Iterative Improvement - Part I

Colorful To A Point, by RedDogFever

I came to the class SW4SX to catch up with 'current' and 'next generation' online tools.  While I received this overview, I received something I didn't expect - the benefit of being part of truly successful 'next generation' educational experience.

Online learning was facilitated more successfully than I've seen any instructor accomplish at BGI or elsewhere, and Christopher did this with humility and a sense of group experimentation and engagement.   Beyond learning how to use the social web to inspire social change, I also learned that we need a new learning pedagogy for a new era of communication, one that we practice not only in an online classroom, but throughout our increasingly-online lives and careers.

The value I gained from this class was not so much about media as message, techniques, and pedagogy.

Successes of SW4SX

The combination class (Hunter Lovins' Topics in Sustainability and Christopher Allen's SW4SX) facilitated during our final intensive was a wonderful experience.  The consulting exercise we engaged in was a great way to put new learning to work. As a SW4SX consultant, I  was able to see the other class' projects in a new light: they were notable for their use of systems thinking and inspiring presentation, yet also notable for their focus on describing complex problems while struggling to present solutions.  I was also able to realize the power of implementing the techniques we've practiced this quarter, as our 'scan, focus, act' methodology produced a wealth of inspiring actions in a very short time.  I was very proud of my classmates and the creative consulting skills demonstrated by so many.

Challenges for Improvement

Simplifying the plethora of to-dos.

Techniques for sharing many small bits of information, links, tasks, and feedback present challenges whether online or off.  In this course, those challenges were considerable, and I think that even our web-savvy TAs and instructor have yet to solve these while using the Moodle platform, BGI's Channel, and Google Docs.  I believe the solution will be found by unleashing the assignments and checklists from Moodle, and presenting and tracking them through some other tool that hopefully will help students and TAs manage these many many small assignments without losing their minds.

Integration.

Not unique to this course, but still a common problem I find in today's online experience is the discontinuity experienced when moving between different tools and sites.  Social media and the entire online experience needs better integration to become more usable.  Google plus and the Google services model presents an opportunity to experience better integration, yet I feel that putting too much control of social media in the hands of one company is a disconcerting idea.  I am hoping can we retain the 'New Frontier' quality of today's social web, retain the spirit of entrepreneurship and sense of a level playing field, while also developing tools that help users integrate and simplify their experience.  This, for me, is a new frontier to explore.