The world is open;

This week we had the opportunity to interact over video conference with Dr. Curtis Bonk who is a Professor at Indiana University. It was my first remote learning experience and so quite interesting. Tom at SUSE IT set us up with the Cisco Webex system, using which we could connect to Dr.Bonk. I wish there was a better way to split the screens between the slides and the person you are talking to so that you could see them more clearly. I think it might have been very interesting to use something like ViewXtreme to deliver the content and see how that went ! A couple of the other issues we faced was that the slides didn’t move by themselves so Katy had to do those by hand, and the microphone was too far away for most of us to speak with Dr. Bonk.

All the minor issues aside it was an interesting lecture. Dr. Bonk spoke to us about his new book “The World is Open” and we discussed the open learning world With the help of e-learning, Blogs, Wikis, Discussion forums, Webinars, Course websites, learning world has really opened up to all of us. We saw some examples of archaeology blogs, where in sitting here in the United States you could follow the exploits of archaeologists in Afghanistan. The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA offers an interactive research map using which you can easily identify research projects, field programs and internships, and get more information on them. This is really similar to what I envision trying to make for the next iteration of my 391 project, so it was very cool to see an idea that I can build on top of. There are similar programs being run by Earthwatch and Greenpeace which allow you to visualize and follow happenings all around the world from your home.

We also looked up, how we all learn using using different educational websites, online schools, content delivery networks, streaming media etc. Some examples are “cable in the classroom” (, Mahalo, the human powered search and EdTV which guides to to online educational content streams. There is so much information out there, perhaps what we really need is an information processing tool that sorts this for us and gives us what we are looking for.

There is now a massive infusion of e-books on the market, giving us access to reading anytime and anywhere. With open source text books, e-libraries, google book search the global text project, we now have access to an enormous collection of works by different authors and devices that the Sony Reader and the Kindle have really opened up our world and made accessibility much quicker and cheaper. And the Kindle uses a revolutionary E Ink technology which brings us as close to the real world book reading experience as possible.

The existence of open source software and e-learning communities like Moodle and Sourceforge allow us to access, contribute to and customize a host of software and learning solutions out there for our needs. We can add information to websites like wikipedia, customize forums based on Sakai, use open learning initiative programs. And open source does not necessarily mean that the contributors are not making any profits. A lot of the open source projects are supported by larger companies and individual donors, who give them money, and developers who spend the time adding features and fixing bugs, and during the same time learning new skills.

Open courseware in universities like MIT and Yale allow us to access learning materials, online lectures and tutorials from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world. In addition the National Programme for Technology learning in India, NPTEL, started by the 7 IITs tries to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum based video and web courses. Many more universities are gradually starting to open up the coursework and lectures to people outside the university and around the world.

As discussed above open source projects and developer APIs like the iPhone developer API allow users to contribute and create your own applications. Instant Messaging apps like google talk and skype allow you to communicate with people around the world. Websites like Wikipedia, Blogs and forums encourage collaboration, Learning repositories are created every day, Users can customize the information they get using RSS feeds, digg and delicious, Mobile data phones give us access to information instantly and anywhere in the world.

In all, we are moving towards open learning and social software enabling collaborative, real time learning and teaching, and allowing us to expand our boundaries of access immensely to the outside world.