[Geo4All] Open Letter requesting RGS to be part of Open Principles in Science and Education for a better world for everyone

[Suchith Anand]

Dear RGS colleagues,

I would like to send open letter to RGS requesting to please  support open principles in Geoeducation and include Open principles in the Geography Ambassador Program .  Open Principles (open data, free and open software, open educational resources, open standards, open access to research publications) are key for expanding quality education opportunities for all. So please support Open Principles in education and Science for a better world for everyone.


Why are Open Principles important in science and education  ? Please see the links below

http://www.geoconnexion.com/uploads/publication_pdfs/uk_v15i18-058-059-Op951AF3.pdf

Openness is fundamental in harnessing the true potential of  Science and Education and expanding digital economy opportunities for all .

My presentation slides on this is at

https://www.slideshare.net/SuchithAnand/open-principles-in-geoeducation


Let me give you an example from our colleagues in Uruguay. gvSIG Batovi is an excellent example of a successful initiative in Open Principles in Education and helps us to understand why scalability and costs for scaling is fundamental . This is a good example of scalability of education opportunities with very little resources using Open Principles. Imagine if all these hundreds of schools and thousands of students had to depend on buying software and data for their teaching and learning. This simple idea can be scaled to millions of schools globally .This empowerment of educators and students is the true essence and gift of Open Principles.

Through their focus on Open Principles in Education they have now provided high quality spatial technologies education to students in all schools across Uruguay . Thanks to the Plan Ceibal they also have free laptops for all Primary and Secondary students in the country so they truly have the opportunity to reach every student no matter they are rich or poor with high quality teaching and learning tools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orwN9K07XPo                                  (Video with English translation)

All our free and open software can be downloaded from http://www.osgeo.org


You can also download 50+ advance geosoftware from desktop GIS to web mapping to mobile mapping at https://live.osgeo.org/en/index.html          and give it away as DVDs to your students, so they can use the tools to  create more startups  in GIS. Overview of all software at https://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/overview.html


There are excellent resources developed by our colleagues in USA all in creative commons licence which you are welcome to make use of . These lectures and labs are freely available for you to use and are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Details are at http://spatialquerylab.com/foss4g-academy-curriculum/


All our training materials are at http://www.geoforall.org/training/                                                  Feel free to share with colleagues and use them.



We are already making huge impact from thousands of schools and universities worldwide  are now benefiting from Open Principles in GeoEducation . The bigger aim is to also to advance STEM education across the world and bring together schools, teachers and students across the world in joint projects and help building international understanding and global peace.

Open innovation is key in driving Digital Economy opportunities and we are determined to make sure that everyone benefits. We look forward to more schools, universities across the world joining  Geo for All and expanding geoeducation and innovation opportunities for students worldwide.

Let us all work together to help create a world that is more accessible, equitable and full of innovation and opportunities for everyone. We look forward to working with you all for making education, and opportunities accessible to all.

I  look forward to work with you for this.

Best wishes,

Suchith

Dr. Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org/

GeoForAll - Building and expanding Open Geospatial Science

Open Principles in Science and Education for bridging the digital divide




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