"Churn" in the for-profit education industry

The digital age and changing corporate strategies have produced some handoffs among the three corporations that have dominated education publishing:  McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Apollo Global Management has bought the education publishing side of McGraw-Hill for $2.5 billion.  McGraw-Hill had dropped 11% of revenues between 2008 and 2011, according to Education Week (December 12, 2012).  The head of Apollo's version of the company says they want to put together digital content and services into a package, rather than separate development.

The other two of the big publishers revenues also dropped in that period:  Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt lost 13% and Pearson's publishing revenue dropped 3%.

Edweek says the situation is a result of several trends:  moves from print to digital, austerity in school district budgets and states deciding not to purchase new textbooks until the new US Common Curriculum is in place and textbooks reflect new content.

While McGraw-Hill sold off its education side, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt came out of bankruptcy protection after restructuring $3.1 billion in debt because of previous acquisitions of other education publishing companies.   They had expanded into a declining market.

Pearson is “acquiring technology to create platforms for its content,” according to the Edweek report. It has bought Harcourt Assessment, “America’s Choice” school improvement company, Schoolnet software, and Connections Education, a virtual school operator.  They bought Connections Education from Apollo Global management that, in turn, just bought McGraw-Hill.

For Pearson, this is a continuation of a corporate strategy of buying up other companies to develop an integrated company that offers one-stop shopping for every stage of the education process.  This was described in another digicritic post.  http://digicritic.blogspot.ca/2012/09/corporate-control-of-education-pearson.html

Apollo, the company that bought McGraw-Hill, owns Phoenix University.  Apollo is closing down more than 100 Phoenix University campuses in the US and putting the savings into expanding its already large online programs.  A US Senate committee has reported on an investigation of Phoenix University practices:

“The report outlines widespread problems in the sector, including overpriced tuition, predatory recruiting practices, high dropout rates and aggressive marketing campaigns. It calls for enhanced transparency, stronger oversight and meaningful protections. The report suggested that the education department create an online student complaint clearinghouse and require all higher education institutions to provide a link on their websites.”  [From the Phoenix, Arizona, Business Journal.]

www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/12/12/14mcgrawhill.h32.html

www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2012/10/16/apollo-group-to-close-100-university.html?page=all

 

 

The Age of the Electronic Mob

Against the machine:  Being human in the age of the electronic mob

By Lee Siegel

Spiegel & Grau  (2008)

We are all under attack from the “electronic mob,” according to Lee Siegel.

Lots has been written about the democratic potential of the internet.  For example, Howard Rheingold’s book on the topic is called Smart Mobs: the next social revolution.

 Author Lee Siegel takes aim at this idea in his book, Against the machine:  Being human in the age of the electronic mob.  Siegel characterizes Web 2.0 as a “crude caricature of egalitarianism.”

 Siegel’s challenge to the wisdom of crowds theory of the internet falls into three categories:  its commodification, standardization and radical individualism.

 Commodification is no surprise.  In an amazingly short time, the non-commercial internet morphed into the huge profit centre that it has become.  The commodity for sale is really attention, much as has been the case for the newspaper, radio and TV.  However, in the case of the internet, ironically, what is for sale is frequently the content that has been created by the very person who is also the consumer.  Leisure time is, in effect, turned into work; private experience into a public commodity.

 Some 70 million blogs exist in the blogosphere, growing rapidly toward 100 million.  Siegel see this, rather than imperialism, as the true final phase of capitalism.  It reflects the individual learning to “retail his privacy as a public performance.”  Leisure play is fused with production and consumption.  The internet culture, Siegel claims, operates on a belief “that the market contains all values.”

While boosters of the internet talk about “demassification,” in fact it produces more standardization.  Many of the information sources on the internet provide information through algorithms based on popularity—such as Google search returns.  The New York Times online replaces “All the news that’s fit to print” with sidebars giving links to the 10 most e-mailed, blogged and searched items.

The individual gets customized information through tools like Google Reader—what Nicholas Negroponte calls “The Daily Me” and others call “crowdsourcing.”  Siegel has another word for it—the “youniverse” that only reflects back to the user what he/she wants to hear.  Mass customization is really a new form of standardization.

