Friday, September 26, 2008

When things shift - it can be very uncomfortable

When students begin to understand that they can learn from each other things get interesting. The learning ecosystem has just shifted and change is always uncomfortable and resisted by those who don't understand it.    As Mark Masnick reported in his article, "Should you live blog / twitter a college class?
The professor in the class she talked about wasn't particularly happy about the article, which was then discussed in the class itself (very meta). According to students in the class (and the author of the original piece), the professor made it clear that they were no longer to blog, text or Twitter about the class, or to quote the professor without permission. 
Similar to the music industry we are seeing a shift in power and change in control of who distributes information.  Their is no controling this power shift.  Individuals that learn to understand the signifiance of this shift and learn how to live within this new learning ecosystem will thrive as instructors.  

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