Technology - Tool or Tempest (When geeks go bad)

1. Technology - Tool or Tempest(When geeks go bad) Leo Burstein Research and Technology Architect Boston University

2. Agenda • Current State Analysis • Technology Architecture • Designing Services and Pilots • Example

3. 1. Educational Technologies Landscape Technology landscape is crowded, how to find the perfect technology (and do they exist?) Multimedia • Discussions • Blogs • Wikis • Webinars • Social Networking • … Collaboration LMS Authoring • Video • Flash • Animations • Voiceovers • Podcasting • iTunesU • … • Blackboard • Vista • Course Info • Angel • Moodle • Sakai • Learning Gateway • … How do we know when students should “construct a wiki entry rather than to have a virtual discussion or a face-to-face dialog?” [1] • MS Office • Dreamweaver • Google • Respondus • Camtasia • …

4. 2. Navigating the Maze • Use the classic change management approach: determine (1) where you are, (2) where you want to be, and (3) how do you get from 1 to 2. 2 3 1

5. 3. Education and Business Reality There is a real gap between higher education and today’s business realities Harvard Business Review: "Business schools are on the wrong track. Some of the research produced is excellent, but because so little of it is grounded in actual business Practice, the focus of graduate business Education has become increasingly Circumscribed -- and less and less relevant to practitioners".[2] “We should aim to be the premier University in the United States where specialization is not an end in itself, but always part of a program that aims explicitly at higher goals and broader horizons.” Boston University, Report of the Task Force on Changing Landscape And leading universities are accepting the challenge:

6. 4. What Companies are Looking For?

7. 5. Two Birds, One Stone • Companies are asking for core competencies of the 21st century.  With time pressures we all experience, we need to develop core competencies in our students at the same time we teach academic skills. + Ensure Student Success = Support Academic Learning Develop Core Competencies

8. Breakthrough Vision Projected Breakthrough Outcome Assumed Milestones 2007 2008 2009 6. Breakthrough Methodology However, we are not exactly know how to develop these skills e.g. how to teach innovation.  We have what I call a “breakthrough” situation – come up with new approaches when we do not know specific requirements. • Establish breakthrough vision • Define projected outcomes • Develop milestones and use cases • Identify building blocks and interfaces • Pilot and determine best practices • Re-use ‘building-blocks’ with minimum modifications for scalability

9. 7. The Appliance Concept Use architectural approach – create a standardized framework of building blocks that: • Expose well defined and user-friendly interfaces Important: Faculty resources are always in short supply; students have various change tolerance levels. • Are generic enough to survive frequent changes. Finding the proper abstraction level often is not trivial; too much abstraction might lead to irrelevance.  For example, you want to create assignments that can be used in online and F2F courses, but you might not need an assignment that can be used in both database security and financial concepts courses. We do not need to know the internal design of a toaster, and if toaster is properly designed, we do not need to read the user manual to make a toast. Standardize on interfaces, not on tools!

10. 8. “The Academic Freedom” The academic environment presents challenges to standardization.  It looks like almost intentionally everybody tries to come up with their own approaches to accomplish similar tasks.  I guess this is what they call the “academic freedom”. B A

11. 9. The Service Ladder? Over-standardization can kill the breakthrough thinking.  Instead, we should develop standardized services with multiple entry points, so people can join the mainstream processes where they prefer.  B Service Service Service Interfaces A Example: html editing in LMS vs. using Dreamweaver vs. maintaining content in Word – the most important thing is that faculty has full control over content, the tools are almost irrelevant.  The interfaces are important!

12. 10. Managing the Greenhouse Costs Cost is usually a challenge when designing standardized services for emerging technologies. But can be managed by conducting limited pilots.  Pilots can vary by the number of participants, but you can lose the baby if you do not provide sufficient support services.  As mentioned – two important factors are students’ satisfaction and faculty resources. 

13. 11. Wait for the Future? You can ask - why not wait for technologies to mature?  The answer is – it’s not about technologies, it’s about how to use the technologies to advance education.  Hands-on pilot experience is extremely important.  To lead, we need to be ahead, we need to learn together with faculty and technology partners how to effectively use technologies when they enter the mainstream.

14. 12. Example: Using e-Live Video Collaboration

15. References • [1] Chris Dale, Harvard Graduate School of Education. • [2] Warren G. Bennis and James O’Toole, How Business Schools Lost Their Way