But after the hype has settled down (and yes, it was hard not to get a little swept away by all the great sounding announcements) we wake up with a slight hang-over this morning. Audrey Waters went so far as to call the revolution off and slammed Apple for this “slap in the face to educators and students.”

She is spot on, but leaves out one key point. This really is a revolution. It’s just not ours (I am still trying to decide if it wasn’t even intended for us, or if it just fell short.)

• Yes, digital textbooks change little about the format and model of instruction that involves a textbook. Digital textbooks do not bring truly richer and more engaging ways to learning.
• Yes, the cost at K-12 level are too high. In fact, if you add in the cost of the device (discounted over let’s say 4 years) using this to supply a school with textbooks is likely to be more expensive.

Those are two good reasons why  it is not the revolution we know was possible, but those things aren’t enough to discourage the majority of Apple’s vast iOS empire and the many who will join it as a result. And that is the revolution here.

What Apple did to the textbook is combining App Store and iTunes. And in the same way those innovations changed the software and music industries, will this change the textbook industry. It creates an infrastructure that let’s individual producers market their products to the end-user. That infrastructure is locked down physically as well as wrapped in multiple lawyers of legal barbed wire, but it is convenient enough for people to use it. And the content collection is seeded with books from the big players.

That all sounds familiar from previous Apple revolutions. Just as familiar will be what happens next. Prices will come down (just as they did in iTunes where we have more variable pricing now and the App Store that made software something you can buy for a few bucks), quality will go up (just as it did in iTunes which originally only offered low-quality MP3 files) and there will be an army of textbook authors submitting their works (just as the App Store mobilized a huge army of software developers). And all of those things are good for education.

But there will be a format scuffle and it remains to be seen if Apple supports an open or at least universally supported standard, or establishes its own. There will be examples of innovative textbooks and products that Apple locks out of their system to prevent competition. And other more promising approaches and companies are going to be overshadowed by the sheer media muscle of Apple’s initiative. All of those things are bad for education.

This is not a radical innovation because Apple doesn’t do radical innovation. MITx is a bold promise, this isn’t. But Apple’s strength is bold marketing not innovation. Apple innovations remain carefully close enough to the status quo to make immediate sense to a mainstream market. Yes, the experts will always point out the flaws and shortcomings (and they are usually right) but the easiest way to sell something new is to make it look and feel like something that customers are familiar with and understand. iBooks2 and iTunesU are close enough to what we have now that they may get the kind of traction that is harder to get with more innovative approaches. And while iOS devices may not be widespread among a general student population yet (and certainly not in developing countries), Apple’s distribution funnel that let’s them push content to these devices may get them the early uptake they need to pull more users in.

What this does is change another existing industry by making its products more elegant, more convenient, and reducing inter-mediation necessary to connected users and producers. And that is huge. But it’s not as huge as kicking off an education revolution. So let’s get back to work and make that part happen ourselves. To be honest, I am almost relieved that Apple did not manage to build the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer: a Propædeutic Enchiridion even if that had felt more like our revolution. But I want our revolution to be free and open and not part of something called an ecosystem that is really a distribution system.

Most of the commentators so far have added examples — great examples, the kind of examples that make me want to move to their cities — how open grassroots movements are making cities more livable, more efficient, and more fair. I wracked my brains, and spoke to friends, about examples from Cape Town, and we drew a blank. That is, until we stopped thinking about public transport and accountability of politicians (travelgate anyone?), and started thinking of the single most pressing problem for most people in our city (Education is up there as well, but makes for less exciting dinner party conversation).

Crime is a problem in Cape Town. The statistics don’t differentiate between the poor neighbourhoods (where most crime takes place) and the rich ones, but it’s fair to say that living in Cape Town makes you aware of crime — all the time. Every house has an alarm system, that is connected to armed private security companies, which is supposed to come and help if the alarm goes off. But neither private security, nor the South African Policy Service have been able to really get crime under control.

