Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

eng
c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
wherein professionals and academics of a certain specialty form study and practice
communities around a group of open educational resources, organized in form free
courses, of short duration. In this model, the learning takes place through the interaction
of the students with their peers, their tutors and any other point of interaction
deemed adequate. Thus, the P2PU represents an authentic experience of the
theory of connectivism and connected learning above.
Finally, it is important to comprehend that this openness movement enabled
— as it happened in the freeware world — the appearance of open business models
in the area of publishing of didactic books. An innovative example of this phenomenon
is the North-American company Flat World Knowledge, which offers free
and open digital books (free of some copyrights), which may be purchased in their
printed versions for prices much more accessible than those practiced in the market
and that can be customized by users and teachers who adopt such books 12 .
Conclusions
The politics and the educational projects that combine investment in infrastructure
with a coherent “network” approach relative to the content are more prone to
causing a significant positive impact, as well as reaching the goals of an education
policy for all, capable of involving the student, the teacher and the community. The
possibility of the Internet generating radical processes in the innovation is not an
accident. It also does not derive from the mere connection of computers and courses
in the network. This “generative” effect of the networks 13 comes from the possibility
of combination that people have in face of open technologies, freeware enabling the
creative programming, the right of reutilizing the content in a creative and experimental
manner. Only in the presence of such elements there shall be the generalized
democratization of the abilities and tools necessary to the exercise of rights and du-
12. More details available at http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/educators.
13. “The generative capacity for unrelated and unaccredited audiences to build and distribute code
and content through the Internet to its tens of millions of attached personal computers has ignited
growth and innovation in information technology and has facilitated new creative endeavors…” The
Generative Internet, of Jonathan L. Zittrain. 119 Harv. L. Rev. 1974 (2006). Available at: http://www.
harvardlawreview.org/issues/119/may06/zittrain.shtml.
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