• Handschooling.com is created by Judy Breck, who describes her work in an interview by We_Magazine.

    We_Magazine interviews Judy Breck



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    About Findability

    As 21st century education adapts to its online future, the edu sector is learning to work under the network laws that make the best study knowledge findable. Findability emerges naturally from educational resources embedded in a network when these 7 elements are present.

    Digital - Educational materials that are printed are outside of the digital online commons where findability arises.

    Unbundled - Findability works bests with the smallest pieces of content, so bundles like curricula, courses, and PDFs stifle findabiity.

    Open - To be findable, content must be open in the one Web global commons, with no barriers of cost, subscription, or copyright.

    SEOed - Search Engine Optimization with keywords and linking attracts search engine spiders and boosts rankings on search engine results pages.

    Juiced - Webpages getting higher search engine page ranks from links by educators judging their content as superior.

    Networked - Nodes of learning content are syndicated (RSS), virally spread, and connected into social networks.

    Mobilized - Nodes of learning content are becoming findable to millions, and potentially billions, of new learners by being optimized for mobile phones.

    The learn nodes posted on this blog are models that show how you can increase findabiity for open educational resources.

  • The LEARN NODE is a tool for creating findability

    The illustration below shows a learn node, which you can use as an educator to make webpages more findable. The top little circles illustrate links out to content nodes related to the subject of the large circle. Bottom left, experts connect to the node affirming its quality - giving it juice. Bottom right, a student connects to the node to learn the subject of its content.

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    Blog posts are used to make learn nodes on this website. Click here for a primer on using a blog post to make a learn node. Any webpage with its own url can be used as a learn node.

    Visit GoldenSwamp.com for discussions of the way learning is emerging in the 21st century.

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May
17

Learn Node: Visualizing Cultures and Perry Landing in Japan 1854

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eyesship.jpgThrough a project called Visualizing Cultures, launched in 2002, MIT faculty explore, as the project link describes:

. . . the potential of the Web for developing innovative image-driven scholarship and learning. The VC mission is to use new technology and hitherto largely inaccessible visual materials to reconstruct the past as people of the time visualized the world (or imagined it to be.)

The 2008 course centered on this project is summarized:

Using new technologies, Visualizing Cultures weds images and commentary to illuminate social and cultural history in innovative ways. A narrative “Core Exhibit” not only gives the historical significance of the images, but also addresses issues such as genre and medium. Each unit comes with a comprehensive curriculum and carefully annotated digital archive of images from public and private sources.

The VC course is a superb learn node because it connects richly to closely related webpages that offer high quality knowledge substance. An example of a wonderful part of this VC network is a 2004 MIT project: Black Ships & Samurai: Commodore Perry and the Opening of Japan (1853-1854). To round out this learn node with something for those who prefer text to pictures, a detailed historical essay on Perry’s Japan arrival can be found in Fordham University’s Modern History SourceBook: Commodore Matthew Perry: When We Landed in Japan, 1854.


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