EduFeedr is a feed reader for online courses where each participant is using his/her personal blog to publish thoughts on course readings, answers to assignments and other course related posts.
We have just release a beta version of the EduFeedr software. It runs in here:
. . . and you may downloaded it from here:
The EduFeedr development is based on a simple vision (with an intertextual reference to the Wikimedia’s vision):
Imagine courses that take place in wikis, blogs, social networks…
Actually you don’t need to imagine this. There are people who are doing it right now. The Personal Learning Environments, Networks and Knowledge (PLENK2010) facilitated by Stephen Downes, Dave Gormier, Rita Kop and George Siemens with more than 1000 participants (if I got it right) is the best example of the phenomena. Kudos!
We hope that the EduFeedr will help in courses like PLENK2010, although we did not really have so massive courses in mind when designing the tool. In practice we were more looking for online course with 100 people or so.
A funny thing with the EduFeedr is that it is actually a Learning Management System (LMS): an idea I have been criticizing and fighting against for close to 15 years now. I have been like the late Alonso Quixano tilting at windmills.
For my defense I can admit that the EduFeedr is very different LMS. It is free, open and libre in all possible meanings of the terms. You are free to use it. It works with courses that are free for anyone to join. All the content created in these courses are free. People may naturally use different licenses with the content of the courses but at least it will all be, by default (and there are not other option), accessible for you and everybody else online.
So, I still think that with the LMS, as they are today, there is something fundamentally wrong. I am not sure if EduFeedr is the final right answer (I doubt), but I am sure it is a step to the right direction.
Here is a short video presentation of the EduFeedr idea.
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With EduFeedr I think it is fair to give most of the credit related to it to Hans Poldoja. In the research group we work as a team, but in this case the leadership, the design, the design decisions and most of the hard work was all carried out alone by Hans.
teemuleinonen.fi 