Long Tail by Chris Anderson
In his 2006 bestseller by the same name, Chris Anderson coined the term “the long tail” as a means of expressing new business models that succeed because they sell to niche markets rather than mass markets. A long-tail distribution is a statistical curve that is tall at the beginning, drops quickly, and continues into infinity.
The Internet and other technological innovations make the long tail practical in business and they will do the same in education. Change may come from the top down as districts, states, and educational companies create learning systems for use across a large population of students for differentiated instruction or from the bottom up as students discover and build personalized learning networks of their own.
I've started this discussion to see if anyone else out there is thinking about the long-tail in education and to gather examples of it.
The Internet and other technological innovations make the long tail practical in business and they will do the same in education. Change may come from the top down as districts, states, and educational companies create learning systems for use across a large population of students for differentiated instruction or from the bottom up as students discover and build personalized learning networks of their own.
I've started this discussion to see if anyone else out there is thinking about the long-tail in education and to gather examples of it.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ed Jones on
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Karen, Hi, and good question!
There are probably lots of examples, some made possible by provisions of NCLB, and others enabled by the newer web technologies. Is the New Teacher Project an example? Moodle? Americanrhetoric.com?
Ignite!Learning and K12, Inc. are two companies that provide wider curricula to schools, and homeschoolers (distance learners). Threre's also a company that aims to put a pocket computer based LMS in every teacher's hand.
In my case, we set out with the ideas around OpenHistoryProject.org to empower teachers to give students something richer and more friendly than the textbook tomes issued as history curricula. When we started, the business people would all insist that you had to come up with some sort of platform that ran cross curricula. Money couldn't be made unless you catered to the entire field.
Funny thing, though. We always saw OpenHistory as a means for teachers to educate themselves and each other in ways that Ed Schools couldn't cover. And, huh. Classroom 2.0 is doing exactly that, too.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew on
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In a word, yes! I am thinking about this very much these days and I am more than psyched to see a kindred soul here at Classroom 2.0. I come to Chris Anderson's ideas via Seth Godin who I believe is wildly influential. Here's some of what he has to say about Chris' ideas:
His point (for which he has data!) is that once we eliminate artificial bottlenecks like shelf space and the spectrum restrictions, the mass market effect drops off very quickly.
Give people 1,000 channels to watch, and they won't all watch the same thing.
Give people 1,000,000 books to read, and they won't all want to read a bestseller.
Yes, people read the DaVinci Code because everyone else is. Yes, people watch The Apprentice for the very same reason. But no, this effect isn't as pervasive as most of us would believe. More here
It's one of the main reasons I am here and that I started my blogs...to get the word out that things can be done differently in Education as well as business. As you point out I really believe the better model and the model of the future of education is (and should be) students discovering and building personalized learning networks of their own.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on
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Karen:
Love hearing from you! I think we are going to potentially see some amazing "long-tail" effects because of the technology in education. You might be interested in this interview I did with Michael Russell after the CoSN conference last year: http://www.stevehargadon.com/2007/04/where-is-technology-revolution....
Because education can be resistant to technology trends, and because it took businesses some time before the technologies that allowed the long tail were able to transform business, it will be interesting to see how much differentiation and variation we are comfortable with and how fast it will come. In business, these trends lead to dramatic corporate reversals of fortune, where established companies get displaced by more nimble, information-centric ones... :) When you can track and analyze massive amounts of data on every student, and can begin to understand specific things about their own learning and education because of it, I would imagine the rise of a whole new class of educators who are versed in brain/learning research and can provide individual help and instruction--and who also will be able to command fairly good compensation. How will that affect existing teachers, and will the money needed for the specialists come at a cost to them? In the business world, I know how that would play out, but how will it play out in education?
I'm also interested in the companies that keep the data on students, much like the credit information that is stored right now by large companies whose algorithms are kept secret in order that they can retain their ability to charge for their services. Will the student data be more like the medical field, open and transferable, or will those companies able to win contracts with the education system have to take an approach like the credit arena?
