One way to learn about open education online and how it is changing learning is to follow the many blogs cropping up. Another is to keep an eye on education conferences, though these do tend toward conversations centered on the more traditional ‘technology in education’ or use of course management systems.
Or, this past fall, you could have joined David Wiley who offered an open course attended by 40+ people on this very subject. In fact, you can still access the course materials and discussions here:
http://www.opencontent.org/wiki/index.php?title=Intro_Open_Ed_Syllabus
Is it possible to run an open course that is built around the contributions of the participants? Looks like it.