On Mar 26, 6:44 pm, "Leigh Blackall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Great post Simon, I enjoy your wit :)

Which Half?
>
> Maybe I should clarify what I say about "learning being free, education
> still costs"
>
Hey, that's fine Leigh. We know what we're thinking.
The thing I'm monitoring is the growth of the new (interactive) media
industries. If academic institutions didn't have people like yourself
and our playmates on this thread, then they're a bit left out. David's
a pretty good example of what is happening. Taking a global
perspective, you'd look at the inhabitants of the OpenCourseware
Consortia.
http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ocwcforum/viewtopic.php?t=158
(They don't talk much)

All of them beaver away in splendid (National) isolation. producing
"me too" resources, which display a huge range of good and poor.
Meanwhile (their inhabitants) we communicate on little (global)
community hubs like this, preaching to the converted and comparing the
silk purses which have been whipped up on a sow's ear's budget.

Its only when you start to talk about Sustainability and "the next
steps" where the new industries start to get noticed, primarily
because they all seem to be based around (global) Communications. The
emphasis on OER used to make a bit of sense. Now that there's so many
OER, the real challenge seems to be helping people like David get
together with his global peers and including students in the
development of a constantly evolving (global) course. As you would
(probably) say, "we are sharing a learning, not delivering an
education". Regardless of the tool we might use - wiki, moodle, blog,
etc - it's an understanding we are attempting to share.

You might be interested in this conversation which has just started
down at the Open Uni's OpenLearn initiative. They're an OpenCourseWare
member (funded by HP for US$5m.) who are trying to figure out their
next steps.
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=980

My main interest here is much as yours is. (I've seen you play with
the Skypecast beta). But getting the NREN engineers to configure their
networks around a (global) Community hubs rather than (National)
institutional ones means we're going to have to turn a few heads and
change a few routines. Still, I know you've already changed yours. You
do realize this makes you a multimedia personality don;t you? :) (Can
I have your autograph?)
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