Is Mode 1 an Imaginary? ( checkout Wikipedia )

Learning Technologies starts tomorrow, so I am in panic mode to get ready for Thursday. This is a short post, maybe more on @wenotno show at 12 on @phonicfm.

Still thinking about knowledge as Mode 1 and 2. Still cannot find much recent. In Wikipedia there is a longish page on Mode 2 but very short mention for Mode 1.

Also there is some critique of what Mode 1 claims

Steve Fuller, in his book The Governance of Science (Chapter 5) has criticised the 'Modists' view of the history of science because they wrongly give the impression that mode 1 dates back to seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution whereas mode 2 is traced to the end of either World War II or the cold war, whereas in fact the two modes were institutionalized only within a generation of each other (the third and the fourth quarters of the nineteenth century, respectively). Fuller claims that the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes in Germany, jointly funded by the state, the industry and the universities, predated today's "triple helix" institutions by an entire century.

So something to come back to. My guess is that at Olympia most of the knowledge will be in the context of practice. Also there seems to be fewer stands from HE and more from MOOCs or similar. More next week, am staying in London for weekend.

Wikipedia has a page for "Imaginary" but will have to come back to why Mode 1 works for academics.

LinkedIn Learning at Olympia

This is a draft post that may get to LinkedIn early next week ahead of the Learning Technologies show. Olympia is real space , not just online as social media. I have been at BETT this week but still waiting for all the news to turn up. I had thought the presentation by Futurelearn and Coventry University would be well reported but so far only a couple of tweets with stills. Maybe I will wait till it turns up on YouTube. BETT do get round to this sort of thing but obviously are busy at the moment.

Perhaps the news is the way such things are reported. The Guardian represents some academic opinion. I have commented already on the Peter Wilby interview with Peter Horrocks. Seems the anon negative take on cloud OU were what got the Guardian attention. This week nothing about BETT except opinion from Eliane Glaser. She sees children as tech addicts and schools as pushers. BETT is mentioned but I do not think she has been there. She claims Facebook is "selling expensive kit" though they are not there. Could it be the Guardian just finds something negative about Facebook whenever possible? I think they should level with the readers on what is happening to print finances. Anyway, more on the arguments about why you should stick with books and ignore screens later.

OU press releases concentrate this week on the Institute of Coding announced by PM May at Davos. I think it could have been promoted at BETT. Nothing noticed on Thursday. Futurelearn involved with courses that could fit with other campus based activity. Not much reporting I can find in newspapers.

Also I still cannot find much recent about Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge. In his Durham lecture about a fortress state of mind in HE Peter Horrocks mentioned that Linkedin for example could extend social media to cover degree style courses and certificates. Presumably this would be at the skills and practice end of things. Not clear what the scope is. Perhaps this will emerge through the later lectures in the Durham sequence.

At BETT I did think the Arts claimed as part of STEAM was weaker this year than last. (What will "Coding" include ) In the STEAM area there was no BBC and no BAFTA. So no Dalek to pose with and no games design awards.

I was reminded of the attack on BBC Jam so looked up the dates. Wikipedia has it for 2007.  The Guardian and others objected to the BBC giving away educational resources as this prevented commercial initiatives. Problem is that the Guardian and Channel 4 etc no longer attend BETT anyway so the result is just a loss of what the BBC was trying. It seems to suggest that the Guardian has backed off from any positive take on what online could mean for them. So expect more of a literary take on why tech is horrible and you should read a good book.

There is a more academic version around Mode 1 and 2 but still a bit of a mystery how this relates to Futurelearn scope. Will check next Tuesday in Guardian and / or search on Critical Management Studies.

Route to ExCEL via East India, help very welcome

Now planning trip to BETT next week. I am part of both Wild Show and @wenotno on Phonic FM . Chris Norton and Jon Mahy also coming so we need a route that is ok for access. Staying at Travelodge near East India in DLR. Need to travel back to Tower Gateway one evening.

Have found the "Avoiding Stairs Tube Guide" PDF and I think our best bet is to go from Paddington on Hammersmith and City line to West Ham, then DLR to Canning Town and head back West. But once you start the idea of going East for a modern railway it may be that Waterloo line would be better. Overground from Clapham Junction?

Shadwell looks ok on the map but how many stairs to link from tube to DLR?

Rail and Tube map PDF

West Ham and Canning Town both show some distance between platforms. How far is this?

Last year it turned out the "Circle Line" is not really  a circle. It stops at Edgware Road, one stop?

Friday we intend to wheel back along south bank then to Westminster, arrives back at Paddington on easy side of the platform.

Any clues or suggestions welcome.

