There are a couple of really thought-provoking themes floating around at the moment that have just taken me down a train of thought I want to reflect on.

In a post today (“Cloning the UMW Blogs Empire“), Jim Groom discusses how he set up a WPMU installation for Longwood University by cloning their existing UMW blog framework and transplanting it to a new domain. It’s a phenomenal example of reuse and sharing, and how quickly innovation can occur at a local level once the barriers of perception are cast off and university silos evaporate.

The entire post is worth a read because it describes the process in greater detail; but in particular, I was grabbed by the following quote;

“After asking Liz to go out and purchase a domain for $8.95 a year, I was able to use the Multi-Site Manager plugin to clone the settings of UMW Blogs within our install (think of it as a WPMu within a WPMu) and voilà, Longwood Blogs was created—it took all of two minutes!”

Strict Constructionism in Educational Technology
The funny thing is though, in reading Jim’s post, the first thing that came to my mind is “can you do that?” “Of course you can…and you should” is the answer, but in saying this I’m struck by the realisation that my first conclusion – despite all my open source idealism and staunch individualism – was to worry about circumventing the institution, and what the implications might be. I find that reaction puzzling and somewhat disconcerting.

Let me reiterate though, I think doing things this way makes perfect sense; though almost certainly several of my colleagues will disagree with me – which is where my train of thought went to next.

Perhaps the fact this rapid-fire development and release model goes against the grain, flies in the face of what central IT says is safe, and what proponents of “structure, standards and policy” say are efficient and formally recognised and supported all combine to create an air of obstacles and barriers to creative thinking and innovation. Sort of a Strict Constructionist view of educational technology: “Unless it’s expressly approved, you can’t do it.”

The thing is, you can do it; and you can do it for cheaper, more open, more pedagogically nurturing (at least in my mind), and more individually empowering than the centrally supported, monolithic, locked-in, ridiculously expensive LMS’s can.

On Reuse
As far as reuse goes, Brian Lamb’s recent post got me to thinking about the implications for not just open content, but reuse. In my neck of the woods at least, I get the feeling people are starting to understand the notions of making content open – and releasing it into the ether – but still resist or don’t fully appreciate the concepts of reuse.

It’s almost as if reusing content is seen to be less academic somehow, or the lazy way out.

Open content should be the norm I think; it goes hand-in-hand with diversity and holistic representation of the complexities and intricacies of the learning landscape. But equally important is increasing awareness of the nature of reuse, why you do it, what the benefits are, what it enables you to do, why it’s important.

Perhaps this leads into a comment I read Stephen Downes make somewhere along the line that new media opens the door to the web as conversation, and the fact existing educational structures need to realise the values and implications of this and stop fighting it.

It seems to me that open content provides the building blocks or tools we use to piece together our understandings of the landscape – the prims of learning to take a SecondLife analogy – whereas reuse let’s us realise our perspectives, inject our personality, and make it contextually relevant to us.

What’s critical for educators to consider is when, how and under what circumstances these opportunities are best realised. Equally importantly is the idea that if central IT or university services do not exist to support learning in the way students require, it is our responsibility – indeed obligation, in my mind – to go to whatever lengths are necessary to ensure these opportunities are made available.

Even if it means spinning up a WPMU installation on a commercial host for $8.95 per year.