Hi Stephen,<div>Thank you--sincerely--for taking the time to read the guide and offer your opinions. You even found some nice things to say! </div><div>I am sure if you took the time to write a popular guide to DIY learning, it would be far more intellectually coherent than what I was able to produce in the short time given me. You have, after all, been working on and discovering these ideas for a lifetime while I have only been interpreting and communicating about them for a few years. In fact, if you have the time, you and some colleagues should write The Real Edupunks' Guide. I would promote such a thing far and wide.</div>
<div>However. I've never read anything you've written (and yes, I've read plenty of your writing) that would be particularly useful, comprehensible or interesting to a bright 19 year old like Weezie, much less a 64 year old trying to earn a community college degree, like Melvin Doran, the LearnerWeb participant. Believe it or not, there are lots of people who don't know how to use Google or do the most basic kind of research. </div>
<div>And this is also why I focus so much on cost. I come to the topic of education from covering student loans. Simon characterizes the academy beautifully as a welcoming place and a lever of social mobility, but it doesn't function that way so well any more in the US because of tuition that rises at twice the rate of inflation every year. The popular discontent with organized education is inseparable from its rising cost.</div>
<div> It is true, that building your own car doesn't save money, but changing your own oil sure does, or even better converting your car to run on veggie diesel. A lot of people are indeed attracted to the DIY approach initially because of cost savings, and as they start to participate realize other benefits or the process. I think, in the guide, I explain pretty clearly how to start participating. I talk about forming a goal, finding a network, approaching a mentor. It's through this kind of participation that people--hopefully a much, much broader range of people than before--will be drawn into the process of "becoming" that you describe so beautifully. </div>
<div>But when you write the real Edupunks' Guide, please don't say "Want to learn how to make Thai food? Great! Go make some Thai food." I'm sorry, that's just not helpful.</div><div>a</div><div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 8:08 PM, Stephen Downes <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stephen@downes.ca">stephen@downes.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
Hiya Everyone,<br>
<br>
I have now had the chance to read the Edupunks' Guide
<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/60954896/EdupunksGuide" target="_blank">http://www.scribd.com/doc/60954896/EdupunksGuide</a> and can now form
some opinions based on what I've seen. And if I were forced to
summarize my critique in a nutshell, it would be this. Edupunk, as
described by the putative subculture, is the idea of 'learning by
doing it yourself'. The Edupunks' Guide, however, describes
'do-it-yourself learning'. The failure to appreciate the difference
is a significant weakness of the booklet.<br>
<br>
Let me explain. Suppose a person wanted to learn Thai cooking.
Following the Edupunks' Guide, she would find some recipes using
Google, perhaps find a Khan-style course, and if very lucky, a Thai
cooking Google group. I would recommend the Vegan Black Metal Chef
series - good tunes, and good food.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeZlih4DDNg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeZlih4DDNg</a><br>
<br>
By contract, the edupunk way is to cook Thai food, and in so doing,
learn how to be a good chef. There's no right or wrong way to go
about it - the main thing is to get one's hands dirty and actually
learn from the experience. In so doing, a person might take a
course, search for recipes, ask for help, or - in the style of the
underrated film 'The Raman Girl' or that overrated film 'The Karate
Kid' - find a mentor to show you how to steam noodles.<br>
<br>
Now based on the discussion that has already taken place in this iDC
forum, I would expect Anya Kamemetz's first response to be comething
along the lines of "I know that; I do encourage learning by doing."
And no doubt that's what was intended, but that is not in fact what
the booklet does. The structure and focus of the booklet is entirely
toward the 'do-it-yourself learning' model. Here's Anya Kamenetz on
learning to cook:<br>
<blockquote>A simple example is learning to make pizza. A few years
ago, you may have had to take a class or at least buy a cookbook.
