musings & critique about hi-tech, academia, building startups, and a journal to building eKita
Friday, August 17, 2012
I've known a long time about the Finnish Model of education - as I am not only Scandinavian as well - but from Finland's closest neighbor: Sweden.
A fact that bears more semblance than just geography, too - (secondary national language of Finland: Swedish; and Finland itself used to be Swedish territory).
But history or national prestige isnt why I am writing this - in fact the real prestige out of this article will undoubtedly go to Finland, and you will soon discover why.
I will take a moment to divulge what was written at the bottom of this post however:
To continue onto my point however, with the article above in mind, the whole goal of educators wherever they are is to in fact improve their models, efficiency, and results - is it not?
So - call it obvious if you will (though it is apparently not obvious enough that it's happened - food for thought) - but: why not create a platform or channel of communication whereby educators can share those methods that in fact work the best? And the content created by them?
I'm touching again, of course, on the crucial goal we at eKita have to creating a global platform by which the world's academic standard will be increased by simple means of exposure, collaboration, and sharing of resources, tools, & methods by the worlds teachers.
When teachers are able to share across borders seamlessly - which of course is the reason the WWW was invented in the first place - there is a drastic measure of improvement in student results. I argue that this improvement can even take place when local policy isn't the same on both ends, and can in fact pressure local policy to adopt the more successful model.
Obviously - some teachers have better tools, training, and resources than others; but in our current information age where we can assume every teacher has internet access: a platform to easily share information, content, methods, and back it up with results is highly in order - dont you think?
The reverse affect also takes place which those same teachers (with more tools, training, and resources) are also able to share more of their results, methods, and successes so that teachers in less fortunate areas can learn how to improve their methods.
With a look at platforms of communication like Quora - which are educational as a by-product - isnt it obvious that something similar, with vetted input from the world's teachers and academia, will eventually make a strong showing to - well, the entire world - which models are the best, and most successful?
I believe quite strongly that it will.
And that is exactly what we are building into the architecture and vision of eKita.
A fact that bears more semblance than just geography, too - (secondary national language of Finland: Swedish; and Finland itself used to be Swedish territory).
But history or national prestige isnt why I am writing this - in fact the real prestige out of this article will undoubtedly go to Finland, and you will soon discover why.
I will take a moment to divulge what was written at the bottom of this post however:
Thirty years ago, Finland’s education system was in the same sorry state that America’s is today. It was mediocre and inequitable and relied on many of the same measures of success that we use here, like standardized testing and teacher tracking. Teachers had varying degrees of education and students didn’t have access to equal education resources. They’ve managed to change all of that in just a few decades. Regardless of whether the U.S. can import some of what makes Finland’s schools so successful, they can get hope from the rapid changes to the Finnish education system that show the true and lasting impact smart reforms can have on a country’s educational potential.I highly suggest reading the entire article, too. So here it is again...
To continue onto my point however, with the article above in mind, the whole goal of educators wherever they are is to in fact improve their models, efficiency, and results - is it not?
So - call it obvious if you will (though it is apparently not obvious enough that it's happened - food for thought) - but: why not create a platform or channel of communication whereby educators can share those methods that in fact work the best? And the content created by them?
I'm touching again, of course, on the crucial goal we at eKita have to creating a global platform by which the world's academic standard will be increased by simple means of exposure, collaboration, and sharing of resources, tools, & methods by the worlds teachers.
When teachers are able to share across borders seamlessly - which of course is the reason the WWW was invented in the first place - there is a drastic measure of improvement in student results. I argue that this improvement can even take place when local policy isn't the same on both ends, and can in fact pressure local policy to adopt the more successful model.
Obviously - some teachers have better tools, training, and resources than others; but in our current information age where we can assume every teacher has internet access: a platform to easily share information, content, methods, and back it up with results is highly in order - dont you think?
The reverse affect also takes place which those same teachers (with more tools, training, and resources) are also able to share more of their results, methods, and successes so that teachers in less fortunate areas can learn how to improve their methods.
With a look at platforms of communication like Quora - which are educational as a by-product - isnt it obvious that something similar, with vetted input from the world's teachers and academia, will eventually make a strong showing to - well, the entire world - which models are the best, and most successful?
I believe quite strongly that it will.