Fed up with the rising problem, citizens in the suburb of Hout Bay pioneered a neighbourhood watch approach to crime prevention that has since been copied by other communities in the larger Cape Town region. To combat the rise in crime, residents volunteered to drive around in their private vehicles at night, and used CB radios to alert each other of suspicious activity. They were generally unarmed, and would call the police in for support. Over time as the first arrests were made, the perception of crime changed. The message was clear: the community would not tolerate crime. Within two months there was a significant decrease in crime. As trust between the police and the neighbourhood watch volunteers grew, the two started sharing resources — for example, using the same radio frequency between policy, private security companies, and neighbourhood watch members to monitor what was going on in their city.

While it has been a success story, it is a small step from taking things into one’s own hands to vigilantism. What exactly constitutes “suspicious” activity in a country still so deeply influenced by its apartheid past? And what if something that seemed suspicious, turned out to be harmless; are there ways for the victims of an overly zealous neighbourhood watch patrol to lay a formal complaint? For example, a few months ago police helicopters circled overhead the area I live, as part of a large drug sweep operation targeting a single house a few roads away. Curious about what was going on, I walked over and was surprised to find a civilian who was seemingly in charge. He informed me that his organisation had been staking out the house, and had called in the police to arrest the drug dealers. He had brought his son to watch. I walked away with a sense of unease. Who was this person? How reliable was his information? Who was making sure that he was not wasting tax money for police helicopters and staff (in the best case) or causing harm to innocent people?

The neighbourhood watch movement is an interesting example for how the power of open can change the way our cities work. By most measures it has been a great success, but also gives us a sense that in some areas — and security is a good example — open means working together and combining the best elements from grassroots engagement with the balance and regulation that a city administration can provide.

Follow the AT investigators into the depth of government archives on the quest for reliable sources and research, and be as shocked as they are when they find almost nothing, except another example for the incredible effectiveness of the spin-machine. Which makes me wonder, why aren’t we able to spin the truth (yes, that’s a strange way of putting it) as effectively as these people spin their messages? How come some people still think global warming has nothing to do with driving huge fast cars, that Obama might be Muslim, or that not paying outrageous fees for things that should be free would destroy almost a million jobs, rather than create many more and make us all better of?

Hey – this is starting out as quite a radical day. And later we’ll be demonstrating against the South African Government’s unwillingness to fix the most basic infrastructure in the country’s schools. Here is another question: how is it possible, that SA can purchase arms for Billions, when the schools in townships have hundreds of broken windows, lack teachers, and educational materials? Equal Education is using the grassroots to spin their message up to Government today – and when a few thousand students and teachers demand the services they deserve, chances are someone will listen.

Equal Education is a community based movement advocating for educational quality and equality in South African schools. 200 students from every high school in Khayelitsha and members of Equal Education will be presenting a memorandum to the Western Cape Education Department in Cape Town, on 10th of October to ask for funds to fix the 500 broken windows in Luhlaza High School in Khayelitsha. We believe that in a democratic South Africa it is our right to attend schools with acceptable facilities, like fixed windows.

Date: 10 October
Time: 3 pm- 4:30 pm
Venue: Kaizegracht, Cape Town

On the upside, this could also mean that using tools which develop collaborative practices and encourage the open sharing of ideas (such as wikis) will remap our brains in ways that will lead to more socially beneficial behaviour. So that the experience of sharing ideas might allow us to get better at sharing land, water, and oil? Let’s face it, those are important skills to learn!

Following is the complete letter to The Atlantic, that was sent in response to this article “Is Google making us stupid?” by Nicholas Carr (I underlined parts of it).

Nicholas Carr correctly notes that technology is changing our lives and our brains. The average young person spends more than eight hours each day using technology (computers, PDAs, TV, videos), and much less time engaging in direct social contact. Our UCLA brain-scanning studies are showing that such repeated exposure to technology alters brain circuitry, and young developing brains (which usually have the greatest exposure) are the most vulnerable. Instead of the traditional generation gap, we are witnessing the beginning of a brain gap that separates digital natives, born into 24/7 technology, and digital immigrants, who came to computers and other digital technology as adults.

This perpetual exposure to technology is leading to the next major milestone in brain evolution. More than 300,000 years ago, our Neanderthal ancestors discovered handheld tools, which led to the co-evolution of language, goal-directed behavior, social networking, and accelerated development of the frontal lobe, which controls these functions. Today, video-game brain, Internet addiction, and other technology side effects appear to be suppressing frontal-lobe executive skills and our ability to communicate face-to-face. Instead, our brains are developing circuitry for online social networking and are adapting to a new multitasking technology culture.

