Jiffy Lube education

Jiffy Lube has to be one of the greatest ideas in convenient car care ever devised. But disturbingly, many students seem to want a jiffy lube college education experience; pull in without an appointment, and get the full service education poured into you, then pay the bill and drive away.

But what works so well for my certified pre-owned, fully optioned Buick Park Avenue will not serve my students well. For career success, college must be a time of learning and growth, not quick fixes.

Let’s begin Stephen Covey-like with the end in mind. Employers want to hire problem-solvers, people who can study situations, processes, and systems, make recommendations for improving them, then implement those improvements. Employers want employees who are curious, who want to tackle problems and solve them.

When done correctly, a college education prepares the student to do just that. That is my goal for the communication/public relations classes I teach. It is as it has always been — a quest for knowledge.

Marcy P. Driscoll (2000) says knowledge is a matter of competence with respect to valued enterprises, such as singing a tune, discovering scientific facts, fixing machines, writing poetry, etc. Knowing is a matter of participating in the pursuit of such enterprises, that is, of active engagement in the world.

I can’t simply pour the knowledge needed for carer success into my Millennial students’ brains. There is a difference in knowing something and understanding it. David Perkins and Chris Unger wrote in 1999 that understanding a topic is a matter of knowing it well. But, it is clear that knowledge in itself does not guarantee understanding. So, even if I could give my students the knowledge contained in a course, that does not mean that they would understand it and be able to use it effectively.

True, they might pass the course, but it is better to be able to do something with the knowledge later. Duffy and Jonassen, in 1992, asked if knowledge is an identifiable entity with some fixed truth value. Is the goal of instruction to acquire a knowledge base that is prespecified? They stated one of their major goals is to encourage students to develop socially acceptable systems for exploring their ideas and their differences in opinion.

That is the essential issue in education. As Duffey and Jonassen say, knowledge develops through, and is embedded in, the tasks or experiences of the learner. Students say they want knowledge, but to have knowledge, I believe that students’ knowledge must be co-constructed by them with me as mentor, coach, and helper, and by their team mates in class. This requires higher order thinking, and that is precisely what I wish for them.

We call it “constructivist learning”. According to Richard E. Mayer, writing in 1999, it occurs when learners actively create their own knowledge by trying to make sense out of material that is presented to them. David Jonassen said in an interview in 2001 that education has always assumed that knowledge can be transferred and that we can carefully control the process through education. He calls this a grand illusion. He says that knowledge cannot be managed.

Donald J. Cunningham, writing in 1975, says constructivism holds that learning is a process of building up structures of experience. Learners create interpretations of the world based on their past experiences and their interactions in the world.

Cunningham says the role of the educator in constructivist learning is to show students how to construct knowledge, to promote collaboration with others to bring multiple perspectives to the solving of problems, and to help students arrive at a self-chosen position.

That is the highest and best I can do for my students, for their future employers, and for society itself.

You know you are working too hard when…

…you get a Signals gift catalog in the mail, and when you read a stupid T-shirt slogan, you crack up. I’ve been particularly busy for a while now, but laughing at T-shirt slogans is a troublesome sign.

What did it say?

Non sequiturs are like bicycles. They don’t bath.

See what I mean?

Personal assistants for college students? Bad idea

I heard a snippet on the news this morning about a Georgetown University student who is advertising for a personal assistant. Seems his college life is too demanding, and he needs help, so much so that he is willing to pay for it.

ROTL LMAO.

College life is supposed to be demanding. It is a special time in life in which you learn and grow and become an adult. College helps prepare a person to live an independent, productive, and responsible life.

At least that is the way it is supposed to be. Perhaps the guy who needs a personal assistant in college just needs to go home to his mommy.

During the college years, a person should learn to handle the responsibilities of daily living. This includes the mundane chores, like feeding yourself, cleaning up, washing clothes, paying bills, and in general, taking care of day-to-day business. Doing these things yourself builds your skills and abilities to take care of yourself for the rest of your life.

The primary reason for the college experience  is learning career skills that will prepare you to work productively. Chances are you will not stay in the same job or the same career for all of your work life, but you attend college to study and prepare to do something that will at least get you started.

None of these things can be a proper learning experience if delegated to paid help. College is a time to grow up. You can’t pay someone to do that for you.

Bon mots from Web 3.0

The Skype chat feature is to email messages as Twitter is to blogging. I am losing my ability to write long passages.

Washington Metro publicity stunt is labeled as “PR”

On Sunday, September 27, 2009, The Washington Post ran this headline on its front page: “Sandwiching Older Metro Cars Was PR Move.”

The headline referred to the Washington Metro officials’ move to sandwich older rail cars between newer, more sturdy, rail cars in response to this summer’s subway crash that killed nine people. The older cars being sandwiched are similar to the one that was crushed in the crash.

