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Let’s Find the Best New Ideas for Independent Learners

By Justin Reich — June 20, 2013 1 min read
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Anya Kamenetz is facilitating a contest this summer, with the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning folks and the MIT Media Lab, to hunt down the most engaging new ideas in open learning for independent learners. I think of it as a project to find the next DS106 or P2PU, the next learning experience that will help us reimagine what’s possible with the Web as a learning platform. Here’s the contest summary from Anya’s blog:

Reclaim Open Learning is a small innovation contest, sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, the Digital Media and Learning Hub, and the MIT Media Lab with a humble mission. We want to find the five best examples of innovation happening right now in higher ed.

The best of truly open, online and networked learning + The knowledge and expertise represented by institutions of higher education = Reclaim Open Learning.

We’re trying to find out:


  • What are independent learners and innovative teachers doing now that deserves support, recognition, and scaling up?
  • How can colleges and universities engage with the social, participatory, and open learning ecology of the Internet in ways that go beyond making, using, or resisting xMOOCs?
  • What kinds of infrastructures, policies, and business models can support more participatory and peer-based forms of post-secondary learning?
  • What kind of programs and platforms could meld the grassroots capacity and peer-based learning of the net with the knowledge, expertise, and credibility of institutionalized research and education?

If you think you have an answer to these questions, or you just want to talk to us about it, submit an entry form here. Entries are due August 2, 2013. Winners will receive a small prize and Winners will recieve a $2000 honorarium and be invited to present at a summit on Reclaiming Open Learning at UC Irvine on September 26-27, 2013.

For more info, go to the official site here.

For regular updates, follow me on Twitter at @bjfr and for my publications, C.V., and online portfolio, visit EdTechResearcher.

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