We're talking about Google Wave over on the Scholarly Kitchen.
Google Wave was built to answer the question, “How would email look if it were invented today?” But Wave goes far beyond email-like functionality and tries to get to the heart of communication in all the forms that we’ve come to know. Wave is part email, part IM, part Wiki, and part document management, to name a few.Ann Michael under, The Scholarly Kitchen, Oct 2009
Through the years I’ve been fortunate to meet lots of smart
people in publishing, media, and technology. It’s been an amazing experience working with both organizations
“going digital” and others that have been there for some time but are continuously
refining their approach to content and publishing.
It’s an exciting place to be (scary, but
exciting).
It seemed to me that the best way to ensure a spot in the
middle of the changing tide was to start consulting on my own again. So that’s what I did!
Fifteen years ago would anyone have imagined that Apple, a dying computer company, would come back to life by gaining control of the music business?Ann Michael under, The Scholarly Kitchen, Sep 2009
SSP IN will take over the entire Hotel Providence from September 23rd - 25th. I could tell you all about IN here, but everything you need to know is on the SSP website:
IN is a different kind of
conference. It is part symposium, part seminar, and part un-conference.
Most of all, it's an opportunity to learn from your colleagues by
participating in small groups lead by industry innovators like Kent
Anderson (Massachusetts Medical Society, New England Journal of Medicine), Chris Beckett (Atypon Systems), Alex Frost, Thane Kerner (SilverChair), Howard Ratner (Nature Publishing Group), and
John Sack (HighWire Press). During IN you'll be the student, the collaborator, and the
instructor!
IN
was created to address the unprecedented change taking place in today's
scholarly publishing industry. Disruptive technologies and business
models are changing the market at the same time the global economy
presents the most challenging fiscal climate in nearly a century. IN is
designed to help you formulate strategies and tactics to take advantage
of the opportunities and successfully negotiate the challenges of
today's publishing landscape.
If your interested in a highly interactive program and you care about the future of publishing and media, think about coming to IN!!!
Those arguments speak for themselves and you can see them on this Squidoo lens started by Seth Godin.
What I find interesting are that the tactics being used and the roles being assumed look very much like those employed during a change management effort within an organization.
There are people advocating, recognizing, and interpreting change (Anderson and Godin) and there are those seemingly resisting change or debating its impact (Gladwell).
Those that bring up alternatives or poke holes at the new direction are regarded by the "change visionaries" as resistant, threatened, or sometimes, simply ignorant. Often, while some are truly resistant to change, many are simply raising issues and perspectives that haven't been fully considered by the change management effort.
On the other side, change visionaries are often resistant to considering anything contrary to their position. Adaptation or adjustment of the change being implemented is viewed as selling out or lacking faith.
It's the healthy debate between these groups, and the shades of gray between them, that allows the organization to find its way and avoid some costly mistakes in the process.
"What matters here isn't technological capital, it's social capital. These tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring...when everybody is able to take them for granted."
"They had understood that their role with my.barackobama.com was to convene their supporters, but not to control their supporters."
Whether to provide a more vibrant and relevant educational experience or to save money on text books, it looks like online education is making some headway.
Connecticut District Tosses Algebra Textbooks and Goes Online, that's what I read last week in the New York Times. Connecticut teachers were frustrated by rushing students "through their Algebra I textbooks only to spend the first few months of
Algebra II relearning everything they forgot or failed to grasp the
first time."
They rewrote the curriculum to focus on fewer topics at greater depth in Algebra I, thus better preparing students for the more advanced concepts and eliminating much of the review time in Algebra II (which could now be spent learning concepts that were cut from Algebra I).
The results?
"...school officials say their less-is-more approach has already resulted
in less review in math classes, higher standardized test scores and
more students taking advanced math classes."
The costs?
...they spent about $70,000 to develop the new math curriculum...[and] the district will soon save at least $25,000 a year on textbooks.
That's interesting.
Not only did they seem to come up with a more effective approach to learning, but they're going to save money.
"From the beginning of the next school year in August, math and science
students in California's high schools will have access to online texts
that have passed an academic standards review."
Questioning the true motivation for the change, the BBC News article noted that "Last year California spent $350m on textbooks and can no longer afford it."
As David observes, "School infrastructure in the developed world has now reached the point where the implementation of a fully digital curriculum is very possible...even if the real underlying reasons have more to do with budget cuts than education."
Could technological advances, changing learning habits, the growing irrelevance of current curriculum, and financial woes finally add up to a wholesale movement of education toward more online learning options?
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