Olympics' wilderness: Funding teachers and librarian-teachers, thanks to the extraordinary Digital Public Library of America, World University and School's emphasis on teaching, building on Reed College's conference method, Thanks for great library resources and in all languages

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The DPLA and School Libraries: Partners Focused on Digital-Era Learners

By John Palfrey on January 22, 2013

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/01/digital-libraries/the-dpla-and-school-libraries-partners-focused-on-digital-era-learners/


One thesis of this article by John Palfrey, who is chair of the steering committee of the extraordinary Digital Public Library of America initiative (http://dp.la/ and see http://dp.la/info/news/press/), which should have library resources online this April 2013, is that the DPLA will free up financial resources for actual teaching in schools everywhere. This is both important, and relatively underemphasized in recent conversations about MOOCs (massive online open courses) and online education, let alone in the classroom. While Palfrey suggests that educational systems and budgets will also be able to fund librarians as teachers, in addition to classroom teachers and other teachers, from the savings gained that might otherwise be spent on texts, textbooks, and library acquisitions, due to the DPLA, World University and School appreciates this emphasis on teachers, teaching and learning suggested in this article.

World University and School has long been planning to engage the Conference Method of Teaching and Learning for our upcoming, MIT-centric, degree programs, building on Reed College's emphasis on the Conference Method, by engaging it online in Google + group video hangouts, for example. While WUaS doesn't yet have the financial resources to hire full time faculty to teach via the Conference Method, WUaS plans to begin the process hiring graduate student instructors from great universities such as MIT and Harvard in autumn 2014, who would teach online in conferences and sections, in conjunction with MIT faculty in MIT OCW video and audio to begin - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/audio-video-courses. (WUaS, as wiki, also makes it possible for YOU to teach, for example to your web camera or in a Google + Hangout via the Conference Method, if you like).

World University and School is also thrilled by upcoming library resources from the DPLA for WUaS's upcoming, MIT OCW-centric a) The College at WUaS, b) Ph.D. degrees' program at WUaS, c) the law school, d) the medical school, as well as e) International Baccalaureate program (and eventually in many languages, beginning with the United Nations' languages), but also for WUaS's Library Resources' wiki, subject page, and eventually in all 7,413+ languages. The DPLA may well serve as a model for other languages' online libraries, which WUaS could eventually spearhead, as well as for freeing up financial resources for MIT-centric teaching and learning between languages. A teaching and learning conversation facilitated by teachers, supported by adequate library resources, and worldwide, will benefit so many people and societies.







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