I placed a pre-publication order for Curtis Bonk’s latest book, The World is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education, and was not disappointed when it arrived. Bonk, Professor of Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University, identifies ten key trends in technology that are impacting education as we know it. He has coined an acronym, WE-ALL-LEARN, for those trends that are identified as:
• Web Searching in the World of e-Books
• E-Learning and Blended Learning
• Availability of Open Source and Free Software
• Leveraged Resources and OpenCourseWare
• Learning Object Repositories and Portals
• Learner Participation in Open Information Communities
• Electronic Collaboration
• Alternate Reality Learning
• Real-Time Mobility and Portability
• Networks of Personalized Learning
In his introduction, Professor Bonk states that the short premise of the book is: “Anyone can now learn anything from anyone at any time.” He draws upon the example of Tom Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, and states that Friedman’s focus was on social and economic flatteners brought about by technology. Bonk states that he dives into areas that Friedman only touched on and discusses areas that his book did not explore. Bonk discusses Friedman’s three “p” words (new economic players, flattened playing field, and more horizontal management processes) and coins his own set of three “p” words for education (pages of content, piping for content to run through, and a participatory learning culture). The education triple convergence, according to Bonk, accelerates the changes forecasted by Friedman.
Professor Bonk discusses teaching and how teaching hasn’t changed since the days of Plato even though the technologies for learning have changed dramatically in the last century. However, in instances where the learner has access to the Internet, students are exchanging roles with their teachers and teachers are engaged as guides, tutors, and mentors. He provides examples from grade school through college where these roles are changing and enhanced through technology. Bonk states that most of earth’s residents are increasingly accessing the Internet through their mobile phones. People do not have to be a designated student to benefit from the learning opportunities that the World Wide Web now offers. Learning does not have to be formal; in fact, much of learning today is informal. According to the author, web technologies “have blown the doors to educational opportunity wide open” and schools and universities need to wake up and participate in the process of change.
Bonk is so committed to the power of the Internet, Open Education Resources (OER), and this concept, that he has made available an e-book addendum to this book and is offering it for free at his companion website. If you are committed to finding ways to advance education, particularly through the use of technology, this book is a must read. “Gone are the days when the lecture was the dominant mode of course delivery and deemed the essence of a successful course experience” says Bonk. Lectures and other such formal methods of instruction are not the predominant form of online instruction. Good online instruction embraces collaborative, problem-based, and interactive teaching techniques. The chapters that detail his WE-ALL-LEARN concept are chock-full of practical examples in which learners are using technology in many different ways. After you read his book, Professor Bonk encourages you to post other examples to his website which everyone can access for free. That feature keeps the examples current for a technology-enabled world that continues to digitize knowledge at a remarkable pace. While I haven’t spent much time visiting the website, I plan to do so in the future and wouldn’t be surprised if a future post is about something I read there.
