tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post2369614002745198657..comments2024-03-19T05:26:43.471-04:00Comments on Half an Hour: Criticizing the Cape Town DeclarationStephen Downeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-26369846939821491552009-09-04T11:37:50.233-04:002009-09-04T11:37:50.233-04:00Stephen, I 100% agree with you. Yet again it's...Stephen, I 100% agree with you. Yet again it's just another case of academics intellectually masturbating. IMO, let's just focus on making "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." The reality is we can. How do we do it? Easy -- http://bit.ly/3jzE8d -- While a select few play their silly word games, mark my words, a solution for global education will come out of Asia... I appreciate your post, time and energy in voicing what so many of use feel. <br /><br />Michael J. Trout<br />CEO, EDUIT, IncFOUNDUPS® (Michael J. Trout, CEO)https://www.blogger.com/profile/02952938233154648367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-63852770616436047032007-12-17T09:16:00.000-05:002007-12-17T09:16:00.000-05:00> My experience is that if you want to move things...> My experience is that if you want to move things forward you just have to do it with a small group of people and make a start.<BR/><BR/>This comment would bear more weight were it true that nothing had been done to move forward.<BR/><BR/>But many groups and people have ben working on this sort of thing, many of whom were ignored by the drafters of the Declaration.<BR/><BR/>Again - the problem here is that this small group is attempting to preempt the perspectives of the many other people and initiatives in this field, substituting their narrow view for the wider range of views in the community.Stephen Downeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-62664528962560251782007-12-17T09:03:00.000-05:002007-12-17T09:03:00.000-05:00I've postponed reading the deluge of comments on t...I've postponed reading the deluge of comments on this declaration for a bit, but I must say that I'm not quite sure what all the fuzz is about. It seems to me that most people are primarily annoyed that they weren't there.<BR/><BR/>Despite the whole lovely idea of democracy en committees and all that, My experience is that if you want to move things forward you just have to do it with a small group of people and make a start. If you wait for the world to reach consensus then nothing is ever going to happen.<BR/><BR/>So if you ask me, I think we should be glad that a few people took this forward, and support this constructively. I'm sure it could be improved upon, bu then again so can pretty much everything else. (Besides, I don't think it's that poor an attempt at all).René Meijerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14061978787000049211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-91211248417107009342007-12-09T18:42:00.000-05:002007-12-09T18:42:00.000-05:00PS Last part of the last URL in my posting above i...PS Last part of the last URL in my posting above is the rest of the word "knowledge".<BR/><BR/>KimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-6498282237829761392007-12-09T18:39:00.000-05:002007-12-09T18:39:00.000-05:00Hi all,These links might be of interest:http://com...Hi all,<BR/><BR/>These links might be of interest:<BR/><BR/>http://communities.libre.org/philosophy/saylibre <BR/><BR/>or the discussion venue: <BR/><BR/>http://www.wikieducator.org/Say_Libre <BR/><BR/>and a draft "libre declaration" - http://www.wikieducator.org/Declaration_on_libre_knowledge <BR/><BR/>Comments welcome.<BR/><BR/>KimAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-72437731032606779222007-12-02T02:38:00.000-05:002007-12-02T02:38:00.000-05:00Hi Stephen,Thanks for getting the dialogue rolling...Hi Stephen,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for getting the dialogue rolling on this declaration. As one of the people who was in fact a participant in the initial drafting process, I wanted to address a few of your points.<BR/><BR/>First though, a quick pointer to David Wiley's responses (http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/397). I won't be able to do such a detailed analysis, but no need for me to: read David's response instead.<BR/><BR/>Re: your comment about the “group of mostly American academics and advocates” who supposedly drafted the Declaration. I was one of the seven people of clear American representation (which includes folks like Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia... hardly a likely person to be advocating a uniquely American perspective here). There are 27 initial signatories on the document. Some quick math indicates that the Americans were vastly outnumbered, even if you lump in the few people from organizations like the Open Society Institute which might have more significant presence in the USA. Regardless, it is an odd tack for someone to believe that people from other parts of the world could not participate as fully or effectively because there happen to be some Americans in the room. I certainly don't give myself that much credit. And finally, the document was distributed quite widely for feedback and criticism beyond the original meeting attendees. It is a significant error to attack this document on some presumption that it was not borne of sufficient “diversity”.