Today you can put “how to make a pizza” into YouTube and within
minutes, you’re watching a video that shows you how to fling the
dough! (p. 2)<br>
</blockquote>
But watching a video instead of watching a person (or taking a
class) isn't what makes something edupunk. It's the act of taking
matters into your own hands, and making pizza for yourself, instead
of buying frozen or ordering delivery. And it's more than that: it's
growing your own wheat, grinding your own flower, growing mushrooms
and peppers, and grinding your own pepperoni. None of this is
suggested anywhere in thge guide. Which is unfortunate, because it's
misrepresenting what has overall been a pretty good movement.<br>
<br>
Kamenetz has what may only be described as a very naive
understanding of education (including online education). Here's her
representation:<br>
<br>
What DO we mean by education, exactly? There are three big buckets
of benefit that an educational institution, like a college,
historically provides.<br>
- Content - the skills and knowledge. The subjects, the majors. You
could think of this as the “what” of education.<br>
- Socialization - learning about yourself, developing your
potential, forming relationships with peers and mentors. The “how.”<br>
- Accreditation - earning that diploma or other proof that will
allow you to signal your achievement to the world, and with luck get
a better job. The “why.” (p.3)<br>
<br>
Notice how 'what we mean' by an education becomes the 'three big
buckets of benefit' provided by educational institutions. The idea
here is that if you can just provide these benefits for yourself,
you'll be educated. And that, in turn, is what defines the overall
structure of the booklet - section A focuses on the content, skills
and knowledge; section B focuses on degrees and credentials; and
section C focuses on networks, peers and mentors. And preceeding
these, the 'DIY Educational Manual' offers seven 'how-to' guides to
learning online.<br>
<br>
The section of the book that comes closest to what we are discussing
here, and what could have been the most valuable contribution, is
the section on what the DIY movement is, exactly. This, for example,
is great:<br>
<blockquote>DIY, or Do-It-Yourself, is a movement about
self-reliance and empowerment. DIY communities help each other get
the knowledge and tools they need to solve problems and accomplish
goals on their own without being told how to act or being forced
to spend a lot of money. That can mean growing your own food,
fixing your own car, publishing your own writing or putting on
your own rock show. (p.3)<br>
</blockquote>
That's very good. Not perfect, but very good. I wouldn't say the
reason people embrace DIY is to save money. Often, doing things
yourself can end up being a lot more expensive - just ask anyone who
has built his own car. And it's not about not being told how to act.
Most DIYers will take direction willingly, if it accords with what
they are trying to do. But DIY is about self-reliance and
empowerment, and more, it is about a passion for the thing, a desire
to know, a desire to create or to control, a desire to get behind
the surface appearance of things. <br>
<br>
That's why it is so disappointing to read this:<br>
<blockquote>In the case of DIY education, it means getting the
knowledge you need at the time you need it, with enough guidance
so you don’t get lost, but without unnecessary restrictions. DIY
doesn’t mean that you do it all alone. It means that the resources
are in your hands and you’re driving the process. (p.3)<br>
</blockquote>
Kamenetz simply doesn't understand what 'the process' is, which is
why she is so mistaken about what it means to say 'you’re driving
the process'. Education isn't about 'getting the knowledge'. It's
not about 'getting' anything, except maybe a degree (about which
we'll talk below). It's about becoming something - whether that
something is a painter, carpenter, computer programmer or physicist.
And becoming something is so much more than getting the 'big buckets
of benefits' from educational institutions.<br>
<br>
Now if your interest is in DIY education - that is, an interest in
the educational process itself - then the logical next step is to do
what edupunks have in fact done: to create and experiment with the
design of courses online, to create their own courses. This is what
Jim Groom (who coined the term, 'edupunk') has done with digital
storytelling (ds106) - he has taken the idea of a traditional
university course, disassembled it, and then inserted his students
into the story telling process. His second version of the course -
the 'summer of Oblivion' - had his student weave narratives in and
around the narrative about 'Dr. Oblivion' he created to teach the
course.<br>
<br>
And this is what George Siemens, Rita Kop, Dave Cormier and I have
done over a series of six or so Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
since 2008. Again, we have disassembled the educational process, put
the tools into the hands of the course participants, and then
invited them to recreate the course along 'connectivist' principles.
