Day 2: School of Open in Berlin

Pontificating, openly. CC-BY: bagaball on Flickr

For the first two days of School of Open workshopping, our process has teetered between in-the-clouds theorizing and on-the-ground brainstorming. This often results in chaos but I think we’re actually getting somewhere.

Forward progress:

• We’re starting to get a better idea of exactly what the School of Open could be — not only learning modules about how to use Creative Commons licenses and where to find useful open content, but also on-going conversations about the theory of open systems and their effect on society.
• Focusing on the everyday actions of individuals has been quite helpful in figuring out what sorts of skills people might develop through the School.
• We’ve rehashed the School’s purpose and scope to help keep our thinking in-line with the initial draft charter.

We had a great brainstorming session trying to, literally, verbalize all the things people do in the world, like “publish” and “build” and “imagine”. This quickly pro digressed from “debate openly” and “plan openly” to “sleep openly”, “fight openly”, “love openly” and the inevitable “____ openly”.  Good, clean fun. Focusing on actions – what are we helping people do, as opposed to just learn – helped  clarify our thinking.