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→Mark Surman talk about "Open Sourcing Education in South Africa"
====Mark Surman talk about "Open Sourcing Education in South Africa"====
Interestingly, the next talk I want to report on also focuses on education and open source software but it goes in a totally different direction. Where Mike is building up an open source course online Mark Surman is working on just the opposite. As part of his talk on “Open Sourcing Education in South Africa” [http://sparc.senecacollege.ca/pub/fsoss/2007/Oct25/1PM/MarkSurmanSouthAfrica.ogg Link to Video] Mark explains to us that while South Africa is arguably the “wealthiest” region in Africa, most areas of the country are still not connected to the internet and so in looking at ways to bring open source and education to the people of South Africa, the results have been pointing to physical texts instead of websites.
There is momentum behind the concept of open education and places like South Africa can certainly benefit from additional resources for teaching children the math and sciences that are lacking from their current curriculums. What came about from the Cape Town Declaration (a group of very smart open source movers and shakers) was a way to bring the knowledge of many to the classrooms of South Africa.
Mark mentioned that MIT has open courseware where people are free to download and learn with full course material in a wide variety of topics. This is creating a peer to peer university. He is extremely optimistic that all this openess is leading to a prevalence of open culture including business and government. What kind of changes will we see in education in this generation who are growing up with Facebook and the expectation of collaboration? A new pedagogy that can’t even be imagined is coming whether we want it or not.
====Comparing Apples and Apples?====
While both speakers are adamant about the availability of course material being online and in repositories, Mark Surman also comes across as believing in open source as a method of creation, not just an end product. His perspective is on the collaborative nature of developing class materials where Mike’s aim was more on the availability of access and less on the creation of course material. However, I think that Mike is also interested in working on developing his introductory course with other educators to make a course that would work across a wider variety of audiences.
