Re: [school-discuss] Open Content and open source for developping countries

[Paolo Pumilia <xpol@interfree.it>]

From Ilpo Halonen, Sat Sep 14, at  8:04:
 .> But, the problems which some organization try to solve by bringing books
 .> for children learning in develoing countries is
 .> that the gap between rich countries and less rich countries is
 .> increasing. However, the same might also be said of
 .> poor/rich differences in rich countries...
 .I think this is one of the basic items to be discussed as there is no sense
 .trying to offer open source contents for people who are getting poorer and
 .poorer. But open source could be a tool fighting poverty. Let's try to
 .remember that only those who are very rich can afford themselves the chance
 .to help others without an interest of their own. If it's always only
 .helping, is another problemacy.

I am not sure i am following your reasoning. 
You mean that rich countries should give more than mere contents to poor 
countries? A financial effort should be made to provide ready-to-use handbooks 
to poor countries?
While i can see and share your aims, i think that providing a commom
authoritative source of contents (possibly more than one) is more important.

In a long tem project, the main difficulty i can see is how to receive 
contributions from every culture, so as to build a knowledge pool from which 
custom handbooks could be produced.
But that is something i would not bother about too much, at this stage. 



 .> The question of open content for school is I think the need of an
 .> authority on what is acceptable or not,
 .> either on the pedagogical level or on the ethical one.
 .I find ethical, pedagogical and technological questions as a complex of
 .matters that are intertwined in a way that you can't solve one of them
 .without finding a way to solve the others. It's basically not a question
 .about the means of communication we use in education but about what we
 .learn, how we learn and why we learn, isn't it? Open Source can be a better
 .solution in both rich and poor countries if it is not as greedy as
 .commercial solutions. My own ethical principle in these matters is fair flow
 .of giving and getting. I hate exploitation in any form. (...)

Yes, ethical, pedagogical and technological questions are intertwined, but
i think each culture should solve that kind of problems in their own way.
My opinion is: first of all, let us provide everybody the most of knowledge 
that is available and open technologies that one is allowed to undertsand 
and to get control over them. 

Best Regards 
-- 
Paolo Pumilia