Open Source and Open Content

Open Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are becoming widely acknowledged as an appropriate eLearning framework for African universities and institutes that have limited funds to acquire commercial VLEs. At eLA 2009, Felix Olakulehin, Nigeria, and Romaric Sagbo, Benin, will discuss to what extent the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement has gained momentum in Africa and highlight new methods of usage and organisation. The potential benefits of free applications will be examined in terms of practicability and sustainability. Twidox founder Nicholas MacGowan von Holstein, Germany, will add his perspective on how his platform helps to build businesses on VLEs in Africa.
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Français

Catherine Ngugi travaille pour le Mouvement des Ressources Ouvertes pour l’Education en Afrique depuis sa création. Elle devient chef de projet de Ressources Educatives Libres pour l’Afrique en 2008, une initiative qui promeut le libre échange des ressources en provenance et à destination des institutions de hautes études en Afrique. Catherine Ngugi explique à eLA quelles sont les méthodes de REL Afrique  et dans quelle mesure cela peut stimuler le développement des REL sur le continent.
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English

Siyavula is an Nguni word meaning “we are opening”. It is also the name adopted by an ambitious project that aims to provide free, open and collaboratively developed educational resources. Funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation, Siyavula will produce curriculum-aligned textbook material that is made available to teachers and learners online and that can be collaboratively adapted on the fly, without the barriers traditionally associated with publishing copyrighted material. Mark Horner, project leader for Siyavula, will present the project at eLearning Africa.
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How can African journalists benefit from the Web 2.0 revolution? Web 2.0 and all of its manifestations have been a major turning point in media history. For the first time ever, the mass media has had to deal with a dialogic challenge as readers begin to actively involve themselves in the making of news and deciding what is news and what is not. They have even begun to produce their own content through so-called grass roots journalism or citizens’ journalism. This is indeed a huge challenge for the traditional media, all over the world. PenPlusBytes, an international organisation, seeks to empower journalists through the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). Brenda Zulu reports.
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Teacher in primary
school in northern
Laos,© Wikimedia
Commons

Wikiversity is organising an online course “Composing free and open online educational resources”. Starting on March 3, 2008, the course is designed for teachers and teacher-students who do not have prior knowledge or skills related to free and open education resources.
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The MERLOT Africa Network (MAN) Council will host the First Africa Forum on Open Educational Resources (OER) in conjunction with the eLearning Africa Conference. The Network plans to use the annual eLearning Africa events as a hub for creating awareness of the potential of open education resources and for collaboration in higher education around the globe.
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The objective of this open platform is to provide users with training and capacity-building resources on literacy and other subjects. It will also provide a space to share training material.

Developed by a variety of stakeholders worldwide in co-operation with UNESCO, the platform advocates open content in non-formal education. Most of the training programmes have open licenses which make them accessible to all for teaching and learning. Besides literacy, the subjects covered include computers, business, environment and community development.
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