I came across this group - www.factorefarm.org - while looking for Open Education information on the web, and it has caused me to think a bit about the context of the Open Education movement. I am realizing that the OE movement is occuring within a broader "Open Everything" context. I am coming to this conclusion by reading Clay Shirky and Tim O'Reilly, and seeing the Obama Administration embracing openness among other things. The Factor E Farm is located north of Kansas City, MO and the whole purpose of their project is to bring the open source mentality to real world tools and methods. It's Research and Development for sustainable community living, and they are sharing their processes, instructions, and discoveries with everyone for free in hope that people will use them to develop their own sustainable communities. Their website states that they are "Building tools for replicable, open source, modern off-grid resilient communities - to transcend survival and evolve to freedom." Some of the things they have shared on their site are how they built their tractor, and how they are developing an egg incubator. The things they are doing remind me of Benjamin Franklin's Franklin Stove and this quote by Franklin:
"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment