Learning in a digital world

Ever wish you had the choice to get up off the couch and spend the afternoon learning to rock climb, cook, or maybe juggle? Well, we have and that’s why we came up with (un)classes. (un)classes are premised on the belief that everyone has *something* to teach and learning doesn’t always have to be a formal experience requiring big up-front commitments. We call this idea casual learning, and it’s at the heart of unclasses.org.

Casual learning is for people like us, who have hectic lives and struggle to find fun and interesting ways to satisfy their intellectual curiosity in the limited free time they have. Think of it as educational snacking, a low-touch way to explore topics that interest you.

But what we hope will make (un)classes truly special is the community. We want to foster an environment for fun people to explore mutual interests in stress-free social settings. And you are in charge: wanna learn something no one is teaching, create a class and recruit a teacher; have a hobby you love and want to share, offer to teach it and assemble some students. (More)

Great idea I first read about here.

However, when I visit the site I find that there are few classes, and they are old (started one year ago and never went off the ground), and the majority is in California. To show that the idea is not dead it would be to see a list of courses offered in the past. However, they have a blog that shows a bit of life.

But, wait, couldn’t one use the same idea learning/teaching through the Internet. The one wouldn’t all have to live in San Francisco? Yes, it could, and one such service is p2pu:

At P2PU, a study group gathers people who work together to learn a particular topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback.

The only drawback with p2pu, in addition to that some courses require a physical presence and there may be an additional social benefit of f2f (acronym for face to face), is that the teacher may not charge for the courses he give.

Most likely, there are other Internet services of the same nature. Do you know some?

Here is an idea on how to know what courses are run in your community:

DGREE – Dale Dougherty, MAKE Magazine from DGREE on Vimeo.

Dale Dougherty of MAKE Magazine, gets the thinking going around how education happens out in the community, not just on campus. What if we broke the hardwired connection that students have to institutions? Education could be like the power grid: anyone can connect in real time, you know which sources are being used when, and which paths are followed from one source to the next. Imagine searching for courses in your area on any given day, on any given topic, and being able to register via your phone. Like finding a restaurant and making a reservation — a grid, a distributed registry, a public infrastructure for learning.