Bridging the Disconnect: An E-Learning Manifesto

This first draft of "An E-Learning Manifesto" was conceived and written by one of the Community subgroups formed during the CILT1999 conference. The document seeks to:

The Manifesto will be presented and opened for revision during the CILT2000 conference. Meanwhile, we welcome your comments and suggestions.

Credits

The "Bridging the Disconnect" group began its work in May, 1999 as part of the "Community Tools" gathering at CILT 1999. The document you are reading was written by: During the course of the year, we had additional help from Pascha Marlin and David Niguidula.

Abstract

With the commercialization of the Internet, the face of the Internet has changed. The original environment aimed at supporting the knowledge and growth of individuals and communities is being sidetracked by marketing interests. As the typical user logs onto the World Wide Web today, s/he is bombarded with page after page cluttered with advertisements. To seek an item of personal interest is to sort through a labyrinth of extraneous screens and messages designed to lure the user to this page or that product. User information is captured without notice and used for a variety of commercial purposes.

Without initiatives that call for the preservation of a learner-centered environment, to these problems will undoubtedly compound. To influence the collective mind that constitutes the Internet, we must build a community of like-minded developers and users committed to retaining the educational integrity of the medium. If such a community has a handle on what principles are worth protecting and what practices can nurture those principles, it is hoped that the quality of the Internet will be influenced.

The Guiding Principles

1. Maximize the Internet as a tool for learning and growth.

2. Promote learner safety.

3. Commit to equity.

4. Respect property rights.

The Best Practices

Members of the Internet community who share the above values will find independent and collective means to act on them. A few of the "best practices" (abbreviated as "BP") contained in the draft document are listed below:

BP1 Content is designed with multiple entry points which enable learners to be engaged by their curiosity, to shape their experience and to follow their interests.

BP2 Tools support learners' construction of understanding (e.g., tools that encourage learners to test, revise, reformulate, and share their ideas and models).

BP3 Learners are encouraged to lead or participate in learning communities with tools that invite, exclude, schedule, communicate, share documents and distribute information (e.g., clubs, e-groups, listservs, newsgroups).

BP4 Tools are provided that include parents and families in the educational experiences.

BP5 Support is provided for learners to develop effective on-line collaboration skills.

BP6 Learners have control over the collection and use of their own information, including personal data that they have explicitly provided to the site as well as behavioral tracking data that is collected on the site.

BP7 Feedback loops are provided for learners to interact with developers and access control functions of Web sites.

BP8 Learners are provided the means to network with real world community contacts and distant experts and to apply their knowledge and skills in real world situations.

BP9 Procedures and technologies are provided that protect the intellectual property rights of individuals in the use, display and distribution of their products.

BP10 Sites provide resources to accommodate multiple styles of learning.

BP11 The adaptable and malleable nature of the Internet is used to best serve the special needs and diversity of all learners (e.g., translation services, localized content).

BP12 Learners are empowered to create their own economies/markets (exchanges of goods and services, conversations, etc.) and seek to grow from them.

BP13 Content and activities are designed to take advantage of new ubiquitous technologies that stretch the boundaries of on-line learning environments (e.g. PIMs, PDAs, Gameboys) and provide both synchronous and asynchronous opportunities that maximize learner opportunities.

BP14 Learners are encouraged to participate in the proliferation of informal and unconventional learning opportunities and build upon them.

Internet developers and users are encouraged to provide feedback on this first draft of the E-Learning Manifesto so that the document can continue to evolve.
 

Preamble

Bridging the Disconnect is a collaborative effort among educators, private sector high-tech leaders, and policy makers to comprehend how the Internet is changing the way people communicate and learn and to promote uses of the Internet that enhance personal learning as well as community and societal growth. Our goals are pragmatic: if we can describe how technologies are impacting information-sharing and knowledge-building, we may propose new practices for maximizing the value of the Internet in supporting learning and growth. We believe that bridging the disconnect is not a matter simply of providing more hardware, but of equipping individuals to cultivate, manage, and market their intelligence in an open economy where knowledge is the most valued commodity.

In this e-learning manifesto we are issuing a call for new practices and incentives that support the growth-enhancing capacities of the Internet. We seek a balance between the rights of those who seek value from the Internet and the markets that use it for monetary gain. We ask for a recognition by both public and commercial interests that the best for both worlds is an Internet environment that enriches the individual users of the system.

Thus, this E-Learning Manifesto seeks to 1) reconstruct a vision of the Internet as a nurturing learning community, 2) describe the competing agendas that threaten the individual learner in this environment, and 3) propose a set of guiding principles and best practices for those seeking to contribute to the development of Internet as a living ecosystem, the central purpose of which is to promote individual and communal growth.

The Vision: A Learner's Ecosystem

We start with a fundamental observation: that the Internet has created a new information ecosystem that enables the flow of information among multiple points without centralized control. The Internet was conceived as a network that has no single point of failure. Data packets are routed along multiple lines of transmission, creating a dynamic environment unrestricted by centralized control.

This infrastructure informed the culture of the Internet's early users&emdash;research scientists and university faculty who considered themselves members of an open, knowledge-building community. Some of the e-learning communities with historical connections to the Internet still exemplify the early aspirations of the Internet, offering dynamic contexts where members contribute and learn by participating in a shared process of exploration and knowledge building. In these communities, lines of communication run from any member to any other, coordinated by the interest of each individual and the consensus values and goals of the shared community.

The non-linear dynamics of this environment are challenging the traditional, ordered frameworks of every organization that uses the Internet. Institutional organizers such as the time clock, the attendance roster, and the seating chart&emdash;which have long been used to measure, structure, and control society's educational and productive activities&emdash;have been dismantled. People work, communicate, and learn across time zones and physical boundaries. Individuals communicate person to person, learning from and informing one another. Knowledge no longer moves in one direction from teacher to student; it grows as communities engage in inquiry and share their discoveries.

