Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that this year I’m Chair of Naace, the association for educational professionals here in the UK that are interested passionate about advancing education through ICT. Like every society or organisation of like minded people, its traditional way of maintaining and recruiting members has been to offer something that you can’t get outside the club. For teacher associations, that uniqueness has traditionally manifested itself in the journal, or magazine and the face-to-face conferences and opportunities where networking and trading ideas takes place. Not being part of the club in the past means you did not get the information or peer-to-peer support. But the internet and social networking has changed all that. Now you can join, and set up your own network for free. Early adopters don’t need to be inside the ‘club’ to be seen as innovative and begin to carve their career by being noticed by the ‘establishment’. I believe this problem to be true for all established groups, but is stark for Naace, whose membership consists of many early adopters and innovators in the very technology that is causing this change. The truth is who were the educators who set up blogs and wikis first, experimented with and use social networking for learning and are moving fast with Web 2.0, but those very people who are passionate about advancing education through ICT! Why would they therefore join a network where they have to pay an annual subscription, when they can get in contact with like minded people for free?

The answer comes down to what Kevin Kelly calls the eight generatives:

In a real sense, these are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. I call them “generatives.” A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.

1. Immediacy — “Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released — or even better, produced — by its creators is a generative asset.”
Naace’s listserv delivers answers to your mailbox often within minutes of you posting a question. The network of members, all with particular expertise in educational ICT, willing to help each other makes this community one to be valued. There is always someone who has already done what you are thinking of in a school, with learners using ICT.

2. Personalization — “A generic version of a concert recording may be free, but if you want a copy that has been tweaked to sound perfect in your particular living room — as if it were preformed in your room — you may be willing to pay a lot.”
Members often help each other out in all sorts of ways, adapting and giving back to the community, collating responses from the listserv and feeding them out again. The recent establishment of a ‘knowledge wiki” is already proving valuable as previous knowledge can be adapted and updated and not repeated because a new member asks the same question as one asked a year ago.

3. Interpretation — “As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000. But it’s no joke.”
Naace gathers and interprets the views of members and feeds them back to policy makers that helps bring about measured and sustainable change for learners. Its strength comes from the independent outlook and view gathered from all those involved in educational ICT. Such influence strengthens the many voices brought into one, rather than the disparate and individual voice of bloggers or forum posters. Individual opinions are free, being part of a collective voice is worth paying for.

4. Authenticity — “You might be able to grab a key software application for free, but even if you don’t need a manual, you might like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You’ll pay for authenticity.”
Expertise is expensive when paid for, and in the complex world of ICT, specialisation has been necessary and true for a long time. One can no longer know everything there is to know when asked a question by your superior, but having an authentic and reliable group of experts on tap increased your worth in the eyes of others.

5. Accessibility — “Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile world, you have to carry it along with you. Many people, me included, will be happy to have others tend our “possessions” by subscribing to them.”
Naace tends, nurtures and grows your accessibility to the knowledge pool. No internet searching or testing of different social networks on educational ICT to find the most appropriate one or more in your situation today, or tomorrow, when you move job and take on new challenges.

6. Embodiment — “At its core the digital copy is without a body. You can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps you’d like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good.”
Naace members do meet face-to-face and discuss things at conferences, think tanks and seminars. It might be increasingly expensive, but a real community still needs to meet even in an increasingly digital world.

7. Patronage — “It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect.”
Naace’s ability to represent the educational ICT world in the UK has a value, both by its members and those that acknowledge it is representative. Without it, ICT in education would not be so advanced in the UK, and so important to the lives of learners.

8. Findability — “Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless.”
Naace, promotes ICT in education and paying for that promotion helps everyone whether they be commercial ICT companies, the ICT teacher or the Government agency responsible for being about educational technology adoption and change.

(Thanks to Will for pointing out Kevin Kelly’s article.)

Image credit: Klabusta

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