On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Bill Kerr <billk...@gmail.com> wrote: > hard to argue against someone who is doing such great work in Nepal but I > thought Bryan overplayed the local factors too much: > > 10) Open Source software critical to high quality education – education has > to be very customised, to the kids, the teacher, the environment and the > country – not something you can design in New York city and will fit another > country > http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2009/04/olpc-nepal-project-overview.html > > The counterbalance to that is that The Enlightenment is what made us, what > created modernity, what transformed diverse cultures into our modern culture > > I hope it doesn't become unfashionable to say that modernity is a good thing > see > http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals
I think you're misinterpreting Bryan as having said something culturally relativistic. Think more practical. The most practical example for Bryan's point is that if we wouldn't make stuff that is in line with the Nepali curriculum, week by week, subject by subject, it would be very hard to sell here. And would be pretty useless for the teachers. Also the level the teachers and children are at is pretty different. You can't just give the teachers Moodle and expect them to put in their wildest teaching dreams; not in a lot of other countries as well I guess but in our teacher training course we cover things like moving the mouse. We leave in the grade 2 activities for the grade 6 students, because a lot of them don't have a strong grasp of grade 2 material. This requires presenting the material in a different way, depending on the local situation, just as already within one classroom different kids will be better helped by different methods. /Ties > > > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep