Discussion of the book We-Think

I just finished reading We-Think by Charles Leadbeater. In order to ensure that I would not lose the salient points from this book, as they apply to learning I decided to blog about this book ..not so much as a review but to identify the salients points.

We-Think provided the following that I took away from my read of this book:

A better understanding of how the web connects us
Collaboration: thinking, sharing, working together

How this leads to innovation and creativity in groups.
Provides an avenue for freedom, creativity, equality, collaboration, and networking
ie) wikis
Concerns: how these are governed, how teams form, the diversity associated with the teams

Proliferation of user created web content blogs, websites, wikis, social media

Social networking sites work when they foster a spirit of self-governance (page 35)

Provide some order to the chaos of information and a way of managing the information.

History of the Internet----based upon the roots of collaboration that came from the culture of hippy and academics C

Changes in how information is owned and paid for and what is paid for

Open source---radically changes how and what is paid for

Those who create the content provide it as a gift for others to collaborate with them, to improve and create conversation

Diverse ways of thinking are essential for innovation
Diverse values how to resolve differences
Keep them from being overwhelming
Creation of a self-governing community

Thrives on different talents of different people

Provides a spectrum for measuring the level of "we-think"....No We-think to full we-think...The delivery of organized combination of contributions from group of diverse people with differing points of view (Linux, Wikipedia)

The web's best known self-governing communities do seem to bear out, (the need for) responsible self-governance--in which decision making is relatively transparent and power is held to account --- with the outcome that citizens become more engaged and the political process more legitimate and engaged.

New Media Challenges and changes in learning

As I have learned more about open education and open learning I have asked myself.."What does this mean? How does this change learning? What are the challenges?" With that thought in mind I put pen to paper and started to jot down a few things. Learners will have plenty of information via the internet and other means but more this information will be also not be categorized. Further challenges will require that the learner has the skills to determine the validity of the information, but chances are he/she will at times suffer from "information overload, and will be challenged by determining the credibility of the learning resources.

The learner will have unprecedented opportunities for interaction with others; for learning and socializing but he/she will have to determine the legitimacy of this interaction for learning. These interactions go beyond the individual one to one interactions to the basic team interaction to social learning. In order to do this the learner will need to have the skills to evaluate the arguments and be able to objectively develop his/her own arguments. The learner will have to develop critical thinking skills to understand the diverse points of view and understand all sides of an argument to craft his/her own.

The advent of social networking may also be driven by the economy, not only will universities and colleges be looking at cost effective ways to communicate with learners the learners will also be make the same decisions. Social networking tools, most of which are free or basically free, are demonstrating a positive return on investment as more and more learners, faculty, and institutions turn to them in this economic downturn, to underpin communication in online classes and facilitate communication for classes. Not only are these tools free they are easy to access and use.

The formalization and acknowledgment that games are tools for learning. Learners will move away from the notion that using virtual worlds for learning, 3d environments, and immersive environments offer more to their learning experience than just "video games." These environments can be highly structured to meet the outcomes of the course or curriculum and provide the potential to engage a student in his/her learning experience. The learners will need to have the ability to evaluate what he or she is learning and how that applies to the course.

Learners will need to be able to critically self-evaluate in order to understand whether or not the learning experience was meaningful and applied to what they needed to learn. The informal learner will especially need to have this skill as he/she reviews the offerings of open course ware, for example in order to ensure that the course materials he/she is accessing are those that will lead him/her to the intended educational goal.

Finally the learner will have to have the skills to present the informal learning in such a way as to get credit or recognition for it, this could be through portfolios or other presentations. This is a critical skill, a review of univerisity or college course catalogs may indicated whether or not that institutions give credit for prior learning, challenge exams, or CLEP tests.

How Open Education may change how learners learn

Has the open education or open courseware movement changed how people learn? Without a doubt it already has...and will continue to do so.

What is open education or open courseware and why is this important to education today? According to Wikipedia entry the definition is as follows:

Open education is a collective term that refers to forms of education in which knowledge, ideas or important aspects of teaching methodology or infrastructure are shared freely over the internet.

It was inspired by related concepts like Creative Commons, Open source, Open data and Open Access, and expands them to include lectures and other courseware.
(retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_education, 7/28/09)

Open education resources provide for more avenues for a learned to learn informally, hwat is lacking a mean to measure this learning, to determine if it meets academic standards. Will there be a recognized method of evaluating learning in the future that gives a student credit for his/her informal learning? Perhaps.

Will movements such as open courseware and open education lead to changes in how people interact as they learn and interact with and access information. People are hungry to learn, this is evident by my interaction with others in Second Life. I have noted changes in how I access information, web searches are the rule of the day, however since 1995 when I first got on the internet those searches have changed dramatically, resources are more openly available on the web.

Initially you had to pay for access, have a library card or pin number, but now resources such as MIT's open scholarly journals, Google, etc., have all made that information freely available.

I, like many I know, stay current on new events, moment by moment accessing Google News, which I did during the financial meltdown on an almost hour by hour basis, watching trends. I now keep track of news trends and information through Twitter.

Hoe people interact with information, as it exists and as news breaks, and then use that information to create new knowledge is the most exciting and perhaps scariest trend that exists today. But most exciting is how we use the information to learn.

In Second Life I meet new people almost everyday, and many of those I meet, from other countries and the United States are there to learn, specifically to learn from others everything from history, to the English language, to science. Those I meet, who are there to learn are looking for universities, language labs and to visit different sites they have heard about. The potential of virtual worlds as a place to access inforamtion and to learn is only beginning to be realized.

Furthermore the potential of the open education movement is only beginning to be realized as a means to improve our world, give us a common ground and bring high quality education resources to everyone. The future is bright as this unfolds! I can't wait.