K12 Open Source

On July 24-25, 2008, the World Blind Union and KEI convened an expert group to consider a possible treaty for blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled persons. The meeting was held in Washington, DC. There is a one page talking points memo in English, and the proposed Treaty text, as a three page memo discussing the proposal. These documents are available in English, French and Spanish, in several document formats. The English version of the proposed Treaty text is available in DAISY format from the DAISY Consortium here .

KEI supports the notion that the WIPO SCCR should begin it's norm setting agenda in small confidence building steps, working with communities that know what they want. The reading disabled community is at the head of the line both because they are ready now, and because they have a very compelling need. According to the World Health Organization, there are 45 million persons who are blind, and 90 percent of them live in developing countries, mostly in appalling poverty and with very limited employment opportunities.

Here's the world's shortest, fairest, and simplest licence agreement: "Don't violate copyright law." If I had my way, every digital download from the music in the iTunes and Amazon MP3 store, to the ebooks for the Kindle and Sony Reader, to the games for your Xbox, would bear this - and only this - as its licence agreement. "Don't violate copyright law" has a lot going for it, but the best thing about it is what it signals to the purchaser, namely: "You are not about to get screwed."

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education helps educators gain confidence about their rights to use copyrighted materials in developing students' critical thinking and communication skills. Check out these exciting additional resources:

The effective use of technology to improve learning processes turns out to be a far greater "change problem" than most leaders and practitioners appreciate and one that is inconsistent with the rigid and powerful cultural aspects (i.e., assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors) of education. Among the key reasons for this limited success are (a) the all too common "cultural paralysis" in education, (b) the lack of adequate transformational leadership for providing the necessary "learning vision," "change sponsorship," and relevant "circumstances and rewards," and (c) few proactive professional faculty development programs that meaningfully prepare faculty change methods, "change creation," that provide approaches for long-term improvement.

Stated more succinctly as a "general theory of learning in the web era," to borrow a phrase from Jim Shimabukuro, computer technology (e.g., $10 computers) + access to the digital storehouse of human knowledge + social computing + cognitive tools + teaching and learning practices consistent with the learning sciences + leadership to catalyze change = transformation of education.

The Portable Document Format (PDF) is a popular format to publish formatted text and documents. There are several different versions of it, some qualifying as an Open Standard, some certified by ISO and some encumbered by software patents. You might want to promote the versions that are Open Standards, because Open Standards guarantee interoperability, competition and choice

This initiative originated in the Fellowship of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). The coordinators of this initiative are Hannes Hauswedell and Jan-Hendrik Peters

The Fellowship of the Free Software Foundation Europe is proud to announce its latest initiative: pdfreaders.org, a site providing information about PDF with links to Free Software PDF readers for all major operating systems.

An open source 'guitar hero' for the piano

Information Provided and Updated by Ministry of Human Resource Development || Designed and Developed by eGyankosh, Indira Gandhi National Open University

What impact will the $10 notebooks have on education? or Is it really possible to produce a useful notebook for $10? See also Harry Keller's "It's not the hardware; it's the software!" comment

On February 3, after a tremendous amount of hype, India's $10 laptop was finally unveiled. In anticipation of the event, Jim Morrison, Innovate editor-in-chief, distributed an eblast to Innovate board members, which was followed up by Jim Shimabukuro's I-Blog post "India: $10 Notebooks for Students" on February 2. As we all know by now, the Sakshat "laptop" turned out to be a computing device, a far cry from a computer. In the aftermath, Shimabukuro put out a call for articles: What are the implications of the Sakshat or a similar cheap computer device for education?

An example search from a crowd sourcing service for web browsing provided by , a leading social news aggregator. i'd not come across this tool and the reslts "returned" seem to hit the button.

when you actually look at what happens when you add a lot of surveillance, it doesn't make it any easier to find the needles; it just makes the haystack bigger. On September 11 American intelligence agencies knew everything they needed to know to prevent the attack, they just didn't know they knew it.

The project will create open content electronic textbooks that will be freely available from a website. Distribution will also be possible via paper, CD, or DVD. ...The goal is to make textbooks available to the many who cannot afford them. ... The Global Text Project is funded by the Jacobs Foundation.

Welcome to the wiki page of Pakistani ICT policy. This wiki is meant for brainstorming ideas to redraft the National IT Policy for Pakistan. This is a Public Wiki Space Wiki, which means that everyone can participate - both public and private sector organizations and individuals. Being open and inclusive are the underlying concepts of this Public Wiki Space.