Closing Keynote: Open Source Futureshttp://archive.vitta.org.au/conference/2008/programme.php?day=1 Monday, 24 November 2008 03:20 PMPresented by Pia Waugh.Personal blogWaugh Partners Open knowledge: the current access to information is beyond what anyone dreamed possible. The array of opinions, facts, fiction and easy mechanisms to find information has created a completely new world view that is both broad and discriminating. More and more organisations and people are publishing quality information, and on the ground facts that give all students today an incredible tool. Open standards: open standards provide the ability to store data in a way that is accessible far into the future, and not at the whim of a particular company or organisation. With so much data being digitally created by students and teachers (everything from art to essays and lesson plans), open standards are vital to ensuring those students will be able to pursue their childhood work as adults. Open source: there are literally thousands of open source applications that are directly relevant to education. Be they education tools, fun tools, learning tools or even web infrastructure just to name a few. Open source grants schools both the ability to complement existing infrastructure with powerful open source tools and also provide a rich learning environment for students that is able to be freely taken home. Open community: through modern tools such as eLearning environments, wikis and blogs, teachers across the country (and world) can collaboration on content, learning modules, modern teaching tools and support and more. The open community created around education is assisting teachers everywhere in being more effective, and ultimately create a better education for their students. Open access: through all the aspects of openness above, students really gain open access to education tools and knowledge as an important element in ensuring equal access to opportunities and skills.
