Innovating Under Challenging Circumstances
Here's some food for thought about the purpose of WikiEducator, and the challenge and opportunities, from Wayne Mackintosh, Education Specialist, e-Learning and ICT policy - Commonwealth of Learning.
"My pressing concern is that the majority of learners who we are aiming
to help in the developing world will not have access to the Internet,
and if they did, its unlikely that they will be able to afford the
connectivity costs.
The reality in, for instance, in Africa, is that on average, more than 60% of the children of secondary school going age will never see the walls of a classroom nor will their parents be able to afford the costs of public funded education.
We will not have the money to train enough teachers to satisfy the demand for secondary education by 2015.
Universal secondary education is just not going to happen by 2015. These learners will not have the privilege of joining wikispaces or wikilearner.org to participate in the pedagogy we envisage. These are the learners we are trying to help with WikiEducator's free curriculum.
I'm not in anyway suggesting that we should drop the ideas of a socially constructed learning experience - but I am saying that the WikiEducator community has an obligation to innovate under these challenging circumstances. After all - one of our community values is a forward looking disposition
When we innovate we must also be sensitive not to exclude those learners who do have connectivity from our free curriculum. I think our learning design must be smart - socio-constructivist foundations that can function using multiple delivery options (for example online, print-based learning resources etc.)
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