And that is exactly what we are building into the architecture and vision of eKita.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
It always starts out this way. Slowly, the resistant antiques of us begin to accept the inevitable.
New technology is always laughed at first,
Staunchly resisted second,
and finally when they realize it is inevitable they become your cheerleaders.
LMS or CLMS systems - whichever you prefer to call them - are becoming more widely accepted as cloud-destined platforms, as the obviousness sinks into even the mainstream mind.
However, from a mainstream perspective it is still taking awhile for ERP and other fully fledged systems to make their appeal to this technologically unsavvy crowd - until now.
A good article on just this topic here: http://www.universitybusiness.com/article/erp-ethers
...which has some excellent points I have long been pushing for the industry to realize.
Not least of which is the actual architectural design concept of cloud computing itself - which is not new by a longshot, actually.
Cloud is essentially the extrapolation of what institutions have already been doing for the last 5 to 10 years: co-locating resources to servers within their institution.
And if any of you were involved with institutions 10-15 years ago when this was considered a "new technology" - you will recall the huge amount of resistance and name-calling we future-thinking technologists got for pushing that agenda too.
Of course - thin clients coupled with robust server farms and remotely located resources are now the standard across most academic institutions.
Cloud simply does this to a global level - effectively outsourcing that co-location and all the services required to run it to an external entity (or - well - nobody is stopping you from building your own cloud, too...but thats rarely necessary - and much less cost effective of course).
This global mindset of course allows much more power in terms of connectivity and sharing of resources than did the precursor architecture of thin clients + server farms locally. It allows connectivity, sharing of data, content, and applications on a global level. No longer institutionalized.
The result of which is that there needs to be new software which captures the benefit of these new powerful channels of possibilities.
That is, not-at-all-ironically, still where education technology is far, far behind. It is also where the institutional education model is being disrupted on a pedagogic level. However, the software to support this process is still non-existant.
At eKita we are building something for the future where cloud based architecture for institutions is considered standard. Our global education platform is software that is designed to not only take advantage of this paradigm shift - but in fact facilitate it, as we will offer hybrid and private cloud services to institutions who need the most customizable and controllable features - simultaneously facilitating the disruption of the current academic model which is already happening.
New technology is always laughed at first,
Staunchly resisted second,
and finally when they realize it is inevitable they become your cheerleaders.
LMS or CLMS systems - whichever you prefer to call them - are becoming more widely accepted as cloud-destined platforms, as the obviousness sinks into even the mainstream mind.
However, from a mainstream perspective it is still taking awhile for ERP and other fully fledged systems to make their appeal to this technologically unsavvy crowd - until now.
A good article on just this topic here: http://www.universitybusiness.com/article/erp-ethers
...which has some excellent points I have long been pushing for the industry to realize.
Not least of which is the actual architectural design concept of cloud computing itself - which is not new by a longshot, actually.
Cloud is essentially the extrapolation of what institutions have already been doing for the last 5 to 10 years: co-locating resources to servers within their institution.
And if any of you were involved with institutions 10-15 years ago when this was considered a "new technology" - you will recall the huge amount of resistance and name-calling we future-thinking technologists got for pushing that agenda too.
Of course - thin clients coupled with robust server farms and remotely located resources are now the standard across most academic institutions.
Cloud simply does this to a global level - effectively outsourcing that co-location and all the services required to run it to an external entity (or - well - nobody is stopping you from building your own cloud, too...but thats rarely necessary - and much less cost effective of course).
This global mindset of course allows much more power in terms of connectivity and sharing of resources than did the precursor architecture of thin clients + server farms locally. It allows connectivity, sharing of data, content, and applications on a global level. No longer institutionalized.
The result of which is that there needs to be new software which captures the benefit of these new powerful channels of possibilities.
That is, not-at-all-ironically, still where education technology is far, far behind. It is also where the institutional education model is being disrupted on a pedagogic level. However, the software to support this process is still non-existant.
At eKita we are building something for the future where cloud based architecture for institutions is considered standard. Our global education platform is software that is designed to not only take advantage of this paradigm shift - but in fact facilitate it, as we will offer hybrid and private cloud services to institutions who need the most customizable and controllable features - simultaneously facilitating the disruption of the current academic model which is already happening.
Labels: CLMS, Cloud, education, edutech, lean, LMS, startup, university
