The Network Sense

All of the MP3 lessons on our Praxis LanguagePod’s are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. We originally did this to make it as easy as possible for students and teachers to use the product; instead of having to clear copyrights before use, teachers only need to attribute the lesson to us and then are free to use the lesson in their classes.

Creative Commons has just launched a database of case studies and we have added our LanguagePod’s to the list, e.g. ChinesePod.

A while back silicon.com asked me: “Do you get annoyed that people rip your material off? “

I don’t really see it as ‘ripping us off’ and my answer now is the same as it was back in 2006:

No. We encourage people to use our Creative Commons-licensed podcasts as it assists us with our product development and helps push our brand into the community.

Frankly, we haven’t done a particularly good job of promoting this aspect of our service, but there still have been a few unique applications.

Back in 2006, Sam Brown tried to mashup ChinesePod with hypnosis.

His introduction to the service:

 http://www.sambrown.co.uk/chinesepod/dow…

One big potential application of this licensing regime is the possibility of reforming university language labs. It seems a little ridiculous to me that after more than a decade since the Internet was introduced, students are still forced to schedule a time in a computer lab and then have to physically travel there. They are not able to consume the learning materials at home or on-the-go because of licensing restrictions by the publishers of the learning materials. This is not ‘learning on your terms’ and I hope we can play a role in putting an end to this practice. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is leading the way in this regard and hopefully we can help them out with their language learning materials.

Technology has the ability to radically disrupt any industry’s value chain - including education. Harold Jarche (a fellow Canadian) on his Learning and Work on the Web blog comments:

.. the dominant education business model may suffer the same fate as the manufacturing industry - commoditization.

I would take a slightly different view and argue a better term would be ‘optimization’. Standardization in manufacturing has been removing inefficiencies in manufacturing value chains - namely sourcing search costs - and has resulted in Walmarts packed full of low-cost goods. Maybe bad for US workers, but great for US consumers (and people who want to offshore manufacturing pollution; my poor China-stained lungs!).

The same holds true for education. By breaking down the value chain in education into discreet value-adding activities, technology can be used to optimize the process resulting in more student convenience and inevitably lower prices as the inefficiencies get shaken out of the system and competition pushes prices down.

This is exactly what we have been trying to do with our LanguagePod’s. By breaking down the language learning value chain for adult students here in Shanghai, we believe we can smartly apply technology where it is appropriate providing a service that is not only more convenient and more personalized, but with a reduced cost structure as well. This is how we see the emerging value chain for language training breaking down:

More market-sensitive education products (e.g. adult learning) are likely to be the first to shift to student-centered learning. With a huge chunk of adult English training here in Shanghai served by private schools, one would expect a large amount of innovation to occur as entrepreneurs try to solve problems in innovative ways.

One other example. The Economist has an interesting article this week entitled ‘Financial Exams‘ which discusses the rising popularity of the CFA exam. It seems to me a good example of Jarche’s point in a previous article:

At a certain point in time (2008?) the cost-benefits of a university education will be put in question. How expensive does it have to be before the majority opt out or look for “good enough” options? Once a certification body gets recognized by enough employers, it could become the de facto as well as the de jure standard.

If I am an aspiring investment banker looking at making an investment in either an MBA or the CFA, why would I stop work for up to 2 years and pay significantly more in tuition for an MBA only to have future employers value a level III CFA certification more?

I have been having a conversation with Graham Attwell - the driving force behind the concept of the personal learning environment (PLE) - on how mobile devices will impact the PLE. Channel agnosticism is a big part of our ‘Learning on Your Terms’ philosophy, or in other words the student should always have the choice on how they access networked content, be it through a desktop browser, laptop browser, mobile phone, networked TV (e.g. Apple TV), etc. The technology is just ‘plumbing’ and should focus on facilitating study access to learning tools.

Beyond this ‘plumbing’ though, increased network access will put increasing importance, on not only personal contextual variables, but also environmental contextual variables.

There is an insightful report from 2006 entitled ‘Ambient Learning - Ambient, multimodal and context-sensitive lifelong learning (PDF link)‘ that explicitly lays out what these variables could be.

To date, personalization in modern web design has very much focused on the personal contextual variables, be they socio-demographic, marketing mix-related criteria, medical context, or business context.

But by bringing the network into the context of people’s lives through mobile technologies, a whole set of environment contextual variables are going to be thrown into the mix: local context, time context, physical context and infrastructure context.

