Karim Amrani, the founder of educational research group Jibly, has been experimenting with the idea of streaming sequences of video lectures and talks.

(Flotsam is our occasional series of educational ideas from other places…)

Linking this to live commentary/chat by Facebook sign-in, Karim’s experiment seeks to make the idea of MOOC’s more accessible and discursive. Taking out the loneliness factor from on-line educational consumption? He calls it ClassroomFM.

The early model streams YouTube videos from Stanford University, across a range of themes including enterprise, health, society, technology and education.

As the project develops we would like to see some form of timetable or forward view of upcoming talks, perhaps with ‘time available localised’ to your machine or device, along with other forms of sign-in rather than just Facebook perhaps.

This early iteration of the feed has some way to go to be a mature service, but offers an interesting idea that might be adopted by schools, universities and groups like IETT?

Our growing catalogue of filmed debate could be available on-line, looped continuously 24/7, and interested visitors could drop in and comment and discuss, in real time, with their peers the ideas being presented by the featured speaker. (An IETT tech development project for 2016 perhaps…Ed?)

You can see Karim speak at  TED AmsterdamEducation below. It is perhaps a talk strong on chutzpah and less pronounced on reforming detail, but it is entertaining. Those who currently teach and lecture may find it challenging…

TEDAmsterdamEducation offers insights into educational change. Although the event took place in 2012, the contributions are relevant and informative. You can explore fifteen TEDAmsterdam videos on this YouTube playlist here.

All festive good wishes for the season to our readers.

Wishing you a happy, active and project progressive 2016!