Comments on: The Most Poisonous Force in Technology http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/ facilitate, not mandate Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:09:06 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: What Really Happened at SUNY: Another View at e-Literate http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-743 What Really Happened at SUNY: Another View at e-Literate Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:54:35 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-743 [...] the death of SLN2, my good friend Patrick Masson has lifted the veil just a little bit higher in a recent blog post. As a side note, I am thrilled to see Patrick join the blogosphere. His blog, [...] [...] the death of SLN2, my good friend Patrick Masson has lifted the veil just a little bit higher in a recent blog post. As a side note, I am thrilled to see Patrick join the blogosphere. His blog, [...]

]]> By: pmasson http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-93 pmasson Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:58:51 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-93 Greg, I completely agree. Greg,

I completely agree.

]]> By: Greg Ketcham http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-92 Greg Ketcham Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:36:54 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-92 Patrick: Really, whether or not an open architecture would better serve the SUNY community vs. a proprietary commercial LMS was never the issue. The central issue, IMO, was the process of diffusion of innovations. What? No one in the Tower ever read Everett Rogers? The attempts at gaining buy in from key constituents - the CTO communtiy - range from laughable to downright pathetic. There was simply no attempt to understand key concerns that CTOs might voice - such as SLAs, support processes, migration processes, actual development timelines. You know, hard data :-) I would still submit that, by managing the change process correctly, there might have been a higher level of buy in and acceptance across the managerial strata of SUNY. But since SLN 2.0 was essentially presented in a "we know what's best for you" manner, not surprisingly, it wasn't an easy pill for many to swallow. If today's present leadership had been in place at that point in time, we might be at a different point than where we are today. Effective leadership means actually talking and your constituents - something that was not in evidence in the past within SLN executive management. Greg Ketcham MIDizen X Patrick:
Really, whether or not an open architecture would better serve the SUNY community vs. a proprietary commercial LMS was never the issue. The central issue, IMO, was the process of diffusion of innovations. What? No one in the Tower ever read Everett Rogers? The attempts at gaining buy in from key constituents – the CTO communtiy – range from laughable to downright pathetic. There was simply no attempt to understand key concerns that CTOs might voice – such as SLAs, support processes, migration processes, actual development timelines. You know, hard data :-)

I would still submit that, by managing the change process correctly, there might have been a higher level of buy in and acceptance across the managerial strata of SUNY. But since SLN 2.0 was essentially presented in a “we know what’s best for you” manner, not surprisingly, it wasn’t an easy pill for many to swallow. If today’s present leadership had been in place at that point in time, we might be at a different point than where we are today. Effective leadership means actually talking and your constituents – something that was not in evidence in the past within SLN executive management.

Greg Ketcham
MIDizen X

]]> By: Bill Fitzgerald http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-84 Bill Fitzgerald Mon, 09 Jul 2007 22:26:36 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-84 Thank you for sharing your ideas about this -- I hear similar sentiments voiced on an almost-daily basis by forward thinking insiders from large within education and business. What's interesting is the "bottom line" argument as voiced by your first commenter: "This post truly highlights the fact that the “bottom line” can be the driver is most any industry, be it private sector, public sector, and even public education." Done well, building on top of open source products allows organizations to build a scalable structure that can use the innovation flowing from the various open source communities. Really, if an institution is smart enough to leave core code untouched (to allow for clean upgrades between versions) and use open standards to create connections between different applications, the TCO becomes a wash. RE Beth Harris's comment: "Anyway, none of this really matters since it is just a matter of time until teaching and learning are not bound by the walls of the LMS — and become truly collaborative by being public, cross-institutional, and international, and until what students (and teachers) create can be recreated by anyone, anywhere. We just have to bide our time…" Yup. There's no surer sign of stagnation, isolation, and eventual obsolescence than sequestering oneself behind a wall. Cheers, Bill Thank you for sharing your ideas about this — I hear similar sentiments voiced on an almost-daily basis by forward thinking insiders from large within education and business.

What’s interesting is the “bottom line” argument as voiced by your first commenter: “This post truly highlights the fact that the “bottom line” can be the driver is most any industry, be it private sector, public sector, and even public education.”

Done well, building on top of open source products allows organizations to build a scalable structure that can use the innovation flowing from the various open source communities. Really, if an institution is smart enough to leave core code untouched (to allow for clean upgrades between versions) and use open standards to create connections between different applications, the TCO becomes a wash.

