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There's not much that frightens Microsoft but 'open source does'. A rival operating system is eating into the Redmond giant's massively profitable server software market - and the software is free. It is created not by a small team of company employees locked like a Papal conclave in a room developing proprietary software in great secrecy but by a loose collective of programmers constantly changing and developing the code and publishing the changes online for anyone to see... and for anyone to help. This open source approach, geeks assure us is better, more stable and more powerful than its tightly controlled top-down rival.

And it's not just software. The media and music businesses are also fighting rearguard actions against bottom-up content. 'Citizen journalists' are reporting live from the scene of Tsunamis and wars with content more relevant, real and alive than that from professional hacks in their hotels. Garage bands are sharing their music, collaborating and even making money outside the control of the top-down structures of music scouts and execs. The Internet is shifting the focus of content from top to bottom and redrawing the power relations. And there are glimmers that the same is happening in education.

I'm currently contributing in small way to that revolution by creating an Internet space for young people about 'global citizenship'. Not much new there, everyone from the BBC to charities and commercial publishers have been churning sustainability content out for young people since it became sexy and, with the advent of citizenship within the National Curriculum, commercially interesting. The project links schools in England with others around the world. Again, nothing new. There have been many twinning projects. What is new is that I've created the space and now I'm letting the young people create the content and in a very real way drive the project.

this World is Our World (tWiOW) consists of two websites. Each participating institution has a Weblog where the young people can post their thoughts, ideas, comments, links to stories they found online or off, or... anything they want. Each participant can also comment on entries in this rolling Blog, whether to agree, disagree, add new information or simply to acknowledge the idea. This is news from young people's own perspective, written in their own voice, prioritised according to their agendas and concerns - content from the bottom up. A discourse of 'global citizenship' built by those for whom it is not an academic exercise or political ideology but a reality and a future. As project co-ordinator, I - or any of the teachers involved - can add comments or even post material but we are equal players not teachers. Our entries are just ones among many.

The other site takes this network perspective even further. The tWiOW Wiki is a site which allows anyone to create content, edit pages, add links and build the information architecture any way they like.

The tWiOW Wiki is open. The young people are not told what to post or where. If they want to create a section on global warming, they can. If they want to spin off a section on the UK election, it's their choice. And those sections can be in any form. They can be rants and raves or considered arguments. They can be links to material or news. They can be personal observations or local comment. They can be creative responses... whatever the community wants.

Again, teachers can play a part but even in its early days it is clear that the community is more than capable of running its own show.

Traditional and even radical educators will doubtless raise the question of what the young people are actually learning about sustainability or citizenship. The most obvious answer is that they are first and foremost learning to engage with the issues, respond to them, communicate and take responsibility for their own political positions, communication and indeed education. Beyond that however they are already beginning to discover that they need to do their own research to expand the piece they are working on or the discussion they are involved in. The passion they are showing when given the tools to speak in their own voice, is driving them towards demanding more of themselves.

This network effect is set to increase exponentially as other schools join in and bring their own cultural and political discourses to bear. This is not a passive penpal or even e-twinning project where young people swap structured and defined pieces of work. This is a group of young people meeting in a virtual space and simply chatting and then possibly planning what to do next.

It has been interesting to see how, even early on how many of the initial group have raised the issue of how to take their concerns and political discussions and actually 'do something'.

Another criticism might be that in such an open space, the young people might not stay within the canon of 'sustainability discourse'. What is to stop them writing about football or fashion? The simple answer is, nothing. The space is open; the bar is serving drinks and let the conversations flow. Indeed one young man did start a page about the fact that the British press didn't support the country's sportsmen and women. That page has now developed and linked to broader discussions about the role of the press, what is patriotism? and the moral and ethical obligations of celebrities. The boy did not need to be told to write about 'globalisation' or 'fairness', the structure of the Wikispace brought those issues out. Where they will take him and others who join the conversation, I don't know. I'm a journalist so I may add a bit to the discussion. Other teachers may offer comments but our contributions like any others are not the last word. On a Wiki or a Blog, there is no 'last word'.

And here lies the radical potential and yes, the problem. This Open Source learning repositions education, the teacher and the pupil and reconfigures the power relations that are at the heart of traditional and progressive approaches to global education.

Even in these very early stages of the project, it is clear that there is real learning going on, connections being made and holistic thinking emerging naturally. It is also clear that taking a step back as a teacher is freeing up the young people to discover things about the issues and ideas, learning and indeed themselves. In one part of the site, one young woman writes powerfully about energy use and on another, she writes a poem, not about energy but more broadly about what it's like to be a 14 year-old girl in modern Britain. Here she articulates her fears and hopes about her world. This is not in the 'literacy section'. It is just part of the conversation. Anyone can link to it from anywhere else.

This is bringing academic disciplines together. Creative writing, geography, citizenship are parts of a hyperlinked whole. It is also bringing skills together. Rhetoric, analysis and poetics are tools she is using to work things out, express herself and develop her analysis and response.

There has been discussion for many years about facilitating learning, creating educational spaces and pupil-centred education. Wikis and Blogs do not just offer a new way of working those educational philosophies out in practice, they deconstruct that discourse by reconfiguring the power relations that remain at the heart of any educational space, no matter how liberal or progressive.

Wikis and Blogs are tools that once in the hands of students take on a life of their own. Like SMS messages, they are integrated into their lives at a far more profound cultural level than can be predicted or controlled. Once a student can select her news sources and bring together official Big media and local Small media, the power of the editor is undermined. Once she can comment on that news and launch discussions, the hegemony of 'the media' and ‘politics’ is undermined. Once she can link together subjects and ideas in ways that make sense to her, the power of the teacher is undermined. Once she can talk to others and has to negotiate how they will work/campaign/learn together, the power of the organisation is undermined. And once she has these tools and new ways of thinking and working, she won't want to give them up. Indeed she may start to question why things needed to be broken up for assessment, what is truth? and where her learning is going.

And here also is the problem. Despite all this network effect evangelism and belief in the power of holistic thinking, I am a teacher. I believe that my experience and knowledge can help my pupils. I believe the right question or fact can help clarify matters for them, or lead them off in profitable directions. I also believe that there are certain theoretical, philosophical and political perspectives that have helped me learn to think and that might help them. And as a writer I want to help them write better! The challenge therefore is how to play my part, where and when to jump in and when to back off.

But this is not just a problem for those of us working in wiki/blogspace. It's your problem too because your students are using the real Internet out there - not just the Big Web of the BBC and MSN but the small web of their own Blogs, peer-to-peer sharing and micro networks. They are already doing it and they'll be bringing that open source perspective into your classroom.

Those international networks are already there on games sites and chatboards, and on P2P music sharing sites. Open source and bottom up networking is their culture. It's not ours to control, it's not even ours to harness, it's their's to share.