XplanaZine

Who can forget Stanley Kubric’s funny and disturbing portrait of the Cold War and its logical conclusions — Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). His presentation of a centralized, irrational controlling government certainly seems just as apropos today, particularly if we apply the same vision of control to networks of information.

Think about it — news journalism, book publishing, corporate releases of product information — all of these came of age when the current technology practically mandated centralized control of creation and distribution. The average person lacked both the resources and knowledge to “do it themselves.” Today, however, the technologies that make information distribution possible have become accessible, understandable and affordable for almost everyone. As a result, and because of a free distribution network called the Internet, a big struggle between centralized and distributed information frameworks has developed.

More important, there is still a lot of confusion about what distributed information frameworks should look like. I mean, after all, as controlling and inaccessible as the old, centralized system was, at least it was a model we understood. If I wanted a news story reported, I knew how to contact the newspaper or radio/TV station. But a distributed information network where I am in control of my own information, having to really compete with everyone else? How would that work?

Well, crazy or not, the moment of these new information network models is here. IM, Blogging, XML, RSS — all of these technologies are effectively putting information creation, distribution and selection in the hands of the individual. Just as the advent of cable TV and PVR transitioned viewers from being the prisoners of three major networks in the USA, these Web technologies allow individual users to choose what information they will receive and distribute and the location of both.

Indeed, these are the most disruptive technologies we’ve seen come along in some time. Of course, detractors warn that the results of such de-centralized information distribution can only be chaos. After all, with no one in charge, without anyone to control the creation and flow of data, how can there be any real order?

It’s an interesting question and one treated directly by a series of recent books that deal with de-centralized groups — mobs and swarms.

Eric Bonabeau is a leader in the field of swarm intelligence. “Human beings,” he says, “suffer from a ‘centralized mindset’; they would like to assign the coordination of activities to a central command. But the way social insects form highways and other amazing structures such as bridges, chains, nests (by the way, African fungus-growing termites have invented air conditioning) and can perform complex tasks (nest building, defense, cleaning, brood care, foraging, etc) is very different: they self-organize through direct and indirect interactions.”

This precisely the same kind of talk we get from Howard Reinghold’s Smart Mobs: the Next Social Revolution and Albert-László Barabási’s Linked — distributed control of information, unpredictable and self-organizing interactions, all based on a few very simple rules.

Compare this way of thinking to current working patterns and information management and you get a very different mindset from the prevailing approaches: no central control, errors are good, flexibility, robustness (or self-repair).

Apply the de-centralized information model to learning management systems and you will get a glimpse at the next generation, the first in which learning can take place in a natural environment.

Current, or first-generation systems (WebCT, BlackBoard, IBM Lotus LMS) have, essentially, taken the traditional classroom learning training models and placed them in a dynamic environment. These learning Management Systems provide a static, non-distributable information system that operates centripetally. The only advantage these systems have over the traditional classroom is that they are accessible asynchronously. In terms of logistics, the underlying assumption that learners must go to a specified location under controlled circumstances in order to learn, is still dominant. Even relatively innovative courses in which the teachers would like to create a more collaborative and distributed feel, are limited because of a lack of tools.

The next generation of learning systems will utilize the strengths of the Web to create dynamic learning opportunities that focus on collaborative communities and a model of distributed information. The essential shift that will occur and thus make these systems possible, is a philosophical shift from centralized to distributed information. The redesigned frameworks of these systems will produce both distributable courses/models and provide teachers and will pace all of the control and decision-making processes in the hands of the users.

It is both a necessary and an inevitable evolution. The Web favors distributed models once these are introduced, their popularity and effectiveness will quickly overshadow the first-generation systems. These models will also succeed because their distributed architecture will allow the e-learning industry to grow and evolve more rapidly. And, don’t forget, it is a big industry. Gartner predicts that the global e-learning market will continue aggressive growth, reaching $35 billion by 2005, as organizations work to keep their employees informed, their operations competitive and their training costs low (Gartner Group, “E-Learning: An Application Whose Time Has Come,” October 2, 2002).