Creative Commons, the non-profit organisation who helped us all break the shackles of oppressive copright restrictions, has branched further into the field of education through their new ccLearn initiative.
From the site:
ccLearn is a division of Creative Commons which is dedicated to realizing the full potential of the Internet to support open learning and open educational resources (OER). Our mission is to minimize barriers to sharing and reuse of educational materials — legal barriers, technical barriers, and social barriers.
I’ve seen a number of ventures into OER via a number of educational and tertiary institutions, but they tend to be small and scattered around the Interweb, with only the larger institutions able to build a large-ish collection .
Through a unified front such as ccLearn, we can hopefully see the rise of a grand scale OER movement that will bash down doors, smash windows and destroy any other kind of metaphorical restrictive opening in order to give people greater control of their own work and spread quality learning resources.
Link – Can you cc what I cc?
Hey James
CCLearn looks promising, in principle, but it is probably worth noting Stephen Downes reservations: “I am apprehensive about this new organization, which has been formed without any (apparent) consultation or process… This to me looks more like the commercial publishers trying to redefine ‘free’ in such a way as to allow them to take free resources and sell them commercially”
Damon
Fair call, Damon. Given that it is at the early stages, it’s hard to judge it by anything more than principle. Fingers crossed it’s not merely a vehicle for commercial publishers to dip their fingers into the hard work of others, but being that it’s under the auspices of the CC gurus, I’d be inclined to think of it more working for the powers of good
I guess only time will tell!
And whilst I respect the incredible work that Stephen does, I do notice he gets a bit hot under the collar when he is ignored or not consulted about things.
Have I said too much?
I would like to think that ccLearn will be a significant crack in the bunker of institutional education. I would also like to think that Mr Downes is probably a bit more cunning than we maybe first realise. Perhaps by publicly expressing his misgivings on this, and other issues, he is in fact prompting us to engage. Thereby helping to ensure that the powers of good do indeed prevail.
Heh, Downes and his oh-so crafty ways…have I indeed underestimated him?