Latest Thoughts on the OPuS

First, Demetri Orlando suggests using 'OPuS' instead of 'OPUS'. This would imply that the full name is 'Online Progressive unSchool', which seems reasonable to me. Thanks Demetri! If you think you might like to help with the development of OPuS please check out this wiki.

I tend to do most of my brainstorming about OPuS early in the morning. I'll get up at 5 or even earlier to have the free time to just sit and think and tweet quietly. I use a sketch pad to get ideas out where I can look at and puzzle with them. Often I'll draw little sketches. The sketch below explores the idea that OPuS will provide an infrastructure of platforms upon which students can share and develop their ideas.

I also like to send out a few tweets each morning, in which I try and capture my latest thinking. Here are some from the past few days. Read from bottom to top if you want to read in the sequence posted.

•We know that in the brain knowledge is networked. We still don't get this regarding our communities, but the net is growing.

•OPuS is an infrastructure supporting open and visible platforms which facilitate rapid development of mastery in one's interest domain.

•Role of the Online Progressive unSchool (OPuS) is to open up opportunities for others to shine.

•Help envision & construct a place where students can connect with others who share an interest. http://j.mp/eMgnco @jseelybrown

•Help design & create a place where students' drive for autonomy, mastery & purpose can thrive. http://j.mp/eMgnco @danielpink

•Help imagine & build a place where students can find and pursue what @sirkenrobinson calls their 'element'. http://j.mp/eMgnco

•Curious about OPUS? Want to spend some time in your own ZPD? Come visit at: http://eva2.wikispaces.com

•Coming to help build OPUS? Don't forget your toolbox! We are gonna need all the tweet'n, blogg'n & wiki'n skills we can rustle up.

•Out there on the pedagogical frontier we are going to have a virtual UnSchool raisin'. Bring the whole family. We'll be building community!

•The Online Progressive UnSchool (OPUS) needs some pioneers to head out (virtually of course) to the far side of the adjacent possible.

•Perhaps the Zone of Adjacent Possible (ZAP) is to entrepreneurs what the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is to educators?

•Benefits to participating in OPUS. Improve your reputation, skills, knowledge & PLN all while playing, exploring & creating.

•Wondering if OPUS http://bit.ly/i3g69r might be beyond the adjacent possible http://bit.ly/dEkU1X

2 responses
Fred,
I continue to enjoy your musings and sketches of the future. Untethering school from the cumbersome girders of institutional life is the next phase. We need nimble un-structures, soft, flexible forms. Since you credit Demetri Orlando above with suggesting lower case for OPuS, I'd appreciate a shout-out for your "borrowing" of the word <un-school> from my recent email. Equity and attribution of sources are big issues in education ;-) online and off.
Best, Linda
Linda, Sincere apologies. To all readers, as Linda notes in the above comment, she used the word 'un-school' in a recent email exchange and it seemed to me to embody the concept I'm trying to develop here. Thanks for the correction. Fred