Freerice

Open Education: Learning and Giving in the Online World

Spring term, Lewis 102, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Planet Earth

Thursday 10AM -12 noon

Charles Nesson

Jonathan Zittrain

Rebecca Nesson

Using freerice.org as a central case study of an entrepreneurial charitable educational enterprise, this seminar learns about learning in an open-access world. What motivates learners? What is the situational psychology of being bored? How are values learned? What is the role of skepticism? How can we lead?

Open to all Schools of Harvard

"Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all."

~Douglas Adams

vision and challenge

Open Education Expressed in Code, Law, Integrated Public Media and Human Spirit -

How can we maximize and release the brilliance that is in every child, the creative energy and the fantastic desire to learn that all infants begin with, and lead them to be joyful life long learners who feel connected to each other and to society and want and are prepared to make a better world?

And how can we measure whether we have succeeded?

Imagine, then, that you are building in integrated media a technology-assisted free and open online learning environment.

Our public education system for all its aspiration fails to deliver to many of our children. We are still "A Nation at Risk." Bill Gates description of our public education as "obsolete" still holds.

The net is our opportunity to change the rhetorical frame of children’s upbringing not by forcing them but by attracting them to learning, and by attracting their teachers, mothers and fathers, family and friends, all who would support their learning.

Class Roster

Professor Nesson

Caity West

Stefani Wittenauer

Rebecca Argudin

Kira Stanfield

Kevin Adams

Shahira Ali

Yaw Asare

Yvette Wohn

Josh Deutsch

Daniel Brown

Evan Engstrom

Tobias Snyder

Daniel Brody

Dan Ray

David Levine

Nilay Vora

Leslie Lang

Maurice Zhou

Alejandra Maupomé Cagigal

250 Characters on Open Education from the Live Question Tool

Live Question Tool

• Open education is a realization of Rousseau’s delight-led learning. It provides a framework through which students can explore topics rather than rote-based learning. Open access is the first step to creating an interactive learning environment.
• Allowing unrestrained access to different outlets of knowledge on the internet and giving children an opportunity to engage in interactive learning at the click of a mouse.
• My vision for this course is to determine how the internet can be used to establish an online learning environment for people of all ages in order to connect people all over the world and make learning more attractive and interactive.
• My vision for open education: To connect students from diverse cultures, geographic locations, and backgrounds so that they may learn from each other and feel comfortable expressing their opinions without the restraints of the classroom environment.
• Let's help FreeRice to the next stage in its evolution, and let's consciously learn from our successes and missteps en route. This will let us (or our successors) iterate the process for another group, and another, and do better every time.
• I envision open education as a system like google books was supposed to be, where you can really access subject matter on anything. Curiosity about a subject could be deep or shallow. satisfaction guaranteed no matter the depth of your curiosity.
• Open education allows us to explore new methods of education using online tools, including games and other out-of-box techniques.
• Bringing the fun and excitement of a Harvard Law School classroom to people around the globe.
• A free and open platform for discourse between users of diverse backgrounds, regions, interests and skills. A catalyst for exchange that will promote education in even the remotest, poverty stricken areas of the world
• Helping eliminate some of the costs of learning. Treating education as a gift, shared without thought of recompense or self-interest.
• Open education is any individual having free access to a variety of educational resources. It enable individuals or communities to engage in learning whether for their own pleasure and intellectual curiosity or for professional and academic advancement.
• Using the Internet to share knowledge by networking to create a more vibrant environment for offline education. Until now, open edu was about sharing data. I want to share the intangible: methods of teaching, experience, visions.
• To learn how to create an accessible, user-friendly, participatory learning environment for human beings across the world. The environment will be one that is free, positive, interactive, and self-directed.
• Education that exceeds the barriers of traditional learning. Open education can involve a number of tools allowing individuals the freedom to turn ordinary practices into learning experiences.
• I envision this class to be an exploration of how open education impacts modern pedagogy and learning, and of the various forces at work to facilitate or impede its proliferation.
• open access to anyone equally.shareing the idea and recourses for all level of learning and thinking. Ignore most of the inequality element compared with the formal schooling.
• open access to anyone equally.shareing the idea and recourses for all level of learning and thinking. Ignore most of the inequality element compared with the formal schooling.
• Open education provides a new way to interact and learn. It also reduces the cost of access to education. People just need to have access to internet to learn.

let's get cracking

please engage:

cyberone reflections:

kira

nicole

maliha

we need you divided into teams, three teams

we need to design the steps in our flow

from vocab and math thru games played with avatars to virtual education

we need to incorporate

we need to map out a list of tasks and undertake them

learning together

we need to learn something together about learning

lets learn to play braid together

think about what we are learning as we go along

think about connecting the idea of an avatar learning in narrative experiential space to their reality

what do we need

what have we got

might we think of connecting the strands of braid to freerice

sandbox

FreeRice Sandbox