'm up to though!

This was a nice 2:35 minute diversion from trying to write (unfortunately I have more diversions than writing, but that's another problem!).

Part of the world’s most watched Social Media video series; “Social Media Revolution” by Erik Qualman. Based on #1 International Best Selling Book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. This is a shorter version that includes new social media statistics for 2011.

Reflecting on web 2.0 week

Web 2.0 is so last week! Well, it is if you're on H807 and already being encouraged to move on to evaluating usability, which is the next theme.

I had a lot of fun looking at mashups (more than once!), RSS feeds, social bookmarking, social networking and assessment 2.0.

There are just a few niggling thoughts that I haven't recorded so far...

• I had fun looking at all these different tools and technologies, as did I think my fellow students, but the fact that they can be included in a course in innovation really shows that despite all the hype, and the growing number of users, there is a long way to go until we reach either widespread acceptance, or toolset stability. In a space of a few short years  tools and trends have come and gone, as shown by this History of Social Media Infographic, and for many people such instability is disconcerting.
• While there were plenty of papers telling me about how brilliant these web 2.0 tools could be for education, finding actual examples and case studies was much tricker. Mashups seem a great concept, but mixing data from multiple sources isn't straightforward, and while there were lots of obvious suggestions for using RSS feeds and social bookmarking in teaching and learning, it seemed that social networking and assessment 2.0 have much further to go in terms of uptake. 
• We often come across statements like "young people expect to use networked technologies in their learning", and "the net generation use their social networks for learning and expect their educators to do so too". I think a lot of caution needs to be exercised here. Steve Wheeler warns against accepting wholesale the idea of digital natives and immigrants, and advocates Dave White's alternative theory of visitors and residents. This all reminds me of the excellent Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future study by the British Library and JISC. It looks at the following claims about the Google Generation, and presents information which indicates that some of these are myths:
• Google Generation show a preference for visual information over text 
• Google Generation want a variety of learning experiences 
• Google Generation Have shifted decisively to digital forms of communication 
• Google Generation 'Multitask’
• Google Generation are impatient and have zero tolerance for delay 
• Google Generation find their peers more credible as a source of information than authority figures 
• Google Generation need to feel constantly connected to the web 
• Google Generation learn by doing rather than knowing 
• Google Generation prefer quick information in the form of easily digested short chunks rather than full text
• Google Generation have a poor understanding and lack of respect for intellectual property
• Google Generation are format agnostic 
• For the Google Generation, virtual reality may be as real as the real experience 

If you're short of time, pages 13-21 cover the claims and fact/myth findings.

Talking to an innovator

I'm excited to announce that my interviewee will be Phil Hall, CEO of Elzware, who develop conversational systems which they say enable "users to interact with websites as easily as they might on real-world premises - whether that is a shop, classroom, factory, call centre or office".

Er, what's a conversational system again?
Conversational agents, chatbots, or virtual agents are software 'entities' which a user can talk to (usually through typed messages), and get answers, service or information that they require. They are 'natural language' systems, which means the user doesn't have to use any special codes, words or computer languages to communicate - they just type in their own, natural, language and the conversational system 'understands' and responds appropriately.

And how's that related to eLearning?
These conversational systems offer more than just simple question and answer or FAQs. They can take and pose questions, in natural language, and they can also suggest other points of reference, useful information, links or guide a user through a dialogue. Specifically, Elzware is behind



According to the TeachBot website, TeachBot is a Virtual Teaching Assistant developed using their cutting edge conversational system approach. Bristol City Learning Centres and their expert educational consultants worked in conjunction with Elzware to create an "innovative, effective, affordable and engaging educational tool, which would most importantly, help students achieve better grades". Essentially, it offers personalised educational support in English reading and writing, at home or in the classroom, for students working towards their GCSEs in Years 8, 9, 10 and 11.


This is Blob, the teaching assistant students interact with. You can experience chatting to Blob on the TeachBot site, or chat to Yhaken, Elzware's original conversational system.

Phil has a fascinating and varied background, including experience as an Engineer, Cabinetmaker and Anthropologist. I know he's going to have some very interesting insights into innovation in elearning!

Serendipity

While I was thinking about things which are challenging me - which seem to be about putting my views out there for all to see - this Tweet from iOPT popped up on my screen...

"The Internet requires us to adopt norms of open sharing & participation - publishing has become the new literacy" - Clay Shirky

This fits so nicely both with my current struggles about publishing a podcast and sharing posts in a forum (and the internal debates and doubts I had about starting a blog way back at the beginning of the MA ODE), and with the wider themes of sharing and participation which have emerged through our discussions of the definition of innovation in elearning.

Warning: unanswered questions ahead. Cognitive dissonance in progress.

