Google Application for Learning

We promote Google application for learnign and cooperation from the begin of the project. Now Brandon Hall research has issues and report "Using Google for Online Learning". , describing 25 esay-to-use applications.
It would be nice to read them, however, in the framework of the project, it is not worth the requested 190 USD.
What is our experience in using Google for online cooperation and communication?
It is limited. Usually, the proposal get a good feedback, but does not move to daily routines. Which are the reaosons? Why using these new tools is so slow? I would like to think about the following:
1. It is a tool for coopeation.Without cooperation, no need for a tool.
2. The dominating corporate culture does not encourage use of tools for cooperation and communication. I think also that the differences between a donor project and its stakeholders are significant. This makes online cooperation more diffiult.
3. We should live the change. The project was not always consistent and coherent in its message. We lack the man-power. We also need experience and stability, (especially in internet connection)
4. Time horizon: step-by-step, incrementally, we are improving our offer. The next steps will be to introduce to the VET Working Group and Steering committee


Furthermore, the differeAs a donor project, there initiative is greated with is

Participating in the ongoing global revolution in education

Can latest achievement in global education influence VET Kazakhstan? I do not know, but, I think, it makes sense to monitor latest tendencies and 2. reflect on ongoing issues in Kazakhstan.
The ongoing issue in VET Kazakhstan is that several hundrets of new teching materials will be purchased within the the State Investment Program. The question one might raise: how this ongoing process is aligned to the task of modernizing? Can it be made more efficient, cheaper and with a better input on learning outcomes, when we consider new developments?

And here is the new event: Flat world Knowledge, world's first publisher of commercial open-source college textbooks, received $8 million in venture capital. It wants to revolutionize the 8 billion US textbook market. Flat World's textbooks are written by well-paid, world-class authors. The new is the businss model: enter a mass market and charge for what the client is ready to pay. This will give a further push to the Open Source Movement.

What could it mean to VET Kazakhstan? Here is my wish list:
1. Publish the tender and the results on the internet. Today this is not the case. Lack of transparency increases transaction cost.
2. Require to put the content on the Internet as well. This can be done free-of-charge, required minimal efforts
3. Qualify the developers to use free-of-charge interactive web 2.0 elements, for example wikis, for improved peer review, better cooperation and communication.

Potential outcomes: higher-quality textbooks, which have better access by the community

Involved risks: existing tradition in copyrights, access to the internet, subject matter experts are notappropriate qualified for the internet.

Arguments against such an approach are: organizational culture, which avoids sharing and transparent decision-making; vested interests; ignorance; probably the most important factor is lack of knowledge about the possibility of the internet and open content

More success factors for a high-quality educational system

Written from an US-point of view, four more factors, influencing the quality of teaching: 

1. Support new teachers (In Norway new teachers are coached 20% of their time)

2. Time spend outside the classroom for mandate mentoring, preparing, meetings with parents etc.

3. Participation in decision-making, curricula as a broad framework

4. Lifelong learning and further qualification, with a clear incentive and stimulus to take courses.  

See also the report on "Professional Learning in the learning profession" 

Success factor: qualification and motivation of teachers

Identifying success factors when curricula are similiar?

Singapure and West Virginia share basic  curricula, but the educational outcomes differ. Singapure is highly successful.  Why this difference?

1. Only the top third of secondary-school graduates in Singapore can apply for teacher training.

2. Each year, teachers take an additional 100 hours of paid professional development

3. Profession is paid as well as science and engineering careers.

 

Google You Tube university

Apple started, now Google follows up: it started youtube edu a video-university. It is still focused on American universities. But, the idea is clear, it is easy, it does not require captial investment:
set-up an inventive system and promote a similar approach to Kazakh educational institutes.
Expected benefit: promoting a modern approach to teaching and sharing, identifying and disseminating best experienece, provding a diverse and high-quality educational resources to the students, raising awareness for the quality of teaching and deep integration of technology to improve educational outcomes.

Success factor: leadership commitment.
Apple announced today that it is expending its services, covering now all kind of knowledge, from museum trous to college lectures. I checked the service, listing to the lecture from Paul Collier about the Bottom Billion, an exciting book about the potential and the limits of aid in our days. 

Dissemination of social learning

Elliot Masie monitors the dissemination of social Networks and Social technologies for organization learning. The results show a high dynamic. According to the (self-selecting) data, 57 % of organization have collarboration portal, 62 % find vale in these new approaches and 77% support social learning in general. This contrasts with the fact that only 35 % of organizations have social learning projects, e.g.  social learning is often grassroot learning.  Organizational culture is the most important impediment. 

