EducationNews.org

An Interview with Curt Bonk: Current Concerns in Technology and Ed Media

 

Michael F. Shaughnessy - July 6, 2009
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico

 

1)      Curt, I understand you have just returned from a conference in Hawaii. What was the main theme of the conference?

 

I was at the 21^st annual Ed Media conference (http://aace.org/conf/edmedia/). It is a world conference on educational multimedia, hypermedia, and telecommunications that is run by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) (http://aace.org/). I guess the persistent theme of this conference over the past two decades would be how educational media is changing the learning opportunities for people around the world. This year there were presentations at Ed Media related to online reading, fostering peer support in e-learning, student motivation from using podcasts for online courses, cognitive simulations, multimedia strategies for EFL students, student creativity in game development, the use of social networking for student learning, and many other topics.

 

For instance, Facebook was used in one study to promote intercultural exchange. The conference also had special panels, posters, and roundtable discussions.

 

During the week, I was fortunate to sit in on many interesting keynote and invited speeches. People like Stephen Downes from the Canadian Research Council led the audience into more personalized and creative learning environments and his vision of the coming Web 3.0. If one has not been to Stephen’s blog, Old Daily, or visited his homepage, you are missing out on a world of information about emerging technologies for learning (see http://www.downes.ca/).  Stephen has perhaps read and written more about this topic than anyone on this planet.

 

Besides Stephen, Tom Reeves from the University of Georgia reflected on the progress of the field with his distinctive wit and biting insights. Instructional design giant, David Merrill, faculty emeritus from Utah State University, gave us a sense of the rich history of the field of ID and where the troubling spots as well as creative prospects are located today. Rick Schwier from the University of Saskatchewan was among the most engaging people I have heard from in some time. In his highly unassuming manner, Rick captivated us with his deep insights into virtual learning communities and our changing views of them over the past decade or two.

 

Finally, Alan Levine from the New Media Consortium in Austin, Texas, offered us a fast-paced look at 50+ Web 2.0 technologies that can help you tell a story. His trip through technology was a fascinating journey! I was only sorry that city traffic at lunchtime delayed my return to the conference forcing me to arrive some 30 minutes or more into his talk. Apologies to Alan!

 

2)      Now, on to the details and specifics--what did you talk about?

 

I had two papers about wikis. One was a follow-up study with Grace Lin and Suthiporn Sajjapanrij on the apprenticeship process, identity, and general community of wikibookians. Wikibookians are people who edit, contribute to, or coordinate wikibooks. My team was pleased that this particular project won an outstanding paper award at the conference. They really did all the work so I was happy for them. In terms of key findings in that paper, the 160+ Wikibookians we surveyed seem to lack the supports they need. Despite the collaborative possibilities of wikis that everyone talks about, Wikibookians tend to work independently from each other and often struggle to complete their books. Unlike tools like Ning, MySpace, and Facebook, Wikibooks are not really much of a social networking technology. And, despite much hope and promise, they do not seem to be the future of the textbook industry; at least not yet.

 

My other wiki-related paper was on the use of wikis in early childhood and elementary settings. It seems preschool and elementary teachers are starting to use wikis for students to generate content as well as to share class-related information with parents. Wikis are being used in early grades for students to construct knowledge while teachers assume the role of facilitator. With wikis, global sharing, collaboration, and interaction are possible. The 100+ teachers we surveyed view wikis as transformative for education. My third talk highlighted the current revolution in education that wikis and other Web tools offer.

 

My third presentation was about my upcoming book, The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education (see http://worldisopen.com/). The room I was assigned to for The World is Open talk had chairs for about 100 people but some 120+ people showed up and more tried to get in and gave up or sat 3 rows deep in the hallways. I took that as a good sign for my book which will be released in a week or so. The book outlines ten key technologies trends or “openers” that are changing the face of education. As noted below, these openers spell the acronym “WE-ALL-LEARN.”

Ten Openers: (WE-ALL-LEARN)

1. Web Searching in the World of e-Books
2. E-Learning and Blended Learning
3. Availability of Open Source and Free Software
4. Leveraged Resources and OpenCourseWare
5. Learning Object Repositories and Portals
6. Learner Participation in Open Information Communities
7. Electronic Collaboration
8. Alternate Reality Learning
9. Real-Time Mobility and Portability
10. Networks of Personalized Learning

My talk went through each of the ten and each are a chapter in the book.

 

I should mention that the conference technology support people tried to simultaneously webstream this talk online but bandwidth problems on the island (more likely limited to my hotel) got in the way. Only the audio portion of my presentation was sent to online listeners. Still that was a first for the conference. I love to be the guinea pig.

 

3)      What were the exact titles of your papers?

 

Here they are.

 

     Lin, M.-F., Sajjapanroj, S., Bonk, C. J. (2009, June). Wikibooks and Wikibookians: Loosely-Coupled Community or the Future of the Textbook Industry?. Ed Media 2009—World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia, and Telecommunications, Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

     Bonk, C. J. (2009, June). The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education.  Paper presented at the Ed-Media 2009—World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia, and Telecommunications, Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

     Lin, M.-F., G., Sajjapanroj, S, & Bonk, C. J. (2009, June). Wikibooks and Wikibookians: Loosely-Coupled Community of the Future of the Textbook Industry?  Paper presented at the Ed-Media 2009—World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia, and Telecommunications, Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

4)      Now, in this age of technology, can I get a copy of your power point or paper on line (in case I am really interested in minute details?)