But it is a standardization that at the same time promotes an extreme individualism through the illusion of choice, access and increased opportunity for individual expression.  These produce the feeling of individual agency, but not the reality.  The anonymity of putting out ideas without a real name attached, as is often the case, encourages a lack of accountability and reflects an absence of the positive influence of institutional ethics.

So what does Siegel want?  Siegel sees his work as being one of unmasking “the emperor’s new modem.”  

Like Neil Postman, who laments “the surrender of culture to technology,” Siegel wants some institutions that operate on ethical principles and social responsibility.  For example, Siegel contends that the “the culture needs authoritative institutions like a powerful newspaper.”  Without that, he suggests, we are subjected to the “electronic mob.”

Yes, but….. Short of a total global ecological disaster, we are not likely to abandon the new tools and networks.  But we can try to shape them, to work at creating responsible, democratic and ethical communication systems that are not new forms of commodification and profit centres.

Ironically, Siegel himself was caught up in 2006 in a blogging situation that was not either responsible or ethical, in the view of many.  He had been a blogger at the New Republic magazine and had come under attack by others in the blogging world. 

Siegel created a pseudonym and joined in the blog wars in defense of himself and against what he called ‘blogofascism.’  Creating a pseudonym to defend your self is labeled as creating a ‘sock puppet’ and he got fired from the magazine when it was exposed. 

Despite this, Lee Siegel does us a favour by challenging the hyper-promotion of the new technologies by those who profit from them and by those who are uncritical proponents of a new world, without looking below the surface at the social dangers that lurk in the very structure of the technology.  Without challenges like his, we will never get to the task of shaping technology to fit our social values, rather than the other way around.

Education Technology--"Oversold and Underused"

A decade ago I wrote a review of Larry Cuban's book critical of the claims about bringing computers into classrooms.  Interestingly, it was the most viewed review over a period of several years on the Education Review web site. 

The Education Review is a wonderful site for giving open access to reviews of most of the books published on education--well worth subscribing to. 

Certainly, people came the review because of interest in Cuban's ideas, not because I wrote the review. He is undoubtedly  the most significant education historian who is critical of technology in education. 

I started the review by describing the ambitions of the presidents of Mexico and Cuba about how computer technology would transform teaching practice.  Looking back over the decade since the review was published, I have to say that Cuban's point in the title of his book still resonates, not just in the Cuba, Mexico and the U.S., but here in Canada as well. 

 

Cuban, Larry. (2001). Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

256 pages
$27.95 (cloth) ISBN 067400602

Reviewed by Larry Kuehn
University of British Columbia

June 6, 2002

When he was running for office in 2000, Vicente Fox—the current president of Mexico from the right-wing party PAN—included in his education platform the placing of computers in every school. In outlining new directions for education in Cuba in the new century, Fidel Castro said he wants—that's right—computers in every school. Will computers in every school transform teaching practice in Mexico or Cuba? Not likely, if the experience in already computer-rich Silicon Valley is any indicator. To find out if computers are changing education practice, Stanford historian of technology in education, Larry Cuban, took a look at the impact of computers in the community where extensive integration seems most likely. He looked into the preschools, Kindergartens and secondary schools where the people who develop the new technologies send their children. He also looked at Stanford University, an institution that feeds the developers of the high tech industries of the Silicon Valley region of California.

 

Read the full review here:

http://www.edrev.info/reviews/rev168.htm

Corporate intrusion in education has been mapped

The Innosight Institute has created an online map to help you find what corporations are finding their way into education.

The Institute was created by some academics, including Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen.  Christensen was the author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.

The map is a “the map is a graphical, interactive representation of the burgeoning K-12 education technology market designed to help investors, donors, and entrepreneurs better evaluate today’s landscape of education technology ventures.”

The intention clearly is to assist those who want to “disrupt education,” as they describe it, by bringing business into the schools, particularly technology corporations.  Innosight pats itself on the back because they “continue to make inroads among policymakers and other influential stakeholders.”

