Linking up for new educational opportunity
Open Portal Network helps you connect with others working to enhance learning around the world. You are a node in the network. Around you are the people and organizations you already know about and work with everyday to build new ways to teach and learn. Nodes connect with other nodes to form the network. By sharing you what you do, you help reinvent education. These pages and posts let you link up with communities of like-minded educational practitioners. Discover the people and organizations you need to know about. Share your work with them. Read on to find out how.
Who is Open Portal Network for?
Learners, Educators, Activists, Organizations, Associations and Networks
Open Portal Network is network of networks for meeting and sharing
- links to organizations and networks,
- concepts and ideas about alternative education and learning,
- resources and learning materials to use in homes, schools, and learning centers,
- articles and posts that discuss what needs to be done, what we have already accomplished, and how to do more,
- contact information for network nodes and participating individuals.
How can you participate?
Explore the Concepts, Ideas, and Resources shared here
Social innovation happens when individuals with shared passion, purpose, and direction come together and collaborate. Open Portal Network is an online tool to accelerate the development of new and progressive ways of teaching and learning for today and tomorrow. Skip around the pages and posts connected here until you find a concept, project, or organization that captures your interest. Read what has been shared so far and then jump in with your own ideas and contributions.
There is plenty of room in Open Portal Network for diverse and divergent approaches to education. Let’s discover each other and join forces with those who want to improve the old or construct the new in compatible ways.
Join the conversation at
openportal4learning.mn.co
Add your insights and contributions in ongoing discussions groups that you initiate and lead. Foster a collaborative and inclusive learning experience among peers who share your passion for new approaches to learning for children and adults.
Through participation in Open Portal Network, your unique perspectives, experiences and knowledge will flow around this community of dedicated teachers and learners. Engaging in meaningful dialogue about a wide range of topics related to education, learning and personal growth will trigger new curriculum in existing schools and colleges and support the flowering of new institutions that bring skills and know-how to more learners.
Become a content contributor
The information and ideas on Open Portal Network come from network participants, not from any one person or organization. However, to keep the site free of spam and unrelated advertising we ask contributors to register. Your first few posts will be monitored by the administrative team. Once you have demonstrated that you are trustworthy and understand what content is appropriate for Open Portal Network you will have permission post as often as you like. Please fill out a contact form and tell us what you would like to write about. A member of the administration team will get back in touch with you within a few days. The more content contributors there are the more useful the network will be for all participants.
LEAD A SEMINAR OR WORKSHOP
Open Portal Network exists to help you share your ideas, know-how, and energy around the world. Many organizational nodes are looking for presentations to add to their meetings and conferences. Use this network to discover who would be delighted to feature you at their next event. If the right platform for your workshop doesn’t already exist, fill out a contact form and describe what we might create together. Whether you present online or in person, you are “walking the talk” of education when you convene a meeting around a common interest.
Volunteer for the opnet administration team
Open Portal Network is held together through the efforts of a small group of volunteers who believe that the educational systems in place around the world today need to grow and change. The website you are visiting is the result of that group’s work to date. As the network expands this administrative team must also grow. Please take a look at our blog post “How did this website happen”. It suggests a few of the role volunteers can fill and there are now others. If you want to ensure that Open Portal Network continues to connect us, get in touch via the contact form. Thank you.
Who is behind Open Portal Network?
Founded and supported by LO*OP Center, INc.
Open Portal Network was initiated by the California-based nonprofit, LO*OP Center, Inc. in the summer of 2021. It is being incubated by LO*OP until its participants choose to make it an independent organization. The administrative team meets online, once per week, to address the needs of the platform and strategize about how to nurture it. So far, key team members, almost all unpaid volunteers, include Liza Loop, Fiston Muganda, Margaret Blauvelt, Anna Narbutovskih, Jean Muguzo, Edric Kilimann, Avi Drucker, and others. Minimal funding has been provided by LO*OP Center and additional financial support is needed.
Purpose
The purpose of Open Portal Network is to encourage individuals, organizations, and networks of organizations to work together to support learning for every person, everywhere.
Together we can power a global movement to bring 21st century learning to all. The OpenPortal.network site and OpenPortal4Learning together invite you to contribute ideas, announce events and suggest resources. If you’d like to post an essay or a blog about alternative and expanded education on this site, contact us.
We believe that lasting social change happens within small groups of people at the local level working in homes, on the street, in schools and colleges, on the playing field, at places of work and worship, in the halls of governance.
People need to talk about their hopes, their fears and what they and their children need to learn to survive and thrive in our rapidly changing world. Through conversations they devise strategies for solving their problems and realizing their hopes for the future. They build infrastructures for learning – clubs, schools, playing fields, maker spaces, online social media events, workplace mentoring programs, self-help groups for parents. Open Portal Networks exist to connect you with others who share your dreams for learning.
This website offers links to the organizations and ideas you want to share with fellow learners and educators. Visit NETWORK to discover organizations where you can participate in bringing new educational practices to life. Visit CONCEPTS to explore the ideas, values, and issues that shape the educational landscape today and tomorrow.
Become a network node: help spread access to knowledge about educational alternatives and know-how across planet Earth.
Explore our latest GLOSSARY entry
Holistic Education “Holistic approach: This is an approach which aims to educate the
whole child, physically, socially, emotionally, and academically, with the
active engagement and support of the community.” Read more…
