"APIs are just a technical implementation detail" - or are they? See what some of our students say after starting their Introduction to API economy studies!
"APIs are just a technical implementation detail" - or are they?
Osaango's new 2020 version of Introduction to API Economy -course done in co-operation with Tampere University starts with an audio recording of the first chapter of the API Economy 101 -book. It's called "Warning! The API Economy may change your business model".
https://www.osaango.academy/courses/intro-to-api-economy
It seems many of the students taking this free 1 ECTS Master's level course have various levels of technical knowledge about APIs, but many are struggling with one of these three things:
"The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn." - Gloria Steinem
At Osaango, we are big believers in constructivism applied to learning and education. It means that new knowledge and skills are built (= constructed) on top of existing knowledge in social context.
This means, though, that if a person has an incorrect previous bit of knowledge or the information is stale, the new more accurate information has no means of sticking or forms incorrect connections. Also, if the person is not interacting with other people and using that new information or skill, there is no confirmation that the it's correct. Therefore, nothing sticks. Of course, there is also a negative possibility to learn incorrect information socially, and this is due to things like confirmation bias.
Let's see what our students learned, or rather unlearned as first thing in the course, to make them rethink about APIs...
So, what happened? Unlearning!
"Thank you for the audio recording - it was really fast to get basic info about the topic. I thought API's as a IT-thing so it was nice to hear/read a bigger picture of it. Interesting!"
Have to agree with persons before me. APIs these days seem to be bit more than I've personally interacted with. Hopefully after this course I'm a little bit more "in the loop".
APIs & API Providers = Books & Book publishers - btw, publishers use APIs, too...
"Books and publishers were a useful allegory. Reading the full first chapter of the book complemented and helped me to understand better the concepts from the audio. There were many new concepts, terms and information, that I want to check."
"And I agree with previous person, when he says: "hopefully after this course I'm a little bit more "in the loop"". ;)
Good and fast introduction to API economy.
A whole new subject for me. "
"Nice introduction to the course main topic in brief. Good emphasis on the fact that APIs are not just for the organization's IT-departments to understand. Whole businesses can be build around APIs. API's also offer opportunities to access business ecosystems and gain competitive advantage through them."
"A very fast introduction to API economy by listening! I thought I know something already, but now I`m quite sure I do not. Books and publishers were a nice allegory to me. I have heard the name Alibaba and I have visited the website once or twice. In my opinion, all organizations have to be IT-companies nowadays! Digital transformation, you know!"
"This introduction strengthened my view the APIs itself can be "the products" and they can serve as means to do much larger business!"
"I liked the analog of book representing an API and publisher a platform. I think this will make it a lot easier to explain APIs and their value to non-tech people."
