Liz,
Well, here we go.
This is already an interesting learning experience.
I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but I feel good that we have pushed in the direction we did. We owed it to ourselves to try something like this, and we owed it to our $$$ invested in the course. =^) And in a way, I kind of feel we owed it to OTL Julia, Susie and Bethany.
Now, we need to follow up, showing up on their turf, for what I anticipate will be a thoroughly stimulating discussion on Tues. Glad you are not a shrinking violet. Me neither. But I happen to like Julia and Susie and Bethany as persons a lot, and admire them, so that should help tone down any disagreements to a friendly “exchange of views”.
Bethany is forthright about the concerns they bring to the table:
1) Responsibility to the University to teach what they say they are going to teach
2) Responsibility to the community at large that those they certify/accredit have the knowledge/skills that they say they do.
I agree with her strongly that those two “requirements” are a part of this equation we are “solving”.
And we would add two more of our own.
1) Responsibility to ourselves, that our time, funds, energy provide learning experiences that we can use, that “work” for us, that enable our engagement with the subject, and support the process of our own natural learning ability and curiosity.
2) Responsibility to the community and to society as a whole to pursue the job and tasks we have taken on to the best of our ability by learning in the best way possible/ available to us.
3) Plus we owe it to other students to pursue change in education that may benefit them as well, such as your daughter Liz. And perhaps some other students in the cohort now, and in the future. I’m thinking of Sallie Lofton who is, I’ve learned a terrific person with a lot to give, but struggling in the cohort to fit in.
They are sort of thinking of everything that happens in the course as a “case study” for them. Which is very cool actually. And we are too, in our way.
Grist for the mill of future cohorts. Grist for the mill of doctoral dissertations. Grist for the mill of RETA projects. And ya know, it works for me to do the same for us, use everything as a learning experience as to how we might interact with higher ed institutions to develop the things we each want to develop. And not just the institutions themselves, but the people of which they are made.
I’m working on a hypothesis that now, and in the future, there will be a kind of “underground” association of individuals that transcends the HATS model of “who I work for”. Instead we will find through online networking etc, individuals that have similar goals, and come together in ad hoc communities to accomplish those goals. Of course this is already happening. It’s happening right here and now with this situation. And my point is that someday, it will be pretty hard to say exactly who or what one is working for, because that hierachical organization chart will have been superseded by a web of interactivity that obliterates institutional boundaries.
Plus for each day we are in the class NOT snowed under by assignments that keep us from doing what we are interested in, we develop our ideas for our projects and develop means to accomplish them.
We, in this case study, represent the future of online education. How much freedom and independence can a university program allow without endangering their certifying/accreditation/…gate keeping “Rights”? As we have pondered, there’s already nibbling going on around the edges of the pizza by such as Phoenix University, a hybrid semi pseudo institution. Soon there will be full on pseudo institutions that have the ability to project themselves as more than just a “diploma” mill, but stretch to the breaking point the idea of who is able to grant degrees, and what are they worth?
Uh, now, I wonder here, whether we wish to “submit”…that’s kind of an odd word when one thinks about it for a minute…something ahead of time before the meeting, or not. Bethany wants it, and of course, in a traditional bureaucratic tussle, having time to prepare arguments before a meeting is a big advantage, rather than going in cold as Bethany says.
A big part of our approach is that we want to be able to present our ideas in person, and avoid the little student versus big institution situation that we are trying to deal with. It’s not as if they can’t understand our ideas in context, and need to be prepared ahead of time. It’s not as if decisions need to be made right then. They can get together after we have talked and then work out what their personal and institutional hats need to do in response.
So I think I’m for saying in a polite way, maybe even forward some version of this email to them, that we would prefer to present our ideas in person, not via documents.
Howz this all looking to you? What’s rolling around in YOUR brain at the moment?
John