It seems clear to me that there will be a trend in the design of web-based learning toolkits, to not only incorporate traditional variables for personalization, but also leverage these new environment variables enabled by the ‘plumbing’ of increasingly powerful mobile devices.

Recently, I have been finding myself defending why podcasts work better as lesson objects when compared to other types of e-learning, such as webcasts. So, a quick review:

What is a podcast?

A podcast is simply an audio or video file that is automatically delivered to you via an RSS subscription. You can think of it as subscribing to a magazine that automatically gets delivered to you home every month as opposed to the inconvenience of having to visit the local newsstand. Podcasts & RSS makes staying up-to-date easier, as well as in our case acting as an ultra-efficient method to distribute customized, learning materials.

Why are podcast lessons different?

1. Rapid Publication Cycle
Unlike traditional textbook publishing, which takes years and then is infrequently updated, our podcast lessons usually take only a few weeks from ideation to publishing. This means that we can publish extremely relevant and contemporary topics. Take today’s ChinesePod lesson on the Sichuan earthquake published only 2+ weeks after that tragic event.

2. Set Schedule Creates ‘Learning Events’
As a new lesson is published every day, a sense of anticipation is created amongst users. This surprise or ‘breaking news’ effect helps create a sense of continuous, on-going learning. Or in Ken’s words:

The balance between the familiar (structures, formats, hosts, etc) and the unexpected (topics, themes, moods) keeps interest high. Through user response, the daily learning events are negotiated conversations rather than lectures.

Contrast this approach with a traditional archive. If we simply created an archive, of say 100 lessons, and then released it to the public where would students focus their attention & comments? By releasing one lesson a day, we can focus a mass of attention around one lesson thereby adding fuel to the conversation. We tend to view our lessons as almost ‘pre-baked’ and are only finished after students can comment, question and add their own insights or stories. This is the difference we see between a ‘lesson’ and a ‘lesson event’.

3. Style
A common mistake I often see with the use of podcasting in education is ‘lecturecasting’ - simply recording a lecture and publishing it online in the form of an RSS podcast. Content needs to be designed for the medium. Could you listen to a radio show in a movie studio? Yes, but radio is clearly not optimized for that medium. Similarly, lectures may work when they have a captive - if not always awake - audience, but they need to be optimized for the podcast medium. Put yourself into the shoes of an iPod-bearing student. First, the lesson needs to be engaging enough for them to listen to it over their favorite song - which is only a click away. By using two teachers and a radio-style, conversational approach the audio is more engaging. The student must want to listen to this lesson input (edutainment?). Second, the student will likely listen to the lessons while doing something else (in transit, shopping, at the gym, etc.) so short, 10-15 minute, manageable chunks of content are more easily adaptable to their physical world activities.

Then for language learning specifically you have additional benefits. Again, in Ken’s words:

The high-frequency language takes the listener into real-life situations. Hosts offer expert insight into the language and the learning in short, manageable lessons that include, stories, anecdotes, humor, mnemonic devices, and more.

4. Re-mixable, Modular Lessons
Maybe the most unique feature of our approach is that each lesson is modular, but graded by difficultly level. For example, a new student to ChinesePod could start with any Newbie lesson on the site and be able to start learning Chinese. Even though this modularity is native to podcasting technology, many of our fellow language podcasters have tried to force course architectures onto their lessons, e.g. one lesson should follow another. A podcast is not a physical textbook, so why limit oneself to the constraints of the previous media?

By making lessons modular, it enables lesson re-mixing allowing for fully customizable study regimes. The study goals of learners can be identified and learning pathways can be charted by freely selecting and combining lessons according to their needs as determined by themselves, software tools or their language teacher.

5. Channel Agnostic / Mobile

Part of ‘Learning on You Terms’ is to be able to consume learning materials on one’s own preferred media. A personal RSS feed is used for the ultra-efficient delivery of learning materials. Once subscribed to this feed in a program such as iTunes, the student can subscribe to future lessons at various difficultly levels, bookmark lessons from the archive or be assigned lessons from their teacher and have them automatically delivered to their iPod ready for consumption. Because the lessons are delivered via RSS, they could be delivered through a web browser, to an iPod, on a mobile phone, in a customized workbook or CD (more on this later), on TV or through a learning service/API.

This is learning adapting to your lifestyle, rather than you adapting to the learning.

Hank.

An Integrated Approach is Key

We believe mobile learning is most effective when used in tandem with both computers and real-world teacher interactions. By breaking down the learning process into distinct activities, technology can mold the learning experiences around your lifestyle rather than forcing you to adapt to the learning.

