I’m not sure how to be with D’Arcy AND Jen on this one since their posts seem to indicate a bit of opposition. Then again, I don’t see any hope of the institution transforming, as Barbara seems to wish for, so my constant goal is trying to empower educators and students (and what’s the practical difference most of the time, really?) to allow for their own transformation.

Jen’s point #7 is the most important (#5 is totally bizarre, incidentally. I have no idea what the question means), but also brings the circle back around because we tend to overlook while letting go with all the “let’s just connect people” happiness that people connect and interact around social objects. Those objects are what makes a social network work.

D’Arcy ends with “I’d much rather just focus on working with people to get them to share the cool stuff they’re doing, without worrying about acronyms.”

Barbara speaks of “students (novices) together in reciprocal apprenticeships to sort out real problems and grapple with real issues in the world, assisted by resources readily available to them.”

As far as I know, that’s what most people who are pushing open ed today are trying to do: facilitate sharing the cool stuff so that other educators and learners have more resources available to them to further their conversations.