My take and personal experience in relation to "learning"
is that it does not depend on teaching, and even less so on universities, or credentials.
My take is that credentials are a poor and limited motivation for learning, although it may be one of the possible intersections.
As for the subject of this thread,
the topic of a Co-operative University,
it can imho certainly be beneficial for those who are dependent on the academic business
for making a monetary living, and I wish them well in their approach !
What is produced and consumed ?
What is being monetized ?
Does it need to be monetized ?
Is is it all about a credential economy ?
I notice articles such as
What paradigm(s) are we in, and how do we negotiate priorities in terms of learning ? ( and in producing new knowledge / research )
Can we really separate "production" and "consumption" when it comes to learning ?
And since we are sharing this on commoning and p2pfoundation lists,
what happens when everyone becomes a producer and a consumer,
and when we generate a commons for each other.
What happens when we "de-monetize" ... ?
That is, not even alter-monetize - but "no money".
What happens when there is no more chain of command,
when one does not make oneself dependent on the conditions of a monetary monopoly
( and ( imho ) its top down crafted prioritization of objectives and the specific markets it decides to create via artificial scarcity , and tribute to such hierarchy of artificial scarcity ? )
What happens when credentials are not being sold as being needed to survive or have a say in this society ?
When we generate communities based on principles of " equipotentiality "
When we can collectively shift our inter-dependencies to a communal shareholding relational dynamic ?
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I do feel that Open Learning approaches do tend towards this...
In effect, what would universities ( still ) be selling ?
An experience ? A framework ? Credentials ?
What if we can develop alternatives to each of these , with credentials melting more broadly into a reputation economy, and more directly related to records of experience from peers rather then approval by authority.
Is it reasonable to imagine "academia" shifting to a "learners based cooperative", generating their own ( potentially self organizing ) shared learning and experience environments ?
I can easily imagine further stages, which are already experimented with in certain learning environments, including support between the learners to guide each other, or between different generations.
If the current status quo , in increasingly neoliberal capitalist societies at least, is being maintained, imho it is very likely that money will not be made accessible to an increasing part of the population. Actually, it is already the case, from my point of perspective.
Learning imho is fundamental in our ( emergent ) empowerment.
imho, we need resilient tools, approaches, environments , infrastructures that can face and thrive despite , and with demonetization, still enabling us to co-create the solutions we need to facilitate our survival.
What if the work / practices experimented with by many of us on this list already opens up such potentials,
leading the internet / social media to be used to re-create, even temporarily, shared learning environments,
including "real social" learning environments including elements of face to face relationship building ?
What if we can adopt various approaches, including community participatory research, and forms of blended learning,
to support such environments ?
What if... we are already in the process of doing this ? :)
I see this emerging as a cultural trend... likely still limited within certain subcultures, yet growing,
with subcultures converging with each other, including through what today seems to be called "the sharing economy", converging with "(Social ) Incubator" narratives.
for example, temporary or longer term co-living spaces or networks such as
From such emerging cultures, themselves recycling and remixing various subcultures,
I notice tribes converging, and the living place becoming a learning and production place, all in one...
These places can even be temporary, or nomadic,
providing we can reduce the threshold for certain forms of ( nomadic ) infrastructures, or relay bases for such networks.
I appreciate the idea of spimed shelter, Eric Hunting's use of "Furnitecture" ( for recreating spaces in any indoor space, or outdoors ), and the potential to combine it with function , in a parametric and modular approach,
and in combination with the Internet of Things - as Spimes that can easily be assembled and dis-assembled by anyone, aided by mobile information technologies.
Using potentials for Semantic Technologies, in such kind of ways
( note : various projects work on this , but need more support, including UX / designers , ... - and existing code, for example from this particular research project, needs to be cleaned or re-worked
https://github.com/automenta/netentionjs2 )
Can we use such contextualizations to create shared engagement, and community ?
What limited resources could we bring in, as some form of "Learner's Cooperative" ?
note : the two lists this is being shared with