Last week, the Departments of Education and Defense announced the pending launch of “Learning Registry,” an open source community and technology designed to improve the quality and availability of learning resources in education. Learning Registry is not intended to be an alternative to existing websites, but rather a communication system that allows existing educational portals and online systems to publish, consume and share important information about learning resources with each other and the public, while respecting the privacy of individual users.
An explanation on the Learning Registry home page claims the tool is “not a website or repository… not a search engine… and not a replacement for the excellent sources of online learning content that already exist… the Learning Registry is an open source technical system designed to facilitate the exchange of data behind the scenes, and an open community of resource creators, publishers, curators, and consumers who are collaborating to broadly share resources, as well as information about how those resources are used by educators in diverse learning environments across the Web.”
In a cursory review of the website, it does not appear to be fully launched and at the moment contains information and resources geared toward developers rather than the community at large. It is unclear at this point how membership and usage will be managed; press releases indicate that anyone will be able to access and publish, but there are no details yet on whether there will be a registration or moderation process. Another thing that remains unclear is whether the site will be of practical use to educators who are not technology experts and/or only have access to basic classroom technology (e.g., a computer hooked to a projector).
So far, dozens of organizations have signed on to collaborate in developing and adding content to the site, including the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, PBS, Booz Allen Hamilton, European Schoolnet, and the National Science Digital Library, among others.
To learn more about the Learning Registry and get involved with the effort, please visit http://www.learningregistry.org/home
As always it is the teacher and parents who must make education relevant to students. Technology should become nothing more than a tool. Where all are able to obtain access to hardware and applications.Laptops, iPads, and netbook computers — paid for with the help of state dollars — are becoming an increasingly common sight in classrooms.