Via Loic Lemeur comes this stonker of an article from buzzmachine. The basic argument: owning content and the means to distribute it is no big deal, and the quicker large media corporations – and educational institutions – get that the more successful they will be:
“There’s simply more good stuff out there than there could be before. And it can be created at incredibly low or no cost.
“There is no scarcity of good stuff. And when there is no scarcity, the value of owning a once-scarce commodity diminishes and then disappears. In fact, it’s worse than that: Owning the content factory only means that you have higher costs than the next guy: You own the high-priced talent or infrastructure while your new competitor owns just her own talent and a PC.”
In educational terms does this not means that it’s time for the Quias and Linguascopes of this world to rid themselves of their subscriptions and password protections? That’s what this article would suggest, and I’m not entirely in disagreement:
“Oh, yes, you can still milk cash from them. But can you get growth?”
Take a look at the last login or pay-for educational site you used and ask yourself: has it grown, evolved and become better? Or does it just churn out more of the same? Hmm.
Conversations and involvement in the work of others is where it’s at.
“But in this new age, you don’t want to own the content or the pipe that delivers it. You want to participate in what people want to do on their own. You don’t want to extract value. You want to add value. You don’t want to build walls or fences or gardens to keep people from doing what they want to do without you. You want to enable them to do it. You want to join in.”
And in the classroom…
Adding value by joining in on the production of great teaching resources, national online environments, like SSDN, could become incredibly exciting places to be. Do people want a repository of PowerPoints and Word files – that great filing cabinet in the sky? I think not. And if they do they shouldn’t. Surely we should be looking at ways of moving beyond these things that have been common currency in some classrooms for the past five years.
“But so many teachers don’t even know how to use PowerPoint!” I hear. Good. One less set of classes to be bored into submission during the painful apprenticeship of the beginner user of presentations programmes. By adding value to what is already there everyone can benefit from the good work that has already been done in these relatively old technologies.
By spending more time and effort participating in conversations about what is the next step we all have more to learn than spending that same time trawling for resources for tomorrow morning’s class.
Blogs and podcasts can provide that conversation in 2 or 20 minute bursts, with the potential to change the way you teach forever. In the current state of affairs that means less sage on the stage and more guide on the side, less PowerPoint preparation and more actual teaching with individual pupils.
The same 20 minutes is what you can expect to spend looking for a PowerPoint for tomorrow morning’s class. Two hours is what some practitioners spend on the first draft of a PowerPoint or worksheet that lasts 10 minutes on the day.
Let’s get away from content and into conversation. There’s more there for us all.
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