http://omeka.org/
The basics
“Omeka is a free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions. Its ‘five-minute setup’ makes launching an online exhibition as easy as launching a blog. Omeka falls at a crossroads of Web Content Management, Collections Management, and Archival Digital Collections Systems…”.
Omeka is clearly a system with a big future which takes users into a more complex structure world of ‘exhibiting’ their work online, fusing networking with traditional processes of curation. It specifically targets scholars and educators, as well as librarians and museologists. Educators can “use Omeka to build inquiry-based tasks for students, to create lesson plans with accompanying primary sources, or build learning modules with your team.”. The emphasis here is on the publication, with scaffolding, of original materials.
What needs to be explored
While Omeka looks promising, early investigations suggest its power and flexibility comes at the cost of apparent ease of use. The software is, while free, professional. It probably requires some expertise in already ‘thinking’ digital and specifically in the context of knowledge curation and publishing. So, the exploration from here would be the extent to which this complexity benefits the learning process because, unlike many other tools here, Omeka is stripped of the more commercial ‘audience builduing’ features of most Web 2.0 applications.
There is plenty of documentation, examples and similar materials at the Omeka site.
Pedagogic Challenge
Complex applications lead to sophisticated and satisfying learning experiences, when they are treated seriously and students see that time spent learning them not only profits their online skills but also the acquisition of knowledge about the subject being studied. Omeka would probably work best as the centre piece of an entire unit of study. The challenge is this: how can you redesign an entire unit of study so that all activities are focused around creating, managing and then learning from a substantial piece of online curatorial work. In other words, the students (not the teacher) should be in charge of creating the exhibition.
Alternatives
This one is, to be honest, unique. That might be its appeal!