Gary Small, M.D.
Director, UCLA Memory & Aging Research Center
Los Angeles, California

The University created video lectures for three of its foundational courses (in this case Calculus I and II and Physics) and offered students to take the electronic courses or attend the traditional courses. The pass rates and amount of learnings were similar — and very high — but the time that lecturers spent on these courses was much lower (preparing lectures went down from 8 to 2 hours per lecture, and spending time with students went down from 8hrs every two weeks to 2hrs every two weeks). Professors had more time to spend on other things, including research and working one-on-one with students that have problems, yet the quality did not go down. One lesson was that it is important how the course is designed and provided – in this case with regular quizzes. Students also reported that they went back to the materials frequently after they had completed the course – when they needed to refresh their skills.

The full paper is here.

I am currently working on an article about “sharing nicely” for the Design Indaba magazine and trying to think through the characteristics of “open” processes. It’s in the early stages and maybe a bit theoretical, but I thought I’d post them here before they are more fully developed – hoping that they spark a response or some feedback (or more questions). Your thoughts would be much appreciated – also by email if you don’t want to post a comment on the blog (phi.schmidt at gmail dot com).

The big argument that I am trying to develop is that “open” provides a new narrative to what is happening in many spheres of our societies – and why that is a good thing.

Background

Is “open” new? No, it’s an old idea that we can trace back to gift societies (Joi Ito speaks more about gifting our conversation about altruism – podcast available), pre-industrialisation governance of shared resources, to industrial innovation processes in the early 1800s, or the way that culture has evolved by remixing earlier work. However, much of this seems to have been forgotten and the emphasis on community and sharing replaced by a preference on rewarding individual achievements. So much so, that today “open” seems like a revolutionary new idea.

Why is “open” making a return? If “open” is an old idea and yet it is experiencing this new wave of enthusiasm – why is that the case? Yochai Benkler argues eloquently that affordable computers and networking have given access to the tools of innovation and production to a much larger group of people. So, it has something to do with technology and our ability to share ideas much faster, more cheaply and at an unprecedented scale.

Identifying “open”

When trying to understand what “open” means, a good starting point are the four “freedoms” defined by Richard Stallman, which enable free software and open source software processes (and translate nicely to open content). They are the freedoms to use the softweare, to study it, to improve it, and to distribute it. In our talk at Open Everything Cape Town Mark Surman and I mentioned that in addition to the four freedoms, there are other characteristics (transparent, participatory, permeable, and malleable) that are important when looking at open processes rather than software or content. [Disclaimer: the first iteration of this was really Mark's doing rather than mine]. It turns out that the two sets of characteristics work really well together can be mapped against software and content on one hand and processes on the other.

Software / Content -> Processes
Use / Share -> Permeable
Study -> Transparent
Remix -> Malleable

Values – There are values embedded both in these characteristics and in peoples’ decision to contribute to open processes. However, one interesting thing about “open” is that people who find themselves using very similar “open” mechanisms come at it from fundamentally different directions. It
brings together people who have otherwise very different values – but
who can agree on “open” as the most effective way of achieving
something they all want as individuals.

Open? So what?

If the above are characteristics that are needed to enable “open”, then what are some of the results of applying them?

Pragmatic – Open projects try to solve problems. While they might be steeped in big philosophies, they often start with a few people trying to create something that they need, and realising that it’s easier or more fun to do it together with others. Since the people are often the ones that know the problem very well (often it’s their own problem) they are the best people to address it.

Participation is possible free of charge (not of cost) – It is not necssary, but in most open projects participation is unpaid and that has some positive effects. One good thing about unpaid contributions is that the people only contribute if they truly care. There are many different reasons to care, and some involve money.

Sharing is caring – As a result of all this is that open processes exhibit very high levels of “engagement” and identification as well as trust. This is special and something that closed project and firms are working very hard to achieve. In the “open” world, this comes naturally.

