Under the lemma “create rip mix burn” Rice University’s Connexions project is leading the way of novel explorations of e-learning open technologies to change (and not simply to patch) education. {Why education needs a change? Listen to the cafeteria
small talk of students and faculty, and you’ll get a clear if a bit chaotic, image that goes au contraire with respect to the approach of current “excellence criteria” -how come excellence measurements may be good, while the end product may well be mediocre?- Shall we study this paradox?}
In any case, Connexions provides a great sustainable platform for developing and sharing content and educational experiences. It’s worth the while of exploring the site, and perhaps of registering. Particularly, they focus on the concept (which has a nice flavor of social constructionism) of social construction of knowledge. In this schema, students and teachers are on the same boat at the same time, and they both create knowledge. Now, it is no coincidence if this very approach is common to the concept of social Web: blogs, wikis, facebooks et al. really are bringing the concept of co-creation of culture to the masses and to every educational corner of the world. Better still, they are transforming (almost) every corner of the world in an educational opportunity!
Check this presentation from Sidney C. Burrus of Rice U’s Connexions on “Open educational Resources“. It was offered as part of the III Int’l Seminar of the UNESCO Chair of eLearning of the Open University of Catalonya (UOC.edu), last november.
From their site:
“Connexions is: a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
- authors create and collaborate
- instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
- learners find and explore content”