Christensen is also a principal in Innosight Ventures.  It is a venture capital company that “identifies, incubates, and funds ventures that fit the patterns of disruptive innovation.”

Want to know which corporations are offering online education?  The K-12 education technology market map will tell you.

Want to build a “data warehouse”?  How about Learning Management Systems?  You can find all this and more on the education technology market map.

These extended lists of education technology corporations give a sense of how big a business education has become.  More technology.  More corporate intrusions.  You can find the map here.  http://www.newschools.org/entrepreneurs/edtechmap

The Innosight website can be found here.  http://www.innosightinstitute.org/

"21st Century learning": a contest to define a meme

According to a Wikipedia, "a meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices." 

"21st Century learning" is a meme over which there is a cultural struggle in the area of education.  Needless to say, the technology industry has been quick to grab the phrase for its commercial purposes.  After all, what could be more pushing us into the future of this new century than technology?

However, even among those promoting a new paradigm for education that takes advantage of information and communications  technology, there are, in fact, different approaches that reflect different views of what technology is appropriate and how each might contribute to education.

Meme X is about clearly defined outcomes, databases, individualism and "mass customization."

Meme Y is about fluid and rich communication networks, process as outcome, growth and collaborative work.

What does Meme X look like?

One version of Meme X is presented in a set of PowerPoint slides titled "The Future of Learning" from IBM Global Education Industry. The essence of it is presented in a "Road Map for Education Transformation," provided to executives to sell clients on what IBM has to offer.

Of course, what it has to offer grows out of the nature of its technology and the understanding of the world built into that technology.  The IBM definition of the purpose of education is quite telling of that view:

           

Provide every student with optimized learning and skills development to enable them to compete in the new economy through a dynamic, cost effective and adaptive learning environment.

If education is about preparing social capital for the economy.  How can the technology accomplish this?:

• Increase results by shifting to data-driven decisions
• Leverage analytics to identify performance issues early
• Build and manage customized intervention plans using district and other models

IBM, of course, has some tools to sell, as well as space in the cloud to store and manipulate the data: a student performance data system, predictive analysis, intervention case management and digital content delivery.

To some degree, these are the basic steps a teacher always takes: assessing where the student is, identifying problems and strengths, providing resources and assignments and offering lessons and resources that help students learn.  

However, there are significant differences. 

To be fully digitized, all the aspects of the process must be predefined.  Pre-define the objectives to be achieved, the processes that will develop the skills, the specifics of possible interventions based on the analysis and the delivery of the specific lesson plans and resources.  This leaves the teacher primarily to make sure the students show up and are following the program.

This is what Ursula Franklin calls a prescriptive technology production model.  It requires every element to be broken down into identifiable steps to make production predictable.  She says that "prescriptive technologies are designs for compliance."

21st Century Meme X as exemplified by IBM's "The Future of Learning" has its goals and processes built in and is non-negotiable.

What does Meme Y look like?

Franklin talks about needing a holistic technology based on a growth model for education.  The model calls for interventions by the teacher to find the best conditions for growth, assessing the environment, the person and the intention.  It draws on craft knowledge to accomplish this, being able to apply experience to each unique situation, unlike Meme X which seeks to define and digitize the craft knowledge.

"Any tasks that require caring," Franklin says, "whether for people or nature, any tasks that require immediate feedback and adjustment, are best done holistically.  Such tasks cannot be planned, co-ordinated, and controlled the way prescriptive tasks can."  Further, "if there ever was a growth process, if there ever was a holistic process, a process that cannot be divided into rigid predetermined steps, it is education."   

The IBM vision of Meme X is clearly about a very different kind of education than Franklin's.  Franklin is not alone is seeing an alternative to the prescriptive approach.

Another view is nicely captured in the title of a small book:  A New Culture of Learning:  Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown.

Thomas and Seely Brown say that the new culture of learning in the fluid environment of technology is like play:  "When play happens within a medium of learning it creates a context in which information, ideas, passions grow."

