It seems that the best way to kill an educational innovation is to proclaim that it is the next big thing. Before it actually becomes the next big thing, that is. Web 2.0 was a big deal before most realized it. But then everything that was declared Web 3.0 fizzled out, followed by the term Web 3.0 itself.

With the announcement today that Harvard and MIT are creating edX, many are proclaiming the future of education is here. To me, the names behind an idea and the money they put into it are irrelevant. Are they going to do something that actually uses good learning design, or are they going to just give away the same old “multiple choice test, online video lecture, write a paper” approach that has been used forever?

Passive learning is just passive learning, no matter how free, open, or massive it is.

I don’t care how many people you get in your free class. If all they do is pick the right answer on a multiple choice test – so what? I can train a monkey to do that.

We really need to ask ourselves: “is this good for the future of education?”

The work of Jim Groom, Stephen Downes, George Siemens, Dave Cormier, and many others of their type are good for education, not because they are doing open education (which is important, but not for the point being made here), but because they are using educational designs that are engaging and beneficial to the learner. They are using community-based designs that encourage out-of-the-box thinking (for both students and instructors). They are avoiding rote memorization. They are creating classes where students actually have to pay attention to the syllabus to know what is going on (how many online classes could actually just skip having a syllabus because they are so cookie-cutter?). They are making students participate in the actual creation of the course assignments. All kinds of crazy things that you don’t see in most things labeled as “the next big thing in education.”

Or then again, maybe I just have a problem with the name “edX.” Did someone ever bother telling them that creating brands with the “x” signifier got way over-used about 10 years ago… and never recovered? Guess not…

I hope that Harvard and MIT come up with something great here. I really do. But the honest truth is,  when I hear Jim Groom talking about innovation as a communal act, I get really excited about the future of education. When I hear Harvard and MIT talk about edX, I just shrug a bit and say “hope they don’t mess it up.”

The Future of Education Doesn’t Get Announced. It Just Happens.

They buy competitors that they can – Angel, WebCT, etc, etc. If they can’t buy a company, they force changes through lawsuits and patents (Desire2Learn). Open source used to be the “safe zone” from Blackboard, but now they are working to inject their ideas and footprint into the two largest open source projects.

Most of the new start-ups we have seen in recent years still seem to be trying too hard to not be Blackboard, or to be Blackboard with an easier to understand interface (i.e. the “educational version” of Facebook). But all of these companies still bear the big, hard to miss effects of Blackboard on their product. There are a few good ideas in Blackboard (mostly assimilated from other product purchases), and avoiding those ideas “just to be different” causes more problems than it fixes.

And I just don’t get what is going on with Instructure. I am trying to like them, but can’t ignore the fact that they are saying some things that don’t match up with reality. “People don’t like it [Moodle]?” Then why is it so popular? Why does it score so high in customer satisfaction? Why does every single person I have ever talked to at conferences about Moodle rave about it? Or how about this one: “We rarely see Moodle or Sakai make it to the short list of any education institution.” I agree with Sakai – but Moodle? I get why some people don’t like Moodle, but everywhere I go I always see it on the short list. Usually a short list of two – Moodle and Blackboard. I just don’t get these wildly hyperbolic statements. Or how about this: “Moodle and Blackboard came from the same decade, which was a long time ago.” Huh? The Internet is older than both, so would that mean it is time to give up on online learning altogether? I’m just hoping these are comments taken out of context.

Blackboard has shown that they can’t stop people from leaving their product, so they are going to buy wherever the former customers go. If you can’t beat them, buy them, right? This will push more people to go the DIY route outside of all LMS providers. Why choose a competitor that might just be bought? Why go open-source when some of the ideas you didn’t like in Blackboard might get added to the project in a few years? Or the company that you use for hosting just gets bought?

So now many universities are going to start looking anew to the DIY, artist-formerly-known-as-EduPunk, cobbled together approach of the open education movement, or MOOCheads, or whatever name the cutting edge people decide to call themselves. At some point, there needs to be a cool name attached to this movement, since Jim Groom went through that ugly divorce with EduPunk and all.

But, come on EduPunk… can’t you just open your eyes and see that you were wooed away by the promise of book deals and big money and became a corporate sell-out? You were such a cool name and idea… we need you back at this crazy time in history to be a rally point for those of us that want something different.

My personal prediction is that this latest move will push more universities to just abandon the LMS altogether. Let’s face it, if you don’t like Blackboard, that seems to be your only option now.

But maybe that Jim Groom is now Mr. Money Bags, he can just fund a new system that will give organizations wanting to go DIY a good starting place.

To me, this is a pretty fitting description of what would happen if Blackboard ever tried to take over Moodle. They would just be this big corporation trying to assimilate something they don’t really understand.

But that would never happen, because you can’t buy an open-source project. Right? Oh, wait….

I guess they can (and did) buy a hosting provider for Moodle services. And now according to the press release, they are going to use this connection to start invjecting their tentacles… er… “ideas” into the Moodle project. Oh, and the Sakai project while they are at it.

(That sound you now hear in the collective sound of a million EduGeeks pounding their heads on their desks)

Blackboard even met with Martin Dougiamas of Moodle to get a start “in outlining areas where Blackboard can best contribute to the Moodle project as we set out on a journey.”

Don’t get me wrong – I owe a lot to Blackboard. I probably wouldn’t have my day job if I didn’t have to spend so much time explaining to people how to figure out the confusing thing that Blackboard refers to as an “interface”. In most cases, I usually end up doing most of the technical side myself, as it is just too complex for the average educational user to have time for. If an instructor has to choose between helping students learn and spending huge amounts of time learning how to get a test in Blackboard, I think they should go for the time with the student.

And now they want to send these interface and structure ideas back into Moodle?

So, is the LMS really dying… or being slowly chocked to death by The Borg? You be the judge.