With the likes of Coursera and Khan Academy making headlines in the past year, it is undoubtedly a golden age for social learning delivered via web 2.0 channels.
Whilst most of these social learning projects have seen a small number of people delivering learning to a large number, a new project by Prepr Foundation aims to make learning a peer to peer experience. The project, called Open Prepr, is a free online open education network that aims to be like Facebook but for learning. Members will work together to tackle real-world problems, with students encouraged to exchange ideas and collaborate with each other across the platform as well as within specific courses.
“Learning through social innovation helps students to develop the skills employers seek in new graduates” says Salar Chagpar, co-founder of the site, and that is key for any new education initiative.
The site is being supported by the crowdfunding site Let’s Open Education Together, and will look for financial backing from the cloud. Donors will earn perks in the same way investors in Kickstarter projects do. These include early access to the platform or founding member status.
Prepr Foundation is an organization whose aim is to make education more accessible and social. They launched in 2011 as the start-up sponsor of the 2011 MIT Techfair.
