“Embedding Student Expectations,” the 25th installment of the Impact of Open Source Software Series, was posted on November 5, 2008, by Cole Camplese. Cole serves as the Director of Education Technology Services at the Pennsylvania State University. As Director, it is his responsibility to oversee University-wide initiatives with a focus on impacting teaching and learning with technology. In reality Cole makes fantastic use of his role, serving as a prime mover and advocate for creativity within (and far beyond) the educational technology community at Penn State. Thanks Cole for a great posting!
Cole starts by asserting his passion for openness and transparency across all forms of teaching and learning, and then builds a foundation for dialogue about the impact of the remix culture and all that goes along with it in our domain (teaching and learning). Cole sets the table by pointing to a relatively complex web of phenomena that is resulting in “extended conversations.” In essence, The Web is finally starting to fulfill some of its promise as a platform for community and that ”Openness” is a principal catalyst. The subtext of Cole's message is that Openness provides the context that allows for the tools and media to breath life into rich community-oriented teaching and learning, with all of the benefits of emergent knowledge.
Cole then points to how other media industries are starting to pay more attention to the impact of extended conversation and the rapidly evolving openness culture than we do in education. As an example, Cole turns to the ways that we design tools and manage content that enable emergent learning experiences. He points to our lack of tool use that allows for fluidity and transparency in content exchange, sharing, and remixing. In contrast he cites recent examples of other information and media rich industries that are “getting it.”
The take home assertion in Cole's post is that the social use of media and development of extended conversations is creating expectations within the community of learners who we serve. He wonders if we are paying attention.
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