#1 Getting Started
A website is the most effective starting point for students to help them with (a) information discovery and (b) course registration.

#2 Learning Goals & Pathways
Students use a mix of software tools and real teachers (in person, by phone, by Skype) to identify their learning goals and build a personalized learning pathway with a course re-mixed from the lesson library.

#3 Acquire Learning Materials
Learning media sparks the learning process. Audio/video lesson input can be accessed on the website or downloaded via RSS to a mobile phone.

#4 Consume & Review Learning Materials
Learning media is locally stored on multi-gigabyte iPhone and available for playback at any time. A mobile website is available via GPRS/3G/WIFI for key lesson review activities.

#5 Discuss & Practice
The student can then practice in person with a teacher, ask a teacher questions by phone, or asynchronously discuss the lesson with other students on the website.

#6 Reinforce
Afterwards, the student – at their leisure – can use their iPhone to look up words in the glossary, save the new words to their personal account, memorize with their flashcards and review how words are pronounced by playing the audio.

Frankly, in many ways the computer can be an obstacle to the learning process forcing students to a specific location. We hope that by using the iPhone in this way we can further help students bring the learning into the context of their normal lives. Again this is the vision of ‘Learning on Your Terms’.

Mobile Sites:

• ChinesePod - Mobile: 

  ” title=”http://m.spanishpod.com/

” target=”_blank”>http://m.spanishpod.com/

• FrenchPod - Mobile:  1 Comment

Listening to Graham Attwell’s presentation on Personal Learning Environments. The PLE thinking is very much in line with what we do at Praxis (good stuff once you filter out the Welsh accent!).

| View | Upload your own

I am currently in St. Gallen, Switzerland attending the 3rd Annual scil Conference.

My keynote presentation introduced ChinesePod & Praxis by (i) examining the problems in the $3b English-language training industry in China, (ii) how Praxis Language users technology to address some of those problems and (iii) looking at how the model might be applied to other types of learning.

| View | Upload your own

Recently, we have begun to launch the fourth iteration of our LanguagePod sites. I thought it might be appropriate to re-visit the previous three.

#1 ChinesePod when it launched in September 2005:

#2 ChinesePod with its first big update on January 1, 2006:

#3 ChinesePod changing its logo and getting off WordPress in March 2007:

#4 And soon, ChinesePod at the end of May 2008:

Over the past few months, Ken Carroll and I have been taking the first steps at defining the Praxis Language approach to learning languages - the personalized learning system. This is what we have so far.

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The Praxis Language Mobile Personal Learning System (MPLS) is designed for the language learner of the 21st century. It represents the evolution of the school and the migration of traditional learning out of the institutions, onto the network.

The application of a network approach to pedagogy, teaching, and lesson design, together with the new tools and technologies of the post web 2.0 era, distinguish Praxis as best practice leaders in the industry. The MPLS points to the future of language learning.

What is the MPLS?

The MPLS combines three elements:

• Learning Media. Comprehensive, searchable, relevant, timely, learning objects.
• Open Community. A social/collaborative learning environment.
• Personalization. Customizable tools and content options for the individual.

The purpose of the MPLS is to enable language learning on the individual’s terms. It strives to fit the learning around the needs of the learner (rather than the needs of schools, publishers, or other external agencies, as it was in the past). This allows the learner to learn what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, and this mirrors a greater trend towards personalization on the web. Through the MPLS, the user is constantly connected to the content, community, and the tools he needs to learn the target language effectively. The result is a ubiquitous, immersive, learning environment over which he has a great deal of control – ‘Learning on your Terms’.

Lets look at the Learning Media in more detail.

1. Learning Media

Learners need a balance between the freedom to explore and find their own learning pathways, together with a degree of guidance. The Learning Media embody both – a choice of free-ranging, pedagogically sound content, with guidance on usage, learning strategies, and other things.

