Proof that the world has changed: Digg rock stars

It has become a very long conversation trying to influence the vocational education world about just who should be responsible for the creation of knowledge in the Vocational Education sector. For at least several years people like me have pointed to the trend of collaboratively produced knowledge. It is now obvious that the big movers are organisations that can leverage the input of their users. Youtube, Revver, Brightcove etc. The new generation of really successful sites utilise user generated content. A recent discussion on Techcrunch Digg rock stars points out the growing power the top contributors to sites like Digg have, and most interestingly who they are. One of the top contributors, and therefore someone who can influence millions of other readers is a twelve year old boy, another a seventeen year old. If we now transfer those ideas to the Vocational Education sector we should be able to see something of the whats in it for us factor. To spell it out, it shows that the mindset that content is produced by experts and delivered to non experts is quickly heading for the scrapheap. Like I said once in a presentation a course is not an object, it doesn't become a course until it has students in it. A course is an activity it is intangible more than tangible. It is not an electronic book but I am still not sure this is widely understood. Part of any course should now be the collective and collaborative creation of content, not passive consumption. There are huge practical consequences for this as well. No more lengthy development process just a simple framework for the generation and sifting of knowledge. And some editing skills for the teachers. Anyone who has done any teaching knows that the standard of student assignments can be brilliant. What I am saying is so could there contribution to their course through the collaborative creation of content. Like I said the world has changed,this type of involvement is quickly becoming the new consumer ( even this expression is losing it's usefulness) experience.

Web 2 is just the beginning.

I was sorting through the EDNA groups posts on my email and came
across a few themes to share. One comes via Leigh Blackall http://
learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/market-to-conversation-or-
conversation-to-market/ which in turn led to cluetrain http://
cluetrain.com/ . I hadn't read this before but it details, I guess,
the nature of organisations that are going to be more successful in
their marketing and their market place. Amongst the many points listed
are gems like "There are no secrets. The networked market knows more
than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is
good or bad, they tell everyone." and "Brand loyalty is the
corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable-and
coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to
renegotiate relationships with blinding speed." I think the key idea
here is that it is not just learning communities that are utilising
the expanded capability the net now provides but also business and
consumers of all kinds are doing the same, it is the new environment.
Who amongst you still uses a Super 8 camera, a typewriter, a cassette
recorder, leaded petrol, or a black and white tele? They were replaced
with CD players, computers, unleaded petrol and wide screen
television. It was inevitable. Does anyone think there is still a mass
market for typewriters? Does anyone think that the nature of
communication now provided by the Internet will go back to the way it
was in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990,or 2000? It wont.
Things have changed.