Discover the dramatic changes that are affecting all learners Web-based technology has opened up education around the world to the point where anyone can learn anything from anyone else at any time.

Introduction to the Open Learning World 1 1 We All Learn 25 2 To Search and to Scan 55 Opener #1: Web Searching in the World of E-Books 3 E-Demand Around the Globe 91 Opener #2: E-Learning and Blended Learning 4 It's a Free Software World After All 139 Opener #3: Availability of Open Source and Free Software 5 MIT in Every Home 163 Opener #4: Leveraged Resources and OpenCourseWare 6 Portals for the People 183 Opener #5: Learning Object Repositories and Portals 7 Making a Contribution 203 Opener #6: Learner Participation in Open Information Communities 8 Collaborate or Die! 249 Opener #7: Electronic Collaboration and Interaction 9 Who Are You? 275 Opener #8: Alternative Reality Learning 10 U-Learning? 293 Opener #9: Real-Time Mobility and Portability 11 Learning at Your Service 327 Opener #10: Networks of Personalized Learning 12 The Treasures and Traps of This Open Learning World 355 Acknowledgments 409 The Author 415 Endnotes 419 Index 461

Praise for The World Is Open "In this epic effort, Dr. Bonk takes the technologies, the concepts, the future and even the past of distance education and synthesizes it into a comprehensible landscape. . . . Masterful!"—GLENN R. JONES, chancellor, Jones International University ". . . .This book captures the true potential of technology and open and shared content to eliminate the educational divide. For this reason, The World Is Open is required reading for all participants in the world’s ongoing, technology-led education revolution."—SCOTT MCNEALY, chairman and co-founder, Sun Microsystems and founder, Curriki.org "Curtis Bonk . . . . synthesizes a staggering range of views and tools into one of the widest and most readable overviews yet of the world of open learning starting to envelop all of us."—MARTIN DOUGIAMAS, founder and lead developer of Moodle and executive director of Moodle Pty. Ltd. "As everyone now knows, thanks to Thomas Friedman, the world is flat. And now, thanks to Curtis Bonk, we know that the world of learning is open."—MILTON CHEN, executive director, The George Lucas Educational Foundation, publishers of Edutopia magazine and edutopia.org "Open software and open learning—those two concepts are rocking the world. . . . Bonk has brought together the key ideas underlying this wave of disruption in an engaging and provocative format."—ELLIOT SOLOWAY, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, University of Michigan and co-founder of GoKnow, Inc.