PmWiki | EAO / SoftwareAndTheRightToEducation

Software and the right to education

The typical educational value of Free Software has meant that from the outset its use has been linked to the right to education. For many years United Nations bodies, UNESCO in particular, have produced reports pushing the potential of new teaching technologies, e-learning in particular, with a view to raising the level of human development.

But, as GianMarco Schiesaro points out, in reality one of the most difficult myths to break down is that cyberspace is considered to be some sort of 'de-territorialised' world. What we need to remember is that even if the encounter between teacher and student takes place in a virtual place, the learning process is always part of a territorial dimension which takes into account the cultural background of the student.

Software is never culturally neutral. This shows up more especially in didactic programs which employ computer gaming. Many of the games coming out of US programming for didactic purposes, for instance, are not well accepted in places like China or India, not for political reasons but for cultural ones. Schools in India and China are much more geared to content for final exams. Another example is the rigid subdivision of the functionality of some European software which reserves certain creative functions exclusively to the teacher. That is fine where the teacher's authority is not normally in question, but in some other places, including in other parts of Europe, it can be seen as curbing the creative potential of the student.

E-learning, which crosses geographical boundaries, may not succeed in crossing cultural boundaries – or does so to the detriment of the learning process. Didactic programs which assume that the distance student is autonomous, more capable of being responsible for learning tasks that he or she identifies, may be quite inadequate for countries and traditions where autonomous thinking is not encouraged, nor decision-making, and where it is normal to think of the younger generation as beholden to the elders.

Virtue the 'commons' and all things computer

(:nl:)