Re: [seul-edu] Great do list from Teemu: Forming a coalition

[Michael Hall <admin@openlearningcommunity.org>]

Interesting ideas, David. We seem to think along similar lines on some of
these topics ... The comments below are not intended as proposals for
where I want to take SEUL/EDU or a coalition just yet, by the way ... I
might be an idealist but I'm also pragmatic and enough of a realist to
understand what is going to be acceptable to most stakeholders in this
coalition project.

> My idea is the online school. An international curriculum that says if you 
> want a school, you can start with what you find here and add/adapt it 
> according to your needs.  It would link to things like Dmoz and Nupedia for 
> reference, but reference doesn't make a school, as any teacher or current 
> student could tell us.

This is an interest of mine too, though the work involved is
mind-boggling. I see a kind of seamless thread from free technology
through to free/open education, web-based education and,
eventually, the demise of the school as we know it. Frankly, I dislike
schools as institutions and have a lot of time for Ivan Illich's
ideas. I don't know if you know his work (Deschooling Society, 1972?), but
we now have the technology to make his vision of learning networks a
powerful reality. 

As a teacher, I see bricks and mortar schools growing more and more
irrelevant everyday. Not totally irrelevant, mind you, but they are
becoming more about child care and holding society together than education
as such ... at least from where I'm standing, which is in the middle of a
working class/indigenous primary school in the middle of an Australian
desert.

> 
> On the one hand, a school will need a community database (such as eduBase 
> which is Jackson Miller's project featured today on opensourceschools.org), 
> group collaboration systems and course delivery systems. On the other hand, it 
> will need an internationally accepted "core" curriculum to which locally 
> relevant modules (such as the "national" view of social studies, religion, 
> etc.) following the same standards can be added or "plugged in."
> 

Yes, a good idea, but the thrashing out of what is "core" and what is
"national" would surely be an interesting debate.

Regarding the stuff below, I generally agree but am also interested in the
possibilities for home schooling/neighbourhood schooling/community
schooling and lots of other alternatives to The School as an institution
which, along with the Jail and the Mental Hospital, shapes our society. I
know this is "way out there" at this stage, but really, schools as we know
them arose in the late 19th century industrial age as a product of the
time, and there is no reason to expect them to continue as they are for
all time to come. 

> Essentially, the really "new" thing about this would be to say to schools that 
> "When it comes to curriculum and courses, there is no difference between an 
> online school and a traditional site-centered school." Both keep their entire 
> systems on the Web, accessible from any workstation/terminal in the school, or 
> (with luck) outside. The site-centered school (not virtual) has the advantage 
> of being able to work with students face-to-face. But the purpose of 
> technology should be to make things easier. It should make learning easier by 
> keeping all the necessary materials in one place, making them accessible by 
> any community member anywhere with any type of computer, and making 
> communication easy and affordable. Technology should save time by taking care 
> of the details. This should make face-to-face learning much richer because it 
> will eliminate the need to spend class time on extraneous management details 
> such as "where's the assignment?" or "where's the response?"
> 
>  I think readers of this list are all familiar with the open source 
> development project and can imagine how it might be applied to the development 
> of a school. I don't think that the tools and the content are separable in 
> this day and age, however I like the Project Gutenberg idea that content 
> should be available via the lowest technological common demoniator, text. That 
> doesn't mean we should limit the types of technology that can be used. Far 
> from it, we should encourage creative use of the latest. I just think that 
> text alternatives (unicode?) should be available.
> 
> Sorry to make it so long. I just wanted people to hear and have the chance to 
> comment on whether they think this is a worthwhile idea -- and especially 
> whether it fits with SEUL/Edu.
> 
> David
> 
>  Teemu <teemu@ionstream.fi> said:
> 
> > Hi.
> > 
> > I have followed the latest discussions for a while and I have some opinions 
> > to point out.
> > 
> > - The coalition should be global, not only US.
> > - Choose a name for the coalition
> > - Arrange a logo contest when the name has been chosen
> > - Form a group to lead the project. Gather useful, interested, talented and 
> > motivated people around the world from different regions 
> > - Start building schoolforge.net
> > 
> > If things start rolling, I and some of my friends are willing to join in.
> > 
> > If I have time I'm personally able to participate on the following areas: 
> > project management, interface design, code and graphics (I can submit some 
> > logos to the contest if you like).
> > 
> > - Teemu
> > 
> > -----
> > 
> > Teemu Arina
> > MimerDesk.org
> > http://www.mimerdesk.org
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
################################
Michael Hall
admin@openlearningcommunity.org
m.hall@latis.net.au
http://openlearningcommunity.org