I've been working on a project at the Open University for a while now, which has the working title 'Social:Learn'. It is born of the recognition that the OU (and higher education in general) needs to find ways of embracing the whole web 2.0, social networking world, and that the only way to understand this stuff is to do it. We've had some consultants working with us to develop the overall concept, including Stowe Boyd, Stuart Sim, Stephen Heppell and Euan Semple. There will be an official big splash announcement in July I think, but this is me doing some leaking.
The project has gone through the initial conceptualisation phase (this can be summarised as asking the question, 'so what is social:learn exactly?' repeatedly), and is now entering an initial development stage. It's still early days and I'll blog more about it as it goes on. Below is an overview slidecast that I gave to the Hewlett Foundation last month.
This is obviously an area that lots of people are working on and interested in, so maybe Social:Learn can act as the focus for this, or at least be one more element in the mix. If you'd be interested in playing with any stuff when we have it available, let me know.
Hi Martin,
Your social:learn project is very much like some of the issues and solutions that we're discussing at the OU-NL. Looking forward to follow-ups (might join your UK meeting in June).
Posted by: Steven Verjans | 09/03/2008 at 08:25 AM
Hi Martin, this sounds like a really interesting project. I will watch with interest as the Social:Learn tools come on-line.
Posted by: Alex Hardman | 27/03/2008 at 02:26 PM
I look forward to hearing more about the API in due course :-) It reminded me a little of elements of the TenCompetence project that is focusing on LLL which has a SOA which a bunch of tools for different apps to connect to. One of the hardest things might be how to manage user identity between different apps.
Posted by: Chris Douce | 30/04/2008 at 05:24 PM
Hi Martin
What you are doing sounds great. I am very interested in getting involved some how! I am particularly interested in public participation and learning outside education using new technology. Would love to hear more. Ed www.whymandesign.com
Posted by: Ed Whyman | 05/05/2008 at 11:33 AM
Hi Martin, I worked on testing the beta of this product. I'm quite interested to see how it's coming along.
Posted by: Ashley | 08/09/2009 at 12:58 PM
I think Social:Learn is really a brilliant idea. Good post and excellent article.
Posted by: Recipes | 26/05/2010 at 03:57 AM