If it is the Internet which is requiring us to adopt these norms, can we chose to go another way, to ignore 'the Internet'? It seems unlikely - that genie is well and truly out of the bottle - except, perhaps this isn't the case, as we've also seen that individuals and, in particular, institutions, are struggling to cope with new methods of openness, sharing and collaboration.

Could it be that the is Internet requiring this of us because actually it's designed/developed/emerged from the way people actually think - another Tweet from iOPT:

The Internet is not changing people's way of thinking but rather it is adapting to the way people think - Steven Pinker

So which is the innovator and which the adopter here - the Internet, or the people who use it? Is it the Internet pushing (or pulling) us and our students... or is it us who are responsible for shaping what it has become? And what are the implications for education? We know norms are shifting, and expectations and opportunities are changing, but how much control can the individual have over the effects on them and their personal learning or teaching? Where does choice end and societal pressure begin?

Whatever the case, the concept that publishing is a new required literacy is very real. We now need to learn, not only to use language to communicate, but to understand what it means to publish it, to identify and evaluate sources, to understand how we credit original work, and to have an eye on the social and cultural effects of publishing, and being part of a community of publishers.

Early adopters or early majority?

Moving on from Rogers' model, we're now looking at Geoffrey Moore's Chasm Theory, which questions the Innovation Diffusion model that the opinion leaders (early adopters) hold the key to product diffusion. An account of Chasm Theory shows that Moore argues that it is vital to target the early majority if a new product is to spread to most consumers. He argues that there is a ‘chasm’ between the early adopters and early majority.

Here are my musings after reading the Tanahashi account.

If, as this article suggests, innovators tend to focus on novelty value, I would think it’s not surprising that innovators in education are relatively few - real educators know they need something more substantial than something flashy and new. [Diversion: This reminds me of a nice piece about Clicky Clicky Bling Bling elearning ("eLearning with lots of whiz, lots of bang, lots of clicky-clicky in a lame attempt to add pizzazz to dry content and to make it more engaging... when you unwrap the sparkle, you’re left with junk")]. So it’s the early adopters (termed opinion leaders in this article) who need to know what the new benefits are of an idea. I think in a sense this is rather disparaging of innovators, suggesting that novelty value is inherently cheap and nasty. It can’t be, or the early adopters wouldn’t have anything to pick up when they’re evaluating the value of an innovation, but clearly not all innovations are good, and some of those which aren’t, won’t be adopted.

The point about the formation of word-of-mouth networks around opinion leaders I thought was an interesting one. Clearly it’s a well known adage of the marketing world, but we also see it in elearning. I think an example of this in action might be the buzz around e-portfolios. There are plenty of institutions now saying “these are great, we need to get them, let’s build them into our VLE” etc, but fewer who have really taken the time to understand what need they are trying to meet, how e-portfolios will help, and what they need to do to make it a successful intervention (besides just running the install script and hoping for the best). These institutions are following the opinion leaders, because they’ve heard it’s the thing to do.

Marketeers (is that a word?!) are well aware of the influence that opinion leaders can have over other consumers, and the article notes that opinion leaders are said to hold the key to product diffusion. This made me think of the Stephen Fry effect - a celebrity with a known penchant for new consumer technology, and a prolific user of various social media. I don’t have any stats on this, but I’m sure that any product which elicits a Tweet from Stephen Fry will see web searches, and most likely sales, spike as a result. I don’t think the elearning market is as quick to jump as buyers of consumer electronics are. There are greater political and financial pressures at play, and snap purchases just aren’t feasible. However, that’s not to say that poor purchases are not made by institutions which seem to believe a technology is going to solve a problem, even without the necessary implementation plan to support it.

Another interesting point was regarding the fact that when a product is adopted, its uses begin to differ from those originally intended, and it is these new uses which can earn it its place in the market. I haven’t come up with an elearning example of this yet, but I'm sure there are many - answers in a comment please!

Moore’s Chasm Theory suggests that there is a hidden chasm which impedes diffusion of a product to a larger market beyond the initial innovators and early adopters. He suggests the reason for this chasm is that early adopters want to stay ahead of the competition with products that nobody else is using, but that early majority consumers will want to keep up with the competition, knowing that lots of other people are using that product. I’m not sure this is entirely consistent with the articulation of Rogers’ Innovation Diffusion, as I understood that to suggest that the early adopters want to know the new benefits of an idea before they buy into it. Perhaps they can do that as well as staying ahead of the competition. Chasm Theory suggests that because early majority consumers take up a product only when plenty of other people are using it, if it is only being used by a limited number of early adopters then the early majority will be reluctant to purchase.

