Heywire8 Think Tank/Participants/Danny Wolters

I am interested in the role of the sociocultural context in bringing about sustainable change. The nature of the broader environment to a significant extent determines the wider uptake and sustainability of grass-roots activities. While these activities can be a product of the sociocultural environment, they can equally be highly innovative, in which case they must affect change in their environment in order to remain viable. Knowledge management is a key way of achieving this change in my view.

OERs present an interesting case where tensions exist between grass-roots activity and the nature of the wider context necessary to ensure the sustainability of the activity.

I believe that there are two major shifts/developments that need to occur to enable the broader sociocultural context to sustain the implementation of this vision:

1. developing and implementing progressive and inclusive economic models with respect to OERs

2. developing and implementing progressive and inclusive usage models for OERs (content alone does not equal learning; no learning = little environmental change, and poor sustainability).

Heywire8 continues to be a valuable forum for exploring these, and many other opportunities.

Danny --Dannywolters 04:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

email me your thoughts at talktodanny at gmail dot com