Keith Lynip in UM’s Extended Learning Services is contemplating our next learning management system. His blog post Synthesis lays out a vision for an integrated approach to academic technology. He foolishly asked for my perspective.
As Ramon the penguin said in Happy Feet: ”Big guy. Let me tell something to you. Come close. Don’t be afraid. You want answers?”
Keith laments that the University is “far better at analysis-separation, deconstruction-than synthesis.”
Yes, we excel at separating ourselves from one another-sector-by-sector-school-by-school-department-by-department-website-by-website. We can blame limited resources, organizational culture or bad management, but why blame ourselves. Google has separated and deconstructed us far beyond our mortal powers.
Information-including our information-has been smashed into a bazillion pieces and wrested from our control. It’s a done deal. Our best hope now is to figure out if the University can be relevant in putting the pieces back together.
Out of chaos comes order, but the emerging order is quite different. If we don’t start thinking differently, we’ll be like all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, who couldn’t put Humpty together again. Except that in the digital age, Humpty is capable of putting himself back together and we become obsolete if we don’t adapt. Don’t believe me? Google “death of newspapers”.
In “Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder,” author David Weinberger says that “miscellaneous order is changing how we think the world itself is organized and-perhaps more important-who we think has the authority to tell us so.”
He points out that before the digital age, physical limitations on how we organized information limited our vision, and gave the people who controlled the organization of information more power than those who created the information.
Then along came all the “bliggity blogs and the facey spaces and the tweety pages,” not to mention the social tagging, the RSS feeds and the data mash-ups.
If all that boggles your mind, here’s a simple guide for the new age:
It’s all about me.
If you want synthesis, don’t synthesize around academics or any other organizational aspect of the institution. Synthesize around ME. My life. My WHOLE life. My academic life. My social life. My love life. My health. My job. My finances. My responsibilities. My causes. My passions.
You (any department, administrator, faculty or staff) don’t care about me (any student) as much as you care about yourself. That’s just how humans and human-made institutions work. But I’m in control now. I’m calling the shots and I have to tell something to you.
Our bliggity blogs and our facey spaces and our tweety pages are thriving because they operate in a world that revolves around me.
We-the University-haven’t figured out how to function in that world yet.
When we do, the technology will be ready.
