I'm not convinced we are pioneers at all. Illich is significant to me not for hi Deschooling Society, but for his vision of learning webs. As he describes it (in chapter 6 I think), Bolivia was rolling out OER in the form of television. The cost of television back then meant that Bolivia could afford 1 tv per 5000 Bolivians. Illich proposed a networked communication through audio cassette recordings. At the time, he proposed that Bolivia could afford 1 cassette recorder per 5 Bolivians with enough money left over to set up a postal service to facilitate the exchange of audio recordings being sent in by farmers and kids. He was talking about audio blogging, where today the cost of achieving what Illich envisioned is greatly reduced for us in the wealthy economies, but still impossible for your average Bolivian I guess. Even with OLPCs the difficulty of using a cassette recorder and postal service compared to an OLPC is laughable.
Illich was talking about networked learning, without the middle man. Our OER efforts, and especially the production of text books with "learning design" interwoven is more broadcast, middle man OER like Bolivia's TV idea, distance learning, and to some extent the OLPCs.. nothing new at all. The only thing "new" in it is the copyright and the technology.. and seeing your historical reference predates modern history Wayne, even our new approach to copyright is nothing new. Peter Rawsthorne and James Neill have been talking about student generated content initiaties on Wikieducator for quite some time, and in many regards this is similar to networked learning accept that it tends to focus on a demographic we call students, that is typically made up in crude class systems like K12 and everything in between - leaving out the contributions that someone outside that class might have to offer - such as traditional, subsistance, local even mystical. I'd hazard a guess that the funding is easily geared towards text books. They are tangible and have established processes and protocols. But this doesn't make it a good idea. A text book with "learning designed" in it, over powers so much of what might be otherwise possible. A straight text with a range of culturally appropriate "learning design" held seperately would be far more scalable and versatile. Especially with strong learning networks around each text. Strong networks like in Wikibooks and blogs for example, or any number of offline networks Better would be a straight text with a learning network to go with it. In the poorer countries this is obviously not through the Internet and computers, but the ideas and models we have through the Internet could inform new approaches to radio, newspaper, telephone, and postal services.. even distance learning. On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 1:25 PM, Wayne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Leigh > > On Sat, 2008-12-06 at 08:57 +1300, Leigh Blackall wrote: > > Illich's Learning Webs idea for Bolivia, cited in his book Deschooling > Society - predating ODL, ignoring "instructional design", and predicting > post industrial society enabled by networked communications. Illich was > interested in networked communications empowering subsistance living. > > Illich's Deschooling Society is a seminal text and is a highly recommended > read for those dabbling in the future of OER. > > On a minor historical technicality ;-) Illich's Deschooling Society did > not predate the practice, research and publication in the field of DE/ODL. > I believe Deschooling Society was published in 1971. Their are published > references on DE dating back to 1728. However mainstream DE research as a > field of research endeavour started appearing in the literature in the early > 1950's. This followed the inception of the world's first single-mode > distance education university which began teaching in 1946 --- (The > University of South Africa). The detail of the actual dates is not too > relevant -- but rather the era in which these publications emerged. > > Deschooling Society was published shortly after the peak of > industrialisation after the second world war. DE/ODL is in fact a > consequence of the industrialisation of society. DE delivery was not > possible before the invention of the printing press and universal postal > services. It's also interesting to note that Illich's text was published > shortly after the student revolts of the 1960s and should be read within > this context. > > Illich was not the only author commenting or "predicting" on the emergence > of post-industrial society. For example, Daniel Bell's text on "The Coming > of Post-industrial Society" published around the same time. The notion of > "post-industrial" society was a pretty topical issue of the time. The > Fordist versus Post-Fordist debate has been well documented in the DE > literature (including for example: Raggart, Rumble, Farnes, Edwards etc.) > > Discontinuity theory is a contested concept in sociological terms --- Is > post-industrial society fundamentally different from industrial society, or > is it more of the same? Personally -- I buy into the theory of discontinuity > which would argue that the networked world is structurally different, but at > the same time I err on the side of caution with regards to how OER is > unfloding on our planet. I see many promising projects (WikiEducator > included) - but there is still lots of work for us to do before OER becomes > the default approach to education. > > Its going to be up to us to turn tommorrow's promise for OER into today's > reality! > > It's fun being a pioneer! > > Cheers > Wayne > > > > > > > > > > -- -- Leigh Blackall +64(0)21736539 skype - leigh_blackall SL - Leroy Goalpost http://learnonline.wordpress.com http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Leighblackall --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
