Internet / Online

On Saying ‘Sorry’

When I read the headline that Nick Clegg had apologised over the Liberal Democrat tuition fees pledge, I shrugged. It’s nothing new.

I did wonder “Why now?” and found that the Lib Dem Conference is coming. Clegg’s video apology is a party political broadcast solely dedicated to when they made the pledge to vote against any type of tuition fees rise, under any circumstances.

It didn’t take long for an ‘honest’ subtitled version of the video to emerge. There’s even an auto-tune mix of Clegg’s broadcast.

While much of the Twitter response and online comments have decided not to play along with the apology, there has clearly been some playing along for laughs.

You don’t get to see many MPs saying a very direct ‘sorry’. Nevertheless, it’s unlikely that many policy wonks, student leaders and HE staff will give it time of day.

The video wasn’t made for those of us more involved, though. These things are produced in order to cover a wider public whose interest hasn’t strayed much beyond what’s in the papers and on the news. Helen Lewis in the New Statesman says, “Making the video is a bold move from Clegg”.

Will it be enough to soften up some people and bring a renewed optimism to some of the public? The reaction so far suggests it might not. And while it’s hardly scientific (and probably still not looking at a wide enough cross-section of the public), there are nearly three YouTube dislikes for every one like on Clegg’s apology video (at time of writing, 392 likes, 1027 dislikes).

NUS President, Liam Burns, said that Clegg should apologise for breaking the pledge, not making it. Clegg expressed regret in the past for having made the pledge. Has there been any regret in having broken it?

Clegg’s move is an attempt to draw a line under an issue that already had a line drawn under it many moons ago. This apology doesn’t do anything new. Votes were cast, the choices were made, the game was changed, and the situation is playing out as we speak.

That situation continues to change and we’re bound to see more policy tweaks ongoing. Think of it as the policy equivalent of the credit crunch. If enough people make enough changes and they all impact on each other, the resulting confusion will ensure that nobody knows what’s going on where, how everything is linked any more, or how to get back on track.

Clegg’s apology video is not a change in policy. Neither does it put matters in a new perspective. For a view of Clegg’s position when the tuition fees issue was still fresh, look no further than William Cullerne Bown’s assessment from 2010.

‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word…And for many students, ‘Apology accepted’ may be the hardest reply.

Need a Basic Overview? Choose Simple!

Some of the big lifehacking and technology websites have reported a Wikipedia wonder that I’ve recommended for years now.

It’s Simple Wikipedia. When you need a really basic overview of a topic, some Wiki entries are too complex. As TheNextWeb says, just swap “en” in the web address to “simple” and load the new page. All of a sudden, you’re given an article that’s easy to follow and just right to get a basic grasp of.

I suggest Simple Wikipedia to Freshers, especially before they’ve started uni. It’s an easy way to read up on major concepts without getting bogged down with the detail that will come your way soon enough anyway.

With an introduction to the main topics, you’ll be prepared for the juicy details far better than if you were being fed everything at once.

So check out simple.wikipedia.org and get the lowdown on all the stuff you were afraid to tackle!

Higher Ed and Continuing to Look Into the Future(s)

Is X the future of higher education?

No. No it’s not.

Whatever you choose X to be, it isn’t the future of HE.

Why? Because the answer is so singular. Higher education already appears in different guises. Nobody can say that HE is simple to define, because it means so much. The concept covers so much ground.

Similarities...Differences...All Directions... (photo by solidether)

Similarities…Differences…All Directions… (photo by solidether)

New websites that make learning available to a massive audience are great. There have been so many advances in recent months and I’ve loved taking a look at sites like Coursera and Udacity with their new approaches of bringing courses to an online population. It’s telling that many universities have been placing academic material on the Internet for years now. With MIT and Harvard starting edX, large institutions are attempting to see the future of education and tap into what’s possible.

But none of this is *the* future. These services are playing a small part in the current landscape. They are experimenting.

In the future, they may play a bigger part, with more on offer and more official recognition in one way or another. No matter how successful these services and institutions become, they won’t be the singular future.

Other questions are far more useful. Questions like:

  • “How important are these movements?”;
  • “What improvements could these services bring to the world (locally, nationally, internationally…)?”;
  • “Will new initiatives manage to open up learning to more people and with greater relevance?”;
  • “Can any of this help provide a more equal chance of getting the necessary help to the people who want it?”;
  • “Can these services identify and assist those people who don’t realise how beneficial this learning could be for them?”;
  • “Do these initiatives offer anything to enhance, alter, or perhaps even fundamentally change more traditional offerings?”;
  • “What, if anything, can traditional methods and services learn from new, disruptive technologies, in order to remain equally important and relevant?”

These are just some questions off the top of my head. They won’t have single answers. They’re not meant to.

The question “Is X the future of higher education?” is merely a starting point to allow other questions such as these to be asked.

A CNN piece that asks if Udacity is the future of higher education ends with a beginning:

“I asked [Sebastian] Thrun [founder of Udacity] whether his enterprise and others like it will be the end of higher education as we know it — exclusive enclaves for a limited number of students at high tuitions? ‘I think it’s the beginning of higher education,’ Thrun replied. ‘It’s the beginning of higher education for everybody.’
“Much of traditional American higher education prides itself on a false promotion of diversity, opportunity and excellence. But to my knowledge, with one class alone, Thrun has provided a level of diversity, opportunity and academic rigor not seen before. People from any country, any background and any income level can receive an elite education at virtually no cost. We have been talking about equal educational opportunity for years. What is going on here may be its true advent.”