RE Beth Harris’s comment: “Anyway, none of this really matters since it is just a matter of time until teaching and learning are not bound by the walls of the LMS — and become truly collaborative by being public, cross-institutional, and international, and until what students (and teachers) create can be recreated by anyone, anywhere. We just have to bide our time…”

Yup. There’s no surer sign of stagnation, isolation, and eventual obsolescence than sequestering oneself behind a wall.

Cheers,

Bill

]]> By: pmasson http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-83 pmasson Sun, 08 Jul 2007 15:05:50 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-83 Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that only an application's end-users are innovators and therefore technically responsible for the development and deployment of an application's enhancements: that is, innovation is both technical AND functional. My point was, just as you highlight regarding teaching and learning in the LMS, that end-users are creating new was to use existing functionality, discovering useful existing functionality outside the application, are in need of new functionality to enhance the existing tool set (not increase its scope), etc., all of which are innovative. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that only an application’s end-users are innovators and therefore technically responsible for the development and deployment of an application’s enhancements: that is, innovation is both technical AND functional.

My point was, just as you highlight regarding teaching and learning in the LMS, that end-users are creating new was to use existing functionality, discovering useful existing functionality outside the application, are in need of new functionality to enhance the existing tool set (not increase its scope), etc., all of which are innovative.

]]> By: Beth Harris http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-82 Beth Harris Sun, 08 Jul 2007 13:53:41 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-82 What do we mean by "end users" here? Voicethread seems to be a small company committed to keeping their application free -- especially for educators. I suppose commercial applications that are committed to do ONE thing, and one thing only -- can do that one thing very well. This is obviously very different from large behemoths like Bb or ANGEL that try to do everything. But why does it take so long for the innovations in those small tools to make it into the commercial LMS? Why can't I have avatars in the discussion forums? Why can't the discussion forums have emoticons and links to contributor bios? Why can't they indicate how many posts a person has written or a rating assigned to that person's posts by their peers? Why can't students have a photo album area? Why can't they annotate images? I mean -- these are not difficult things technologically speaking, right? And they've been around for years, right? Anyway, none of this really matters since it is just a matter of time until teaching and learning are not bound by the walls of the LMS -- and become truly collaborative by being public, cross-institutional, and international, and until what students (and teachers) create can be recreated by anyone, anywhere. We just have to bide our time... What do we mean by “end users” here? Voicethread seems to be a small company committed to keeping their application free — especially for educators. I suppose commercial applications that are committed to do ONE thing, and one thing only — can do that one thing very well. This is obviously very different from large behemoths like Bb or ANGEL that try to do everything. But why does it take so long for the innovations in those small tools to make it into the commercial LMS? Why can’t I have avatars in the discussion forums? Why can’t the discussion forums have emoticons and links to contributor bios? Why can’t they indicate how many posts a person has written or a rating assigned to that person’s posts by their peers? Why can’t students have a photo album area? Why can’t they annotate images? I mean — these are not difficult things technologically speaking, right? And they’ve been around for years, right?

Anyway, none of this really matters since it is just a matter of time until teaching and learning are not bound by the walls of the LMS — and become truly collaborative by being public, cross-institutional, and international, and until what students (and teachers) create can be recreated by anyone, anywhere. We just have to bide our time…

]]> By: pmasson http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-81 pmasson Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:42:44 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-81 A year and a half ago Micheal Feldstein and I wrote about this in an article, "Unbolting the Chairs: Making LMSs More Flexible" for eLearn Magazine (http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=tutorials&article=22-1). I just can't see how proprietary-closed-source applications can keep up with the innovation occurring from end-users. What's really interesting, and again adding some steam to Mossberg's views, is how enhancements for LMS's (in this case) are not developed for faculty focused on teaching and learning, but rather for IT departments. My favorite story highlighting this emphasis was related to me by a friend from Georgetown University: apparently to use the restroom in his building on campus requires a card key. Which system at Georgetown manages permissions for the card swipe system? The learning management System, of course: "The Blackboard Access Control Reader provides both online and offline access control for residential halls, classrooms and virtually any closed-space environment on campus." (www.blackboard.com/docs/CS/Bb_Transaction_System_Datasheet_Unattended_Readers.pdf - 2005-08-04) Sounds more like a feature the IT department would like to see in an LMS than the faculty. A year and a half ago Micheal Feldstein and I wrote about this in an article, “Unbolting the Chairs: Making LMSs More Flexible” for eLearn Magazine (http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=tutorials&article=22-1). I just can’t see how proprietary-closed-source applications can keep up with the innovation occurring from end-users. What’s really interesting, and again adding some steam to Mossberg’s views, is how enhancements for LMS’s (in this case) are not developed for faculty focused on teaching and learning, but rather for IT departments.

