James Cross

Social learning, online video and disruptive innovation

This is one of my favourite TED talks. Mark Pagel discusses how social learning, and the language skills that enable it, are responsible for all human achievement - from our rapid expansion across the planet, to the iPhones and iPads that we carry. It's our ability as a species to learn from each other, and to adapt and improve upon the ideas of others that sets us apart from other species - and he briefly touches on how the internet is starting to add fuel to the social learning fire.

One of the learning technologies that I'm most excited by is online video, and I'm convinced that our new-found ability to quickly share video (as broadband speeds grow and online video tools evolve) will lead to a tipping point in online learning. 

Of course, learning online has been possible since the internet was in its infancy - but up until now, it's been almost entirely a text-based affair. Now, I'm not decrying the power of text as a learning tool - it's always going to be a key part of our sharing and retention of knowledge. But for most of us, learning is a visual thing. It's also a human process, and we've adapted to learn best by watching other people do stuff, and imitating it.

Asking students to learn a concept by copying out of a textbook is considered to be 'bad teaching', and explaining a concept in an engaging and interactive way is considered to be 'good teaching' - and it's the human element of the latter that makes the difference.

From YouTube to the Khan Academy, we're starting to see great examples of people sharing their knowledge using online video. If I want to learn to play the piano, I can jump onto YouTube and pick from the 100,000+ videos that 'normal' users have uploaded. If I want to grasp the concept of multiple dimensions, this video explaining it through animation does the job very nicely.

As this network of user-generated knowledge, and the ability of everyday users to personally contribute to it grows, it'll be interesting to see if Clayton Christenson's model of disruptive innovation will play out - with on demand, student centric learning slowly creeping up on, and taking traditional education systems by surprise.

Online learning in many schools at the moment resembles the text-based internet of the past, with a few token Powerpoint files and Word documents uploaded after lessons. We often hear the phrase 'back to basics' in education, and that's exactly what schools need to start doing with their online provision - going back to the 'basics' of humans showing humans how to do stuff. And online video, at the moment, is the best way of them achieving that.

What do Musical Futures and the Atkins Diet have in common? How ideas spread.

Chances are, you've heard of the Atkins diet. 

And if you're involved in education in the UK, you're probably also aware of Musical Futures, an approach to music education that's now in over half of Britain's music classrooms.

They're two ideas that very quickly spread far and wide. This wasn't down to savvy social media marketing, and it wasn't down to intensive advertising. The reason that these two ideas spread so effectively is because they're what Seth Godin would call 'virus worthy'. Seth argues that ideas can be engineered to spread quickly through word of mouth - and that's exactly what happened with these two approaches.

They both had a 'sticky' initial phase that gained attention.

Musical Futures starts with a phase called 'In at the Deep End', where students form groups, are given space, and are asked to prepare a cover version of any song they choose. Ask somebody about Musical Futures, and this is the part they'll probably remember.

Atkins starts with a severely restrictive phase, during which fatty foods are encouraged. Ask somebody about Atkins, and this is the part they'll probably remember.

Now, both ideas have far more to them than just this initial phase. Musical Futures is a diverse collection of approaches and ideas, and there are a number of phases that follow 'In at the Deep End' - and the Atkins diet is only so restrictive for a small amount of time. But in both cases, it's still this initial phase that caused their ideas to spread. Why these phases, and not any of the others?

These initial phases both went against conventional wisdom.

Classroom music, by conventional wisdom, should be highly structured and teacher-led.

Weight loss, by conventional wisdom, should be done through a low fat diet.

The initial phases of these two approaches turn conventional wisdom on its head, and that's why they're so sticky. They're a talking point in themselves - they encourage people to discuss the approach, and to have an opinion. People will disagree, and people will be polarised - but that's where their power lies.

Crucially, these initial phases weren't artificially added as shock tactics to aid publicity - in both cases they're true to, and are a distillation of the entire approach.

But having heard of an idea isn't they key - it's the 'conversion' of those who've heard the idea to those who actively apply it that matters. How did these ideas 'convert' so well?

The core ideas were freely available and easily understood

Musical Futures is a non-profit organisation, and Atkins is a commercial one - but they both followed the same path. Want to try Musical Futures in the classroom? Go and download the PDF book and watch the videos. Want to try Atkins? The entire plan is on their website, for free. Both offer their main idea as easily digestable chunks that can be quickly understood.

What can we learn from this?

I'm really interested in the way that ideas spread in education. Musical Futures stands up as a great example of how a great idea, that has the power to enrich the creative lives of millions of students, can spread so quickly and so cheaply (the whole project was undertaken with surprisingly little funding and staff hours).

I'm especially interested in what we can learn from educational ideas that have spread effectively under their own steam, and how this can be applied to other worthy ideas - especially at a time of immense change and pressure in schools. As well as looking at successful educational ideas, we also need to look at great examples from outside the education world.

There was another set of materials that were released around the same time that Musical Futures started to gain traction - the snappily titled Secondary National Strategy for Music. Although it was produced by a Government body and had lots of authority, funding and man-hours behind it, the lasting impact it had in classrooms was dwarfed by Musical Futures. I'm going to blog soon with a comparison of these two approaches.

 

We Are The People We've Been Waiting For - full video

At at time when the UK is doing a lot of soul-searching, it seems a good time to post this video again. Following the lives of a cross section of young people, this film is a powerful reminder of the incredibly important role of education in shaping young lives. The introduction alone is well worth watching.

"The world is facing huge challenges, and they're growing daily in severity, in scale and in complexity.

It's no exaggeration to say that they're not going to go away - indeed, they will get worse, unless we can start to find solutions, and find them soon.

If we're going to survive, we desperately need the next generation to be smarter, more adaptable, and better prepared than any that have gone before."