16 Ways To Win £25k And Change Informal Learning In The UK: TeachUsABetterWay

British education and technology agency Becta has emulated The Cabinet Office's style for accessing the best ideas our citizens have to offer, by opening a national competition for ideas on how we can best help people access information on informal learning opportunities, with TeachUsALesson:

You might have a vision of an amazing design for a learning portal website, or a concept of an awesome live data feed which other sites and services could use. Or, maybe, you could help design a Facebook widget, or an iPhone app which could make finding learning opportunities a doddle.

There are £25,000 packages of dosh available for the best ideas to come forward, presenting a timely and enviable opportunity for those with visions of how simple uses of existing technologies could be harnessed to help 'regular' learners outside the schooling system discover the learning moments on their doorstep.

It's great to such an innovative approach to seeking ideas. I only hope the Great British Learning Public can come up with ideas to match.

Through my work as Digital Commissioner with Channel 4's 4iP I've gone through a Himalayan-like learning curve in assessing the hundreds of ideas we receive each quarter. Throughout the year I've been blogging much of these learnings over on the digital media industry community I founded at 38minutes. Here are some of the main posts which will hopefully be of some use in stimulating creative ideas (and knocking on the head those puppies that might be worth killing):

1. Has Google Done It? Check the Goollery
2. Do It First: Find Your Zag
3. An Idea Shared is Worth Something - stop worrying about intellectual property
4. Barack's Social Media Pulpit: models for social media spreading
5. Asking yourself the "what happens if..." questions
6. Business Models: A Starter for 10
7. "Users will sign in". Will They? Identity, Trust and Your Idea
8. Designing sites no-one has to visit
9. Commissioning for attention must-reads
10. T&RED of R&D? How developed should a pitch be?
11. Brevity is a blessing: how to pitch
12. We're from the internet and we're here to help
13. Mark Earls: Why are good ideas important?
14. How to help people better use the net: go to them, open up, let them copy
15. danah boyd on handheld social networking
16. Remixing Cities, Remixing Learning: Charlie Leadbeater

Photo by Guille