The Palatine Bar in Shacklewell London is a new and developing venue with a focus on great music and quality real ales brought in from micro brewerys Brodie’s of Leyton and Ha’penny of Ilford. An arts bar with a relaxed atmosphere it is becoming increasingly popular with the locals of Shacklewell, especially creative types with paintings by local artists adorning the walls of the bar. Read more…
My thoughts on Community Open Online Courses – COOCs – is that it is a vitally needed platform and resource for the enablement of knowledge sharing as well as personal and group development. Increasingly the production of knowledge is being coopted by market values which is resulting in the narrowing of who gets to make meaning, and who gets valued in our culture for having created public content. Read more…
Over the last five years I have been making a study of what is needed to create a community education project or network. The Ragged University project is about promoting and propagating all communities rather than building a monolith; this is another part of it as a multi-valued project which is interested and inspired by people sharing their knowledge in social spaces. A ‘recipe book’ is being created to distill helpful information and insights for all people out their who want to run their own ‘Ragged-University-type-project’. Read more…
Recently the ‘Global Trends for Support Structures in Community University Research Partnerships: Survey Results, September 2014’ was published by the UNESCO Chair in Community-based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education Read more…
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.
Gardening and food-growing knowledge builds confidence in people. That confidence can lead to all sorts of exciting things; children who learn how to garden are then able to teach their friends, or their siblings and parents. There is a distinct lack of land in Edinburgh for growing produce, and most allotment waiting lists are on average 5 years .
We are doing something on a much smaller level, but encourage anyone and everyone to get involved, and hopefully inspire people to grow their own food as well.
The Ragged project is a developing a holistic social model that aims to help underpin local economies and foster economic regeneration in its activities. Economics is a fundamental part of everyone’s life, and is therefore an important consideration when developing such community enterprises. Read more…