Questions

So, all this sounds great, but there remain questions that I don’t have good answers to. For example, is “open” as we look at it today a result of surplus time and money that our economies have produced, and if yes, then how does “open” work in societies and countries that have less surplus of this kind? My friend Rishab Ghosh has an interesting theory that one reason that Germany has such a large open source software community is that Germans spend more time in Universities (the systems is being overhauled, but a standard German Diplom takes between 4 – 8 years to complete and it is not uncommon for lawyers or doctors to spend 10 years or more studying). Since students in Germany are supported by the Government their contribution to open projects is subsidized through everyone’s taxes. In Africa, few students have the luxury of having financial support like this.

When does open work and when doesn’t it? For “open” to work there has to be some value in doing things together. Not all things have to be done with others, or are necessarily suitable for doing them together (think poems), but there is a huge range of examples where “open” works.

This will work only today, but you can always get to the original slidecast here.

A special round of applause to the lovely Birds ladies for keeping us all well refreshed and fed, and a big thank you to Helen King and the Shuttleworth Foundation for sponsoring those who could not afford to pay and making sure we had everything we needed to make the event happen.

What was it like: It sounds like a cop out, but it is hard to describe how much fun we had during 5 hours of conversations, discussions, and a little bit of presentation. We will be uploading a lot of the audio and video content from speed geeks in the next few days, and also the “hot seat interview” with Aslam Raffee about the South African Government’s open source software policy, but as a teaser, here is the introduction by Mark Surman and me on Open Everything.

Last year Gunner and Mark orchestrated us to innovate the way that tracks (now called labs) are run during the Summit, leading to almost mythical status of the Dubrovnik iSummit Open Education Track. So, I came to Sapporo with some doubts – was it going to be as exciting and inspiring? Would I meet new people, that would become friends, just as I had last time? Now, after three days of discussions, playing lots of idea ping-pong, and getting little sleep I can answer all of these questions with a resounding Yes.

The best place to look for all the work in progress and outcomes is the open education lab wiki. There were lots of ideas for projects, like a peer-review system for OERs, which could provide more formal incentives for academics to release their materials and there was enough enthusiasm in the room that I think we will see some of them become reality over the next 12 months. I spent some time discussing how to increase incentives for educators to share, and one participant raised the interesting question, how many educators do we actually need? If open education is similar to other open collaborative projects, like free/open source software or wikipedia, then maybe having a few (a few, can be a few thousand) very active people and institutions and very many people using and discussing and sending feedback. Hmmm …

One thing we did not discuss as much as I might have liked is the student / learner perspective, what Thomas from CC Brasil called “the demand side”. Delia, Neeru, Stian and myself had started working on the concept for a Peer 2 Peer University at the last Summit and we were able to identify a few more collaborators this time around – hooray! Max works with the for-profit Super Cool School and he and his colleagues are thinking about many of the same issues that we have been thinking about, and are designing interesting solutions to them. For example, there are differnet ways that participants could gain reputations (which they could signal to potential employers or friends and family) and one could be to only evaluate teaching, and encouraging students to start teaching what they have learned. Joel, who represented the Connexions project at the Summit, got involved a few weeks ago, but we finally had a little more face-to-face time for discussion.

Update: David Wiley offered to run a course on Music Theory, and Thomas Buckup from CC Brasil – whom I had just run into a week before at Wikimania – made a number of really useful comments about the concept. Thomas also came up with the interesting idea that at some point in the future we will look back at the 20th century as the period when knowledge was “strangely” locked up. Pre 20th century works are already in the public domain, and more and more recent work is shared nicely under CC licenses. There are a number of reservations why it won’t play out like this, but it’s a really neat idea!!!

So, in sum, and joining Mark Morrison, I will be humming for the rest of this day “The Return of the Track”:
(Return of the Track) it is
(Return of the Track) come on
(Return of the Track) oh my God
(You know that I’ll be back) here I am
(Return of the Track) once again
(Return of the Track) pump up the world
(Return of the Track) watch my flow
(You know that I’ll be back) here I go

Jon makes a sound argument that top teachers need better compensation and incentives, but in South Africa it is not just the top teachers, but all teachers. Only focusing on the top 1%, and by proxy the top few% of graduates that are taught by these teachers, is not enough. My sense is that many developing countries have a small group (maybe 1%?) of highly-educated and skilled people, but what is needed is a broader middle-class of professionals; and the teachers to educate them.

It’s exciting to see different voices bringing different perspective to the argument for breaking down boundaries, and increasing innovation!