Booksprint

Collaborative Knowledge Construction

CIES - New Orleans 3/11/2013 (Thayer & Sintjago, 2013)http://z.umn.edu/booksprintcies2013

What is a Booksprint?

● Used to produce open source manuals● Publishable product in 2-5 days

○ No pre-production○ "Hackathon" approach○ Intensive creative collaboration○ Interdisciplinary

● We set out to produce infographic posters ● "Designsprint" instead of a "Booksprint"

Booksprint at U of MN

● Held at the University of Minnesota ○ Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and

Development (OLPD)

● Two Day Event (Weekend Project)○ March 2nd and 3rd

● 18 Participants (all students) from various departments○ Design, Public Policy, Education Technology, ○ ICT4D, Social Media Experts, and other Interested

Graduate and Professional Students

Our Booksprint: Goals

● Increase awareness among educators, administrators, policymakers and other stakeholders about how technological developments affect education.

● Promote openness and new forms of knowledge construction and become a model for future collaborative and creative endeavours.

● Encourage exploration of possible futures for education and to promote future-oriented thinking about educational issues.

● Bring together an interdisciplinary group of participants

Booksprint: Objectives

● Alternative Futures for Education○ Produce a series of infographic posters○ Dynamic website for ongoing discussion

● Implications of 3 emerging technologies○ Augmented reality (AR)○ 3D Printing○ Robotics

● Develop an Open Educational Resource○ Share with others both the process and its product

Visualize what education will look like with these technologies fully integrated

Booksprint: Process

Process differs from traditional booksprint because of the importance of the design component:1.Concept Mapping: development of themes, concepts, ideas, visions developing ownership, etc.2.Design: development of the overall look & feel of the product.3.Structuring: creating headings and dividing the work.4.Messaging: distributing sections, writing and discussion, but mostly identifying key message components.5.Composition: iterative process of re-structure and re-design, checking, discussing, copy editing, and proofing.6. Publication

Booksprint: Workflow organization

Participants were loosely organized into teams:

Visioning teams: Articulate a vivid story about what future will look/be like

Content teams: Translate story into information to be conveyed on infographics

Design and production team: Decide the look and feel of the infographics

Web development team: Construct web-based platform for further info/interaction

Editing team: Check all content for grammar, spelling and style

Communication team: Update live blog about the booksprint process

Participants were encouraged to go from team to team to learn about different aspects of the project and provide constructive input.

Theoretical Framework

Collaborative creative processes and new modes of knowledge construction:● Communities of Practice

(Lave & Wenger, 1991)○ Self-organizing groups○ Mutual interests○ Learning community

● New Modes of Knowledge Production (Gibbons et al., 1994)○ Harkins & Kubik (2006) Mode IV knowledge:

"Production of knowledge for context innovations, affecting the definitions, descriptions, and utilizations of cultural, intellectual, and

physical frameworks and settings." (p. 100)

Prior Booksprints

- Finland - Math and Agile Textbook

- Scotland, Ireland, and the USA

- Booksprints.net - Sharing the Process

- Openstacks | Wikibooks and other Possibilities

- Siyavula and South African Textbooks

Open Education Movement

- Open Content - David Wiley- Creative Commons - Lawrence Lessig- Open Textbooks - Richard Baraniuk- Influence of Technology in Education

- MOOCs - Stephen Downes- Open Access Journals - Peter Suber- Rapid Improvements and Changes- Mobile Technology and Flexible Formatting

EVENT Highlights

● Participants utilized a future's wheel methodology to think of the future impact of different technologies.

● Participants brainstormed the potential of various technologies in transforming learning experiences.

● Working in group, participants collected ideas, sources, images, phrases, and discussed which resources would be most helpful.

● Most participant participated in the event for the whole day. Other wanted to but had competing commitments.

IMAGES FROM THE EVENT

Early drafts

Preliminary Findings

Booksprint Feedback Form Avg ( 1 to 10)

To what extent did the process meet your expectations?

7.25

To what extent was the production a collaborative process?

8.13

To what extent was the process conducive to creative outcomes?

7.88

To what extent did you feel comfortable with the process?

7.63

Greatest Strength of the Booksprint

Participant 1 - "Bringing people who are knowledgeable / interested in a subject together to work on something. Everyone has a lot in common but a lot of differences as well, making it a very enjoyable social experience"

Participant 2 - "When treated as a collaborative process with clearly defined outcomes, a booksprint seems to be to be quite beneficial. I think it's most successful when the tasks and goals at every stage are clearly outlined."

DESIGN Challenge

Participant 1 - "There is also much care that must be given to managing time over the two days to ensure those who contribute their skills later in the project (the graphic designers, for example) don't end up having to do a ton of work after the weekend, once everyone else has sprinted and gone home. That has the potential to take away from the thrill of creative/intellectual urgency and the ʺwe're all in this togetherʺ feeling that the 2 days has."Participant 2 - "In my case, it was the time commitment. The design portion is still going to require a significant amount of work, and I'm not sure the booksprint format is very conducive for infographic or poster creation. I also think of it in terms of form and content; while our talks focused a lot on the concept of remote learning, the format of the booksprint seemed to reinforce the idea that a location-based group setting was the way to get things done."

VIDEO RESPONSES

http://flipgrid.com/#e7541b2b

Preliminary Findings

● Shared appreciation of working together in a team with highly motivated participants.

● Co-construction of knowledge and formation of communities of practice.

● Shared interest in creating new knowledge. ● Potential for the creation of open educational

resources. ● Difficulties in coordinating design needs with

content needs.● Shared interest in participating in future

booksprints

Bonk, C. J. (2009). The world is open: How Web technology is revolutionizing education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Dougiamas, M. & Taylor, P. (2003). Moodle: Using Learning Communities to Create an Open Source Course Management System. In D. Lassner & C. McNaught (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2003 (pp. 171-178). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P. and Trow, M. (1994), The new production of knowledge. London: Sage.

Harkins, A. M. & Kubik, G. H. (2006). Leapfrogging toward the “singularity”: Innovative knowledge production on market‐driven campuses. On the Horizon, 14(3), 99-108.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

Scharff, E. D. (2002). Open source: A conceptual framework for collaborative artifact and knowledge construction. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.

Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2010). Openness, dynamic specialization, and the disaggregated future of higher education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(5).

Wiley, D. (2010). Openness as catalyst for an educational reformation." EDUCAUSE Review, 45(4), 14-20.

Wilson, D. (2003). The future of comparative and international education in a globalised world. International Review of Education, 49(1), 15-33.

references

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