Learning Exchange 01

In Learning and the Commons, I speculated that the extensive empirical and theoretical work on common-pool resources might contain important messages for those of us concerned with the future of learning.

I’d like to push that notion a bit farther, just to see what kind of staying power it has. This then is the first post in what may be a series. At best it will be a sporadic series.

Let me say at the outset that I have no idea where this is going. I’m merely playing. I’ll cease whenever the play ceases or whenever the idea evaporates, whichever comes first.

Here’s the basic idea. We all have some stuff we know and other stuff we’d like to know. What if there was a mechanism to exchange the stuff we know for the stuff we’d like to know?

Let’s call this mechanism a Learning Exchange. What might these new institutions look like?

I have only the foggiest notion. In my next post I’ll introduce we the participants in an exchange simplified to make discussion easier. And in a third post I’ll discuss what transactions occur in the exchange itself (ie, the money question). Then I’ll pause to determine if sketching a few more of the many remaining details seems worthwhile.

Please feel free to jump in at any time. Company would be swell.