The Internet has also displaced traditional mechanisms for creating, controlling and distributing intellectual property. With direct access to an open market, practitioners in the field, engineers at the workbench, or kids on the street can share their discoveries directly with anyone who perceives their value. Knowledge creators may circumvent traditional marketing channels and parcel out new information according to the interests of those who seek it out. For the first time, those who create knowledge have greater power than those who distribute it.

The challenge to e-learning organizations is that they capitalize on these new dynamics and without falling into the traditional marketing practices of manipulation and coercion. Knowledge-seekers should be able to pursue information unhibitied by exploitative tactics. Information should flow uninterrupted according to the preferences of collective users, empowering them to engage in mutual discovery, reflection, and articulation. The most powerful e-community leaders work with and study their learners and invite them to help define the value of the emergent knowledge. In this way, the learning environment is shaped to enable the flow, not constrain it, empowering the individuals who are its source.

An Endangered Learning Environment?

With the commercialization of the Internet, the face of the Internet has changed. The original vision of an environment that nurtures the knowledge and growth of individuals and communities is being blurred by marketing interests. As the typical user logs onto the World Wide Web today, s/he is bombarded with page after page cluttered with advertisements. To seek an item of personal interest is to sort through a labyrinth of extraneous screens and messages designed to lure the user to this page or that product. As one astute developer responded when asked whether he thought this was the way to go, "I'm afraid we're going to blow it." He was acknowledging the possibility that this incredibly powerful tool for individual learning and societal good could, in fact, be reduced to a commercial meat market.

So, how do we preserve the knowledge-building capacities of the Internet? There are no "authorities" to pressure to stem the tide here. The greatest virtue of the Internet, its decentralized nature, is also its greatest vulnerability. Only by building a community of like-minded developers and users who are willing to exert grassroots pressure site-by-site can we influence its development. Thus, if we are to influence the collective mind that constitutes the Internet, if we are to help channel the flow to achieve the higher purposes of personal and communal growth, we must have a handle on what principles are worth protecting and what practices can nurture those principles.

Guiding Principles of the Learner's Manifesto

The statements below seek to answer the questions: What are the purposes most valuable to the preservation of the Internet as a growth-enhancing environment? What goals do we seek in the shaping of the Internet? How do we optimize the Internet as a learning environment for the individual learner? It is hoped that by articulating and seeking redress for the four cardinal virtues below, a more informed leadership can be built to shape Internet development.

In order to preserve growth-enhancing capacities of the Internet we must...

1) Maximize the Internet as a tool for learning and growth. This calls for continued research on the unique interactions that occur between users and the Internet so that better growth can occur. Attention must also be paid to measuring cognitive gain and retention, adopting best practices, identifying exemplary projects, and promoting social dimensions of learning.

2) Promote learner safety. Developers and users must continue to seek ways to classify content, minimize abuse or disrespect, and communicate the risks and responsibilities inherent in Internet use.

3) Commit to equity. The full positive power of the Internet can only be realized if everyone has access to it. We must ensure that individuals can access the Internet regardless of economic status, gender, geographic restrictions, physical abilities and/or culture.

4) Respect property rights. Dialog concerning the balance of fair use and individual property rights must continue with the goal to provide incentives strong enough to preserve the generosity of spirit that has been a part of the history of the Internet yet provide protection from exploitation.

In the best of all possible Internet worlds, individual learners are free to pursue the knowledge uniquely suited to them, joining and exiting learning communities at will. There is reciprocity in the larger sphere of information exchange-- in one community an individual is a learner, in another-the expert. The Internet community of learners can offer learning that is relevant to the real world, learning that can be a means of gaining power/recognition, learning that is active, just-in-time, non linear, multi-sensory, and, of course, learner-centered. And, with attention to the principles above, this valuable resource can be available to all.

Best Practices

Members of the Internet community who share the above values will find independent and collective means to act on them. The "best practices" (abbreviated as "BP") listed below are only some of the possible ways that Internet users and developers can work to preserve the more edifying purposes of the medium. They are vision-oriented learner statements that indicate the potential educational value of the Internet and then give a few examples of potential best practices regarding each learner statement.

In the Internet learning environment,

1. Learners construct their own meaning from experience and integrate it into their existing framework of knowledge.

2. Learners create and participate in unique e-communities of learning. 3. Learners are informed about what information is being collected about them, its use and any distribution of that information beyond the expressed purpose of its collection. 4. Learners refine and redesign the tools of learning to adapt to individual learning needs/preferences and local learning objectives. 5. Learners link their on-line experiences with other real world and off-line activities and human interactions. 6. Learners are encouraged to recognize the value of their contributions and managethe use and distribution of those works. 7. Learners are actively involved in directing their own learning paths. 8. Learners live in a multi-cultural world and seek an on-line experience that reflects and values diverse perspectives. 9. Learners capitalize on the new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange introduced by the Internet to improve their personal, social and economic status 10. Learners engage in on-line learning activities where and when they want.

The Challenge

This Learner's Manifesto is meant to be a beginning. The ideas proposed here are the fruits of well-intended professionals seeking to join with others to create a ground-swell of support for a common vision -- that of an on-line environment where the need for individual growth is balanced with the need for commerce. It is hoped that this Manifesto will be discussed and debated in many group meetings, conferences or town halls across the country where people are earnestly exploring the best possible learning uses of the Internet. It is hoped that Internet developers will consider its concepts when seeking to develop a learner-friendly Web site or program. Best of all, it is hoped that, wherever possible, learners will the find inspiration here to pressure developers, fellow consumers and leaders to direct their energies toward building the most edifying Internet possible for all users.