<BR/><BR/>Re: your comment about the “panel of hand-picked representatives representating overwhelmingly a certain commercial perspective...” Huh? If there was any particular criticism of the document from a specific sector of the current education field, it was the near-total lack of any representation at this meeting from the explicitly commercial sector. Indeed, I would say that the arguments for or against the inclusion of commercial possibilities within the umbrella of “open education” were essentially exactly reversed from how you seem to perceive them. Those of us advocating for the greatest degree of openness, and therefore the greatest potential for access, learner-driven knowledge-creation, and new mechanisms for formal and informal education, argued that we cannot sequester materials behind non-commercial restrictions and hold true to the ideals of openness. This Declaration is not intended to be a stick in the eye for anyone, but rather is intended to give a few key strategies that will hopefully inspire people to think and act more globally when it comes to the learning desires and educational needs for anyone, anywhere. Much of your commentary about “closing and blocking” due to commercial use makes me think that you (very surprisingly) might be forgetting that you <I>cannot reduce the size of the Commons</I>, no matter what license is chosen, as long as the original resource was licensed openly in some form. The original creation cannot disappear because someone else decides to adapt it, commercialize a version, or whatever. This is particularly true for digital resources, which is where the bulk of the open education movement currently operates.<BR/><BR/>Finally, as David Wiley already mentioned in his reply, it makes no sense to draft a Declaration that encourages people to learn for themselves using whatever they find on the Internet. That's like drafting a Declaration that encourages people to breathe. There is an enormous need for improvements to formal education, and access to high-quality materials designed explicitly for education are proving absolutely crucial to meeting the demand for informal education as well. The Declaration clearly promotes the idea that we envision a future where the lines between formal and informal education, and between teachers and learners, will blur, based on common, deep engagement with the educational materials in a manner that heretofore was not really possible, but that openness enables.<BR/><BR/>In any case, your comments, and those of a few others, revealed some errors that were made in this “soft launch”, which of course is the whole point of putting it out there for people to tangle with. One, the Declaration has a sub-heading, “Unlocking the promise of open educational resources,” which should have been there and would have made it clear that THIS particular Declaration is focused on open educational resources. Hopefully that helps to clear up some of the complaints in that regard. Two, this document is very much still open for additional edits based on the commentary received from folks like yourself. It will not be put on a wiki and subject to total transformation.... again David Wiley addresses that issue well. But if there are specific parts of the Declaration where there appears to be strong community consensus for an edit, then it will probably happen. Some of the language that was used in the initial launch of the Declaration has been amended already to reflect the fact that community input is being sought and will count. The ability to post comments publicly on the Declaration site will also go live next week.<BR/><BR/>Best,<BR/><BR/>Ahrash BissellAhrashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18430149161866424995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-43697610478575219272007-12-01T11:47:00.000-05:002007-12-01T11:47:00.000-05:00great response! I saw this declaration amonth or s...great response! I saw this declaration amonth or so back and forwarded on to a colleague in RSA, as I'll forward your response - yes - the main point of whether 'Educators' are the anointed ones to dream up and execute curricula is a great one and very appropriate right now. I've never been to school for teaching, and certainly don't have a Masters (hah!) but I've developed a number of curricula and taught hundreds of young people with great effectiveness. Should I then be excluded from the discourse? Hwo about my friend in RSA in the same boat? Thanks Stephen!Selahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01157185530527269336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-17815505392413133012007-11-30T19:14:00.000-05:002007-11-30T19:14:00.000-05:00What happened to the Stephen Downes advocating Fre...What happened to the Stephen Downes advocating Free Software, Copyleft and Free is in Freedom content??<BR/><BR/>"Third, the document advocates a form of 'open' that explicitly encourages the closing and blocking of access to education through the commercialization of these resources."<BR/><BR/>No, it doesn't. I jst read it twice. Is promoting the GPL in anyway explicitly encouraging the closing and blocking of access of Linux?? Of course not.<BR/><BR/><BR/>"we believe that open education and open educational resources are very much compatible with the business of commercial publishing."<BR/><BR/>Exactly the same can be found on the website of the Free Software Foundation.<BR/><BR/><BR/>"This is not so, and in fact the majority of resources licensed under an 'open' license are licensed nor non-commercial use."<BR/><BR/>Well, then it's not "open" is the sense of "open source", FLoss, Wikipedia.<BR/>So you have this group of people promoting openness in the sense of FLOSS, and Stephen is ciritising them for encouraging closing and blocking of access?<BR/>Stephen, did you fall on your head or something? I hope you get better soon.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>"When people talk about 'open' educational resources, they do not normally mean something they have to pay some publishing company in order to access."<BR/><BR/>Like buying Red Hat Linux in a store?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-68332690551169184912007-11-30T04:34:00.000-05:002007-11-30T04:34:00.000-05:00A very thoughtful piece Stephen. I pretty much agr...A very thoughtful piece Stephen. I pretty much agree with most of what you say, there is an element of not eating their own dog food in having a closed declaration. Having said that, I don't want to end up with factions in the open education camp, so will support it with some reservations. Some more thoughts here: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2007/11/the-cape-town-d.htmlUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00857892975790697017noreply@blogger.com