Twas The Rant Before Christmas… What Makes The COOCs Initiative Succeed Where Others Fail

The language of failure is a tricky one to use without creating unhelpful tensions which can compartmentalize the spirit and function of education and social projects. When walking through the surreal world of policy-town, phrases take root and oblige people to think and act in ways which conform to the language that is giving shape to their thoughts. Policy and it’s language has come to possess people’s practice.
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The Big Idea: Community Open Online Courses

What is learning? This is the question I have been exploring through the development of Community Open Online Courses (COOCs), where anyone and everyone can contribute to the curriculum and decide how and what they want to learn. Initially, answering this question from an institutional perspective, seemed easy enough to do – there are a plethora of accreditation routes, standardisation measures and statistics that can be used as evidence. But, we all know that the structure of formal education can leave people as diminished by their experiences as it does enriched. Read more…

Podcast: Peter Shukie Shares His Philosophy of Community Open Online Courses

This is a podcast of Peter Shukie sharing his philosophy of what lies behind the Community Open Online Courses vision. Community Open Online Courses is a vision which takes the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and flips the model making the community the creator of the content.  This innovation in education and learning is important in that it values the inherent knowledge of individuals wherever they are situated.

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