There’s a very interesting piece in a Guardian supplement today about something they’ve labelled University 2.0.

Annoyingly — and surprisingly, considering it’s the Guardian — the article isn’t online. But not to worry, I’ll quote the bit that got me thinking:

“[Peter Scott (director of the Open University's Knowledge Media Institute)] predicts that students  will soon be mixing their higher education experiences from resources all over the world, choosing to study at Harvard, say, while listening to lecutres from Oxford, taking part in discussion groups at the University of Mumbai, and sitting exams somewhere entirely different.”

Isn’t that great? Pick ‘n’ Mix education. The finest material from the finest institutions.

A date with Greg Linch and Andrew DeVigal

And, of course, this is already happening. A fortnight ago I logged on to Twitter to see Greg Linch tweeting about his imminent live webcast with the New York Times’ multimedia editor, Andrew DeVigal. I’ll pop in and have a look, I decided, not because I was really interested in sitting down for an hour and watching, but because I a) like Greg — our careers seem to run in parellel in some weird way and b) I wanted to see if it was any good.

And boy, it really was. Watch it here. Now while the shot may have been a little dark (owing to the fact Andrew was doing a presentation), it didn’t detract from the viewing. And even when the audio dropped out of sync every so often, it didn’t really matter too much.

Why? Because Andrew was brilliant. Engaging and well-prepared, his ‘lecture’ was more like a Jobs-like keynote… pacing around the room, getting excited about what he does.

And then add to the experience that while this was going on, Greg was popping links into the chat panel so that we could have a go at what he was talking about. For example, when Andrew mentioned the Virginia Tech graphic… Greg popped up moments later with a link. In that respects, this experience was actually superior to actually being there.

Oh Mindy, you came and you gave without taking

Really, she did! And indeed… she does. Constantly. Mindy McAdams, I mean. She puts her courses online so we all can learn. I used them extensively to prepare my work for New Zealand. Not because I was lazy and just wanted to copy, but because I know that Mindy is possibly the best in the world at what she does. How do I know this? Because she puts it all online. So, if the worry from colleges and universities is that free courses will mean no students — I’d argue it means the opposite. If you do a great course, we’ll all know.

Mindy doesn’t stop there. Not content with just plonking course syllibi online, she also makes online content for teaching too. Made for her students, but shared with the world. Want to learn Flash? Take a look.

Let the thinkers do the talking

So, from the practical skills-learning of Mindy, to the theoretical get-your-mind-thinking work of Adrian Monck. I was lucky enough to catch Adrian in Cambridge last year as he introduced his new book, ‘Can you trust the media?’. He is a strikingly nice bloke and, even more importantly, he discussed things that still embed themselves in my head on a dayt-to-day basis. As I established over dinner one night in the company of Martin Hirst and Jim Tucker, a good ethical brain is as important to a journalist as his newsgathering skills.

Adrian shares his thoughts on a daily basis. Offering up links and resources that, in previous years, would traditionally be saved for his students — he teaches at City — tied up in reading lists that are as long as they are tedious.

And then there’s Paul Bradshaw, David Dunkley Gyimah and the brilliant Jay Rosen. What a dream team! Not to mention all the educational journalism blogs out there. 10,000 Words being the best example right now.

Please, sirs, can we have some more?

So all that’s great, isn’t it? Of course it is! You’d be mad to argue that all this information in the open internet isn’t promoting better journalism.

As ever, we can do so much more. At the University of Lincoln, the wisdom-ous Richard Keeble organises a series of guest lectures every fortnight. Past speakers have included the BBC’s Jonathan Charles, Channel 4’s Dorothy Byrne and, the speaker that really kicked off this blog for me, Philip Knightley.

They were all brilliant sessions. With some lively Q+A. Next month, Lincoln will be hosting Will Lewis, editor of the Daily Telegraph. I’m going to try and go. But couldn’t this be streamed too?

I know other universities are holding similar sessions. And I’m sure we’d all be interested in what each place is learning about — so why can’t we share? Why can’t some students at these universities be shown how to set up a camera and stream these guest lectures to the world. I’m sure, like when I logged on to Greg’s feed, we’d have journalism students from all over the world chipping in to ask questions, get involved in discussion and, above all, LEARN.

The great open-source syallabus

In the last month I’ve attended a lecture at the University of Miami, courtesy of Greg, and asked a question to the multimedia editor of the New York Times. I’ve taken a course in Flash journalism — thanks to Mindy — and read about the pros and cons of digital recorders — handy for the future, definitely. I’ve considered the effect of the media blackout in Gaza thanks to insight (and links to other opinions, let’s not forget) from Adrian Monck. I’ve discovered some nifty resources for following breaking news thanks to 10,000 Words. That’s one hell of an education.

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