17.1 Content is infrastructure  (Page 2/10)

It’s all very Marxist; when only the wealthy can afford access to the means of production (or, in our case, the “means of instruction”), very little innovation will percolate up from the rest of us. But when everyone has free and open access to the means of instruction, we can expect to see large scale experimentation and innovation. As Linus so famously said,

And don’t EVER make the mistake that you can design something better than what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a feedback cycle. That’s giving your intelligence _much_ too much credit.

If we want to see education radically improved, we can’t architect it. None of us is that intelligent. We have to understand that content is infrastructure in order to start Linus’ massively parallel feedback cycle running.

And finally, we have to understand that content is infrastructure to see current “open educational resources” projects and initiatives from the proper perspective. The OpenCourseWares , the Connexions , the GLOBEs , and all the other repositories of open educational resources in the world are critical infrastructure. As such, they are necessary conditions for revolutionizing education. The revolution can not happen without them. However, open content itself is by no means a sufficient condition for the revolution to succeed. So much more is needed! The list above includes only a handful of what needs to be worked on (localization, translation, low-bandwidth delivery, accreditation, degrees, certificates, support, tutors, study group locators).

To say that content, and therefore these projects, are necessary but not sufficient conditions is not to say that content is unimportant. Anything but! Every piece of the system, including content, is critical - as Paul taught the Corinthians:

For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body.

Content is infrastructure. An important beginning step that absolutely must be completed, and there is much more to follow. If you’re reading this post, I invite you to join our host Ken Udas, the other Guest Contributors in the series, and myself in working on creating this infrastructure and innovating on top of this infrastructure to improve education for everyone.

Do I have it wrong? Have I missed something obvious (or otherwise)? Please join the conversation in the comments below.

Comments

1. wayne mackintosh - october 4th, 2007 at 11:15 am

Hi David, Great post. I commend your courage in this world of constructivism to profile the humble but decisive role of content in our educational infrastructure.