Clark is not Keen

I'm back home from Online Educa Berlin, and it's time to reflect. Germany was a lot of fun, cold, festive and ... well, Germany. I'm left wondering though who this woman is everyone keeps talking about - anyone know anything about Alice Klar...?

Anyway. In comparison to all the other conferences on elearning and ICT I have been to this year, Educa just has to be the best. It had everything - an excellent environment for relaxing, thinking, discussing and networking (the Hotel Intercontinental on Budapesterstrasse must be one of the best and most expensive venues for a European elearning event), great social events, and an excellent line up of sessions. With over 2000 delegates at this year's event, it was also packed with diversity, both culturally and in terms of alternative perspectives. The content in most of the sessions was stimulating, challenging and in some cases absolutely inspirational.

I'm referring in particular to a keynote session on the final day of Educa, presented by Donald Clark (above), who was articulate, humorous, and at times, deeply profound in his analysis of the process of learning. He began by debunking many of the established and commonly accepted learning theories espoused by the likes of Benjamin Bloom (Taxonomy), Robert Gagne (Stages model) and Abraham Maslow (Hierarchy of needs). Maslow's model is particularly popular in the corporate training sector, said Clark, because most people like to put pyramids on their PowerPoint slides. Glib, perhaps, but also inherently true when faced with the oversimplification of Maslow's model. (Don't forget that Carl Rogers onces stated that we don't have to work our way through all of Maslow's hierarchy - some people can self-actualise instantly). Clark also launched into learning style theories by the likes of Kolb and Honey & Mumford.

By far the most delicious experience for the audience however, was Donald Clark's response to the earlier keynote by enfant terrible Andrew Keen. How the two differ in their approach! We should all feel insulted, said Clark, by Keen's dismissal of bloggers and wikepedians as merely 'monkeys with typewriters'. There were audible gasps when he labelled Keen 'an idiot', but I think the gasps were of admiration rather than surprise or outrage. Donald Clark was simply articulating what many people were thinking. 14 years olds have as much right to post internet opinions as Harvard professors, we heard him say. And social software is not about making money, but about liberating learners to contribute their own content to the mix.

But... 'get a grip, Andrew!' was perhaps the most apposite soundbite of the day...