I personally think (see www.techlearning.com/blog/2007/12/its_the_technology_stupid_1.php) that the technology will ultimately override everything else--that we are in a period of time which is so significant historically that it will bring such changes to all aspects of our lives that education will have to reflect those changes and will not be able to resist them. But I'm not confident that we'll get there easily because of the political/social ramifications of change in an environment that is as not used to rewarding entrepreneurial and experimental efforts.
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What an excellent summary, Steve. There certainly will be huge political issues on the student data, once certain people get off other hobbyhorses and latch onto this.
How fast will things change? As long as I've looked at this, I've felt that the ability of these methods and technologies to transform the student experience will remain muted until they first transform the experience of becoming and being a teacher.
CR20 is a huge step forward in this. The discussions here may mostly be focused on micro-issues, yet I feel something transformative happening.
The next step will be making content-learning as accessible as learning about issues of practice. That may not be so very far off.
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Permalink Reply by Karen Henke on
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So let's tease this out a bit. What would it take for a teacher or a class to support that type of independent or student-driven study? What kinds of resources do you need to help your students find their passion?
--Access to a diverse and extensive library
--A tool for finding the books in the library that the student is interested in.
--A tool for the student to explore their interest topic and find the best books on the topic--either because they are well written or highly influential.
--A way for that student to share their passion, not just with the students in the class (because this passion may bore them), but with students anywhere who share that passion.
--A bookclub where all 13 year olds reading that same book can share their thoughts and impressions.
What are some of the tools you use in your classroom to make that experience happen?
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Laura, This week on Battle of the Jaywalk Allstars an education major and aspiring teacher (looked over 20),
- Could not identify a picture of John McCain. "Lenti?" "Polenti?" Had never heard the name John McCain.
- Thought "the Italian City famous for its canals" is Paris. Given the clue "Venetian Blind" changed to "Venezuala"
- Could not guess any war that the Invasion of Normandy might have been in. (This for probably the single most significant military event in US experience).
- Thought that Normandy might have been a made up place. Couldn't remotely guess where it was.
- Thought a portrait of Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was of Amerosa, of The Apprentice Fame.
- Knew that a picture of Al Gore was somebody who "talked about the environment". Thought it was Bush.
- Couldn't guess who a picture of Nancy Pelosi was, even given a first name. (Came up with Nancy Drew, but dismissed it.)
- No clue, even given the hint "bell", who invented the telephone.
- Thought Newton discovered relativity.
- Thought Michelangelo's David was either Eve or Michelangelo's boyfriend.
- Who lives in Vatican City? "The Vaticans" No, he wears a big hat. "Abraham Lincoln?"
- Obviously, didn't know who lost at Waterloo.
The good news is, the education major won this battle of brains.
I am wondering if your proposed approach could have helped this young lady, or is she fine as she is? It sounds like she did a lot of getting away without learning periodic tables and battles of the civil war. Do you think she in HS was a good fit for passion projects, for being given a broad, year-long goal and turned loose?
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Hi Ed,
I don't know what Battle of the Jaywalk Allstars is, but your comment got me thinking. This person seems to have a better grasp of celebrity news than hard news and somehow missed European history. To the first point, getting someone passionate about learning and showing them how to effect change locally would hopefully help students understand the value and importance of being informed about the people who make decisions about how much budget the school will have or whether or not the bridges will stay standing rather than television reality shows. I read the newspaper everyday and listen to the news on NPR, but I'm in the minority in this country.
To the second point, when I was going to school, we had a firm understanding of what "facts" everyone should know to understand our world. It was based on a limited, male-oriented, Western view of history, politics and the world. There is arguably more to know than we have time to teach. The best we can hope for is to get someone passionately engaged to learn the skills needed to be a good citizen and contributor to society. One of the principles of Web 2.0 is the "Wisdom of the Crowd". We need to be passionate about being informed, about learning in order to increase the level of the wisdom in the crowd.
As an education major, I wonder what this woman's curriculum consists of?
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You can watch edited versions of this here
and here
Do you think this woman is ready to be a teacher? Does it matter what grade she will teach?
(BTW, I would disagree with your characterization of your history classes> I know that's a trendy view, but I doubt that "male oriented" is the case, or that a "Western view" is a bad thing.)
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