Role of the teacher: shifting from instructor-led training to networked learning

Jay Cross: The first wave of E-Learning failed because it aimed on replacing the human factor in learning within the framework of industrial society: «You cannot remove the humans from learning». While the nature of humans does not change, their behavior might change. New opportunities include learning at a time of need, in the context of work, from people in the know, and through virtual conversation. The teachers become «connectors, wiki gardeners, internal publicists, news anchors, and performance consultants». New digital competencies include

• bringing new members up to speed with the community’s technology

• identifying and spreading good technology practices

• supporting community experimentation

• assuring continuity across technology disruptions

• “keeping the lights on” (including back-ups, permissions, vendor payments, and domain registrations)

To a large extent, these requirements are utopia for secondary education in Kazakhstan. The reality are too often underpaid teachers near pension age, who do have for career and biological reasons other concerns than padagocial experiments. To a large extent, it was and it is their commitment and attitude that the VET system did not collapse. Thanks a lot! However, thinking ahead, there might be no more actual task than thinking about the teacher of the future. The life cycle of a teacher is around 10 years, including developing new univerisites and further education programmes, qualifiying teachers and gaining 2 -3 years of experience until a new teacher achieves becomes effective. This times correlates with internationale experience about the time required for changing a system like secondary education. The decisions which are made today will shape the system of tomorrow.  While it is not an issue of operative management, it is urgent!

Success factors in ICT integration

Tony Bates reviews Sangra A. (2008): The integration of Information and Communication Technologies in the university: models, problems and challenges

The analyses covers success factors for ICT integration in 16 univerisities world wide. It seems these factors do not differ significantly to secondary education.

1. embedment of ICT in a overall picture: «use of ICTs was sometimes part of a larger and often hidden agenda to bring about greater cultural change in institutions».

2. Strategic planning is a process: action is often a «bundle of initiatives as a part of smaller or larger projects but not necessarily related to a global strategy»

3. Wide variations in strategies and actions: change management strategies; shared, well disseminated vision and capable leadership; specialised, centralized support unit

4. Common problems: problems of organization, lack of funding, high-resistance to change from front-line staff.

VET Kazakhstan is on the right path to encourage the dialogue between professional education and business on the one hand and to address qualification on-site as the main tool to overcome resistance to change. An objective might be to achieve a crucial level in developing,  formulating and communicating a common vision, covering the realization of the State Investment Program 2008 - 2012.

Top-down - Bottom-up approach in new skills development

Transparency is a big issue in any government. It is easy pronounced, and quite difficult to realize. Somtimes government institution go ahead, but they do not get feedback and their efforts get recognized. Other institution monitor it. An initiative, which is not rewared, will not last long. "Good idea, but too early to implement", "We are not yet ready for this", "Come back in some years", "There are technical difficulties".
Elliott Masie has an interesting solution. Educate the public. Ask it!
Newsletter from 17 Feburary: "Skills for Government Transparency - Working Example and Ideas. One of the projects of the new administration is focused on adding increased transparency to government spending. The interesting question is to think about the skills that citizens will need to make sense of large amounts of public data on spending, projects, taxes and more. Take a minute to look at the website: http://usaspending.gov which has online access to Federal spending by district, agency or vendor. Poke around the site and send me a few ideas about your ideas of what learning would be optimal (or even performance support tools) to help individuals make sense of increased data access."
Very easily, these kind of approach could be used as well in Kazakstan. No investment required. No additional staff needed. A short announcement and a fresh approach can create momentum. Ask your client. Yes, we can!

Access to Open Education Ressources

It is an idea, I receive limited support:Create a small team of content developers, evaluate existing open content and disseminate it to the community. An advanced version could be to create an online evaluation meachanism, where the community vote which Open Resources to translate and localize. The advantages are clear: high-quality learning ressources, adopted to local circumstances, integration into the global educational market, use of latest approaches, becoming a member of OER community, creating momentum for whole education sector.
Why it does not happen? It is very new. Decision-makers luck the knowledge about the open source movement. There is no tradition of creating and funding of small, highly professional teams. Here is a good overview how OER ressources might be further used.

Government investment in education helps fight financial crisis, says IMF

The IMF has calculated multipliers for three policy options: tax cuts, infrastructure investment and "other" government spending. Public education would be included in the latter.

The paper says that the "other" category includes additional spending on safety nets, assistance to small and medium enterprises, support for housing markets and transfers to state and local governments. In many North American and European countries, a primary example of transfers to state and local governments is for funding public education.

The IMF assessment makes the point that “other” government spending has a considerably larger multiplier than tax cuts (1.0 vs 0.6), although infrastructure investment has an even higher multiplier (1.8 vs 0.6). Clearly, tax cuts are the least effective policy option.

