Lecture 17

pdf version

Long Tail and Learning 2.0

Gerhard Fischer, Hal Eden, and Holger Dick — Fall Semester 2010

gerhard@colorado.edu; haleden@colorado.edu; holger.dick@gmail.com;  

November 3, 2010

paper: Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008) Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0, available at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0811.pdf

Chris Anderson’s Book

Exploiting “Long Tail” Opportunities in Business

Exploiting “Long Tail” Opportunities

The Long Tail

The Conceptual Framework Underlying the Long Tail

• how our economy and culture is shifting from mass markets to million of niches

• technologies that have made it easier for consumers to find and buy niche products, thanks to the “infinite shelf-space effect”
• new distribution mechanisms, from digital downloading to peer-to-peer markets breaking through the bottlenecks of broadcast and traditional bricks and mortar retail

• broad impact:

• originally presented as a phenomenon of interest primarily to mass market retailers and web-based businesses
• implications for the producers of content, especially those whose products could not (for economic reasons) find a place in pre-Internet information distribution channels controlled by book publishers, record companies, movie studios, and television networks ? YouTube
• result: a flowering of creativity across all fields of human endeavor

• our interest: impact of the Long Tail on Learning and Education facilitated by new approaches to human-centered computing

The Forces of the Long Tail

Model Authoritative underlying Consumer Cultures
“filter and publish”

• Strong Input Filters, Small Information Repositories, Weak Output Filters
• Limitation: Making All Voices Heard

Model Democratic underlying Participation Cultures
“publish and filter”

• Weak Input Filters, Large Information Repositories, Strong Output Filters
• Limitation: Trust and Reliability of Information

Rethinking and Reinventing Learning and Education from a “Long-Tail” Perspective

• basic beliefs:

• all people are interested in something (Viking Ships, Dinosaurs, gambling, Nuremberg trials, White Rose, Castles in Northern Germany, ……)
• Whatever someone’s particular interest is, there is some niche community already formed on the net that the person can join

• a new synergy and hybrid model: integrate head and tail of the long-tail) ? create richer learning environments

• head — basic knowledge and skills: learning to learn, learning on demand, preparation for future learning, soft skills, digital fluency, ……………
• tail — personally meaningful problems: interest and passion, self-directed learning and intrinsic motivation, local knowledge in a globalized world  

The Other End: Cultural Literacy

A New Synergy: Basic Knowledge/Skills and Long-Tail

• basic skills: learning to learn, learning on demand, meta-cognitive skills, soft skills (different from Hirsch “cultural literacy”)

• long-tail:

• interest
• passion
• self-directed learning
• intrinsic motivation
• personally meaningful problems

• extensive coverage needed for supporting the infinite numbers of interesting topics — will be facilitated by a “meta-design” culture) ? examples:

• Wikipedia
• 3D objects in Google Earth / 3D Warehouse

Identifying Interests by Self-Reporting Prior Activities

Stories from Collin’s / Halverson’s New Book

Collins, A., & Halverson, R. (2009) “Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and the School”

• Michele Knobel tells the story of a teen whose passion is to make “animé music videos.” He participates actively in the AniméMusicVideo.org web community, where he learns programming skills from fellow members. He is gaining something of a following online as shown by the high number of YouTube views of his “Konoha Memory Book” remixed by animating music with scenes from the Japanese animé Naruto. The skills he is learning prepare him for careers in the digital and recording arts.

• Brigid Barron tells the story of a boy named Jamal in Bermuda, who got excited when he took a computer science course in high school. He read several books on web design, and corresponded with one of the authors over the Internet. After he completed the course, he decided to start a business called Dynamic Web Design. An adult friend offered to share his office, and so Jamal designed a web page for him. The friend thought Jamal had real talent and encouraged him to pursue his business dream.

