Einztein.com – online courses + social network for teachers/peers = rich learning?

Posted by David Jennings on February 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment 

We all know that learning is not just about transferring content; dialogue and relationships are key to gaining deep understanding of concepts. So stand-alone online learning resources don’t cut it. But if you took some Open Educational Resources and added some low cost teacher/peer relationships, using social networking tools, would you then have enough to make a full learning ‘meal’? It’s difficult to be sure from the website, and the service has yet to start private beta, but that appears to be the Einztein.com model.

Read/Write Web has a feature that says “Einztein also plans to launch its own social knowledge network, BrainWave, later this year. This will include a premium subscription service that will include a suite of online social tools to allow students and teachers to communicate and share their online publications, research and discussions.” That was written last year: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/einztein_launches_phd-curated_online_education_sea.php

Clipped from einztein.com

Einztein serves as a universal campus from which online learners can easily explore free online courses delivered by any combination of text, audio, video and other media. Whether you already know the course you’re looking for, or you just have a general idea, the purpose of Einztein is to make online courses easy to find. All courses featured on Einztein are hand picked by our editorial team based on their completeness and quality.

The Social Learning Network Free online courses are the cornerstone of what we are constructing: a service that will enable you to engage in academic collaboration with other online learners and educators. In other words, a social learning network. For instance, Einztein is not only intended to help you choose the courses that might be worth a closer look, it is also aimed at helping you do your academic work. What do we mean, exactly? Well, not to be too coy about it, but we’re currently developing and testing some tools that will bring the Einztein social learning network to life. These will be introduced in the coming months. Read more at einztein.com

 

Filed under New models · Tagged with courses, directory, einztein, learning, New models, OER, social network