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Opinion
Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
7/2/2008
A Possible Improvement
In a recent conversation with the lead developer of Desire2Learn's new ePortfolio system (www.desire2learn.com), I was pleased to hear that the system, which offers infinite management combinations for content and permissions, can also present the user (student or faculty member) with ratcheted-down options and therefore a simpler interface. A user can be set up to use just a minimal essential set of options.
Users still may not use Desire2Learn's ePortfolio system while they sit on a deck overlooking the water, but they at least have the option of a lower threshold for using it for their academic work.
The educational software market needs to follow this variable interface model. ePortfolio platforms, for example, have become even more complicated and higher-threshold than course management systems because the systems have become assessment management systems. They have become institutionally owned re-accreditation tools because that's where the money is. ePortfolio designers have fallen prey to the same automation chimera as CMS designers.
The Web 2.0 Antidote to Automation Bloat
How to rescue us from automation? Desire2Learn's approach is one answer. Another is to clearly have a student-centered Web 2.0 module where management of content is more drag-and-drop than filling in a form; to have this module that can then report some transactions to the automated system for whatever purpose the university needs such reports. This kind of module, then, has two interoperable cultures -- one centered on individual learning and the other managed in all the ways that enterprise systems need, with authentication and demographic updates and linking to whatever other systems are appropriate.
The Chimera
When vendors demonstrate their applications, they show how the various features work, as of course they should. During the demo, the cursor flies from one part of the screen to the next and new windows pop up like fireworks. Wow, it can do that! And that! And look how it does that! Such nice displays, such easy operation. Let's get it!
But, of course, the "it" is the person pushing the cursor around and not the software. What you see is the skill of the demo person. It would be better to buy that person along with the software. All those 'wow' features, the more there are, the more complicated the application becomes to use and the less likely anyone will adopt it.
There is no particular learning value in having all functionality in one system -- this goal is market-driven, not learning-driven. Students don't learn more by using really complicated software systems. Better is to have really simple applications that produce something quickly. Have a bunch of them. Learning is about choices and flexibility and not about automation.
Trent Batson, Ph.D. has served as an English professor, director of academic computing, and has been an IT leader since the mid-1980s. He is currently Co-Lead for the Web2ePortfolio Initiatve (W2eP), a Senior Associate with the TLT Group, and Editor of Campus Technology's Web 2.0 e-newsletter. batsontr@mit.edu
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