Education, prepare to meet thy maker
If you’d kept an eye on this man over the years, you’d have had an inside track on many things, long before they became important. Now he’s turning his mind to the future of education
Dale Dougherty is responsible for coining the term Web 2.0
According to Wikipedia, Dougherty’s responsibility for the term is ‘contrary to popular perception’; personally I had always thought that this term was Tim O’Reilly’s idea, but according to this page it came up in a brainstorming session with both O’Reilly and Dougherty).
“Could a new public infrastructure for learning more efficiently link more diverse sources of education to more diverse seekers of education and re-connect education to real life as well as a student’s life online where they are increasingly in control of what they do?”
A ‘Smart Grid’ can provide an open, alternative platform that connects students to the informal education community.
Eventually, it could connect schools to this community as well.
Students will no longer be consumers of standardized education.
They can become producers of an education that they create for themselves.”
Dale Dougherty, “A smart grid for education”
He was also responsible for the first (advertising supported) commercial website and responsible for (or at least closely associated with) the introduction of the banner ad.
Here’s the slide show from the presentation in the video (it’s a pdf)
Here is his profile on the O’Reilly site:
Dale Dougherty is the editor and publisher of MAKE magazine, and general manager of the Maker Media division of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
He also organizes Maker Faire, a newfangled fair that showcases DIY approaches in arts, crafts, science and engineering.
Dale has been instrumental in many of O’Reilly’s most important efforts, including founding O’Reilly Media, Inc. with Tim O’Reilly.
He was the developer and publisher of Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial Web site, which launched in 1993 and was sold to AOL in 1995.
Dale was developer and publisher of Web Review, the online magazine for Web designers, and he was O’Reilly’s first editor.
Prior to developing MAKE, Dale was publisher of the O’Reilly Network and he developed theHacks series of books.
Dale is the author of Sed & Awk.
He was a Lecturer in the School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS) at the University of California at Berkeley from 1996 to 2000
Make magazine
Make is an American quarterly magazine published by[1]O’Reilly Media which focuses on do it yourself (DIY) and/or DIWO (Do It With Others) projects involving computers, electronics, robotics, metalworking, woodworking and other disciplines.
The magazine is marketed to people who enjoy “making” things and features complex projects which can often be completed with cheap materials, including household items.
Its first issue was released in January 2005, and, as of August 2010, 23 issues have been published.
The magazine is subtitled “technology on your time” It is also available as an e-zine and Texterity digital edition on the Web, on subscription or free of charge to existing magazine subscribers.
The HTML-based e-zine allows for searching and includes additional content such as videos, with freely accessible blogs, podcasts and forums also available in the website.
The e-zine also allows limited sharing of articles with friends.
The magazine has photo essays on projects as well as regular columns on the world of technology and reviews of books and tools.
Most volumes have a theme to which the main articles are usually related.
Bruce Sterling is a regular columnist for the magazine, as is Cory Doctorow.
Lee D. Zlotoff contributes a competition in each magazine which he judges.
Maker Faire:
Maker Faire’s mission is to inspire, inform, connect and entertain thousands of Makers and aspiring Makers of all ages and backgrounds through the public gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, authors and commercial exhibitors.
The inaugural Maker Faire was held in San Mateo, California in 2006, and in May, Maker Faire celebrated its 5th annual Bay Area festival.
As Maker Faire continues to grow in popularity and relevance, Maker Faire has expanded to Detroit and New York City for 2010.
Maker Faire is supported by MAKE Magazine, makezine.com, craftzine.com and O’Reilly Media, the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies.
The company’s books, conferences and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators.
The Gov 2.0 summit:
Gov 2.0 Summit presents “Opening the Door to Innovation” as this year’s event theme.
The entire program is dedicated to learning about the latest technology and its application, and breaking down the barriers to its adoption.
Innovators from government and the private sector will come together to highlight technology and ideas that can be applied to the nation’s great challenges in areas as diverse as education, health care, energy, jobs, and financial reform.
Gov 2.0 Summit will uncover unique opportunities to rethink how government agencies perform their mission and serve citizens.
Modeled after UBM TechWeb and O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Summit, the Gov 2.0 Summit will be limited in size, and focused on strategy and networking.
The format will be a two-day executive-level conference featuring insightful on-stage interviews with senior officials and executives, ground-breaking case studies and networking events.
Additional information on Gov 2.0 Summit content, invitation information, and promotional opportunities available at www.gov2summit.com.
Gov 2.0 Summit is an exclusive gathering of technology and government executives focused on fostering thought leadership and driving forward progress in government technology policy.
The Gov 2.0 Summit is a companion event to the annual Gov 2.0 Expo.
