“The vision of the DPLA connecting citizens to and through electronic materials could also revolutionize the social structures of education. We are entering an era where knowledge and information are no longer the domain of the individual, but are rather considered to be collective. Through initiatives like Wikipedia and crowdsourcing we are coming to realize that there is a value in socially constructing meaning. DPLA could bring this collective social knowledge into the classroom and inspire a new way of reading and understanding texts.
“Courses could be designed not only around what an individual instructor knows about a subject, but also around what the public thinks and knows about it. In this way a more informed, broader perspective on what any given work means and represents could be studied, rather than the traditional, canonical, western academic view. Diverse opinions and ideas could be represented and people beyond the classroom could become a part of the discussion. This would serve the additional purpose of increasing intellectual life for society as a whole. Imagine a society in which everyone felt that their opinion and knowledge mattered and were part of a larger discussion. That would be an inspiration to many to further their education in a less formal way. This idea of informal education being of great value is not new. The MacArthur Foundation and other organizations recently proposed an initiative to make informal learning more broadly recognized through digital badges. Integrating this concept into the planning for the DPLA is one way of spreading academic learning beyond the classroom and recognizing the value of it.”
From Justin Marquis’ post on the OnlineUniversities blog, DPLA – The Most Important Cultural Advancement Since the Internet?