Moore (or perhaps Tanahashi - I’m not sure where the statement comes from) therefore suggests that there is no motivation for early majority consumers to buy a product. This I found a bit confusing, because clearly something which does happen which allows an innovation or product to move from early adopter to early majority take-up. The article argues that for a product to make the jump to early majority purchasing, it’s necessary to show that early majority population examples from the very beginning. I thought this point was interesting as I can relate to it from an elearning and mainstream consumerism point-of-view. As we’ve noted, early adopters want to know what they get which is new, and the early majority need to know that they get secure benefits with minimal risk. Both groups can be supported by the provision of examples, and it’s this desire and need to see something in action before committing that seems common in education to me. It also relates to the trialability feature mentioned in the course notes - something is more attractive if it can be trialed, and benefits demonstrated with minimal risk. It also made me think of the advertising that we’ve seen recently for Windows 7 and iPad

The course notes also prompted us to consider the strengths and weaknesses of Moore’s Chasm Theory. I was generally confused by the argument that the early majority won’t buy/take up something until they’ve already seen lots of people (presumably the early majority) already using it. But how could those people be using it if they wouldn’t have wanted to buy it because too few people were already using it? It sounded like a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem to me, and while the argument that early majority need to be provided with examples in order to encourage them seemed fair, I’m not sure this made the basic maths of it make any more sense to me.

In implications for elearning generally, I think it reiterates the common-sense idea that to move beyond low take up by just the opinion leaders, you really have to give a good reasons to people for them to commit to a new innovation. This is clearly true in tough economic times, but also relates to non-financial aspects - educators need to know how and why this innovation is going to improve some aspect of teaching and learning, and whether that is sufficient added value from the current situation to make the commitment to jump (which is more than just financial, it has far wider cultural and organisational implications).

Thinking of trade shows in the training and education world, I think there are a lot of stands which still attempt to sell based on their new shinyness, or on being cool, or just because they incorporate the latest consumer electronics - that must be good right?(!) Moore’s Chasm Theory might suggest that this type of advertising will be sufficient to attract the early adopters (who want to be a bit different to the majority), but that it’s unlikely to win over the early majority who need to know other people are using something. Generally though I think that educational institutions need to be so careful with their buying decisions, that marketing is unlikely to have too much sway.

The course notes suggest thinking about whether you would promote an elearning innovation differently to clients/colleagues depending on if you saw them as early adopters or early majority. The question leads you to speculate whether you spend more time demonstrating the software to one group rather than another. To be honest I find it really hard to imagine a situation where an audience would be satisfied if I didn’t demonstrate the software to them. Yes, perhaps you show the groups different aspects (you would tailor it to the client anyway), but I don’t believe that most organisations, and certainly not educational institutions have the resources to spare that they could just jump on a new innovation without some solid evidence about why it was appropriate for them.

References:
Bean, C. (2010) And a Clicky-Clicky Bling-Bling to You! [online] http://cammybean.kineo.com/2010/12/and-clicky-clicky-bling-bling-to-you.html
Moore, G.A. (1991) Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-tech Products to Mainstream Customers, New York, HarperBusiness.
Rogers, E.M. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations (5th edn), New York, Simon and Schuster.
Tanahashi, H. (2005) The Innovator Theory [online], Tokyo, Mitsue-Links http://www.mitsue.co.jp/english/case/concept/02.html

Will a potential innovation 'fly'?

This week's course notes adapt a framework for considering innovation, based on Rogers (pp. 229). In order to consider an innovation's strengths and weaknesses, the framework offers the following criteria:

• Relative advantage - is it a much better way of doing something, or a valuable improvement?
• Compatibility - does an innovation fit with the values, experiences and needs of potential adopters?
• Complexity - will complexity of the innovation, or skills or concepts it requires, make it hard to adopt?
• Trialability - can adopters trial and innovation before committing to it?
• Observability - can others perceive the advantage of the innovation?

In the following post, I reflect on my own experiences of innovation, and whether I make calculations using this type of framework.

What have I innovated?

The chatbot, allowing learners to negotiate about their learner model and reflect on their knowledge. But this was research - I don’t feel that was quite the same as innovation. I think perhaps an activity/intervention/method needs to have adopters in order to be an innovation (although clearly not the only criteria), and the fact that the research was only extended to trial populations means it can't be said to have been adopted. It was an innovative elearning tool and method though, regardless of the fact that I didn’t have the means to develop it further and make it adoptable.

Did I ask questions from the Rogers’-adapted framework?

Not knowingly. However, I must have weighed up the relative advantage - if I hadn’t believed that there was some improvement possible through the chatbot integration, then I wouldn’t have bothered. Similarly compatibility - it was not such a great step from the existing IT experience of potential users. Clearly compatibility was in my mind to some degree, but more from the need to ensure the HCI was good. Complexity - yes it was complex; that’s why it was research. It’s also probably why this field of research hasn’t made the mainstream - it’s expensive to design and produce robust, nuanced,personalised and scalable AI products! Trialability - again as it was research, designing a trial was what it was all about, as was observability - improvements had to be objectively demonstrated.

