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In response to my post on what Education 3.0 might/ought to look like, Eric Grant posted a link to a Flash-enabled map of trends in education and other potential futures.

I like the idea of mapping education futures out with a slick interface. Can we build a Web 2.0-enabled version of something like this that harnesses the “wisdom of crowds?”

A while back, I promised to share more on what co-seminars look like and how they operate. I promise to show a little bit tomorrow, with sample videos and a link to a co-seminar in progress. But, before I get to that, let me supply some background.

Co-seminars exhibit the following main characteristics:

• international;
• multilingual;
• embraces the use of Web 2.0 technologies (i.e., blogs, wikis, SlideShare, YouTube) to share ideas and promote learning;
• designed to enhance learning methodologies based on the principles of collective intelligence
• problem solving in complex environments;;
• purposive and intelligent use of information technology; and,
• use freely-available or open source technologies to limit expenses.

The co-seminar model was designed by collaborating faculty at FLACSO-México (mainly Cristóbal Cobo) and the Leapfrog Institutes at University of Minnesota (Arthur Harkins and John Moravec). In a pilot of the co-seminar model in summer of 2008, we built a course that integrated internally-focused content on innovation, knowledge management, and a forward-looking analysis of education in the 21st and 22nd centuries. The project included training instructors from multiple countries, and the participation of specialists from around the world (through virtual and in-person participation).

The co-seminar experience involves a new academic approach –particularly in regard to innovative teaching—that moves away from “download”/banking pedagogies toward “upload and download”/co-constructivist pedagogies that thrive in interdisciplinary environments. This means that both students and their instructors both learn and create new, meaningful knowledge.

A taste of a co-seminar in progress is coming tomorrow…

“Tomorrow is yesterday,” Skyped an attendee at today’s Networks & Neighborhoods in Cyberspace conference at the University of Minnesota today. “Even worse - yesterday is tomorrow.” The irony is that this conference is supposed to be related to a Minnesota Futures grant project.

This conference is highlighting a key problem at the University of Minnesota that I am sure is endemic elsewhere: higher education is full of technology followers, but few leaders. In this conference on the virtues of innovative technologies in education, one panelist admitted to not using Web 2.0 in his work. Others complained of the obstructions and limitations presented by WebCT and Moodle. A few others admitted they have no idea what Facebook is, but feel obliged to promote it because their students use it.

At a Research I university, you think we would discuss the new technologies that we will create rather than try to describe the technologies that already exist that we don’t know how to use … or would prefer to not use. Instead of forming a Facebook or Moodle support group, can we start to talk about what we will create next?

Minnesota: 1998 called.  They want their educational technologies back.

I received this note regarding Future Scanner, located at memebox.com:

The Future Scanner is a community-powered resource that scours the web for the best future-focused content (predictions by experts, discoveries that will impact future events, product prototypes, industry forecasts, useful resources, etc.) and makes it accessible by future Year and Category. When users locate these types of cool links, they tag them accordingly and submit them as “scans” to the site via their personal accounts. As other users come across interesting scans and vote for the ones they like best, the links that receive the most votes appear on the front page of the Future Scanner. Individual users can also easily keep track of the scans they’ve submitted and voted for via their user accounts.

Looks like Digg for futurists, eh?

“Version 2.0″ of the open seminar “From Information to Innovation Knowledge” will kick off on January 24, 2008. Partnering institutions include the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota, FLACSO-México, FLACSO-Ecuador, and FLACSO-Chile. Confirmed guest lecturers include Dr. Nora Sabelli at SRI International and Ismael Peña-López at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

University of Minnesota students may join the co-seminar by registering for EdPA 5102 section 2 (”Knowledge Formats”). All others should contact Ana Karla Romeru at FLACSO-México for information on how to participate.

Utilizing Web 2.0 social technologies, Skype and Adobe Connect platforms, the course will connect the three FLACSOs with the University of Minnesota for both synchronous and asynchronous learning. Course content includes discussions of:

• A New Paradigm of knowledge production
• Tools for information and knowledge management
• Collective intelligence
• Learning technologies (including open sourcing of education)
• Knowledge, innovation and new context-creating workers
• Human capital development
• Complex systems
• “2.0″ technologies and beyond

The Minnesota sessions will be facilitated by Dr. Arthur Harkins and myself. Dr. Cristóbal Cobo will coordinate the course among our Latin American partners. For more information on the project or our co-seminar approach, please email me at moravec@umn.edu.

Cristóbal Cobo notes that a video of his University of Minnesota presentation on his book, Planeta Web 2.0, is now available for viewing online. The event was held in collaboration with the Institute for New Media Studies and the Digital Technology Center at the University. (You can also watch me provide an introduction.)

Play the video (requires Real Player).

This has been a quiet blogging week due to FLACSO México’s visit to the University of Minnesota. The visit has been very busy, and highly productive.

This morning, Education Futures contributor Dr. Cristóbal Cobo (read his blog) presented his ideas at a University of Minnesota’s Institute for New Media Studies and Digital Technology Center research breakfast on his new book, Planet Web 2.0: Collective Intelligence or Fast Food Media (English translation). The event was also webcast by the University’s Supercomputing Institute. (A link to the recorded video will be posted when it becomes available.)

A debate followed the presentation on the roles and values of online technologies. Most puzzling for academicians in the audience was how might reconcile the need for producing peer-reviewed, “academic” publications with freely available, open material. Whereas a journal article might solicit a handful of readers, an open document might bring in thousands more (for example, Planet 2.0, which was issued under a Creative Commons license, has already registered over 61,000 downloads in the first few weeks since its release). Our promotion and tenure process, however, recognizes only publications that appear in traditional print media. Why?

At the end of the event, Dr. Cobo was approached regarding an open sourced effort toward translating the book from Spanish to English by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies. Planeta 2.0 approaches…!

This post is a little bit off topic, but it’s good to point out excellent examples citizen journalism –or Journalism 2.0. Many civil service workers at the University of Minnesota are on strike. One of our picketing colleagues, Tom Elko, posted an excellent video of his observations over the past week:

More at Tom’s blog…

Cristóbal Cobo writes that his book, co-authored with Hugo Pardo, “Planeta Web 2.0, ¿Inteligencia colectiva o medios fast food?” (Planet Web 2.0: Collective intelligence or fast food?) is available for download under a Creative Commons license. In this volume, Cobo and Pardo reflect on whether the Web 2.0 trend is a creative phase, based on collective intelligence, or if the phenomena is simply another manifestation of fast food culture –or, if the trend is characteristic of a new evolutionary stage.

Cobo will discuss his book at an event sponsored by the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota on October 3. I’ll post more details when they emerge…

Okay, okay...!! I've been getting lots of emails from Wordpress bloggers looking for a copy of my widgetized adaptation of the Leia theme. I'll try to get a sanitized edition (with EF-specific stuff removed) available for download sometime in the near future. In the meantime, you can insert this code snippit into your theme's sidebar.php file, replacing both left (izquierda) and right (derecha) sidebar content blocks:

<div id="izquierda">

<ul>
<?php if ( function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar(1) ) : else : ?>

<li><h2>Categories</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_cats(); ?>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li=<h2>Pages</h2>' ); ?>
</ul>

<?php endif; ?>


</div>

<div id="derecha">
<ul>
<?php if ( function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar(2) ) : else : ?>
<?php get_links_list(); ?>
</ul>
<?php endif; ?>

</div>

AND-- make sure to enter this into your theme's functions.php file (you might have to create the file if it doesn't exist already):

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebars') ) register_sidebars(2);
?>

That's it! You should be widgetized!