Mapping #Futurelearn / #OU controversy around #BETT2018

Trying to remember about mapping a controversy from a FUN MOOC on Digital Humanities. I know one of the first things to do was to find a news story and identify who said what.

So seems best to start with Peter Wilby in Guardian, apparently based on interview with Peter Horrocks. Nothing new from Horrocks that was not said in Durham lecture a few weeks previously. The OU is moving into the cloud and will continue to invest in Futurelearn. The news aspect of the interview was what was said by Peter Wilby, based on anonymous comments by OU staff. Objections to closing buildings and face to face. Letters to the Guardian so far have supported the Wilby views.

Next week at BETT on the opening day there will be a presentation by Simon Nelson, Chief Executive of Futurelearn, and Ian Dunn, Deputy Vice Chancellor ( Student Experience ) for Coventry University. Probably this will include details of degree courses online. Some would say this is a new phase for MOOC technology, part of a viable business model. Others might object that there is no place for a "chief executive" in education and that the rot started when "student experience" became an issue.

So how to map this? Clues please. I think the MOOC has not been repeated recently but there must be other resources available. More later when BETT is over. This could be a major news item but my guess is there will be a few tweets from #Futurelearn fans and not much else unless someone is critical.

See previous posts for more links.

Notes background on Futurelearn ahead of BETT

Next week at BETT there will be a presentation by Futurelearn and Coventry University. So far I have done a post for LinkedIn and also a moment for Twitter. The post is about Mode 1 & 2 knowledge, something to check out given what is happening online. After posting this there was an article in the Guardian by Peter Wilby with a critique of Peter Horrocks policy on OU and Futurelearn. At least it links to a Horrocks lecture at Durham, text PDF available from OU, video now on YouTube. Links in the tweets.

When I did stories for OhmyNews I often stored away bits of background and waited for a news event to open with. In this case BETT is an occasion but the announcement is known. There could be more details on actual courses launched. This blog is more likely to look at how it is reported if at all. The Guardian is interesring as Peter Wilby seems to have been prompted more by the anon comments on Horrocks than the news value of what he was saying. The lecture was in November.

Just checking Class Central , source for news on the MOOC. They have a 2017 report on Futurelearn showing moves towards viability in 2016 and 2017. Charges for certificates and continued access to content. Degree courses starting with Deakin, now Coventry and others. On numbers of learners, 5th in world. Claims on social learning may be credible to distinguish from other platforms.

Other reports for 2017 are on the Class Central pages. One links to this comparison of Futurelearn with other platforms. There may be more competition from China later but Futurelearn is doing ok, definitely in with a chance on a global basis. So far no mention of this in the Guardian for example. Degrees online could work out as well, eventually from OU as well as other UK sites.

Education Intelligence seems to be from August last year, so probably lots more happening.

After BETT, expect more of the same txt but in a different order.

Comment on Peter Wilbey / OU / Guardian / Futurelearn

Today Guardian mention for MOOC. Not really reporting as in trends and numbers. Main point is negative opinion from anon staff on policy to move to cloud. There is an interview with Peter Horrocks, OU vice chancellor and he is reasonably quoted. But the drift of the Guardian editorial view is hostile.

Maybe not surprising as the lecture at Durham started by comparing unis with UK newsrooms before the digital shifts ( continues on ReadG ) , I think the newspapers are reluctant to report the MOOC and other EdTech because of the implication for their own business model.

A few details, more later. I have to get ready for @wenotno on @phonicfm later today. Maybe some more rave but short between music.

Money will also go to FutureLearn, a commercial offshoot offering Moocs(massive open online courses) from the OU and other universities around the world. Seven million “learners” (in Horrocks’s word) already use its courses.

So what do we mean by learning? Has it got to be in quote marks if not part of a campus based event? What word would the Guardian use? Full disclosure, I have done several Futurelearn courses , some more than once. Social learning seems to make sense to me, see previous posts.

“Our worry,” one senior academic told me, “is that the current management is running the university down. They see its future not as an academic institution but as a media platform.”

Blended learning assumes a mix, worth a discussion.

Many academics, however, see conflicts of interest between the OU and FutureLearn. It was recently announced, for example, that FutureLearn will provide the platform for 50 all-online degrees, initially postgraduate but possibly also undergraduate in future, offered by Coventry University. Why is the OU promoting its competitors’ courses, academics ask. “We could lose thousands of students,” said one.

This seems to me to ignore completely what is happening online. Maybe because UK media do so little reporting. Futurelearn is top 5 or top 10 on global platforms list, depending how many to include from China. they all work with a number of university brands / campus sites.

Main news event not mentioned, presentation at BETT , ExCEL end of the month. Futurelearn and Coventry. Durham lecture will be on YouTube later I think, previous ones in series are. 

