The natural granularity of knowledge itself will inexorably cause order to emerge out of the now chaotic jumble of online education. Click “open” and “shut” in the above animation to see the simple network principle: When little pieces of what an institution or expert knows are released into the online networks of ideas, these pieces follow network laws attracting them to link as nodes into patterns of related ideas.
For the past dozen plus years, there have been many sorts of “edu” stuff put online: museum exhibits, the work of science labs, webpages by college professors and departments, lesson plans, curricula, and courses. Some of this has been OER (open educational resources). Much of it is proprietary — for sale — to schools and libraries and/or generated at universities for use within their ivy firewalls. Most of it has been bundled in big pieces, trapping the nodes of ideas in bundles of pedagogy. Like proprietary resources and the building in the animation, a course or curriculum or textbook is shut. The bits of knowledge cannot release into the open patterning network of subjects and ideas.
OPEN AND UNBUNDLED ARE THE FIRST KEYS: As little pieces are released, they enrich the global commons, and are vetted naturally so the best of the stuff is emerged from virtual chaos. Network laws will force and form the global commons of what is known by humankind within the open internet. I call the open portion of the internet the golden swamp because of this phenomenon.
THE THIRD KEY IS FINDABILITY: If you are an expert in some area of knowledge, you can add to the commons by putting what you know online in open and unbundled webpages. But there is one more crucial step: You need to optimize those webpages so they are findable in the network. Here are a couple of articles I have written on this third principle:
The Curious Case of the Polio Virus Learn Node
OER: The Sleeping SEO Giant
And this is my favorite example of how the network naturally elevates what is known by humankind: Tables of Elements