I think the framework is really hard to apply to an innovator - I've struggled above. It seems to make much more sense as something which adopters of innovation would employ (knowingly or otherwise)

So, what have I adopted?

Use of online chat.
1997- using online chat wasn’t widespread. I only had the option to adopt this because my parents provided the Internet access - there wasn’t any financial risk to me (although there were phone bills, risky to a 17 year old!)
Relative advantage - Yes, but it wasn’t just a better way of doing something, but a completely new way of doing something I couldn’t do before - I didn’t have to weigh anything up.
Compatibility - Clearly fitted with my values and needs. The technology was easy to learn, with rapid positive effects. I don’t recall making any kind of assessment.
Complexity - Again, not a technical challenge, so not something I thought through.
Trialability - Highly try-able - it was there, inviting being tried. And there was nothing to be lost if I tried it and didn’t like it.
Observability - It’s easy to demonstrate advantage when it’s a brand new tool!

And again, did I ask questions from the Rogers’-adapted framework?
Certainly not!

So perhaps a more recent example of adoption, or in fact decision not to adopt...
Smartphone/iPhone/iPad

I haven’t adopted these. I have a laptop with home broadband, and office computer also with Internet facilities, an iPod for music/podcasts and a mobile phone with a half decent camera built in. I believe I can read email on it and view mobile web on its tiny screen, but I’ve never read email on it, and not used the web capability outside the first month free trial. I think that’s what this lack of adoption comes down to for me - the relative advantage compared to the facilities I already have just doesn’t seem like something I want to pay for. So, for me, the most helpful of the five criteria in explaining my own adoption (or lack of it) is relative advantage.

Reference
Rogers, E.M. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations (5th edn), New York, Simon and Schuster.

Rogers' five adopter types

This week raises the question of who innovates, and who follows. A classic text on the subject is Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett Rogers, first published in 1962, but on its fifth edition in 2003. Depending when they take up an innovation, Rogers classifies people as ‘innovators’, ‘early adopters’, ‘early majority’, ‘late majority’ and ‘laggards’. Below are some of my early thoughts on Rogers' five adopter types, and some consideration of how they correspond to my experience with people's attitudes to innovation and how they might apply to contexts I know.

My first thought is that Rogers’ categories seem reasonable enough - common sense perhaps. This doesn’t in itself mean they lack value, but I wondered what makes this a model and not just a description. Are they the same (in this case at least)?

I was surprised and even a bit shocked at the statement that later adopters are “generally less empathic, have a lower ability to deal with abstractions, have fewer years of formal education”, etc. This seemed to me likely to be a bit of a generalisation. Surely there are wider factors than individual personality at play, especially within organisations? I wondered, was there any actual correlated evidence, use of personality tests etc? It made me question whether other aspects of what Rogers has to say might also be more personal opinion than testable fact.

Thinking about how Rogers’ categories correspond to my own experience of people’s attitudes to innovation, I found it easy to apply the categories to technology take-up, but wasn’t sure if this was really the same thing as innovation. It made me wonder that perhaps because innovation is such an early stage in the process, we don’t see it often, and that would be why I’m finding it hard to think of innovators (as opposed to people who just like to buy the latest piece of consumer electronics).

I tried to think how Rogers’ model relates to two contexts I’ve work/ed in. Firstly, an educational technology research group within a univeristy Engineering department. Here I found that although someone can be at the cutting edge of their field (Ed Tech), they can be part of the late majority or even ‘laggard’ with other innovations - even to the point of lacking awareness of technologies which have become mainstream IT in their context (e.g. referencing tools, software design tools (such as the UML) or web site building tools). At the other end of Rogers’ spectrum, that same person might be perfectly capable of introducing some quite innovative concepts into their teaching - suggesting to me that like innovations, which our forum discussions have suggested are dependent on context, so too are Rogers’ adopter types. I also found myself speculating a bit about the difference between research (even educational technology research) and elearning innovation. I wondered if it was partly that because academic research has a tradition of being grounded in the preceding literature that it tends to progress in small steps (although innovative leaps are possible too). It could also be to do with the facilities available to research groups - while they might develop an innovation, without sufficient participants to try it out, it might never really get taken up. Also research funding arrangements may have an impact - if it’s risky to show your project has ‘failed’ then you might avoid even attempting anything too innovative.

I also thought about how Rogers’ model might apply to the commercial environment of a technology-based training development wing of an IT consultancy company. In the commercial world there is clearly a need to supply something which customers will pay for. If your customers generally want what they already know (e.g. Powerpoint-like support for instructors, or relatively didactic CBT), and are not ready to accept innovation, then it can be hard for a company to be innovative - after all, they will not risk losing customers.

Reference
Rogers, E.M. (2003) Diffusion of Innovations (5th edn), New York, Simon and Schuster.