Stephen's Web

Open Education Revolution Picks Up Steam

More discussion on the launch of the Cape Town Declaration. Here, Mark Surman tries pitching the story to a Sashdot audience. Dave Warlick links. Doug Holton also links, and points to the similar Santiago Declaration from last March. David Wiley covers (Day 1, Day 2) the release, observing that people have not taken up the call to create their own declarations. As I observed last fall, my own declaration has graced the front page of this my website for many years now (not that the Cape Town people thought that was relevant).

Surman also comments on the Swansea Declaration: "A coalition of edutainers, foundations, free-market capitalists, adult-entertainment providers, corporates and internet "pioneers" today urged governments and publishers to make publicly-funded educational materials available freely over the internet so that it could be sucked up into huge corporate-funded databases." Brian Lamb links to the spoof and also to Wiley's sharp criticism.

I will respond to Wiley's comments later, but I want to observe now, that the Declaration has sharply divided a community that was once united. David Wiley writes, "What I'm not a fan of is the religious zeal (which comes nigh unto jihad) against all those who will not accept the purity of the 'one true model' of learners-only, PLE-based, teachers-be-damned, peer-to-peer, NC-clause laden, what degree? learning." Well, I honestly wonder, is that sort of language helping?

Oh, and for the record, I had nothing to do with the Swansea Declaration. In case you were wondering. Mark Surman, commonspace, January 23, 2008. [Link] [Tags: Online Learning, Books, Open Content, Web Logs] [Previous][Next]

Comments

Re: Open Education Revolution Picks Up Steam

Anymouse, January 23, 2008

I don't think the declaration has "sharply divided a community that was once united." The opinions expressed in the posts here have existed and been an issue in the community long before now. All you have to do is spend a short amount of time on almost any "open" community (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikieducator, etc.) to experience being criticized on one side or the other of the free/libre debate. It certainly isn't doing anything to help the cause. [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

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