Oh my. Let’s begin with some Internet Research.

This post is a response to Week 1, Activity 4 where I was asked to select one of the innovative projects mentioned in the paper Minds on fire: open education, the long tail and learning 2.0 (Seely Brown and Adler, 2008). A 10 page account on the changing face of learning.

So, as requested, in this post I will explore the idea of the Online Teaching and Learning Commons. As an example of such a “Commons” the paper refers to the Carnegie Foundation’s Gallery – essentially a blog which documents  the activities of the foundation, it’s interests and it’s approaches with the stated objective of improving teaching and learning. A corollary of this, and of more interest to me, is the Knowledge Exchange Exhibit and Presentation toolkit (KEEP toolkit, for short).

Perhaps in order to understand the innovative nature of this project one needs some insight into its development and a short history. Original scholarly in nature (as these things often are) the KEEP toolkit acted as a place to deposit examples of work and then to evaluate and reflect upon it with peers. Scholars have since developed a number of new uses for the toolkit including using the resources in their own classes as a means for instruction and assessment. As is it open source in nature a process of creating/using/remixing was born in this context by others who are free to use the content.

I must admit that it’s not the first time I have come across this resource: I was first introduced to it in 2011 during H808. I am genuinely interested in the direction of open source learning spaces and the development of showcase “portfolios”. I was keen to see how, or if, the KEEP toolkit had developed over the last 3 years.

I began with a Google search (naturally). As a starting point I used search terms such as  “Online teaching” + “Learning Commons”, “KEEP Toolkit” and “Carnegie Foundation” which revealed lots of information including the project’s own website and many other news articles and blog posts. The projects own website (which has expanded exponentially since 2011) has clearly made an effort to become more engaging as a place to access and work with. As a result there are clearly more collaborators and displayed examples; whether or not these have all been effectively moderated (in the spirit of quality control) remains up for debate.

I also learnt about many new projects academic and otherwise that are pushing the envelope. Using the connector related:http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org/ it is possible to reveal other variations on this theme. It seems from my research that the words “Learning Commons” have become bywords for any online repository of digital information concerning teaching and learning. All of these in the spirit of developing innovative teaching practices that enable students to make significant learning gains. The act of sharing clearly appeals to people’s sense of altruism. There are websites from High Schools to FE establishments. Others are more scholarly in nature or directly related to professional bodies. Some of these are autonomous initiatives such as the website Open Educational Resources while others are directly associated with KEEP. An example of the later would be The University of Maryland who became one of the first universities to receive a site license allowing the tool to be hosted locally. Stanford University’s “Inside Teaching” – a living archive of teaching contributions and perspectives follows a similar path and is part funded by the Carnegie foundation. There was a lot of information available including press and blog articles suggesting that this initiative has high visibility and interest.

Open University Library Service

Finding journal articles in the OU Library was an indication that this initiative is being researched and is having a wider impact. As I began to gauge the trajectory of the initiative the Carnegie Foundation appears to have been a shot in the arm for various other professional associations from medicine to law. Peer reviewed papers can provide more credible information about the initiative that news, press and blog posts might not.

 References

Christina, A (2013) ‘Continuing the Transition Work from Traditional Library to Learning Commons’ Teacher Librarian., Vol. 41 Issue 2, p29-36. 6p [Online]. Available at http://bit.ly/1eF5lVw

Crump, H (2013) ‘Learning Creep’ [Online]. [Accessed 04 Feb 2014]. Available at http://learningcreep.wordpress.com/2013/12/27/2013-a-year-on-the-global-learning-commons/

Gale, R, & Golde M (2004) .Doctoral Education and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Peer Review, Vol. 6 Issue 3, p8-12. 5p [Online]. Available at http://bit.ly/1lGzxop

Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Homepage. [Online]. [Accessed 04 Feb 2014]. Available at http://portfolio.ku.edu/static/index.html

Inside Teaching Home Page [Online]. [Accessed 04 Feb 2014]. Available at http://insideteaching.org/

Open Educational Resources. Home Page [Online]. [Accessed 04 Feb 2014]. Available at http://www.oercommons.org/

Teaching Commons [Online]. [Accessed 04 Feb 2014]. Available at http://teachingcommons.depaul.edu/

The University of Kansas Keep Toolkit [Online]. [Accessed 04 Feb 2014]. Available at http://www.hhmi.org/