Higher education has been necessarily disruptive since its inception. The word ‘higher’ is a clue. ‘Higher’ shouldn’t mean ‘exclusive’ or ‘elitist’. The term ‘higher’ should be seen as looking beyond the fundamentals. Perhaps even looking beyond the furthest point currently studied (PhD folks, I’m looking at you especially here!).

HE for everyone is fantastic, so long as everyone wants it and will genuinely benefit from it. Nobody can guarantee that someone will benefit, which further highlights the lack of one, single answer. Neither can everyone agree what ‘benefit’ implies, because we want different things and see things from many perspectives.

No matter how higher education develops, equal educational opportunity is in the sights of many. No single offering can solve the problem of inequality. If we take the conclusion of the CNN piece as a major driving force behind the desire to change the future of HE, the next question should not be “Is X the future of higher education?”

A better question would be: “Can X help bring greater equality in future educational provision and, if so, how?”

I don’t think Udacity has cracked that yet. But that shouldn’t stop them searching. It’s early days. As usual, questions are followed with more questions, followed by yet more questions. It’s non-stop. Just as you’d expect!

Possible answers are great. I’m happy that so many startups and established institutions want to provide them.

But I don’t see this as the start, or a ‘true advent’. I see this as a continuation.

Keep asking questions. Keep seeking answers. It’s important to keep going, even if no absolute and single solution is found. If everything was so simple, we would never need to be challenged again.

When that time comes, X really will be the future of higher education. And it will eat itself in the process. Omnomnom.

Manage the Noise – 6 Easy Ways to Plug In Better.

Where we’ve improved in communication and information, we’ve suffered in lost time and overload.

If the coming years are set to be a boom for curators of information, how can you strike a balance between drinking from a firehose and switching off the flow completely?

photo by bartmaguire

photo by bartmaguire

The Atlantic provides some ideas on how to plug in better, and there’s plenty more you can do to use your time productively and access huge amounts of noise at the same time. Here are some of the things I’ve learned to do over the years.

Six Ways to Plug In Better

  1. Prioritise accurately – Recognise social networks as a true time sink. If it’s on in the background, or constantly causing you to check your phone, it’s taking up more time and attention than you think. In many cases, that’s fine. In some cases, you need to shut down or find a way to tune in to a more limited feed of information.
  2. Know when to shut down – I used to repeat the phrase “know when to stop” a while back. It was to remind myself that time is precious. You may be wonderful at time-management, but that doesn’t mean you know when to stop. The constant flow of information coming your way is easily switched off, but it’s not so easy to make that conscious choice to shut it down.
    You rarely need to hear something at the first possible moment. You may want to, but that’s a whole different matter. Also, when a big event takes over, you’re unlikely to miss it completely. I regularly take days at a time away from online activity, but the world still goes on without problem. And I return without problem too. Nothing is damaged, no harm is done.
    To some online gurus, leaving the scene is a cardinal sin. Why not schedule something in advance? Why not make a big deal about your downtime? Why not find a way to not have any downtime at all?
    I prefer not to follow advice that doesn’t gel with the bigger picture. When my circumstances change, the bigger picture may change and I may follow different advice. So I’m listening to what makes sense in my own personal circumstances. With a bit of listening, it becomes clear when it’s wise to shut down and when it’s best to log back on.
  3. Don’t read everything – Some people complain when they’re following more than a hundred RSS news feeds. Some people complain when they’re keeping up with more than a couple hundred users on Twitter. Some people complain when they’re catching up with several hundred friends on Facebook.
    But how much of it is important? Chances are, most of what you read won’t make a difference to you. You need to be brutal and bypass a lot of the content out there. Either flick through your updates and develop a focused mind (no more cute kitten vids and hilarious TV ads will disturb you now, uh-huh!) or select the items you want to spend more time on and save them for later consumption.
  4. Don’t fall for ‘in the moment’ – When you save stuff to look at later, you may not be the first person to comment on every last detail. You may have to miss out on making a really clever remark within five seconds of someone writing a status update. I always feel sad when I miss saying something amusing in the moment, but I remind myself that I find loads of other times to do it. You can’t be everywhere all the time. Not everything will work out how you want it, and you have to get used to that (which takes a bit of practice, but isn’t difficult in itself). Once you get over this, you’ll find it much easier to turn off the feeds when you need. And you’ll find it much easier to catch up too.
  5. Scan for what’s important now, what you’ll save for later, and what might entertain you – Everything else can go out the window. If you’re unsure about something, save it for later or take a quick peek to decide one way or another. That’s a quick peek, not reading half an article! The important stuff comes first, the stuff for later comes whenever you get spare time (including never), and the stuff that might entertain you can be for your breaks and downtime when you want something else to do. Because breaks are important!
  6. Use the time you’ve got rather than finding more and more time to sort – When I’m away for a few days, or something urgent crashes in to my schedule, I may come back to A LOT of catching up. After all, I subscribe to hundreds of blogs, I follow thousands of people on Twitter, and I’m using loads of other services more too (like Google+, LinkedIn, Scoop It, and so on).
    A lot of the catching up isn’t necessary, so I work on what I should be aware of. For instance, I have a Twitter list of essential accounts to check back on for the last day or so, I have selected a few RSS feeds that need reading and a few busy RSS feeds that I can ignore without even checking, and I keep a scratchpad to make brief notes rather than trying to put something major together (that can wait, but I don’t want to lose any ideas).

I’m still learning and I doubt I’ll ever stop. So let me know what works for you when you plug in to the great firehose of noise in your life.