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Also in Guardian , Peter Scott on why unis still needs lots of money and to be left alone. Nothing on Mode 2 as in EdTech or what Mode 1 might be nowadays, see recent posts.

There is a risk public opinion will turn against higher education. English universities cut their moorings to the public sector – and wider public interest. They have embarked on the choppy seas of what is justly perceived to be another tawdry privatisation. Universities no longer feel like “ours”, the public’s.

So if you can use a voice interface to machine learning and find it useful, adjusting how you learn, what to think about a world that would then put learning into quote marks?

Comment welcome. Doubtless Peter Wilby has a source for the anon quotes but anything public would develop conversation.

Jeff Jarvis definition of journalism

Found this, will think about it.

We must learn to listen and help the public listen to itself. We in media were never good at listening — not really — but in our defense our media, print and broadcast, were designed for speaking. The internet intervened and enabled everyone to speak but helped no one listen. So now we live in amid ceaseless dissonance: all mouths, no ears. I am coming to see that civility — through listening, understanding, and empathy — is a necessary precondition to learning, to accepting facts and understanding other positions, to changing one’s mind and finding common ground. Thus I have changed my own definition of journalism.

My definition used to be: Helping communities organize their knowledge to better organize themselves. That was conveniently broad enough to fit most any entrepreneurial journalism students’ ideas. It was information based, for that was my presumption — the accepted wisdom — about journalism: It lives to inform. Now I have a new definition of journalism:

To convene communities into civil, informed, and productive conversation.

"War" confirmed, Guardian on Murdoch

I have now uploaded a clip from Marr show yesterday. Definite mention of "war" as noted in previous post. I still think there is not much about this in reports. I notice newspapers have lots of stories about the dangers of social media. What do people think who have a different experience themselves? my guess this is so but make your own mind up. Explanation of business situation of UK newspapers not found anywhere. Guardian tabloid, why?

I am guessing a bit but the story about Trump / Murdoch phone call is making more sense given the comments in Guardian today alongside more about Facebook. As reported by Michael Wolf. Murdoch complained about visa priority for software workers then thought Trump an "idiot" for not reversing this. Even if he thought he could demand this policy , why would he think the problems for newspapers would be helped if software development had to move to India or somewhere?

Issues for newspapers getting closer to a news event about who knows? I think we should be told.

#mtwr probably already happened somewhere

Looking at various links around BETT and Learning Technologies I get the impression things have already changed a lot. HE already online with certificates and viable business model. The adverts on Gmail took me to Liverpool, then YouTube, then British Council with text from Simon Nelson, CEO Futurelearn.

Still probable the presentation with Coventry at BETT will be a news hook but really the question is why this sort of thing is not much noticed. Maybe I am looking in the wrong places.

I guess some research style unis still have a critique take on this so are not convinced enough to get much involved. So still a debate to continue. Timing and scale uncertain. Lancaster campus still a good location once the Spine is complete.

But I guess something similar has already happened somewhere else. #mtwr is about management theory in radio, followed on from management theory at work. Could be about unis or any disrupted organization. Video production is available on campus but the budget seems to be for promotion. There are good lecture and talk recordings, even though "content marketing" now seems replaced by classic advert broadcast mode.

One section of the article worth querying

Do you think online learning will make location, such as cities, irrelevant?

We’re not trying to reproduce the overall university experience. I think the experience in physical settings will change, but that’s not to say campus-based universities will become obsolete.

A switch here from city to campus. Why do students go somewhere? Is it the campus or the city? In Exeter and Lancaster they are some way apart. Maybe in Exeter this is social not real. Somehow the city centre is becoming a dorm area. Arcade in Fore Street had cheap cafe now being demolished. Sorry, going off topic.

More or less relevant question, is is still sense to invest in buildings rather than coding?

Marr mentions "war", newspapers and tech

Not sure I got the words right. Will watch again later, may revise this post.

As if to explain not going into detail on Sunday Times front page story, Marr on Marr Show mentions a tension between newspapers and tech companies. I think the word used was "war".

I hope there is more of this with some explanation. Broadcast media are in a position to comment on newspapers, as a situation. Not just read out opinions as if valid or follow a news agenda.

The "war" seems to be on two fronts. Circualtion/viewing and advertising is one area. Negative stories on social media is another. The money made from treating addicts is an issue but the conection to Google ads is a bit of a side issue as far as I can make it out.

If Marr has noticed a topic, will it be reported? Maybe somewhere else, daytime on 5 ?

See Read G post on Twitter and Guardian / John Naughton. Same sort of thing. Twitter covers this area a bit but TV and radio also well placed, some might say.