“The Idea of Openness”
The Open Educational Resources Project at the University of Cape Town
I had the opportunity while in Cape Town, South Africa, to get over to the campus of the University of Cape Town, a very esteemed institution on the continent, and talking to Michael Paskkevicius, a graduate student working in the Center for Educational Technology, with a focus on the Open Educational Resources (OER) Project. The purpose of this project, a pioneering effort amongst higher education institutions on the African continent, is to make freely and openly accessible the educational resources on offer by the university. Michael's desire is to see, “Educational resources used freely across the globe,” which has been the mantra of many new-age educational technologists, ranging from the OLPC/Sugar platform to the OLE Platform to the Wikipedia Translations arenas that are exploding around the world. In addition to the OER Project, Michael was able to steer me to some interesting paths in the work of some of his colleagues in the region, specifically pioneering using both mobile-phone and computer-based resources to close the digital divide in the developing world. After the signing of the Cape Town Open Declaration, in which global partners pledged their support in open education and knowledge using technology, the program was established.
The OER program was originally funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation of South Africa, with a vision of seeing open access to universities knowledge and resources benefit the greater society, and educational advancement as a whole. Michael asks, “How can we redistribute the resources of the University to the greater society?” Through the open-sourcing of professorial materials, including Wikipedia-based translation services which are helping to bring the previously inaccessible resources to the township and secondary-school level, OER is pioneering the way in the region. The program has worked in partnership with other open programs such as those from MIT, Johns Hopkins, and The Open University in England, to name a few, to create an easily accessible platform for social and educational change. The biggest challenges being faced include professorial buy-in, convincing academics that their work has a valued place being freely accessible to all, and the question of how useful a lot of the materials being digitized and offered will be to the general populace.
I was able to discuss some of my main ideas and concerns with Michael....the following in a reasonably-accurate transcription of what followed:
What other changemakers in the Educational Technology arena have inspired your work on this project?
The floodgates have opened, the templates and content are out there now, the question is getting the right content to the students. There is an interesting project in Mexico, where academics create entries to things that they find useful to them, which helps to share practices and tools that are found online. The teachers are sharing the techniques of learning as opposed to just providing content. Academics are experts in understanding, but to capture how they learn is very powerful. The contextual situation of the students must be taken into place, however, this is vital to consider. Bringing the everyday into the classroom.
(Interesting!!)
Another project of interest is the content of Massive Online Open Courses being produced by George Siemens; -this organization is creating a huge number of courses online at the moment. This is an interesting model, and provides a new model of academic material acquisition. Rather than subscribing to academic publishers, which are becoming more and more expensive in their distribution models. Peer to Peer University is another great example of online meetings and learning, utilizing such collaboration tools as blogs, twitter, etc, to provide an online educational exchange.
How can this platform be used to spur local innovation in the region, and to act as both an incubator for local technology driven educational projects, as well as larger cross border initiatives?
The biggest idea that can be spread from this platform to the region is the idea of openness. Most educators are weary of the internet as a source of knowledge. If we can look at platforms such as this, with content only from academics, it is a start. There is a pride of authorship from the academics involved which ensures the materials are of high standard. We do not edit the materials that we receive from our partner professors. What needs to be done to further spread this word of openness needs to be done through workshops, conferences, and the such, so people are aware of what is going on. The platform is completely open sourced that can be replicated. Links need to be created. For example,
Brazil has adopted an open sourced platform for everything that comes out of their national government, which sets an example at the national level for everything in the economy, in the social and business sectors, from the top down. The idea of openness, the platform of openness is the best way to start. Open standards, open code.
Creating a strong model of leadership, such as with Paul Kagame and his push for the OLPC platform in Rwandan schools, is the way to set the trend for the 21st century of educational technology. The directives need to be taken at the top levels, and filtered down to the masses. Social change at the grassroots is great, but it is much more effective, widespread, and tangible the other way around. Preferably, the best solution will include both!
You are currently networked with universities such as MIT and Hopkins with their open course projects, but what about other higher learning institutions in Africa, or even implementing into Secondary Schools on the continent?
The Open Courseware Consortium is in place with these universities. A result of this right now is that at UCT the students dont have to pay for access to our partner university's sites. The University of Ghana is also on board with the project and has been very involved with creating their own platform for open learning. E-Learning is, however, more the focus in Ghana, and they are more involved with educational translating and bringing the energy of the project down to the primary and secondary levels of instruction. This extended to an organization called OER Africa which works all over the continent, where they partner with any institution that wants to create technical resources.
The content involved with the project needs to be truly representative of Africa in terms of learning resources. Openness requires open standards-the dominance of the English language is a factor, but the other diverse languages of the region and the continent need to be taken into account. The Wikipedia project is creating a lot of possibilities in this arena (of language translations using the open-sourced platform), but the issue of inclusion certainly needs to be further addressed.
The materials, to be most effectively utilized, will need to be both openly posted at the first level, and crucially, at the second level, made accessible. If accessibility, through local language translation and technical contact, is not included in the basic tenents of the project, we are simply perpetuating the resources to the same privledged few who would probably already be able to access quality learning materials. The idea of openness is inclusive; it promotes local language and secondary language growth; it perpetuates local traditions and values; it relates directly to the hopes, goals, and aspirations of both teachers and their students in closing both the digital and literacy gaps that have traveled the path of development for much too long. The ideas from Mexico, on addressing best practices, not just directing to specific content, and from Brazil, of a government leading the way in openness, are stark reminders that the innovators in this area will not necessarily be the innovators of the past; the solution must be home-grown, but it also must not try to reinvent the wheel-it needs to be open and to be built upon the shoulders of success that have already shone throughout the developing world. And the basic tenents that will be reflected? Here they are:
· Local Language Development with simultaneous Second Language acquisition, using pioneering, locally produced materials such as Room to Read Nepal and Literacy For All South Africa
· A focus on the Primary and Secondary Levels of schooling; however utilizing post-secondary models and resources whenever they can be transferred both understandably and within reason
· Using technical translators and open sourced programs, such as Wikipedia, to bring foreign-language resources, via the web, to new audiences of learners
· Technology-based, or at least, technology-driven, with a crucial goal of both literacy, curriculum supplementation and augmentation, and closing the digital divide.
· Utilizing effective local partners, community leaders, proactive headmasters, and parents to ensure the effectiveness and utilization of programs on the ground; this also involves greater community access, and an inclusivity in the process of progress
· E-Library development, bringing resources in a much more easily accessible manner to remote areas utilizing technology
· Teacher training; this is CRUCIAL! If teachers are uncomfortable with new technology or new resources, they will simply not be used; the materials have to be seen in a non-competitive light, in a light that shows the teachers will not be obsolete; the tools cannot be used on their own, they are there to support the learning process, which is still based on an effective, engaged leader in the classroom
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