7.1 Floss, oer, equality and digital inclusion

Computer labs may not be a great way to support learning with ICT in schools with limited resources. One laptop per child is one alternative poised to be launched in several countries in the near future. Mobile phone penetration tends to be much higher in developing countries than for personal computers. MobilED is one project exploring use of mobile phones in education.

In terms of language barriers, there are research projects looking at tools to help with translation, text to speech, etc. See for example, the work of the Meraka Institute’s HLT group

Regarding FLOSS capacity building see Open ICDL and Learn Linux as two examples in South Africa. More broadly, a new project is starting to gain momentum: FLOSS4Edu .

The golden thread running through all the initiatives above is the emphasis on FLOSS and sharing the learning - libre knowledge.

I hope the trend generalises towards a vision such as “Enabling individuals and communities to empower themselves with knowledge, towardswisdom, for a sustainable world”.

Defining “equality” is difficult, and the challenges around achieving it are significant. It seems to me that best we can do isendeavour to maximise the options and opportunities for individuals and the freedoms to take these opportunities, whatever their context.

The reading list below is indicative of the perspective of this posting.

Reading list and links

• Yochai Benkler - The Wealth of Networks
• Lawrence Lessig - Free culture
• Richard Stallman - Selected Essays
• Eric von Hippel - Democratising Innovation
• Amartya Sen - Development as Freedom
• Libre Knowledge
• Free Software
• FLOSS research: FLOSSWorld , FLOSSpols and other projects linked at these sites.
• UNDP FOSS Primers .
• Singazenzela - an isiZulu Word meaning ‘we can do things for ourselves’.
• Meraka - contributing to the digital meraka (a word used in Sesotho, Sesotho sa Leboa and Setswana to refer to an area of shared landmost commonly used for cattle grazing - a commons).

Comments

7 Responses to “FLOSS, OER, Equality and Digital Inclusion”

1. Ken Udas - May 3rd, 2007 at 4:55 am

Kim, I have found this to be a very thought provoking and information rich posting. As I read through the questions that you asked and the abbreviated responsesthat you provided, I kept returning to a number of related questions of my own. The principal question being:

Is there the need to develop curriculum around commons-based peer development?

That is, would treating commons-based peer development through the formal educational curriculum in primary, secondary, and tertiary education across an array of topicsand subject areas strike at equity issues associated with access? Would it help to generate a culture that supports and actively promotes peer development, investment in technologies that support collaborative creation, law that favors (reduces barriers and creates incentives)community production, etc?

If so, it would seem natural for FLOSS and OER to be used as practical applications areas within a curriculum and also serve as sources of examples (artifacts) to bestudied and refined. If it were possible to integrate commons-based peer development into an action-oriented curriculum, following for example a participatory action research approach tofacilitated teaching and learning, a virtuous cycle could develop in which FLOSS and OER production and use impacts education, formal education becomes directly relevant to societalchange, and societal change in turn promotes and is fueled by the use of FLOSS and OER in education. Eventually the application of the skills and patterns developed through the activestudy of commons-based peer development are also applied to the production of other intellectual capacity (work flows, processes, physical artifacts, etc.).