pretty diagram of preliminary ideas for a possible plan…

I love my diagram! And it was a lot of fun to think it through; I hope you’ll take a moment to follow me through the layers, so to speak. But first a few quick remarks:

As the title of this post suggests, this is a wildly preliminary notion of how we might organize a learning emvironment. But ‘preliminary’ can happen very quickly on the web. In fact, educators are already doing this kind of thing with Facebook as the base: see MyNewport (requires a Facebook account to see it in action). Just as quickly, other educators are asking valid questions about the approach: see Graham Atwell. One of the sharpest tech blogger, Richard McManus, evaluates Facebook and sees value in using it but concludes:

But how open is Facebook, really? Turns out, not that much.

What we can say for sure at this stage is that Facebook-based learning environments will get done…and undone…and redone (if that’s a word.) The best practice along the way will be to carefully harvest the knowledge so when we do it over we can also do it better. Maybe on some other platform like Elgg.

Here’s a guide to what the layers mean:

1. Facebook Platform: programmable core / familiar location / automatically linked to many users
2. Ning: established social network / more user-interface control / server protection / organization of text, wikis, podcasts,videos,etc.
3. Links of external databases: the content of the system / includes user-generated content (e.g. Layer 11)
4. Internal data sources: text/sound/video stored within system (e.g. Layer 10) / probably controlled by Ning user interface
5. some kind of Content Management System: resource organizer / possibly done by Ning or a specialized resource organizer like Second Brain
6. User-interface: Adobe’s AIR advanced UI / not yet available in a system like this but…
7. People: learners/ instructors / site visitors / extraterrestrials
8. example Learning Event: incorporates all the above
9. example Assessment Event: allows Learner/Instructor to evaluate using all the above
10. example Learning Content Module: stored, accessible Learning Event / available from inside or outside system
11. User-generate/selected material: full range of text/sound/video developed by users/suppliers

Next week, in this Monday slot, I’ll go into more of my understanding of the issues and ask what we need to get that we don’t have from the various players involved.

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