Recent articles by Dave Pollard and Michael Angeles have gotten me musing more on this whole concept of Web logs, specifically Manila, as a KM tool for my school both externally and internally through an Intranet. One of the issues that we are currently taking a hard look at is not only the use of data to drive decisions (which is very difficult to get my right-heavy brain to grasp) but, more importantly, how to access the data once it’s available. As with the earlier post about learning objects, having a central repository for “knowledge” would make data retreival and study much more accessible.

The big picture here (and I do mean BIG) involves widely distributed creation of content by individuals that is then aggregated by “department” into a taxonomy of feeds that individuals can subscribe to depending on their “knowledge needs.” (I swear if someone had asked me to translate that sentence just a week ago…) In that way, you’re getting the information you want from whatever internal source is providing it. To do that, I’m thinking the organization would have to clearly define these “departments” and feeds beforehand, and each post, no matter who makes it, would be created in one of those departments. Now, how we aggregate all these individual department feeds into one BIG collective department feed for redistribution is something I’m not quite sure of, but I’m sure it can be done.

Of course, all of this depends on the willingness of individuals to participate, using tools that are transparent to the knowledge worker. Rarely have we used the words Manila and transparent in the same sentence. And as time stressed as people are already, it’s going to take some work to find the best way to market the concept that producing and sharing knowledge in this way benefits the organization and students. In fact, the faces I’m envisioning right now are downright scary.

Dave Pollard writes that Web logs as KM/filing cabinet are valuable because:

Much more knowledge is codified and available for sharing (including sharing with customers via Extranets)

Knowledge is kept more current and complete

The context of knowledge is more apparent and hence richer

Knowledge is easier to find

Less centralized Intranet management and technology is needed

Evaluation of individuals’ contribution to organizational knowledge is easier to gauge

Less effort is needed to persuade individuals to share knowledge

Communities of practice can develop spontaneously and flexibly

Peer-to-peer knowledge transfer (the most valuable kind in most organizations) is facilitated, and new knowledge is automatically ‘pushed’ to ‘subscribers’ on a timely basis

Great stuff, and all good in theory. But this is going to be a very, very long haul to get the horses to the water and then get them to take a drink. As I’ve said before, this direction represents a seismic change in how we do business. And I can guarantee that few if any of the administrators to whom I will be speaking have even heard of any of this stuff. Still, I’m feeling armed with some good thinking and a pretty clear idea of what can be done. Boiling this all down into a 30-minute “Big Picture Presentation” next week ought to be interesting…
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George Siemens and others have begun putting together a formal collective to ponder, plan, and develop a network for open source content/learning objects. If you haven’t read George’s Open Source Content in Education you should if you want to get a very clear picture of what they are trying to do. I’ve joined the group mostly as a lurker at this point as I try to get up to speed on all of this. (FAQ here.) This whole concept of learning objects and the ways in which they can be shared by RSS and developed through Web logs is extremely interesting to me when I can get my brain wrapped around it. The group has a Yahoo list going where you can watch the evolution as it happens.
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Despite all of the movement by Dave and Jake and Bryan to clean up the templates and streamline the process, they still have a long way to go. I’m hoping they hang in there. But as positive as these efforts are, I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever get what we need, those of us down here at the classroom level. I mean a spam free e-mail and a “neat browser-based blogroll editor” might be nice but how about getting Trackback working, or making an easy way to add links to the side column without having to create an include message and all that stuff? (Really, wouldn’t it be nice to be add content to the side columns without all the configuration that’s required now? Surely someone can include an editable list or two in the template.)

All Dave is doing right now is making blogs for individuals who want to implement for personal use…I haven’t heard or read anything about implementation for courses or classrooms. I guess I’m just going to have to find some more patience…