In offering learning this way we are *being* edupunk, as are the
course participants who created Second Life environments, Google
groups, concept maps and illustrations, Twitter hashtags, online
forums, in-person meetings, and more. We in these courses don't
learn by reading, we don't learn by accessing course materials or
watching videos, we learn by doing, by actually *creating* the
distributed network that eventually became these courses.<br>
<br>
Now of course, not everybody wants to learn storytelling or how to
create an online course. People are interested in every discipline
under the sun, and the way of approaching and learning in each
discipline is unique to that discipline. People interested in
carpentry build spice racks, then bookshelves, then cabins, and
learn about mitre joints and toe-rails as they go along. People who
want to be philosophers read a lot, and try tentative arguments in
fan forums, gradually over time finding out about and being admitted
to the insider circles where Fodor and Searle and Pylyshyn (for
example) play. <br>
<br>
It's *hard* to learn this way; in fact, it's *harder* than going to
college. The educational system as it is currently structured is
intended to offer a set of short cuts - access to qualified
practitioners, creation of custom peer networks, guided and
scaffolded practice - for a certain price. The system isn't (as
suggested in Kamenetz's booklet) about imposing sets of restrictions
and making things more expensive. It's about offering the greatest
reach in the shortest time. It allows those willing and able to
invest themselves full-time to master the basics of a discipline
relatively quickly, so they can obtain employment and begin the real
learning they will need to undertake in order to become expert.<br>
<br>
And this is what Kamenetz simply misunderstands about traditional
learning - that the greatest of the 'bucket of benefits' isn't
provided by the college at all, but by the student. It is this
full-time *immersion* into a discipline that helps someone *become*
the sort of person who can, over time, be an expert in that
discipline. You can't just get the 'benefits' offered by a college
and somehow 'acquire' an education without that commitment, without
that immersion, without that dedication. Kamenetz's version of DIY
education depicts it as a quick and inexpensive short-cut -- the
exact opposite of what it actually is.<br>
<br>
Oh, and how. The seven how-to guides are each capsule examples of
what I have been saying.<br>
<br>
Take the first section, how to "do research online" (p.7). It
becomes pretty apparent from the advice (which begins "start with
Google" and continues through search terms and hashtags) that by
"research" Kamenetz means something like "find stuff." As a guide to
web-search, the page might offer reasonable novice-level instruction
(which would be quickly superseded by practice). As a guide to
"research" it is dangerously misleading.<br>
<br>
What is research, anyways? An education in the disciplines that
actually do research (which is, in fact, most of them) would suggest
that it a structured method employed in order to identify causes or
offer explanations of things. The historical researcher isn't
interested simply in the fact that Napoleon invaded Russia in 1807,
she wants to know *why* he launched such a dangerous undertaking,
what happened, what were the causes of its failure, and what the
experience teaches us about the French, the Russians, and the nature
of empires in general. And that is why Tolstoy's War and Peace is
such a remarkable work. He doesn't just tell a story, he offers a
thesis about the great events of the time, a thesis that has been
expounded and studies by researchers of literature.<br>
<br>
Where is any of this in Kamenetz's guide? Where is the understanding
that research needs to have a plan and a method, that it needs to
ask questions, and set criteria for what would constitute answers to
those questions? Where is the distinction between different types of
research, such as experimental research, say, and literature
reviews? Shouldn't Kamenetz have advised people who want to research
online to first learn how to research, and maybe suggested some
examples of successful research, and places where people could
practice their own research? No, instead we get "A successful online
research session will leave you with 20 open tabs or windows at the
top of your screen." (p.7) That's not advice; that's a travesty of
advice.<br>
<br>
Or consider the second how-to section, "write a personal learning
plan." Having a plan is good; having several is even better (I
cannot count the number of times my back-up plan has become my
plan!). What we are given here are not plans. Consider these "goals"
offered as examples:<br>
<br>
“I want steady professional employment in the field of
sustainability.” <br>
“I want to start a business that feeds my love of jewelry.”<br>
“I want to combine teaching English with travel.” (p.8)<br>
<br>