Example: A Real Story about Being Passionate about Learning
—
Computer-Generated Poetry (Tail) ? Probability Theory (Head)

• course for gifted high-school students ? student_x: no interest in math

• project: computer-generated poetry

• sentence structure: <article> <adj> <noun> <verb> <art> <noun>
• noun: = "house mouse spouse ........"
• use of a random number generator which returns values between 0 and 9
• noun list contains 18 objects ----> student_x: uses: SUM RANDOM RANDOM

• student_x observes that some words occur more frequently than other words

A Computer-Generated Poem — “Der Dumme Student”

Das dumme Stubenmaedchen verflucht die Schlampe

das lustige Kindermaedchen verbrennt keine Pampe

jedes kluge Maedchen ionisiert den Tresen

ein verschrumpeltes Maedchen verbrennt das Wesen

kein ausgereifter Professor kocht den Wurm

kein aufgespiesster Student besteigt den Turm.

Der kleine Hausmeister elektrisiert einen Ball

jedes schweinslederne Maedchen seziert einen Knall

der gefriergetrocknete Bergsteiger erfreut das Bier

jede erdrosselte Jungfrau untersucht einen Stier

ein kleiner Computer massakriert jede Flasche

jeder erdrosselte Mann bearbeitet die Asche.

Random 0 to 9

Sum of Random and Random

Word of Random and Random

Lessons to Be Learned from the Story

• student_x learned some aspects of probability theory grounded in a self-directed learning activity

• provide opportunities which change people's lives

• intrinsic motivation is crucial
• “falling in love” with something ? studentx ended up studying computer science

• learning experience:

• “normal”: learners work hard because they have to (extrinsic motivation)
• our goal: learners work hard because they want to ( intrinsic motivation)

3D Warehouse

Castles in Northern Germany — One Example from the Long Tail

• the current environment:

• 14 models (4 of them show below)
• contributed by: 6 contributors
• the owner of the collection serves as curator

Relationship between “head” and “long-tail” in Learning

passing on fundamental ideas to future generations

transforming learning to self-motivated experience

enriching Remixing Culture

Remixing Cultures

• Creative Commons

• a licensing mechanism that allows creators to grant permission to others to copy, distribute, perform a work, create derivative work, or restrict usage of the creators’ works

• Remix culture becomes the reality of current cyber communities

• intellectual work can be collaboratively created, shared, assembled and renovated
• increase of the amount of sharable works on the tail
• quality of work is not always guaranteed

How the Web Enables Long-Tail Learning

• products can be shared on YouTube, 3D-Warehouse, Epinions (consumer-generated reviews of computer products), Instructables (biggest How-To and DIY community where people make and share)

• libraries compared to the Web:

• when learners go to libraries, they’ll find very limited amount of information on any exotic topic
• The information they may find is very likely out of date for most hot topics being investigated.

• CU compared to iTune U:

• 3000 courses at CU
• 350,000 free lectures, videos, films, and other resources

• implication / claim: because the web is constantly evolving and actively filling up all the long tails of knowledge ? it can support long-tail learning in a way not even the largest library or universities in the world can support

Richer Ecologies for Learning (Brigid Barron)

A Long-Tail Interpretation for Learning and Education

• long-tail learning refers at least to two aspects

• learning about exotic topics outside the mainstream education curriculum
• the opportunity to communicate with people who share similar interests somewhere in the world on a regular basis

• long-tail learning represents a fundamentally different objective to cultural literacy (Hirsch), No Child Left Behind, ….

• the participatory Web 2.0 provides unique possibilities for an educational interpretation of the “Long Tail” thereby creating new feasibility spaces for collaborative learning

A Reinterpretation of the Long Tail for
 Learning and Edcuation

More Questions to be Explored and Debated

• How can we envision a productive synergy between the head and the tail and create mechanisms to support and exploit this synergy? How can the passion associated with topics from the tail be integrated with important basic knowledge and skills from the head that they successfully complement each other?

• Do we want to keep requiring everyone to learn the same thing in school rather than pursuing their deep interests? which support can be provided for letting people pursue their deep interest?

• Do we want to keep extending the years of schooling to encompass the expanding knowledge base?

Why Does the Long Tail Matters for Learning?
—
Creating Personalized Learning Pathways for any Topic at any Level

• Long-tail learning needs are driven by learner interests

• the matching problem:

• not only: whether a learner can find relevant learning resources
• but: finding the best-matched learning resources to your interests with the least effort

• the challenge:

• learners’ interests are often vague and appropriate resources are constrained by specific skills and background knowledge of learners
• creates a need to track implicitly the resources learners are using + text that they are writing + programs they are writing to infer learning interests and competencies