My favorite story highlighting this emphasis was related to me by a friend from Georgetown University: apparently to use the restroom in his building on campus requires a card key. Which system at Georgetown manages permissions for the card swipe system? The learning management System, of course: “The Blackboard Access Control Reader provides both online and offline access control for residential halls, classrooms and virtually any closed-space environment on campus.” (www.blackboard.com/docs/CS/Bb_Transaction_System_Datasheet_Unattended_Readers.pdf – 2005-08-04)

Sounds more like a feature the IT department would like to see in an LMS than the faculty.

]]> By: Beth Harris http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-80 Beth Harris Sun, 08 Jul 2007 00:12:59 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-80 I actually followed this discussion second-hand, and so far my experience matches Mr. Mossberg's remarks. The SUNY document quoted here recommending that SLN begin or continue discussions with the large commercial LMS's and expressing serious concern for SLN 2.0 will have serious ramifications for teaching and learning for many years to come. I recently blogged (http://www.smARThistory.org/blog) about the coolest "small tool" I have seen in years -- http://www.voicethread.com. One look at this and other widely available web 2.0 (for lack of a better term) leaves me completely baffled about why ANGEL and Bb have such terrible user interfaces and such limited functionality. Am I missing something? I actually followed this discussion second-hand, and so far my experience matches Mr. Mossberg’s remarks. The SUNY document quoted here recommending that SLN begin or continue discussions with the large commercial LMS’s and expressing serious concern for SLN 2.0 will have serious ramifications for teaching and learning for many years to come. I recently blogged (http://www.smARThistory.org/blog) about the coolest “small tool” I have seen in years — http://www.voicethread.com. One look at this and other widely available web 2.0 (for lack of a better term) leaves me completely baffled about why ANGEL and Bb have such terrible user interfaces and such limited functionality. Am I missing something?

]]> By: pmasson http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-79 pmasson Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:25:37 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-79 Doug, I imagine the political motivations and how they play out are as varied as there are institutions. To be fair, it's not just IT folks who use situational authority to bully projects through the system, or kill them off. The only department with a worse reputation might be Business & Finance. I've even seen faculty play the bully, pulling the "pedagogy" trump card: I was once called "pedagogically negligent." I guess it all comes back to what my Mom told me, "1=0 && 0=1 != 1=1" Doug,

I imagine the political motivations and how they play out are as varied as there are institutions. To be fair, it’s not just IT folks who use situational authority to bully projects through the system, or kill them off. The only department with a worse reputation might be Business & Finance. I’ve even seen faculty play the bully, pulling the “pedagogy” trump card: I was once called “pedagogically negligent.”

I guess it all comes back to what my Mom told me, “1=0 && 0=1 != 1=1″

]]> By: Doug Cohen http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-78 Doug Cohen Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:46:11 +0000 http://pmasson.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/the-most-poisonous-force-in-technology/#comment-78 Thank you for sharing both your initial reactions and your thoughts after reflection. This post truly highlights the fact that the "bottom line" can be the driver is most any industry, be it private sector, public sector, and even public education. The instructors and instructional designers realized that the technology behind SLN 2.0 would be used to enhance teaching and learning, but yet the IT departments did not. Isn't that what it's all about, teaching and learning?! Losing sight of the big picture for the bottom line is inexcusable, especially when it's public service and education that you are losing sight of. Thank you for sharing both your initial reactions and your thoughts after reflection.

This post truly highlights the fact that the “bottom line” can be the driver is most any industry, be it private sector, public sector, and even public education. The instructors and instructional designers realized that the technology behind SLN 2.0 would be used to enhance teaching and learning, but yet the IT departments did not. Isn’t that what it’s all about, teaching and learning?! Losing sight of the big picture for the bottom line is inexcusable, especially when it’s public service and education that you are losing sight of.

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