VUSSC/Mauritius BC/News/14 August 2006

Monday Blues
Wayne's here! After a rough trip and HEATHROW airport with all its GIGANTIC security measures. Monday morning also saw everyone getting updated with their emails and how everything had gone back home during the weekend..and also how the weekends had been spent in Mauritius. The entrepreneurship gang then went back to getting the objectives finalised for Unit 2.

After tea, Wayne, very true to himself, gave us very interesting talk on UBUNTU- an African philosophy about the concept of sharing and that everyone exists because others exist and that sharing is a natural extension of that self towards everyone else. He aslo discussed "free content" licences which are not free eg. MIT open content initiative--the licence chosen was Creative Commons but with the option of BY (attribution to original author) SA (share alike to anyone) and ALSO NC (non-commercial) clause which does not allow you to ditribute cds (for a cost -not even the cost of the Cd it was written for)- which is why COL doens't want to restrict the freedom of anyone who would like to make money from distributing the contents. Notice WIKIEDUCATOR- (BY)(SA)

Wayne also talked about some misconceptions some of us had about WIKIEDUCATOR- the host website which is financed by COL - which as compared to rightly.com would not run the risk of shutting down one day- and even if COL would somehow disintegrate- the fact that the contents are open, they can always be shifted to a new server. THIS IS THE FIRST IN THE WORLD _DEVeloping societies developing their own content for their own purpose, for their own people.. Drawback being -as with all pioneering initiatives, that we're developing our own methodologies and the problems we are going to be facing are going to be Needs: technology for collaborative authoring from whevever we are..the one piece of software for 100s of thousands of users simultaneusly- MEDIAWIKI, 100, 000s collaborators and software developpers working on this software, with the possibility of stopping and 'disarming' vandals.

He also talked about the quality-concerns for this wide range of freedom that exists- EDUCOMMONS being a possible method, and recustomising and contextualising the content for their own use for getting some sort of common accreditation system, e-learning XHTML project (eXe) - to get software refinements done for better in an educational environment- eg for getting into a "good" print version.

WATCH http://wikieducator.org/stats/ for all the latest statistics that happen on wikieducator and for seeing who all are watching and how they are interacting with the website.

MOODLING in WIKIEDUCATOR
Wayne introduced us to the eXe package that was linked into wikieducator http://moodle.wikieducator.org/course/view.php?id=2 I logged in as a guest and found this lovely peice

Tourism Team
After the weekend, with the scheduled tours and unofficial activiities, we were back to the Lab.

After tea, we had a talk by Wayne, who arrived over the weekend. Wayne, very true to himself, gave us very interesting talk on UBUNTU- an African philosophy about the concept of sharing and that everyone exists because others exist, and that sharing is a natural extension of that self towards everyone else. Wayne had quite alot to share:
 * The day began with the group reflecting on the layout of the outline.
 * (Adapted from News)
 * "Free content" licences
 * Some misconceptions some of us had about WIKIEDUCATOR- the host website which is financed by COL.
 * The quality-concerns for this wide range of freedom that exists- EDUCOMMONS being a possible method, and recustomising and contextualising the content for their own use for getting some sort of common accreditation system, e-learning XHTML project (eXe) - to get software refinements done for better in an educational environment- eg for getting into a "good" print version.
 * The number of visits to the innovative project that VUSSC is curently working on. WATCH http://wikieducator.org/stats/ for all the latest statistics that happen on wikieducator and for seeing who all are watching and how they are interacting with the website.

After lunch, the Tourism group, true to its concept, had yet another meeting. This time we decided on the layout for the content and started fitting the content into the wiki; reworking content with objectives also occurred.

The Entrepreneurship Team
Discussions with Wayne concerning the concept of sharing and the development of individuals as others share. He felt that, sharing is as natural as life.

Wayne gave valuable information on UBUNTU, Wilieducator, Educommons, accreditation of open content, exe.

The Entrepreneurship team continued to develop unit 2. Discussions were held regarding the layout of the unit and the objectives. Concensus was reached and the unit layout was posted. The group shared the points among group members and each started on the content. The content was placed directly on the wiki.