Uni of Manitoba ‘virtual learning’
p2pnet.net News:- The University of Manitoba in Manitoba, Canada, is trying out something new. And it might be called ’social learning’.
“The school’s Virtual Learning Commons website lets staff and students create academic and personal profile pages they can use to share information or make new contacts,” says the CBC.
Launched in September, it uses Web 2.0 technologies and the approach is meant to foster learning through social collaboration and openness, the story has Peter Tittenberger, acting director of the university’s learning technology centre, saying.
“The VLC allows students and staff an opportunity to connect, discuss, share and create content online as an entire university community – not at a course level,” he said in a written statement.
“It also allows students to define what they want to talk about, what’s important to them and gives them a platform to discuss those concerns.”
Learning online
This may be new to the University of Manitoba, but it’s old stuff to home schoolers on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
There, kids, including our daughter, Emma, who’s 10, log on to Wondertree’s SelfDesign.org.
Since 2003, they’ve been learning online by talking to each other, initiating and sharing in discussions, and working with mentors. They have profile pages and interface with other kids online. Moreover, ‘learning consultants’ help build new skills with one-on-one support.
SelfDesign also has something else in common with the University of Manitoba.
The latter, “allows students to define what they want to talk about, what’s important to them and gives them a platform to discuss those concerns,” says the CBC. Just like SelfDesign, where parents are also encouraged to get involved through the site’s forums.
Jon
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
Also See:
CBC – University of Manitoba adopts Web 2.0 approach to learning, December 14, 2006
p2pnet newsfeeds for your site | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
