[p2p-research] Fwd: CALL FOR PAPERS on networked learning, thanks for spreading this, and considering your contribution

[Pamela McLean]

Dear Michel

You forwarded a CALL FOR PAPERS on networked learning to P2P, with "thanks
for spreading this, and considering your contribution". I am therefore
considering the relevance of what I know and replying bot directly to P2P
and via an open letter to http://dadamac.posterous.com/

I think some of the things I know  regarding the work of Dadamac and Minciu
Sodas would be of interest regarding the call for papers that you mentioned:
Peer-to-Peer Collaboration and Networked Learning. Dadamac's work is about
enabling collaboration (mostly, but not only, between between UK and
Nigeria) and is usually about networked learning of one kind and another. We
could never have come together and collaborated before the existence of the
Internet. http://www.dadamac.net/about-us.  Minciu Sodas  (Lithuanian for
Orchard of Thoughts) is a large online community, which Andrius Kulikauskas
started eleven years ago and which  has enabled an immeasurable amount of
learning.

In Dadamac (and in a different way through Minciu Sodas) people are
exploring various ways of using the Internet to create collaborative
communities, to network, and to learn from each other.

For instance Dadamac's Cameras for Communication course was jointly
developed by Riccardo (in UK) and by the people who subsequently presenting
the course in Nigeria. To greatly oversimplify the division of labour:
Ricardo in the UK provided the course content words and the Nigerians
provided local photos. http://www.dadamac.net/projects/cameras4communication

The initial development of People's Uni was another cross cultural
collaboration made possible by the Internet (Prof Dick Heller in UK and John
Dada in Nigeria) http://www.dadamac.net/projects/peoplesuni Dadamac is now
doing a new collaboration with People's Uni to produce a distance learning
course on Sickle Cell Disease for health professionals. This blog post
explains the need http://www.dadamac.net/blog/20100204/sickle-cell and this
one explains the response and move towards course development
http://www.dadamac.net/blog/20100319/starting-new-dadamac-ok-project-scd-peoples-uni

Since that blog post five health professionals have joined the course
development team. As I remember from the introductions,  I think they all
Doctors (I know that three of them are) and  they are all in different
locations, (scattered across three different countries in Africa). At
present we are introducing ourselves, discovering how "bandwidth rich or
bandwidth challenged" our team members are, and discussing what should be
included on the course.  It will be a challenge. The work has no funding,
but there is a need, People's Ini provides the online venue and the
structure for developing and presenting the course, and people are willing
to put in time to do it, so we will give it a go.

Lots of things going on that relate to Peer-to-Peer Collaboration and
Networked Learning which are far outside of the formal educational system,
However,t most of the learned papers are (naturally) written by people who
are in the formal educational system so they write what they know and the
non-formal stuff tends to be less well known. One of my favourite examples
of practical non-formal learning is this one about cholera prevention.
http://learnbydoinguk.blogspot.com/2009/01/tom-ricardo-and-life-saving-learning.html

There are lots of other stories of how people are getting together online to
"rub minds" - but  the people who do it are usually more concerned with
exchanging information than telling people about what is happening. There
are many situations where people are  asking and answering questions and
just generally helping each other to learn. It is what friends have always
done for each other - except that now, instead of the friends helping "over
your shoulder"they are helping "over the Internet".

Even if this is of interest I won't be writing it up for the journal that
you mention, because, rightly or wrongly I assume the journal is by
academics for academics, and I am not part of that culture. Years ago (if I
saw a call for case-studies) I used to sometimes try to cross the boundary
between "academics" and "practitioners' by writing up what I knew, but the
gap was too wide. I don't know the academic references that would enable me
to place what I do know in the context of academic research, and I lack
various other skills related to academic writing. Understandably, in an
academic peer-review situation my offerings seem inappropriate and
journalistic.

However, now and again, it does seem worth just popping up on the edge of
academia to "smile and wave and make friendly noises". Then if any academics
do want to cross the divide between formal and non-formal education they
will know that there are people on this side of the gap ready to make them
welcome.

If there are any academics who would be interested in knowing more about the
items I have mentioned (or about related items) with a view to sharing
knowledge about non-formal learning (perhaps even writing a paper about it)
I would be happy to help.

Pamela McLean
UK-Africa Connections
Dadamac Ltd - Knowledge Brokers
www.dadamac.net
pamela.mclean at dadamac.net
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