Right-to-Education

Next Monday is the beginning of the Introduction to Open Education course! Hurray! We already have over 20 participants from major US instructional technology programs (Georgia, Indiana, George Mason, South Florida) and folks from six countries outside the US signed up to participate. I suppose the USU participants (my school) are all waiting for next week to sign up… =) I’ve had someone (who isn’t a university student, and therefore doesn’t need or want credits) ask about receiving a certificate from the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning for successful completion of the experience. So here is what I’m going to do (sorry about the detail, but if you ever want to do this at your university the detail may come in handy): ...

UPDATE: This is in response to Stephen’s comments on my last post. If I had a dime for every time I titled an entry like this… :) Stephen, it’s nice to have you back. This article seems to still take the point of view of republishers or educators. Yes, I am an educator, and this article is written from my perspective. In fact, I titled it *My Current View* on the CC-NC Licensing Option Controversy in OCWs. :) I’m not apologetic at all about this. I want to participate in the work of expanding educational opportunity, and I can only do it as an educator. That’s what I am. ...

When a people find themselves more fully possessed of opportunities to exercise their rights as human beings than another; when a society becomes aware that it is in possession of greater comforts and enjoyments than another; and when at this same moment these prospered people come to understand that it is within their power to extend these same opportunities to those who have before been without them, a solemn responsibility comes to rest upon those more empowered. ...

There have been lots of articles around the blogosphere of late ringing the death bell for learning objects. It’s hard to tell if they’re right or not, because no one can agree about what a learning object is (although I enjoyed reading that a urinal apparently qualifies). And perhaps that very statement is all that needs to be made. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about these declarations since they started appearing, and I’ve come to the somewhat troubling conclusion that I don’t think I care if learning objects are dead or not. My primary interest always has been, and I suspect always will be, in increasing access to educational opportunity to people who have been denied that right for any of a variety of reasons. I loved the learning objects idea because the “write once, use anywhere” idea had a lot of economic appeal - once an object had been created for whatever reason, we could copy it (for free) and send it (for very close to free) almost anywhere around the world to be employed in the exercise of an individual’s right to education. ...

Interesting thought from a paper mentioned in the UNESCO IIEP forum on open educational resources: An important debate is currently taking place within universities but also among researchers, diplomats and governmental sectors all over the world. Can education be considered as a commercial service and, as a result, regulated by the World Trade Organization (WTO)? If the reply is positive, does this mean that the rules and principles of GATS (the General Agreement on Trade in Services) apply to education or should it be considered as a public service? What are the implications of the answer to this question? And if the idea of public service is retained, what are the principles that must guide the organization, content and policies for higher education in developing countries in general? ...