Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age

A must read for all educators, K-12 and/or adult learning professionals.

http://www.hastac.org/story/future-learning-institutions-digital-age

making meaning

This morning Tim O’Reilly, who was one of the self-claimed alpha geeks who coined “web 2.0″, and “opensource” spoke about web 2.0 and the enterprise.

harnessing the collective intelligence of your customers, turning your back-office data, your internal processes, into services that your customers and business partners can access directly.

In short, there was a dramatic a-ha moment for me that posited the true value associations will continue to have—-if they execute accordingly.

Web 1.0 was all about the machine.  The value was the physical computer.

Web 2.0 is<was> all about the network in the broadest sense–the connections, the social networks, the friends. How valuable is the machine now if your not connected?

The future <and the present> is about enabling your members to make meaning of all the data, information, and knowledge they are now connected/inundated with.

This is the value associations are positioned for and can excel in—-using connections to make meaning from all the data, information, knowledge.

I hope as an industry we adapt, evolve, or risk dying slowly because it sounds like we might be behind the curve of consumer companies and tech start-ups.

Directory of eLearning Tools

I’m in San Jose for the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn2008 conference.  First time attendee, trying to establish an eLearning strategy for my association—-excellent resource so far.  I’ll do a few posts from my time here.

BJ Schone of eLearning weekly shared a true eLearner-hack today in his breakfast byte’s session at the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn08—–he suggested we look at Jane Hart’s Directory of eLearning Tools. It is pretty advertising heavy, but the timesaving and vetting matrix is worth the “clunky-ness”.

Defeciency in needs forces choice

The 2008 Digital Now conference theme is Delivering Value in a World of Choice.

“Choice”–There appears to be a recent upswing in the cloud about the degree of command and control that association professionals are comfortable relinquishing. To enable choice means, to me, loosening the control functions of our practices, policies, procedures, and operations. To allow the existence of a rouge facebook page for example. Forgoing control is a concept many of us might struggle to embrace–especially those in the professional development arena where sometimes control presumes quality.

However, it is apparent that our members have prolific choice. Google your industry specific terminology. My results for “College/University Housing” totals a combined 705,000 hits. Even when taking the mass media out of the choice equation—Google Scholar reveals 3,000 items. That is 708,000 other choices our members can make to meet their needs for information, resources, and networks. There are 430 groups on Facebook with “college housing”. All are not serving the same population as our association, but there is certainly choice for access to resources, information, connection, and belonging.

Calling upon graduate school psychology: Maslow in the 40’s outlined that the need to associate (belong) and to succeed (esteem) is a deficiency need. Otherwise, a need in which the individual does not feel anything if the needs are met, but feels anxious if the need is not being met. When you meet members needs to belong and succeed it is not inherently as noticeable as when you fail.

Are you forcing your members to make choices by allowing/creating deficiencies and not meeting needs?

How does choice relate to degrees of control in your organization?

How do you (or do you?) balance the need for control?

How do you utilize technology to mediate control and choice?

@Digital Now Readers: More profound comments on the role of choice in our associations are worth pondering prior to attendance at the 08DN conference. I recommend Jeff DeCagna’s insights on being generative and creating a tradition of choice.

Digital Now Conference 2008 Started It All

I’ve followed the association blogosphere for about 2-3 years now with intent to eventually blog.

Thanks to Ben Martin, CAE for organizing guest bloggers for the 2008 Digital Now Blog and inviting my participation, and to Mickie Rops of Beyond Certification for an hour chat about blogging (nice job Mickie with more frequent posts) and encouragement.

Digital Now Blog Profile Questions:

Name: Josh Goldman
Association: The Association of College & University Housing Officers–International (ACUHO-I)
Title: Director of Education
Number of years attending Digital Now: None/first
Personal interests/hobbies: Professional Development, Knowledge Work, Photography, Mac’s, Wedding Planning!
What you hope to learn at Digital Now: We are bringing seven staff members as we work to bring our association web based services up to speed. My specific interest is in utilizing technology to enable the meaningful knowledge work of association staff, members, and volunteers.