Metro officials said the move was to improve safety, but as the Post reports, the practice was not based on engineering analysis. The initiative was called ”PR”.  In a letter to the Tri-State Oversight Committee, Metro Safety official Alexa Dupigny-Samuels  said the Metro repositioned the cars “to provide an added level of reassurance” but did not cite any scientific support for the move.

The Post said that subsequently, the Committee concluded the move was “purely a public relations effort.”

It’s obvious neither the Metro nor the Committee knows what PR is. What the Metro did was a stunt, not PR.  The Metro needed to take methodical steps to study what went wrong and fix it, making rail cars and all aspects of subway usage safe.  Professional public relations management would have kept all publics informed during the process.

Finally, once the problem was fixed for good, then the Metro should have shared the information with key publics. If the Metro wanted to “provide an added level of reassurance”, then fixing the problem that led to the crash and keeping publics informed of progress was the reassurance sorely needed.

Two blogs, no waiting! Even more with Les

A line from my favorite poem, To Lucasta, Going to the Wars, says, “true, a new mistress I now chase…” 

That fits me now. I have started a new blog as part of my doctoral studies in Instructional Technology at Towson University. My first love is and always will be More With Les, but the new blog allows me to focus on education and instructional technology in a more scholarly way.

But at times, there will be some correlation and overlap. Since I teach Mass Communication, PR Track, I will be writing about communication/PR/IMC on occasion. 

For example, I just posted some thoughts on technology standards in the comm/PR world. In it, I write about usage policies for social media, concentrating on corporate Weblog policies. Since that might be of interest to MWL readers, I wanted to tell you about it.

The new blog is named Les Potter on Education & Instructional Technology. Please visit and leave a comment at any time. I welcome your feedback.

Parallels: Media usage in education and communication/PR

Media are merely vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition (Clark 1983).

 Take that, you teachers who use instructional technology in the classroom!

 For those of us who study the effective and efficient use of instructional technology, Clark’s words are startling. Is this true?

As an instructor in Mass Communication, PR Track, I see a parallel question with education’s use of media and media used in communication/PR.

 For trained communicators like me, one other name comes to mind — Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan is famous for saying, “the medium is the message.”  The focus is on the medium itself not so much the content of the message.

It’s Clark versus McLuhan in a steel cage grudge match.

If Clark is correct, then what matters in education? Perhaps it’s the teacher, the quality of instruction, the subject matter, what is presented, but not necessarily how it is presented. Clark argues that the media teachers use only conveys instruction without helping student achievement.

If McLuhan is correct, then the message content is less important than the medium conveying it. That seems to fit with today’s fascination with social media. The traditional media that communication/PR professionals have used for decades now seems to be foresaken for social media.

But are communication/PR professionals missing something? My best friend Communication Consultant Extraordinaire Robert J. Holland thinks so. Writing in his blog, Communication at Work, Robert says:

Communicators are still drooling over social media. We want to know everything about it — everything, it seems — and we want to figure it out fast so all our peers will be in awe of us. And before long, we’ll realize that social media are pretty much like all the other communication vehicles out there and we’ll move on to the next thing. For now, however, we’re still in the high hormone stage.

I think Robert nails it. The communication/PR profession’s fascination with social media as the newest and greatest may blind us to the importance of the message and to a proper media mix.

But what about Clark’s bold statement about media and instruction? For educators like me, especially Mass Communication instructors and anyone who wishes to use instructional technology effectively, is the media we use that unimportant?

I don’t think so. I think the media we use is important in helping students learn. But as Robert B. Kozma (2001) says, “whether or not a medium’s capabilities make a difference in learning depends on how they correspond to the particular learning situation — the tasks and learners involved — and the way the medium’s capabilities are used by the instructional design.”

Back to communication/PR, where the (social) media is the message. Holland says:

Too many of us have become obsessed with social media, treating them as if they’re the last cute girl (or guy) that will ever come our way. It’s clouding our judgment and we’re losing our grasp of the fundamentals. I get that social media have changed communication forever. I get that social media have caused a significant shift in how organizations engage and interact with their stakeholders. I get that it’s important for communicators to have a working knowledge of social media including some technical skill. I understand social media’s impact and importance. Last summer I told my public relations students that the change in communication brought about by social media was like that of the Gutenberg press.

To summarize, here is the situation:

• In education, some argue that media merely conveys information without helping students learn.
• In communication/PR, some argue that the media, especially social media, is all-important.

For a communication/PR instructor like me, I must find common ground. I think that common ground is captured in the following, which I will call “Lester’s Manifesto”:

I will use instructional technology that helps me create a two-way symmetrical dialogue with my students to help them learn. I will use all relevant media that helps me teach my students successfully. Media in all forms are a tool, whether used by an educator or a communication/PR practitioner. Each medium has its own characteristics. Each has a proper use. No one medium is better than all the rest. In fact, I firmly believe that a well-thought-out media mix is always better than heavy use of a single medium, whether the use is in education or communication/PR.

