One of our goals at FunnelBrain is to help teachers and learners make better use of the many fantastic resources that the open education movement has produced. I have been studying the movement for sometime. If you are just learning about open educational resources and the open education movement, the sheer volume of information available can be overwhelming. This book is a great place to start.

Chapter 2 of the book is an article by David Kahle titled “Designing Open Educational Technology.” In discussing the unintended consequences that can flow from poor design, Mr. Kahle uses a metaphor that is so wonderful I wanted to share it with you. He says that campus wide course management systems are today’s mechanical tomato harvesters.

You see, mechanical tomato harvesters were developed in the 1940′s. These machines tended to bruise and damage the delicious tomatoes Americans used to enjoy back then. To accommodate the machines, growers developed tougher tomatoes that did not bruise so easily. Apparently we have mechanical tomato harvesters to thank for the tasteless tomatoes in our grocery stores today.

Mr. Kahle worries that campus wide course management systems implemented at many colleges and universities may have a similar effect on online education, due to their imposition of centralized administration and control, their restricted notions of the relationships between students and teachers, and their limited concepts of what courses are and how information should be organized.

We hope that FunnelBrain can avoid any resemblance to mechanical tomato harvesters. Should you observe any passing similarity, please let us know, either by commenting on this blog, emailing me at jack@funnelbrain.com, or clicking the feedback link at the top of the page at www.funnelbrain.com.