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→Mark Surman talk about "Open Sourcing Education in South Africa"
====Mark Surman talk about "Open Sourcing Education in South Africa"====
Interestingly, the next talk I want to report on also focuses on education and open source software but it goes in a totally different direction. Where Mike is building up an open source course online Mark Surman is working on just the opposite. As part of his talk on “Open Sourcing Education in South Africa” [http://sparc.senecacollege.ca/pub/fsoss/2007/Oct25/1PM/MarkSurmanSouthAfrica.ogg Link to Video“Open Sourcing Education in South Africa” (video)] Mark explains to us that while South Africa is arguably the “wealthiest” region in Africa, most areas of the country are still not connected to the internet and so in looking at ways to bring open source and education to the people of South Africa, the results have been pointing to physical texts instead of websites.
There is momentum behind the concept of open education and places like South Africa can certainly benefit from additional resources for teaching children the math and sciences that are lacking from their current curriculums. What came about from the Cape Town Declaration (a group of very smart open source movers and shakers) was a way to bring the knowledge of many to the classrooms of South Africa.