These barely - if at all - count as goals. Kamenetz may as well have
quoted six-year olds and given as examples "I want to ride a rocket
ship" or "I want to be a fireman." A goal is something concrete,
with a clear indicator of success, typically with a time frame, and
described in terms of the effort being undertaken. <br>
<br>
Attempting to clarify the first of the three goals given above would
reveal, for example, that there is no such thing as 'the field of
sustainability'. It would be necessary to describe employment as an
environmental scientist, climate researcher, alternative energy
engineer, or some such thing. So we would expect a goal to read
something like "I want to qualify and obtain employment as a solar
power designer by 2020." <br>
<br>
Ah, but don't take my advice here. There's a lot of good material on
identifying and setting goals, both online and off. This guide
refers to none of it. It's as though Kamenetz is just making this up
as she goes along. Or maybe depending on people like Weezie
Yancey-Siegel, whose 'learning goal' Kamenetz cites as follows:<br>
<br>
To try out more of a self-designed, experiential approach to
learning. Along the way, I hope to create something new and spark
further social change in the area of education, social media, global
citizenship, and general do-gooding. (p. 10)<br>
<br>
Her 'plan' consists of watching TED videos, reading some books,
meditatating, watching 'fictional films', and the like. We don't
know why, for example, she supposes reading 'Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance' will help here, except that it was (maybe)
recommended by Amazon. We don't know why she recommends viewing
Nathan Myhrvold on shooting mosquitoes out of the sky with lasers.
Her 'plan' is what most of us would call 'a year off'.<br>
<br>
And in fact, she is taking a year off her very traditional studies
as a sophomore undergrad at Pitzer College in Southern California,
majoring in International/Intercultural Studies. And her *actual*
plan is to "<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)">create a new popular
resource that I have realized does not exist at the moment. My
hope is that my book and the varied profiles of bold
'eduventurists' will inspire other young people like myself to
take their own leap into the unknown world of experiential,
alternative learning."
<a href="http://eduventurist.org/the-eduventurist-project/" target="_blank">http://eduventurist.org/the-eduventurist-project/</a><br>
<br>
Should I go on? How how 'how-to' number three, "teach yourself
online", where step number 1 and step number 4 are both "ask a
question", step number 3 is "do some serious reading", and step
number 2 is "zero in on unfamiliar words, phrases, symbols or
expressions." Yes, there's a sidebar that says "</span><span><span>the
process wouldn’t </span><span style="word-spacing:-1px">be complete
until he tried to do it</span><span> himself</span></span>" - but
there's no sense of learning from example, learning from experience,
iterative and scaffolded practice, experimentation, documentation
and note-taking - all the usual accoutrements of do-it-yourself
learning. <br>
<br>
Take a popular do-it-yourself instance, for example, learning to
program online. Thousands - maybe millions - of people has taught
themselves how to write software. The way *they* learned (the way
*I* learned) does not in any way resemble the advice Kamenetz gives.
Aspiring programmersd look at what other programmers have done and
read the explanations (at this point Kamanetz should gave
Google-searched for 'worked examples', but she didn't). They
experiment with the code, changing variables, adding functions, to
lerarn how what they do creates new outcomes. They start with
something simple (print "Hello world") move on to something more
complex ("bubble sort") and engaging ("game of life") long before
they, say, write their own word processor or database software. <br>
<br>
They begin as apprentices, debugging and proposing fizes on other
open source projects, forking and extending when they get their
legs, always trying out and sharing their work in the public forum,
critiquing and accepting criticism. This doesn't just teach them
programming, it teaches them how to think like a programmer, how to
measure success, how to define the optimal. None of this is in the
programming books - it's what Polanyi would call 'tacit knowledge'
or Kuhn would call 'knowing how to solve the problems at the end of
the chapter'. All of which Kamenetz would know, if she had
*researched* instead of just performing some Google searches.<br>
<br>
It's as though Kamentetz has read *about* do-it-yourself learning,
online or otherwise, but has never *done* it, much less tried to
facilitate it. The remaining how-to guides (there's no need to
deconstruct them all) are equally superficial and misleading. <br>
<br>
<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)">Defending her work in the iDC
discussion list, Kamenetz has turned to a general defense of the