 

Yes, I have posted the two wiki papers as well as the associated PowerPoint sides to the Wiki-RIKI Website. By the way, the Wiki-RIKI acronym stands for “Wikis for Research on Intercultural Knowledge and Interactivity.” See: http://wiki-riki.wikispaces.com/Research+Papers+and+Reports

Anyone interested in the paper or slides for my World is Open talk should write to me (either “curt at worldisopen dot com or cjbonk at Indiana dot edu).

 

5)      What seem to be the biggest concerns of our colleagues in Hawaii regarding technology?

 

Well, in Hawaii they are facing the same budgetary crisis that is perplexing those in California, Arizona, Florida, and many other states. Government officials in Hawaii are putting faculty members on furloughs and none of them are too pleased about this situation. Budgets are being cut for travel as well as technology. So simple technology maintenance is an issue as is any planning for new technology purchases.

 

Hawaii continues to struggle with bandwidth problems. During my last visit to Oahu in October 2006, there were back-to-back earthquakes one morning which knocked out power for a day. That was a solid excuse for no Internet access on that particular day. But now it is more than two and half years later and they are still having problems. Our hotel had deadly slow access. And if you wanted better service you had to cough up some big bucks for it. I was not attempting to download all the contents of the New York Public Library, just a few 4K email messages and they would either show up immediately after I clicked on them or take 30 seconds or much longer to load. I would say that this is a concern.

 

Now imagine what the teachers and children in Hawaii must combat every day. Of course, much of the problem conference attendees encountered was due to the fact that the hotel had contracted for super premium services from the mainland without adequate technology support personnel to figure out how to utilize it all properly. So, my technology dilemmas should not be immediately generalized to all the people of Hawaii.

 

6)      With all of the various islands in the state of Hawaii, communication, and particularly teaching must be difficult. How do they deal with this?

 

Last time I was there, we used a very slick videoconferencing system to broadcast my talk to people at various islands. It was actually quite fun. I enjoy full motion videoconferencing (when it works). I guess teaching pedagogical strategies for videoconferencing must be extremely important.

 

7)      Did you spend any time on the beach? (for those of us who are working hard, how are the beaches and how is the surfing and swimming?)

 

Well, not much. We had two business meetings on the beach where we planned the mission and objectives for a new conference called Global Learn: Global Conference on Learning and Technology from AACE (http://aace.org/conf/). Global Learn will be held in Asia and the Pacific Rim each April or May. The first one will be next May either in either in Penang or Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Mostly likely around May 17-21.

 

Now I did run up the road below Diamond Head nearly every day. This was a pretty decent workout which also offered one of the most spectacular views on the planet as inspiration for runners to get to the top. Ok, I must admit that the day before the conference I went to a beach on the north part of the island and briefly got on a boogie board. The day after the conference, Grace Lin from the University of Hawaii, Jim Hensman from Coventry University in the UK, and I traveled down the south part of the island and captured some pretty wicked waves with our digital cameras. The winds were really kicking up! We also got photos of a few giant sea turtles and amazing dolphins, though they were held in a giant pool at one of the local resorts.

 

8)      What is their reaction to your R2D2 book? Did you talk about your latest book, The World is Open?

 

Teaching and learning personnel from Leeward Community College were interviewing people like me for examples of best practices with technology. These video-based interviews will serve as professional development for their faculty members. I was the first one they grabbed. In my session, I talked about activities from the four phases of my R2D2 model in my July 2008 book, “Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing” (for more details on it, see http://www.trainingshare.com/courseWeb/book.php). Next, I mentioned ideas for online motivation and retention that will be in the next book I write. This book will cover 10 principles of motivation which spell “TEC-VARIETY.” I feel that frameworks like R2D2 and TEC-VARIETY are needed to help educators make sense of the vast and ever growing possibilities of the Web. With dozens of new technology announcements each day, it is not long before a student or instructor is quickly overwhelmed.  Models, frameworks, and guidelines are what I believe is needed.

 

In terms of “The World is Open” book, there was much interest. I brought a few prepublication copies (called “galleys”) with me and there were several people attempting to pinch them from me. I forgot discount coupons, but they can be found at the WorldisOpen.com Website (see http://worldisopen.com/).

 

9)      What have I neglected to ask?

 

You might ask what is next. This week I am working on a postscript to The World is Open book.  It is in the form of “An open letter to the learners of this planet.” The prequel to the book is already written and posted to the WorldisOpen Website as are all the book references, reviews, and Web resources. There are even some book excerpts. The postscript will go up soon and then the free e-book extension of it in a month or two later. The free e-book extension will have the same chapters, just different content. I wrote too much so some had to be cut from the hardcover book. All that is in the free e-book and much, much more!

 

After “The World is Open” book comes out in a week or two and I finish the free e-book extension (this is not easy by the way), I hope to focus on books on how people learn and teach in unusual ways with technology. For instance, how do we learn (or teach) from boats, planes, trains, cabs, mountain tops, cabins, outdoor cabins, grocery stores, airport terminals, islands, etc. If anyone has a story, please share it with me. You can do so at the WorldisOpen.com Website.