Neil Butcher participated in a panel dissecting the future of open educational resources in Africa. Africa is fast embracing EdTech. More companies are joining the race to become the number one provider of online education. Does open licensing of study materials offer greater returns to companies and their students, or is it an obstacle?
This is the second post in our Digitising TVET series.
As the world ushers in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) – which is characterized by increasingly blurred lines between the digital, biological, and physical worlds (Ndung’u and Signé) – technologists are coming to grips with the opportunities of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and the Internet of Things. These and other emerging technologies offer exciting possibilities; in theory, they might allow us to galvanize unprecedented socio-economic change and democratise access to services such as the internet, education, and healthcare.
WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) and OER specialists are highlighting OER efforts taking place in a variety of locations and spaces here on Earth. Neil Butcher made a presentation on our work with UNESCO's ICT Competence Framework for Teachers. Join NBA, OER Africa, and WCET in celebrating OERth Week. Let us know what you are doing to promote OER to make education more achievable and equitable worldwide.
Take a look at these links and discover openly licensed storybooks and reading resources that are available in some of the world's 7,000 living languages:
Creative Commons licences are the ones most frequently used when open educational resources (OER) are produced. There are six licences, which range from very permissive, allowing copying and modification (CC BY), to those that are more restrictive, permitting distribution of a work in its original form, but no modification (CC BY-ND).
These non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which have innovatively adopted open licensing publishing and distribution models and that specialize in solving early literacy challenges in developing nations, were selected along with a list of other initiatives, ‘for their exemplary work in ensuring that children continue to build critical literacy skills.’
http://www.earlyliteracynetwork.org/blog/pratham-books-room-read-and-book-dash-are-among-international-winners-usa%E2%80%99s-library-congress%E2%80%99
Soma Book Cafe in Dar es Salaam is a readership promotion space and innovative co-creation hub for literary expression and multimedia storytelling approaches. It provides different arenas for literary expression and discourse; promotes reading for pleasure and encourages independent pursuit of knowledge. Soma, which means read or learn in Kiswahili, is an apt name for an organization that strongly encourages both.
