Comments on: OpenEd-Is education a “basic human right”? – Part 4/Conc.

By: karen

karen — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:02:45 +0000

My answers to Thieme are here. Anyone else want to weigh in on the child labor question?

By: Thieme Hennis

Thieme Hennis — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 02:12:14 +0000

Hi Karen, thanks for the reply on my post, you are the first one! Anyway, it does not mean that we agree… :) I see that you support a mandated education in your country. But do you also consider the consequences? When you mandate, you need to verify, and punish when needed. Verification of education is almost impossible, because of the enormous diversity of educational activities and possibilities. In order to make it verifiable, you seek refuge to standard curricula, grades, diplomas, classes, and everything else that does not have anything to do with learning. You are not imposing people to eat according to a certain diet, because in that way you can verify the eating habits? You see, I like to be a little radical, but it does enhance the discussion, don’t you think so?

PS. I liked the example of the OER-bus, or WiFi-bus in one of your Mobile Learning posts. I agree that mobile learning brings learning physically, and mentally closer to the learner, where it belongs.
PPS. What do you think of child labor?

By: Stian Håklev

Stian Håklev — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 21:57:29 +0000

Please keep writing. I find the ideas and thoughts – and personal experiences – from all the participants really valuable. They make me look at the readings in a new light. From working a little bit in international NGOs I almost become immune to these kind of global surveys, long lists of countries, of indicators and human rights. I am much more comfortable with evaluating individual projects or ideas, than setting global milestones. But yours and others writings helped me tease out some of the important ideas in Tomasevski’s writings.

To me, also, this course is an amazing use of “educational technology” – or use of technology “educationally”. Writing is a funny thing – like talking – I always loved writing in school, for newspapers, long emails, letters to the editor, blog posts. But I found that in university my voice quitened. I found writing academic essays hard. I ended up doing well, but it wasn’t a process I enjoyed. I spent so much time on the form, on polishing my expressions and making bullet-proof outlines, every sentence referenced to somewhere. In writing for my blog I feel much freer, as if people are interested in the ideas that I share, and the experiences I bring to the table, and not just if I can make a bullet proof essay. The process matters more than the final result – like in Wikipedia. I would never start an article if I had to write a finished perfect article from scratch. But now I know that I can start with a few sentences and others will pick up from there. Similarily here I feel that i can throw out some ideas, and others will pick them up and develop them further. Real collaborative learning.

Stian