Why?
The AECT’s Strategic Task Force is working on this notion of Overlay. We’ve been banging around a vision of what that might look like and how it might work. In the comments, Stephanie Roberts says:
…I think we’ve left the “why” untouched. So we have all these tools and flexible infrastructure and even an online conference. Why will people use these, return to these consistently, participate??
Man, I hate it when she gets all reasonable.
Because that’s a darn good question. Why, indeed?
The answer is, “most won’t.”
The reality of the situation is that most people involved in the AECT are on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. One of the more cogent definitions of this notion is “Any group of people who are unable to take advantage of the benefits of information technology.” The classic sense of Digital Divide involves people who cannot afford a computer. Over the years it’s grown to include physical and fiscal access to computer networks. Heck, there are still areas of the US where simple electricity is problematic. Lately, I’m seeing references to groups of people who may have computer and network access but don’t really know how (or why) to use them.
AECT? Are you listening?
No, probably not.
I think the problem is opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is an economics term that refers to the notion that whenever you spend a scare resource (like time) on one thing, it prevents your use of that resource in some other fashion. That alternate use — the other opportunity — is lost.
And in the AECT the critical commodity is time.
Grad students never have enough time to read everything, study everything, and stay familiar enough with family and friends to be able to pick them out of a police lineup. Pre-tenure faculty have all the scut work of being junior members of faculty on top of having to scramble in the tenure rat-race. Tenured members are, by that time, so over booked with teaching, research, and service commitments they don’t have time to pee. So anything an AECT member needs to do that’s new requires they give up something that’s old.
Ah, the Change Dilemma.
Frankly, as I’ve been working on this with Don Little these last few weeks, I have come to the realization that the majority of AECTers aren’t gonna get it. No matter what Field of Dreams we build, they are not going to come. The opportunity cost is just way to high. Arguments like
a. This is part of your prefession and you should know how to use these tools.
b. There is a whole world out there that has evolved past you and is moving away fast.
c. You need these tools to be able to do your job better.
d. Without having access to these tools you relegate yourself and all the students you touch to a second (or third) class place in the world.
are not going to cut any ice.
The problem is, as with any adoption process, until you actually see what the innovation really does in the context of your own life, you will not understand what benefit you may gain from adopting it. The difference between early-adopters and middle-adopters is curiousity. Early-adopters are willing to say, “I wonder what THIS does.” The difference between middle- and late-adopters is imagination. Middle-adopters are able to say, “Wow, seeing what that does over there, I imagine I could use it here, too.” Late-adopters need more incentives because they cannot imagine how THAT silly notion could have any benefit to them, until one day the choice is forced upon them.
A few weeks back I wrote about my early email experiences — IT people asking, “Why would I want or need email?” We’re at the same place in social computing with the use of blogs, aggregators, and other kinds of collaborative spaces. The early-adopters are way the heck out there (pointing at the horizon waaaaay over there). The middle-adopters are milling about down the road a mile or so. The late adopters haven’t come into view yet.
Ok. Enough forced metaphor. Back to the question - Why?
Not why would they adopt and use it. They won’t. At least the majority won’t in the short term.
But now “Why build it?”
The answer to that is certainly not “because we can.”
The answer is “because we must.”
All those reasons I gave above are true. If we want to be the best, all that remains is to be the best. And in this world of instruction, education, learning, and technology the concepts and tools here are crucial. By failing to adopt and use these tools we become that school district that doesn’t believe in the power of overhead projectors. We become that group of educators that keeps trying to prove whether or not people can learn by watching TV. We become the very symbol of an image of Education that I believe AECT stands against.
And what about all the people who have said to us, “The AECT doesn’t meet my needs.” Mike Barbour makes a telling case against the AECT and it’s ability to meet his needs for information, focus, and involvement — and not just for him but for hundreds of others. (Mike, get off your butt and start writing! We need you out here.) This platform provides an outlet - a collection of communications channels - that is unprecedented in history for its ability to connect, collate, and enable publication of ideas.
And after all, isn’t that what Education is all about?
January 26th, 2005 at 10:36 am
Leaving aside my current suspicion that “education” is an unacknowledged euphemism for state sponsored social programming, as apposed to market sponsored social programming. I want to suggest a slightly different skew on the “why” First I agree with everything Nate says; Dave Wylie uses kinder language to come to approximately the same conclusion. Of course pretty much the same things could have been said about having a perfectly good horse, and the only reply would have been, “Indeed, but it steam-engines when it’s steam engine time.” It’s only a question of what color Ford you’re going to buy and when. Back to “why” we, AECT, should be interested. From my idiosyncratic position on the task force I can give two reasons: First, it would be a great way to establish new directions for AECT, considerably more flexible and less directive that surveys or focus groups. Second, there are real issues in the world that need our attention. You can pick systemic change in schools, no child left behind and other state/federal initiatives, tenure, diversity, gay rights, copyright, copyleft, open content, and on and on. I do not believe that we can seriously call ourselves a learning organization without engaging, pick a side, these issues. I got interested in social software or what Nate’s calling “the overlay” when I stared thinking about what two people had put together with MoveOn.org. It’s not just the internet, it’s what we can do with it. The “why” is because there’s a lot that needs doing.
January 26th, 2005 at 4:49 pm
“…kinder language…”??!!
Jeez, I’m glad I didn’t put down what I *really* thought!!
March 30th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
This is what we really need…people who stir the pot! AECT is moving in the directions you are indicating…there are, as Nate so kindly put it, costs…and it’s not the dollar amount…but people time and the need to prioritize all the things that we need to be doing as an organization. Some of those things don’t allow us the luxury of sitting back and enjoying a good afternoon chat.
And, unfortunately, right now, you guys are sitting here, on the porch in some back woods general store where the dirt road isn’t traveled much…ok, maybe the picture isn’t perfect…but what I see is a great discussion that is hidden away from the general population of those who need to hear and participate. So, can you move this discussion to a more obvious location so others can see it also?
And, thanks for the chat.
Sharon
March 30th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
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