AfroPhysics/Partners/TESSA

Hi all interested in teacher education,

I would like you to get aware of a fairly new web-based programme for the education of primary school teachers in Africa:
http://www.tessaprogramme.org

Some quotations:
Definition:
„TESSA is a research and development programme creating 'open content' multimedia resources and course design guidance for teachers and teacher educators working in Sub-Saharan African countries.“

Aim:
„All the TESSA resources are being developed as ‘Open Educational Resources’ (OER). Anyone, anywhere, can use, adapt and download these for free. The first phase of resources will focus on core teaching skills at the primary level and will include: Literacy, Numeracy, Science, Life Skills, Social Studies and the Arts. Subsequent development of the site will expand into other areas, including secondary subject teaching. All the teacher resources are strongly classroom practice orientated with hundreds of activities that can be used in the classroom. The resources can be used ‘on-line’ or in hard text format. On-line resources are being developed for those working alongside teachers in the development and improvement of their practice. Downloadable files appropriate to printing off and using in this format will be also available.
All the resources are versioned to national and language specific versions. In the first instance the resources will be available in five languages: Arabic, English, French, Kiswahili and isi-Xhosa.“

Tessa is ready to accept partners.:
„The TESSA team will welcome any institution or organization involved with teacher education to become part of the consortium.“

Commentary:
Tessa seems to be right at the beginning aiming to first do research work and trying to get people involved. I think with our wiki, we are able to go ahead right away, offering all who want to join TESSA the possibility to start producing materials without much planning. What do you think?
Regards, Günther = White Eagle 10:42, 13 July 2007 (CEST)

Hi White Eagle - great to see this section of the Wiki developing. Well done. TESSA is a great project - however we must be sure that TESSA are using a free content license. When I last talked with TESSA they were using a CC-BY-SA-NC license (which is a non free license) and we wouldn't be able to use this content. I don't see any license statement on their website and I hope that TESSA have rethought their license choice and considered dropping the NC restriction. --Mackiwg 16:30, 13 July 2007 (CEST)

Hi Wayne, thanks for the encouragement, it motivates me a lot!
Just before I read your lines, I sent an email to TESSA (see below).
I didn't follow all our licence discussions so very carefully, but don't you think you are somehow a bit too hard when you write "we wouldn't be able to use this content"? I mean they stated "All the TESSA resources are being developed as ‘Open Educational Resources’ (OER). Anyone, anywhere, can use, adapt and download these for free."?
Günther = White Eagle 17:15, 13 July 2007 (CEST)

email to TESSA, sent July 13:

Ladies and gentlemen,

may I at first introduce myself:
My name is Günther Osswald, a secondary school teacher for Mathematics and Physics in Germany.
Since some months, I’m working in my “leisure time” for WikiEducator, a project set up by the Commonwealth of Leaning (COL).
The last weeks, we have discussed to open up a platform for K12 teachers all around the globe, with special dedication to teachers from countries of the south.
As far as I can conclude from your statements on your homepage “TESSA-Programme”, we share the same ideas of getting teachers involved in the production of OERs for classroom practice.
Maybe our approaches are slightly different, as you seem to operate in a very organized way, first doing research and polls to investigate the best methods, while we are trying to just go ahead in the more chaotic but also more creative “wiki way”, I.e. leaning by doing and collaborative authoring.
I am personally very keen to see if there are possibilities for cooperation. I think our approaches could complement each other in a very constructive way.
May I leave you two links to our project?

Our “Teacher Education Home Page“: http://www.wikieducator.org/Ted

My user page in the wiki: http://www.wikieducator.org/User:White_Eagle

Hoping to hear from you soon, with kindest regards,

Günther Osswald