TOWARDS A FREE EDUCATION CURRICULUM BY 2015

An international group of thought leaders and practitioners met in Vancouver, Canada in April to discuss how to refine free software technologies to achieve a bold vision: to develop a free education curriculum by 2015. The Tectonic Shift Think Tank drew more than 30 participants to discuss how to improve Mediawiki software (which powers WikiEducator and Wikipedia) to widen access to education across the world.

 

The focus was the sustainable development of free cultural works for education in support of the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In particular, the meeting examined how to refine available technology to radically scale up the development of a free curriculum for all levels of education.

 

Some of the solutions that the group agreed to pursue are:

• Developing wiki-to-print technology so users can easily print off learning materials from WikiEducator
• Making Rich Text editing possible on WikiEducator. This will lower the barriers to entry for teachers by making the technology more accessible.
• Facilitating export of content so educators can move learning materials directly to a learning management system.
• Introducing offline editing so authors who have limited Internet access can author content offline and then upload it to WikiEducator.

The Tectonic Shift Think Tank was co-chaired by Mr. Erik Moeller, a board member of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Chief Technology Officer of Stichting Open Progress, and Dr. Wayne Mackintosh, COL Education Specialist, eLearning and ICT Policy. One participant, Mr. Steve Foerster, Director of Instructional Technology for the Free Curricula Center, announced that he would be moving the Center's material to WikiEducator for further development. There was widespread agreement among meeting participants that collaboration has the potential to democratise education.

 

"There is simply not enough money to build the schools required to educate children in the developing world, nor will we be able to train enough teachers," Dr. Mackintosh explained. "So we need to think about innovative approaches, even if that means the de-institutionalisation of education as we have come to know it in the industrialised world."

The three-day meeting involved leaders in the "freedom culture", including representatives from Wikimedia Foundation, One Laptop Per Child, CK 12 FlexBooks for Every Student, Connexions, UNISEF, MSU Global, Penn State's World Campus, Wikia Inc. and the eXe project from New Zealand. In addition to the 22 participants who joined the meeting in Vancouver, nine people participated in the meeting from remote locations.

 

"The key outcomes of this meeting are that we have a common goal, a high level roadmap to get us there and a commitment by participants to collaborate on an ongoing basis," said Dr. Mackintosh, who led the founding of WikiEducator.

 

The group is now focussing on refining technologies to support the development of free content. Educators are encouraged to register an account on WikiEducator and start developing content. The site now offers a set of tutorials to help people learn how to develop free content for education on the wiki. Next on the agenda is Learning4Content, a series of capacity building workshops in all 53 nations of the Commonwealth. By training teachers to convert existing free content into learning materials for WikiEducator, these workshops will take a significant step in equipping educators with an important tool to support learning for development.

 

 

WikiEducator Quick Facts

• WikiEducator was launched by COL in May 2006 and has since attracted many other users.
• Within one year, WikiEducator has become among the top eight percent of most-visited sites on the Internet.
• An Interim International Advisory Board governs WikiEducator. Once 2,500 users have joined the wiki, elections will be held to select a successor Board.
• WikiEducator's technical infrastructure is supported by COL.
• WikiEducator is one of the tools being used to develop course content for the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth.

http://www.wikieducator.org/

 

 

PCF5 LAUNCHED IN LONDON

COL's Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF5) was launched in London on 17 May 2007 in front of an invited audience representing education institutions, governments, development agencies and Commonwealth organisations. Conference Co-Chairs, Sir Graeme Davies, Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, and Sir John Daniel, President and CEO of COL, delivered remarks at the launch event. The keynote speaker was Professor Abdul Waheed Khan, Assistant Director General for Communications and Information UNESCO and a former
Vice-Chancellor of the world's largest educational institution, India's Indira Gandhi National Open University.

 

PCF5 will explore how open and distance learning can help to achieve international development goals and education for all. The conference theme is "Access to Learning for Development", with a focus on four key areas:

1. Governance, conflict and social justice
2. Health
3. Livelihoods
4. Provision for children and young people

The conference will be hosted by COL in partnership with the University of London as part of its celebrations of 150 years of external studies, a seminal event in the development of distance learning worldwide. PCF5 will run from 13-17 July 2008.

 

The purpose of the launch event was to encourage the education and development communities to engage in discussion about how open and distance learning (ODL) can help achieve international development goals and education for all. In his remarks, Sir John spoke about the conference's ambitious sponsorship targets: the goal is to fully sponsor at least one in six delegates to PCF5. He announced that the University of London and the U.K. Open University have committed to sponsoring 40 delegates from sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the small island states. 

 

Some Connections readers will receive a poster promoting PCF5 along with this issue. If you would like to receive a poster, contact us at info@col.org.

www.col.org/pcf5