Gov 2.0 Summit 2010 proudly presents Diamond sponsor Booz Allen Hamilton; Platinum sponsor ESRI; Gold sponsors IBM, Microsoft , and Palantir; and Silver sponsors Alfresco, Google, Intel, and Omidyar Network
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It’s quite wonderful to know that Dougherty is a big proponent of the DIY (do-it-yourself) capacity. Not only is this applicable in education, but also to a wide array of disciplines such as business, innovation, politics, etc. It has even spawned its own culture, as I’ve found in this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIY_culture
And Carla Sinclair of Craft writes:
“This DIY renaissance embraces crafts while pushing them beyond traditional boundaries, either through technology, irony, irreverence, and creative recycling, or by using innovating materials and processes…the new craft movement encourages people to make things themselves rather than buy what thousands of others already own. It provides new venues for crafters to show and sell their wares, and it offers original, unusual, alternative, and better-made goods to consumers who choose not to fall in step with mainstream commerce.”
It’s good to know this approach and philosophy has an advocate such as Dougherty.
Very nice video and very good speech by Dale Dougherty. I’ve always loved the concept of DIY, of simply doing things ourselves instead of depending on “experts” to do them for us.
One thing that in my opinion we lost in the transition from child to grown-up is the feeling that we can do anything that we set our minds to do. According to Dougherty, “kids are hardwired to a grid” nowadays, and to that I couldn’t agree more. In schools, where rote memorization is officially discouraged but is in actuality required, DIY will probably the students’ best tool to learn about things that they otherwise will have a limited grasp of. In addition, kids will be able to reap the benefits of being part of DIY culture, such as less dependence on corporations for products that we need, connecting with the community, and a feeling of happiness and accomplishment from successfully creating something themselves.
This vid was very refreshing; it’s nice to know that people still believe in the value of doing things yourself.
I couldn’t agree more, Meg. In my research though, I found this article, and though it’s not as optimistic as Dougherty regarding the DIY approach, it takes a grounded and somewhat objective reading on DIY’s application in management.
http://saulcarliner.blogspot.com/2010/01/do-it-yourself-now-its-management.html
“New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sees a Do-It-Yourself economy arising from the two trends noted above–the economic downturn forcing people to do for themselves tasks that used to be performed by others, plus the availability of new software tools to make doing-it-yourself easy.”
It’s a fair analysis I might say, and certainly, at a certain point or degree, one cannot go absolute on DIY; but it’s not the fault of the approach, I believe it’s more on the material implications that limit it, as the article mentioned cites.
That’s a good point to remember Rob – not all can be done with DIY approach. In extreme cases can be quite dangerous if we think about it.
Everything is for people – as long as they do it with common sense. DIY approach fall in this category as well.
Good, informative read, Rob. I’ve seen that trend that Friedman was speaking of first-hand; because of the U.S. recession, a friend has learned to substitute her cosmetics with DIY concoctions (sugar waxing, for example). I’ve written DIY articles for people who want to make their own cabinets. I’ve also known a few people who didn’t want to pay a hundred dollars for Windows software and migrated towards open-source and created their own programs. You get the idea. All this was born out of necessity, and who was it that genius was born out of the same stuff?
It’s easy to fault Dougherty for such an optimistic view, but I didn’t hear anything in his speech about wanting the world to go “absolute DIY”. We can’t all make our own cabinets or create our own software. He did mention an alternative educational system that uses traditional teaching techniques plus DIY, projects as an addition.
Guess I didn’t make my first statement clear in my reply there.
I believe in promoting a DIY culture most especially in education, since this is one of the most critical stuff I think we’re missing. Again, I’d like to stress that it’s not the fault of the DIY approach, it’s just that in some cases, since we still live in a material world (not like what Madonna says in her song) and are faced with situations that we sometimes cannot control, DIY can take a backseat, at least for the time being, before we can remedy the situation and be able to discern a much better solution that’s grounded on a more independent and more stable terms.
Admire people that support statements like ‘learning by doing’. There is nothing in people’s life that teach as much as doing something on their own. This is the problem with many schools and universities – at least in my country. Focusing too much on the theoretical side of subject, without the real experience – which is invaluable in any future jobs students think of. What you learn in school is just the base at best – everything else is learned with your hands getting ‘dirty’ on the job.
Exactly. I like Dougherty’s idea of open alternative platforms in education, which will serve to connect students with DIY opportunities in their communities, and vice versa. This is something that we did not have in school – our school’s idea of connecting with the community is to pester neighbors to buy tickets to the school bingo game. DIY brings a lot to a student – real education/practical knowledge gained from hands-on experience, a two-way connection with the community, and the idea that students don’t necessarily just have to simply be, as Dougherty said, consumers of education. They can be producers as well.