Apr 15 2009
What SEO means for online learning
Judy Breck calls SEO (Search Engine Optimization) the”sleeping giant” in regards to its still unlocked potential for education. She has a point. The technology, through which websites like amazon.com are able to routinely send personalized suggestions regarding books, videos, or CDs, could allow any student a means of cutting through the messy and confusing cloud of information on the internet and accessing authentic resources instantly for his or her individual learning needs.
But not only has the education establishment been slow to unleash the power of Search Engine Optimization, it has failed to recognize the true source of this power: traffic. Much to its detriment:
Resources without traffic linger in the shadows and lose relevancy – which is awful on several levels for learning.
Because a majority of existing educational resources remain locked behind “proprietary wall of publishers and universities” Search Engine Optimization remains only a fragment of what it could be for learning. But Breck is confident that will change: As more and more traffic goes to resources that are online and therefore accessible through SEO, other institutions will open and “publish into the cloud as well.”
I am all for this process of opening up and becoming part of a global network of learning, although I do see obstacles on the way: copyright, for example. As a language teacher, it is extremely important to me that I include all kinds of music, images, and film in my lessons. I do this for the purpose of demonstrating culture and providing context. Or course I always make a point of giving credit to the author of a work. However I frequently use works in a derivative way to increase their educational value for the moment. I might loop a pop song for example or make a clip from part of a short film to demonstrate something for a particular lesson. If I were to do this on the open internet, I might run into legal trouble and ultimately have to refrain from the practice. And so, I continue my mixes and mashups behind the walls of my online classroom.
And what about student work that serves as material for collaborative projects? Should it all be published on the open internet? I do not think that Breck is advocating this…but how many of these “proprietary walls” will we still require?
I suspect that the answer lies somewhere in the middle: Online courses and educational institutions will publish content on the open internet in order to build traffic and remain relevant but will also make use of walls to respect student privacy and to allow a place for all of those things to develop that can make the classroom a special place: creativity, intimacy, and community.
Thank you for your comments on what I wrote for SES.
As you probably know, the copyright challenges to the openness of ideas online are being worked through here:
http://creativecommons.org/
There is a new book by James Boyle called “The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind” that is excellent on this subject. As the book jacket says: “The public domain is as vital to innovation and culture as the material protected by intellectual property rights, he asserts, and he calls for a movement akin to the environmental movement to preserve it.” Boyle is exploring the middle ground you mention.
Thanks for the tip on the James Boyle book. I had a look at Amazon and saw that Lawrence Lessing wrote a glowing review. Good enough for me. I will definitely look into it!