Great Article: Tipping Point for “Content”–Dynamic Interaction, Not Static Stuff
November 19, 2008
Trent Batson has a good article on Campus Technology today, “Tipping Point for “Content” — Dynamic Interaction, Not Static Stuff.” There are some nice quotes from Michael Korcuska, the Sakai Foundation Executive Director, on the changing role of the “publisher” (It might be OER rather than a traditional publishing house) providing more interactive experiences, and that being the value of the future. It parallels a recent discussion held by the Content Group at the Open EdTech Summit in Barcelona. One of our 10 assertions (there will be a white paper representing the Summit outcomes sometime in the future) was that Content is not static and that, in fact, it is multi-directional. What we meant by this is that it is no longer solely owned by Publishers or the instructor. That it is the learner, and the learners interactions with the content and their ability to make connections and enhance and inform that content is the next wave. Web 2.0 has helped begin that process, but it may be Web 3.0 that really begins to define the ways in which those interactions and contexts are managed and manipulated and built upon by learners to follow. It may dramatically change our perception of the role of “repositories” before it is even fully birthed… It is also this change that may be one of the final gentle (?) pushes of the Sage on the Stage to the Guide on the Side.
So what is the role of education in this new world? It is to help foster informed inquiry. It’s all in the question!
Promptu 
December 1, 2008 at 1:53 am
Interesting to read this post right now… I was just chatting at the UOC with Josep, who has just finished up some time with your Opencast project team.
Which took me back to the discussions our content group had at the Open EdTech Event. I tried to write a short post articulating some of the points we got to around the changing nature of content, and how it should influence how I might approach an open education project. The post was widely misunderstood as as assertion that “content wasn’t important” and a number of related posts by others that have attempted to delineate these tensions have resulted in similar misunderstandings.
It seems a difficult area to discuss, so this article is timely and welcome.
As an aside, Opencast looks fantastic and I hope I can follow up on it regarding some of our own efforts at UBC.
January 25, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Thanks for the comment, Brian. For those interested in looking at the dialog around Brian’s post, you can find it here: http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/brian/archives/049209.php. I read through the threads and went back to Scott’s Leslie’s (http://www.edtechpost.ca/wordpress/2008/11/08/just-share-already/)”epic post.” One of the things that really stuck with me from our content conversation at UOC was that idea that it was the interconnections between and analysis of content that matter most. Content is important, but the idea that we have to “publish” content in the traditional sense is dead. Really, we need to continue to encourage the development and sharing of content, but the role of the institution and instructor changes from teaching knowledge, to teaching inquiry. This sentiment is not an all or nothing, of course. Building knowledge is important, but the instructor gathers and creates and shares knowledge, as does the student.