Akcio CIPS: innovating learning through participation

SUMMARY: A Community Information and Participation System (CIPS) is a computer-mediated communication system that allows members of a community -for example, citizens of a certain region or state- to interact with information that affect them in a way that is creative, respectful of their privacy and without intermediaries. As such it has potential applications in the fields of on-line collaborative learning, web collaboration (COPs - communities of practice) and e-government.

PROPOSAL: Proponent of this activity is the Akcio International NGO. Akcio is formed by an international group of educators and technology experts committed to the development of effective educational tools at the service of citizens, based exclusively on Free Software (Affero GPL v3).

A CIPS is a computer-mediated communication system that allows members of a community -for example, citizens of a certain region or state- to interact with information that affect them in a way that is creative, respectful of privacy and without intermediaries. The concept was developed earlier than the current commercial social networks, which are based on the presence and control of the "medium" by a private company.

The purpose of CIPS is to allow members of a community -as people involved in a continuous learning process- not only to find the information they need organized according to a given criteria, but to interact with this information to reorganize it in ways that better match the needs of the community.
To support this process of reorganizing the CIPS is provided with discussion conferences that present innovative elements from the pedagogical point of view, at the service of real on-line collaborative learning (OCL) such as:

- spaces for discussion organized in a hierarchical way (the conferences);
- detailed statistics by user and by discussion
- advanced tools at the service of discussion analysis
- tools for analysing interactions between participants in the discussion
- tools for discussion-based audio messages in support or total replacement of the text messages

During this activity the first public version of a software platform will be presented.
The discussants will also provide practical examples of use of the software taken from the experience of Akcio International members at the United Nations, working with participants from five continents.

Akcio means "to share" in Esperanto.

REFERENCES:
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Akcio International: http://www.akcio-int.org
On-line Collaborative Learning: http://tinyurl.com/ocl-intro