First week of school is no time for a computer virus

Last week was the first week of fall semester. It’s a busy time for me, and every moment counts. There is so much to do to launch four classes and begin a new doctoral course.

Day two, my computer got a virus which shut it down completely. Being the first week of school, the help desk wizards were swamped. I went from Tuesday to late Thursday without a computer — no email, no blog, no Twitter, no Facebook, no student records, no Blackboard, no nothing. It was painful.

But it was also instructive. We are totally dependent on computer and internet technology to do anything anymore.

In reading today about the history of technology and learning, I was struck by the praise once heaped on a technology that would revolutionize education. This technological breakthrough was touted as the greatest system to contribute to learning and science ever invented.  The wording was from 1841, and the “system” was the blackboard. That’s the chalk blackboard, not the computer-based Blackboard.

Education has suffered through many such “breakthroughs” that were believed to be capable of transforming education. Among these are:

• Audiovisuals using projectors, made less effective by expensive, high-maintenance equipment in the early days plus poor quality and variety of films.
• Radio, which was simpler than film, but lack of equipment limited diffusion of the medium.
• Television, loudly and fervently hailed as the greatest innovation to improve education, but didn’t.

When new technologies did not gain wide acceptance and live up to their hype, teachers were frequently blamed as being unwilling to adopt the technology or merely incompetent.

But computers are different. They work in education. Computers are by far the most effective teaching and learning machines ever to be tried in a classroom. But to be truly effective, computers must be used effectively by knowledgeable and dedicated teachers.

Add to that computers and computer systems with adequate virus prevention and correction.

“Resourceful”, one of the highest adjectives of praise

My grandmother was fond of saying, “I might wear out, but I won’t rust out.”

That was her way of saying that she would keep on keeping on until she could do no more. She would never sit idle. For the last decades of her 80-plus year life, she lived alone in a farm house so far back in the country that people walked toward town to go hunting.

Like so many of her generation, she was resourceful. She was able to use the means at her disposal to meet her situation. She thrived in that simple farm house with wood-burning fireplaces for heat. She made, grew, raised, and re-processed everything she needed for daily life.

Looking back, I draw much inspiration from how simply, yet successfully, she lived. Compared to the typical suburban home owner of today, she lived in poverty with no “modern” conveniences. But she did just fine, thank you very much.

If I could give my students one skill to help them in their lives, I would give them resourcefulness. Resourcefulness would help them when all else fails. Resourcefulness means the difference in, to paraphrase Faulkner, “surviving and prevailing.”

I inherited a lot of my grandmother’s DNA. I have always been resourceful, meaning that I could function with what I had and make do. If I needed something, I could repair a broken one, or in some cases, make it completely. Of course, I am talking about simple things, not the accouterments of today’s techno-society. I am not smart enough to build the tools of a Web 2.0 world.

But I have built houses, restored antique automobiles, fixed what needed fixing around the house, and in general, done what I needed or wanted to get done. After my accident and resulting paraplegia, my resourcefulness kicked in big time to help me function in a world full of barriers for a person with a disability.

I believe that resourcefulness begins early. Children learn how to play with things around them. Their fertile imaginations create toys out of everyday objects. It makes me sad when we adults thrust upon children a regimentation that shuttles them from one experience to another, from this lesson to that lesson, from this activity to that meeting. Let them go into the back yard and play in the dirt.

That is, if you even have a back yard. Every child should have a back yard with real grass and real dirt. Throw in some scrap lumber, some rope, some nails, and some simple hand tools. You will be amazed at what the little darlings might create. Rather than fritter their time away, they will make something happen, something creative and fun. And, at times, they will demonstrate resourcefulness and make something useful.

Facebook purchases FriendFeed for $47.5 million

Facebook has bought FriendFeed, a social media platform that acts as a clearinghouse for our social media activities. 

According to its Website, “FriendFeed enables you to discover and discuss the interesting stuff your friends find on the web. Read and share however you want — from your email, your phone or even from Facebook. Publish your FriendFeed to your website or blog, or to services you already use, like Twitter.”

The goal seems to be a central place of organization among all the disparate aspects of social media. When told what to look for, FriendFeed collects all the information and lets the social media world know about it.

TweetDeck does some of that by facilitating simultaneous updates to both Twitter and Facebook. Facebook tried it with Facebook Connect. According to Chadwick Matlin writing in The Washington Post, Facebook will make FriendFeed a companion to Facebook Connect.

Matlin believes that Facebook’s purchase of FriendFeed is all about social aggregation, bridging the existing gap between what shows up with our Facebook friends in status updates and all the stuff they do outside of Facebook. Now with FriendFeed, Facebook can create a mash-up, making all that much easier.