On November 6th last we asked on Twitter - "Can Irish educators explain what obstacles prevent the development of an opensource curriculum distributed on back-friendly ebooks?"
Darren Geraghty, a researcher at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute in Galway was first to answer - "I'm not an educator but I'm told book publishers want it to remain the current archaic way for obvious self-serving monetary reasons"
To which I reponded, "I've heard that too but wonder why, in the age of wikipedia, an opensource alternative can't be developed? Lack of will?"
Simon Lewis, principal of Carlow Educate Together Primary school and author of the influential Anseo ezine then responded - "lots of things preventing open source ebooks: Lack of government support, lack of teacher skills, lack of infrastructure, etc etc"
John O'Connor, Head of School of Art, Design & Printing at Dublin Institute of Technology felt likewise - "A complete lack of political interest and/or concern by the relevant public servants perhaps?"
To both of which I replied, "what 'government support' did Wikipedia have? Teacher skills? What infrastructure? The internet? " and continued is public servant and political interest required?"
And John answered not to develop the curriculum but regretably yes for implementation. That is the problem"
In response to which I naively asked,"If the curriculum was developed would it be politically feasible to hold out against implementation?"
At which stage the discombobulated discussion more or less fizzled out on Twitter. But we did take it up again under a public Google Wave entitled 'Wave in Irish Education', where I wondered if Google's new wiki-like system "could be the solution for how Educators and Technologists can best change Ireland (Dr. Chris Horn)." In that linked blog post Chris reprints a speech he gave to the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals -
"One thing I personally strongly believe that we cannot do, is wait and expect our Government and the apparatus of the State to help us.... One of the key points about the internet is that it is self-creating and self-sustaining. It is bottom-up, a community phenomenon.... The ethos of the internet is sharing, “bottom-up”. ... A wiki is a web site in which not only can anyone read its content, but anyone can also edit the content.... The consequence is that the community of bona-fide contributors work together to make the wiki better and better.. A wiki thus captures the “wisdom of the crowd” – the collective wisdom of a community of readers and contributors.... Ladies and Gentlemen, you are a community. Your professional teaching colleagues are another larger community, to which you also belong.... A wiki is a community self-help tool. Best of all, a wiki can be created by anyone, by any small group of like-minded professionals, at any time. It does not require a mandate from a Government, a Minister, a Trade Union, or even the NAPD!"
Back on the Google Wave one contributor suggested an opensource curriculum wouldn't happen here because of the payment issue. "But", I responded, "if opensource wouldn't work because of paid issue then why is it working in the States? Why did it work for Linux? Why did it work for Wikipedia? Are we unique in Ireland for requiring monetary reward for doing social good?" At which point I inserted a number of links demonstrating how opensource textbooks and curriculum are working elsewhere-
- Universities adopt Kindle
- In a Digital Future Textbooks are History - New York Times.
- Links to Open Textbooks
- Flexbooks - using open-content web-based collaborative model.
- Coursesmart - eTextbooks
- Why aren't students pushing paperless?
- College puts entire courses on USB drive.
- FlashTrack courses - on USB Key
Dr. Horn then added an excellent point -
"Original online content can be created by a community of willing volunteers, pro bono... Is too much to expect willing volunteers to create excellent shared free content and materials for teaching in our schools ? Some senior retired people often wish to give back to society. Unemployed professionals often volunteer their time. Research students and postgraduates often willingly give a lot to society at large.... It just needs a structure to catalyse and co-ordinate voluntary effort..."
ICT Teacher Patricia Donaghy jumped in with the suggestion -
"What about empowering our current students/learners to become involved in this 'brave new world' of collaboration and sharing.... hey too should be part of the "collective wisdom of a community of readers and contributors"... The CCCOER Open Textbooks site (http://oerconsortium.org/discipline-specific/) is one example of just how open textbook are being promoted."
At which point Simon Lewis jumped back into the discussion with an interesting point regarding primary schools -
"From a primary point of view, I think we should be getting away from books, e or otherwise. At primary level we don't have the constraints of a written exam at the end of time and we try and give a more holistic education to our children. I think that we need to developing more kinaesthetic and visual content for primary level. This is one of the main reasons I don't think a VLE setup would work in primary schools yet."
Chris Horn asked -
"For visual content, do you think these wonderful 3D graphics http://bit.ly/2D7UB2 of mathematical equations would inspire students ? What if the students could experiment themselves with developing these, using laptops to execute the arithmetic involved ? Would it drive a deeper understanding and appreciation for algebra ? "
I then pointed to a blog post by Paul Sweeny where he writes about the Classroom of the Future with regard to ebooks in Spain -
Some very large changes happening in Spain for those interested in the classroom of the future and ebooks for elearning. Yes, there is lots of investment going into classrooms with Interactive Whiteboards figuring large. The real news, though, is the government seems to be promoting a national version of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and is corralling the publishers into facilitating ebooks across the curriculum in the very near future.
According to this article in El Pais Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero announced plans to digitise education in March but negotiations with the major educational publishers and infrastructure companies had been going on for a while. This more recent article, again from El Pais (Google translation here), talks about a common ebook platform which publishers were signing up to. If it were only ebooks and and digital classrooms, I would be applauding another worthy step in the direction of modern schooling etc. The catalyst for potentially momentous change is the provision of netbooks to all students.
I was reminded of all this pre-Christmas conversation when student James Foley wrote an Open Letter to all Irish Universities yesterday which resonated with many people of us on Twitter -
"In my three years here, I’ve only bought two books. I think that needs to be put into perspective a bit. Three years, 2 semesters a year, 6 modules a semester, that’s a total of 36 modules, each of which have had recommended texts and further reading advised by the lecturer. Why is it then, that over the duration of my college life I’ve bought roughly only 5% of the books my lecturers have thought it necessary for me to read in order to pass my modules? Cost. Bulk. Relevance..... How does one overcome these problems? It’s actually a very simple, very elegant, and most important in these times, a very cost effective solution. Embrace the digital age in a manner unprecedented in any college set up across the globe. Be at the forefront for once, not the trailing edge. Upon enrollment, make it compulsory that each and every student purchases an eBook reader."
The conversation continues...
Thanks for the information.
Regards
Posted by: in home tutoring | January 23, 2012 at 11:07 AM