Source

21st century learning

The slogan "21st century learning" disseminates fast: a google research for 21st century learning gives 75 million results. Some of the efforts are backed by leading corporation, for others it seems that it is also used as a marketing tool. The main consensus about is a switch to creativey, collaboration and cooperation, use of ICT technology, the independent, self-paced learning. Without doubts, these ideas are important. In an ever faster changing world, the old paradigm are replaced with new approaches. "21 century learning" seems me still a bit empty, comparing, for example, to connectivism, but the concept behind is powerful.
The diagram provides an overview. It is clear, it is structured and it gives a fast understanding of the underlying issues. I like that it provides a good orientation.
Discussing modernization in VET Kazakhstan, these issues are not yet addressed. One official said to me "we are not yet there to address 21st century skills". He has an argument that there are indeed basic issues to be covered, having, for example, a basic physical and institutional infrasturcture in place. Before speaking about higher skills, there should be the possibility to enter the system. Ressources and attention are limited, in a first step the priority is in following the traditional path.
Indeed, as the sector is starved from investment over the last 15 years, this is an important argument.
Is there an alternative? Should new approaches be addressed? Should it be considered, decision-makers, administrators and teachers qualified? The answer is yes, of course. However, there are limiting resources and the real danger to focus on lighthouse projects, small ilands of excellence within a sea of low performance and inefficiencies.
The solution is to switch, step-by-step, the balance to a more advanced way of these new learning methods, to lower the risk for decision-makers by educating them, to addresse the issue, to create appropriate capacities for dealing with new challenges.

Quality of Education and cost

It is an easy to understand relationship: under given circumstances, the quality of education correlates with investment.
Furthermore, comparing theUK with Kazakhstan, it seems that productivity and investment also follows a similar relationships.
As Kazakhstan has the challenge of the transformation from a still Soviet-style dominated VET system to a more market-oriented one, it can be expected, that some front-up investment seems necessary. As a strategic paper of the Ministry of Education of education points out,(page 19), Kazakhstan currently invests 3.6 % of GDP on education, while twice the figure might be more appropriate for its ambitous plans.

Knowledge worker productiviy 2.0: dream or nightmare

Andrea Back asks this questions, Jochen Robes provides his views: fast access to information, possibility to create networks, search for experience and answers. But at the end of the day, problem solving has not changed.
Challenges are to cope with the fast change, setting priorities, switching between different networks and avoiding a "mental overload".
Old habites die hard, so it is a individual experience to adopt permanently the personal style to new circumstances. One can not circumvent to make an evaluation of new technology for use: every situation is different.

Analyzing this blog

The website: http://www.typealyzer.com/ provides an online analyze of the writing style of blogs. I got the following answer: The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it - often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be physically hesitant to try new things.

The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communicating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use concrete examples. Since they are extremely good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone.

Of course, such a short analyze can not be taken too serious. However, it would be interesting to get feedback from readers: Do you agree this kind of evaluation? is it meaningful? If yes, to which extent?

New York Department of Education provides e-mail adressess

Contributing to better education is very often now more a question of imagination than financial ressources. The New York Department of Education set to give kida and parents e-mail addresses. The objective: parent engagement, keeping in contact, creating communities, avoiding the gap between haves and have-nots.
If one consider the funcitonality of Gmail (and other free E-mail accounts), a lot of problems and information deficiencies can be adresses. It does not need a lot. There is more communication, more problem solving, more involvement. A small solution with a potential big impact, even if considering that the change in daily routines is extremely hard work.

Flat World Knowledge

We had the bestseller "The World is flat: A brief History of the Twenty-first century" from Nobel price winner Thomas L. Friedman. Now we have Flat World Knowledge: webpage where extremely high-quality open educational resources can be produced and disseminated in a way that is sustainable over a long term. It combines free access and publishing on demand, so you might have the best of both worlds.  

First books are already online for free, and there is a catalog and a publishing list. 

Economic efficiency of open content

JISC, a committee, funded by Higher Education bodies to support "to provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of of ICT to support education and research" has evaluated different publishing models, focusing, particularly, on the traditional subsrciption or toll access publishing, which involves reader charges and use restrictions, and an open access self-archiving where academic authors post their work in online repositories, making it free available to all Internet users. 

The outcome comes is that significant savings can be achieved, up to 172 million pound or 3 % from overall publishing activities. 

This is not a surprise and it is already significant. More saving is expected. We are at the beginning of a long way. Penetration of the ICT model makes the old model more and more redundant. 

I have no doubts than strategic decision-making for Kazakhstan on favor of open publishing will have a lot of benefits, even considering, that the outcomes of these decision might be appreciated only in 5 - 10 years. As usually, there is no opposition, but lack of knowledge between decision-makers. 

Competitiveness and VET

The Lisbon Strategy of the European Union aims to make the EU "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world". It was set out by the European Council in March 2000. 

In 2005, Kazakhstan announced the objective to become one of 50 most competitive economies in the World. 

9 years after setting the Lisbon agenda and 4 years after the declaration of the Kazakh government the prelimary results are disappointing. Europa has lost competitiveness and is, nevertheless, fully involved in the current global financial and economic crisis. Kazakhstan has also lost on a wide range of factors, as a current issue of "Expert Kazakhstan" points out.  Accidentially or not, does this raises question whether official announced policies are able to do the job or whether they get used as covers for second agendas? I do not know. 

One success factor is clear: investment in the work force. Regarding VET, Kazakhstan is moving in the right direction. The sector was starving for ressources and attention since independence. We are now in the beginning of the modernization process. From this point of view, the results are no surprise. Unfortunately.