The web is changing how we learn. It surrounds us with a massive and remixable tapestry of perspectives, facts and data. It gives us the freedom to learn whatever we want at our own speed and in our own way. It lets us become our own teachers. Fundamentally: the free and open nature of the internet is revolutionizing learning.
Who among us has not fallen into a long journey across the web on a surprising topic? Or learned a new skill by making, building or creating something online? Or, for that matter, found a new mentor or apprentice in a forum or on a social network? More and more, this is how we learn.
The open technology and culture of the internet are at the heart of this revolution. They give us raw material to take control of our own learning. Teachers and learners around the world are experimenting, inventing, creating, exploring and building in wonderful ways with this raw material. Mozilla's 2010 Drumbeat Festival is a gathering of these people.
Drumbeat Festival 2010 will showcase people, ideas and projects making connections between learning, freedom and the web. Things like:
- A secure ‘data backpack' where students control their own learning materials and credentials
- Libraries transformed into digital garages where kids learn to make, do and create with an agile, hacker attitude
- Massively scaled apprenticeship, we people learn by diving into the world of open source master craftspeople
- Hackerspaces where people teach each other about everything from robots to lasers to knitting
- Alternative accreditation models based on web and open source peer review techniques
The idea is to gather people with the puzzle pieces needed to ideas like these real: data portability; open educational resources; secure, decentralized storage in the cloud; open content licenses; agile thinking; open, user controlled online identity; massive, credible informal learning opportunities; passion.
Drumbeat Festival 2010 is being organized in partnership with Creative Commons, MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