• Modular Lessons
  Lessons take the form of hundreds of discrete, digital learning objects. Every lesson passes the quality test and functions as a stand-alone unit. They are archived, searchable, and graded for difficulty level. However, learners are not obliged to consume them on a pre-defined basis, but freely select and combine lessons according to their needs.
• Daily Learning Events
  New lessons appear on a daily publication/distribution cycle to create currency, and a rhythm of on-going participation. The balance between the familiar (structures, formats, hosts, etc) and the unexpected (topics, themes, moods) keeps interest high. Through user response, the daily learning events are negotiated conversations rather than lectures.
• Engaging Content
  An engaging, conversational style of lessons bonds learners with teachers. The high-frequency language takes the listener into real-life situations. Hosts offer expert insight into the language and the learning in short, manageable lessons that include, stories, anecdote, humor, mnemonic devices, and more.
• A Communicative Approach to Instruction
  The pedagogical approach is eclectic but rooted in the needs of the Western language learner. Content is designed for meaning, authenticity and communication. It integrates the lexical approach, cognitive psychology, and connectivist insights, with a variety of skills (grammatical competence, socio-linguistic competence, strategic competence, etc).
• Multi-dimensional Design
  Learning objects embrace a diverse selection of activities to accommodate different learning styles and consumption options. They bring together text, with audio and visual elements.

2. Open Community

The MPLS is designed around social object-language learning. The community features support the sharing of knowledge and good learning practices in the mode of a community of practice. As with the social networks, social membership in a learning community creates learning energy and motivation. This builds upon the learning events and on-going activities to create a virtuous circle of social/collaborative learning, motivation, and increased social capital.

Here’s more on how the Open Community works:

Two-way Learner Interaction

Community participation is encouraged at every point: learner-to-learner, learner-to-practitioner, learner-to-content, etc. Learning happens through connections with peers, practitioners and other community members (Knowledge does not reside exclusively with teachers).

The two-way flow informs the Praxis MPLS in several ways:

• Learner participation in the lessons
  On lesson release, learners/practitioners un-pack it, add to it, critique them, etc, to ‘complete’ them.
• Individual posts/blog
  Each learner can post, to comment, ask questions, etc.
• User suggestions
  Most new lessons come from user suggestions, to ensure that content is relevant to the community.
• Conversations
  Users can create discussions (around lessons, words, grammar points, or other topics) as they please.
• Reviews and rankings
  Users review learning materials, language schools, etc.

Learning culture
All communities require shared values and behaviors. Relationships, trust and mutual respect form the basis of a healthy culture.

• Teachers are practitioners and connectors
  In a network context, the old teacher/student relationships are neither relevant, nor possible. The role of teachers is to demonstrate, and model the target language, but also to connect learners, content, resources, and challenging new concepts. This approach works particularly well for the dissemination of ‘soft knowledge’ – informing learners of things they need to do, as well as things they need to know. Learning is a conversation.
• Communities of practice
  The learning culture borrows much from Wenger’s communities of practice. This includes the need to build social capital, and a shared repertoire of tools, concepts and practices that constitute a common vocabulary and make participation more effective. Users need to understand the culture of learning.
• Study Groups
  Study Groups allows a myriad of smaller communities to form within the MPLS, focused on specific locations, needs, purposes, and study methods. Students in these groups can learn together, and group organizers moderate discussion and re-publish archived learning media into the group, thus drawing fresh attention and decentralizing the creation of learning events. For the broader community, Study Groups offer another level of choice and personalization, and for the group organizer (hobbyists, companies, schools, universities) it turns the PLS into a learning platform that allows them to offer greater benefits to their students

3. Personalization

The MPLS connects the learner to a set of dynamic content and resources for an inquiry-based (exploratory) learning format. Greater choice for the user makers for a much more personal commitment to the learning. The MPLS allows individuals to configure the learning according to their needs

• Personal Guidance
  Every learner has the option of receiving personal guidance from an expert teacher, ranging from the opportunity to ask for personal feedback to questions as they arise, to the provision of a detailed study roadmap followed up by daily contact and practice. All guidance is provided through the network, giving students flexibility of time and place.
• Individual Assessment
  The MPLS offers the learner many options to tailor their learning to meet their goals. Software tests, feedback from review tools, counselor needs analyses and custom tests all assist the learner to focus on the learning media that will most help them.
• Custom Courses
  The modular lesson format (learning objects) allows for maximum choice, re-mixable lessons, extensive library, and multi-dimensional activities that appeal to different learning styles.
• Software Aids
  A centralized web platform acts as a lifelong record of study activity (e.g. lessons learned, vocabulary saved, tests completed), as well as a springboard into review and reinforcement activities.
• Mobility
  The MPLS is channel agnostic and strives to deliver learning materials and social interaction to the student’s preferred media. This could be through a web browser, to an iPod, on a mobile phone, in a customized workbook or CD, on TV or through a learning service/API.

In future posts, Ken will continue to explore the pedagogical side of this approach on his blog, while I will focus on how Praxis applies ‘tech plumbing’ to help realize this approach.