While today's typical classroom does not produce these conditions and "much of the new learning takes place outside traditional educational forums, we do not argue that classrooms are obsolete or that teaching no longer matters.  Our goal is quite the opposite.  We believe that this new culture of learning can augment learning in nearly every facet of education and every stage of life."

They say that this new culture of learning comprises two elements.  One is the massive information network that gives the opportunity to learn anything.  The second is "a bounded and structured environment that allows for unlimited agency to build and experiment with things within those boundaries." 

Thomas and Seely Brown adopt the metaphor of cultivation to describe the process and the relationships among the learner and the teacher, much as Franklin talks about growth and its unpredictability.

Which meme will be chosen?

Both Meme X and Meme Y are imbedded in technology.  Decision-makers may get enthused about Meme Y and the promise it seems to hold.  But can the politicians and the bureaucrats accept the ambiguity that is implied in a system based on imagination and exploration?

Accountants' forms of accountability dominate in education decision-making, today.  IBM promises specific results that can be measured and a sound bite to say everything is fine or an unmet measureable outcome is all the fault of the teachers.  Education publisher, Pearson, promises textbooks, scripts and data systems that produce results by being teacher-proof.

Will children--and their teachers--be allowed the space for cultivation and growth rather than compliance with a corporate plan ?

References:

Franklin, U.  (1990). The Real World of Technology.  Toronto:  CBC Enterprises.

IBM.  (2011).  "The Future of Learning:  Executive Insights."  Produced by IBM Global Education.

Thomas, D. and Seely Brown, J.  (2011).  A new culture of learning:  Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change.

Originally published in Our Schools, Our Selves http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2012/02/osos106_21stCentury_Learning.pdf

Data-mining: Do we really want to know?

"Big data" is appearing frequently in any discussion of technology.  It is the ability to mine huge databases to find patterns or monitor developments.

Generally the data miners claim the wonders of good that will come from the practices--but one has to wonder.  An example is an item from the Globe and Mail titled "Big Brother on campus?"

Data mining is creeping into every aspect of student life – classrooms, advising, socializing. And now it’s hitting textbooks, too,” reports The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“CourseSmart, which sells digital versions of textbooks to big publishers, announced [this month] a new tool to help professors and others measure students’ engagement with electronic course materials.

When students use print textbooks, professors can’t track their reading. But as learning shifts online, everything students do in digital spaces can be monitored, including the intimate details of their reading habits. … [CourseSmart can] track students’ behaviour: how much time they spend reading, how many pages they view, and how many notes and highlights they make.

[Those] data will get crunched into an engagement score for each student.” Faculty members can reach out to students showing low engagement."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/twentysomethings-dont-know-how-cold-it-used-to-be/article5534829/

Copyright improvements for education take effect

The use of copyrighted materials for education expanded substantially in November when the new Canadian law came into effect.

Some of the gains for education, as identified by Michael Geist, the public intellectual most on top of copyright issues:

*The addition of education as a category for "fair dealing" purposes.

*No penalty for infringement on copyright for non-commercial activity under $5000, reducing potential liability of educational institutions for infringement.

*The inclusion of an exception for publicly available materials on the Internet for education. This covers the content found on millions of websites that can now be communicated and reproduced by educational institutions without the need for permission or compensation.

*The adoption of a technology-neutral approach for the reproduction of materials for display purposes. The current law is limited to manual reproduction or on an overhead projector. The provision may be applicable in the online learning context and open the door to digitization activities.

*The implementation of a distance learning provision, though use of the exception features significant restrictions that require the destruction of lessons at the conclusion of the course.

These open up many areas for use of materials in classrooms and online, without having to get permissions or paying a fee.  The tens of millions currently paid by ministries of education to Cancopy can now be used for other purposes, such as buying more materials for libraries.

The one strange provision in the law is the one that requires the destruction of online lessons at the end of an online course.  However, since many courses are given on a continuing basis, with students signing up at any time during the year, the provision may not have much impact.

As Geist points out, the major gains in the legislation are that user rights have been acknowledged and balanced with creator rights.  Previous legislation primarily enshrined only the rights of the owners of copyright.

Source:  www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6692/125/