I can, but expecting every member of faculty and student to do so is impractical and fundamentally unsustainable. I agree that a small majority of early adopters can implement any technology they need - I don’t believe that you can build a sustainable education system on that basis. I’m more interested (as Fullen says) in providing the mechanism for empowering students to learn and academics to assist this by teaching - none of which requires them to have the individual skills or infrastructure to provide all of the technology needed - that’s the role of the institution.

Taking (Stephens) point to the final conclusion we wouldn’t have institutions at all - empowered information users would generate their own education independently. The reality is that most of our students need help in learning effectively and employers want someone to certify that students are minimally competent in particular disciplines.

The view that all users can (and want to) maintain their own technology infrastructure is flawed I believe - it also weakens the concept of the PLE - most people want technology to be invisible, but that requires someone who is prepared to do that for them. We can’t sustain a high quality education system on banner ads (at least anywhere in the world where the Internet is not free…)

Of course. But I would say, I have said, similar things about things like faculty development, curriculum design, and just about every support element.

If you can’t run your own email server (a proposition I sincerely doubt), then that’s a strike against email, and probably why younger web uses have migrated elsewhere. Same with other web applications.

I also think it’s important to recognize that eMM covers vastly broader territory than my own announcement. Stephen is talking about things like faculty development, curriculum design, and just about every support element that goes into widespread diffusion of e-Learning at a university at high quality levels.

And something very different to say this: “how can I assist my institution, and others, in understanding and responding to change?”

Empowering the organization is not the same as empowering the individuals within that organization, and indeed, the two from time to time work at cross-purposes.

This is why (to address what I see as a major challenge for Michael’s new company) I have never interacted with Oracle.

Nothing Oracle produces helps me as an individual. It does empower my employer, but not in any way that helps me, and sometimes in ways that hinder me.

From my perspective there are two approaches to effecting the widespread use of some software:

- scalability - the software can get bigger
- networking - instances of the software can talk to each ofther

The problem with scalability, in my mind is:

- the software gets unnecessarily complex, as it must incorporate features for a wider base of users
- the software gets more expensive

Scalable, enterprise-level software is beyon the reach of the individual, because it is too expensive and too complex. By its very nature, then, it empowers the enterprise, but it disempowers the individual.