Students and mentors of all ages working together in UK and globally
Angela, In my view of the Internet, and the world, whoever sees something that can be improved, tries to fix it, including leaving notes about how to do things. At least you replied, which is more than most sites would do. “Web Content Officer” is an interesting title. It implies a level of care beyond what most sites provide. I have tried to be a WCO for the whole Internet. There, the missing element is that most topics involve issues that do not stop at the border. I grew up in Texas and a story all children learned was about local sheriffs who would stop at the edge of town, “not my jurisdiction”. They would literally stop pursuit, at the sign that welcomes people to the town. Like some invisible barrier.
I like your “Senior People” and “Extraordinary Women”. That is rare, but not completely unknown.
(site:ac.uk “extraordinary women”) has 7,650 entry points
( “extraordinary women” OR “অসাধারণ নারী” OR “Außergewöhnliche Frauen” OR “des femmes extraordinaires” OR “非凡的女性” ) for example, has 3.5 Million entries
It is not impossible to gather and connect these kinds of communities, and I think, some value in doing so.
When I was about 8 years old, our school did not have a library, so a small truck would come – a book mobile. There was a book about Chinese so I checked it out and taught myself how to read and write basic Chinese. I thought there must be some way for all children in the world to work together in groups. A few years later, one of the Sisters (Nuns) at our school showed my class about flame spectroscopy. There were no books on that. I had to wait several years to get to a place that taught chemistry. Now I try to organize things, so every person (about 5.3 Billion using the Internet, and 8.1 billion overall) can get to Internet resources for things like
(“chemistry” OR “化学” OR “química” OR “रसायन विज्ञान” OR “كيمياء”) with 2.68 Billion entries
But that knowledge is packed differently and much duplicated and fragmented on any one site, let alone all of them.
( site:uk (“chemistry” OR “化学” OR “química” OR “रसायन विज्ञान” OR “كيمياء”)) has 134 Million
( site:ac.uk (“chemistry” OR “化学” OR “química” OR “रसायन विज्ञान” OR “كيمياء”)) has 7.85 Million
But they do not work together. Many tens of thousands of colleges and universities, and more high schools and middle school and they do not work together. The total cost to do “chemistry” at one site in the UK domain, is high, and I think rather inefficient. But a “global open site” could help anyone wanting to look at “chemistry” OR “extraordinary women” more broadly, or globally. Those kinds of sites or nodes would serve global and systemic needs.
Sorry to ramble. I have spent nearly every day for 26 years to trace out the consequences of a global open Internet (about 360*26 = 9360 days). I found many millions of useful global collaborations.
“If all the first grade children in the world, their teachers, and parents, and local businesses and government and organizations now devoted themselves to maintaining curriculum for all children that age, they collectively ought to be able to gather and present that body of knowledge, more efficiently, completely, and effectively than any school. And a child in a poor mission school in Texas could meet people who knew Chinese. Or spectroscopy and chemistry.
I made a video “California Students Working Together Regardless of School and Class and Age and Gender and Ethnicity” about 4 years ago, and it has had 16 views. It is rather complicated, because I had to invent and calculate numbers larger than most people (including me) use every day. If all the children in the world work together in any combinations, the possibilities are not infinite, but effectively so. And all it requires are sites like social media sites, but devoted to encouraging safe and carefully monitored interactions of billions of humans, no matter their language. Now we can use computer algorithms to help monitor and summarize and improve but it needs devoted humans from many countries to help.
( site:city.ac.uk ) has 145,000 entry points
( site:city.ac.uk “chinese”) has 6,700
( site:city.ac.uk “chemistry”) has 2,060
( site:ac.uk “chemistry”) has 7.96 Million
( site:ac.uk (“mentors” OR “guides”) ) has 5.62 Million
( site:uk “chemistry”) has 135 Million
( site:uk (“mentors” OR “guides”) ) has 211 Million
( “chemistry”) has 1.68 Million
(“mentors” OR “guides”) has 4.72 Billion
Even just organizing the resources of the UK would benefit the human species, and likely create sustainable global open jobs and networks.
Filed as (Students and mentors of all ages working together in UK and globally)
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
