One of the key aspects of participatory culture, social media, or whatever you choose to call it, is its capacity to connect people, facilitate dialogue and cultivate the growth of a free-flowing landscape where flexibility and freedom reign and people can transcend their immediate surroundings to engage in a wider, more complex world. From the standpoint of individuals this is a really powerful thing, however this reality does not easily translate to the level of organisations.
In my view this gap is a huge problem, and is a key cause of the conflict we’re seeing between emerging trends in educational technology and open education and more traditional structures and political spheres found in educational institutions. The quandary I’m in now is how to bridge the gap and begin to overcome the obstacles, so the two realms can start to come together.
Commonly, or at least based on my own experience, collaboration and interaction occurs across institutions rather than within them. As if a shadow economy of learning and teaching has emerged outside standing structures rather than growing in symbiosis within it. It’s not unusual for educators to be online well into the evening, engaged in research, discussion and debate on topics that are very relevant to their day jobs, yet for one reason or another is not taking place during the day.
In some cases this is due to conflicts in policy, excessive workload, or worse still technical constraints such as filters that prevent access of any kind. Regardless, the result is a thriving network of activity and exploration that largely fails to trickle back to institutions.
People like George Siemens argue that no lasting change in education can occur without it taking place at the organisational level as well as the individual level. I completely agree with this sentiment; but the devil is in the detail, both literally and figuratively.
Notions of participatory culture or open education are so ill-defined, even esoteric, that organisations either haven’t heard of it, don’t understand it, see it as irrelevant to education, or indeed see it as contrary to articulated policy and objectives. Moreover phrases like “Web 2.0” are bantered about without adequate understanding of their fundamental connotation, nor where they sit within the landscape of participatory culture.
As a result, when these topics are discussed within organisations they are boiled down to frameworks – blogs, wikis, web conferencing tools, Twitter – and implemented according to traditional views of technology in education. Some people recognise the significance of ecosystem over framework – and cultivating things like wiki-nature – however most don’t. This is hardly sewing the seeds for fundamental change.
It is more complicate than that too really. Even amongst those who understand the implications and ramifications of introducing social media to education, traditional organisational pressures remain. These include formal factors like standing mandates and policies, business rules, technical architectures, articulated priorities, budgetary constraints; they also include informal or unspoken factors like political conflicts between departments.
At times it feels like trying to erect a building atop a foundation of quicksand. Currents are constantly changing and despite an organisation appearing to be a cohesive, unified entity from the outside, on the inside it is what a colleague once described as “a system of fiefdoms and feudal lords constantly embroiled in conflict with one another.”
So where does that leave us? Is education destined to be constantly in conflict with itself, with individuals and guerilla groups moving as rogue factions beneath the radar of traditional systems – if not breaking from the traditional model altogether.
Alternatively is the quasi-feudal political system within education – at least higher education – such that there is no one single organisation, but instead many small organisations, and as such localised change is possible, but the likelihood of widespread systemic change is relatively low?
Or finally, is systemic change possible, just slow?
What do you think? Comments and thoughts are welcome and encouraged.
As you know, I strongly believe in the ability of the subversive elements within the system to advance change. Rebellious change outside institutional structures is exciting, but doesn't last. And so long as inside the system there are fiefdoms fighting each other, change will continue to happen — it's when they stop fighting and become centralized that we need to worry. The structure must continually redefine itself anyway; that's just natural.
We're not building castles on quicksand, but I don't think it will have a lasting effect to create quicksand under the castles.
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Good thoughts, thanks for that
I must admit I was in a pretty pessimistic mood when I wrote this yesterday. To a fair degree I remain pretty skeptical about the possibilites of systemic change – there are too many chefs trying to control the recipe in the soup – however I hadn't considered the notion that all the infighting may actually be creating room for subversive pockets of innovation. That's a great thought really.
I'm curious too, could you expand on your distinction between rebellion and subversion within organisations as opposed to outside of it. Are there current examples of one versus the other – for example, would you consider the fact Jim Groom went outside local IT to host UMW blogs on an external server internal subversion? I suppose I would. What would be an example of subversion outside the system?
I don't think you can have *subversion* from outside the system, only actions that appear as rebellion against the system. These don't last because they aren't seen to impact the system really, just create an alternative to it.
If the reason you go outside the system is to create something to be used inside the system (like Jim's going to an outside server or me going to my own Moodle account), it's subversion because it sets a possible example that can be used by the insiders. When that happens, change can occur inside.
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Oops, yes you're quite right about subversion being an internal force. Though surely external forces/pressure would exert at least some pressure on educational systems (or indeed structures of any kind). I guess the question would be the extent of the pressure and the degree to which it was sustained.
That said, I'm trying to think of a relevant example of this and am having coming up with one. The example of market forces (in a business sense) wouldn't work because education isn't necessaily subject to them. Perhaps a political one – for example a historical event where activism or sustained protests eventually forced a change in policy?
I'm tired of fighting. Tired of mentoring. I want to see some of the organizational buy-in. When will that happen?
I've got a tired theme going on, I am almost done with another blog post addressing the issue of women in IT. I got very beat up and didn't feel like even thinking about it anymore.
And I was looking for a good quote about that. I found this one from Dr. King, I'm going to include it in my post (I think). Maybe it will make you feel like carrying on:
“This faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born.”
It may seem trivial to attach this to what you are feeling, but I think we see the power that these tools have to lift everyone up. We know they have the power to change the world. I think deep down we know that is why there is push-back, these tools will disrupt the power structures as they currently exist.
Thanks Gina.
Personally though I will continue to see value in open education and social media and will continue to operate in this paradigm even if there is no uptake at a local level whatsoever. I continue to push for change because I believe it is important and that it's what's best for education and for learning more generally. This doesn't necessarily mean it will happen, that it will be easy, or that it will ever be widely recognised as having inherent value as a new way of working.
It is disheartening sometimes to feel as though no one wants to listen, but really the more I talk about this stuff the more I'm reminded of how much it means to me. So that in itself keeps me going – I'm reminded of why I've chosen to live and work in the open.
I think too that continuing to carry on in spite of adversity and skepticism is important because in doing so we model practice and essentially become use cases on what openness is, how it works, and what the benefits are. Just because people aren't listening now doesn't necessarily mean they won't slowly begin to recognise what is happening over time.
It's like moving a mountain one spoonful of sand at a time – you just have to keep at it.
Oop, yes you're quite right about subversion being an internal force. Though surely external forces/pressure would exert at least some pressure on educational systems (or indeed structures of any kind). I guess the question would be the extent of the pressure and the degree to which it was sustained
RE: @LisaMLane Good thoughts, thanks for that
I must admit I was in a pretty pessimistic mood when I wrote this yest… http://disq.us/28ip
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RE: @LisaMLane Oops, yes you’re quite right about subversion being an internal force. Though surely external forces/pre… http://disq.us/28s1
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RE: Thanks Gina.
Personally though I will continue to see value in open education and social media and will contin… http://disq.us/28xa
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