idea of DIY learning, and suggested that her critics are
entrenched academics with their own interests to protect. <br>
<br>
"</span>So who's really uncomfortable with what I'm saying and how
I'm saying it?" she asks. "A small subset of academics. People whose
paychecks are currently signed by the academy. People for whom the
transformation of education is a matter of academic interest in the
narrow sense--you may be interested in informal, uncodable and
untranslatable forms of self-learning, Marco, but there is no
indication on RateMyProfessor.com that you refuse to give grades or
credits.<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0)">"
<a href="https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2011-August/004680.html" target="_blank">https://lists.thing.net/pipermail/idc/2011-August/004680.html</a><br>
<br>
Of the names I have cited above - Groom, Cormier, Siemens, Kop -
only one (Groom) is employed as a university professor. The rest
of us - myself included - are employed in other endeavours (and
yes, we are employed - there's no law saying edupunks have to be
penniless bums). And of the other people I could cite in the same
context, some are professors but the majority are practitioners of
one sort or another - technologists, designers, consultants,
researchers, programmers, etc. It is ironic - and typical - that
Kamenetz would join an academics' mailing list, and then complain
that all the members are academics.<br>
<br>
But let's look more seriously at what she is describing in these
posts as edupunk. It appears to be, "how to get a degree quickly."
The 'why' from above. She writes (ibid), "For a large proportion
of people right now--as for a large proportion, if not the
entirety, of the people on this list--that journey will include
earning a credential from a recognized institution." She observes
"the American Association of State Colleges and Universities,<br>
and some people in the Department of Ed, and not a few community
college leaders across the country, have been quite friendly to
what I'm saying." And "Government cuts to higher education are the
reality of the world we live in, and DIY approaches can help
maximize the resources that remain."<br>
<br>
She is free to hold he views, but that's not edupunk - it's not
punk of any sort. It's establishment thinking combined with a good
dose of offloading costs. Maybe it's good educational advice (it's
not... but I digress) but it is definitely not edupunk. It's not
even a good - or particularly informed - discussion of learning in
the 21st century.<br>
<br>
I don't want to conclude by recommending my own work, but I will,
because Kamenetz is obviously not familiar with any of the ideas
and trends characterizing edupunk, do-it-yourself, informal,
online, or community-based learning. Accordingly, I offer 'The
Future of Online Learning - Ten Years On' as a comprehensive
summary and insight into the technologies and trends she is trying
to describe. <br>
<a href="http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2008/11/future-of-online-learning-ten-years-on_16.html" target="_blank">http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2008/11/future-of-online-learning-ten-years-on_16.html</a><br>
<br>
-- Stephen<br>
</span><font color="#888888">
<blockquote type="cite">
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<div>-- <br>
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<br>
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<span>Stephen Downes<br>
</span>
<span>Research Officer, National
Research Council Canada<br>
100 rue des Aboiteaux, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
E1A 7R1<br>
Website: <a href="http://www.downes.ca" target="_blank">http://www.downes.ca</a>
~ Email: <a href="mailto:stephen@downes.ca" target="_blank">stephen@downes.ca</a></span>
</td>
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Share relevant URLs on <a href="http://Del.icio.us" target="_blank">Del.icio.us</a> by adding the tag iDCref<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><b><span style="color:rgb(51, 204, 255)">New ebook!</span></b><b> </b><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/60954896/EdupunksGuide" target="_blank">The Edupunks' Guide</a><b><br>
Fast Company column</b> <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/user/anya-kamenetz" target="_blank">Life In Beta</a><br><b>Tribune Media column</b> <a href="http://www.tmsfeatures.com/columns/business/personal-finance/savings-game/" target="_blank">The Savings Game</a><br>
<b>Book</b> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/DIY-Edupunks-Edupreneurs-Transformation-Education/dp/1603582347" target="_blank">DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education </a><br><b>Blog</b> <a href="http://diyubook.com/" target="_blank">DIYUbook.com </a><br>
<b>Twitter </b><a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/anya1anya" target="_blank">@Anya1anya</a><br><br>
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