'Open Courses, Open Teaching, This Is Dangerous'

With his David Crosby-style flowing grey locks, [Stephen] Downes [of the National Research Council Canada] does not look like the other presenters at Moodle Moot 2011, a gathering of educators, united in their embrace of open-source software. His message is as radical as his appearance. "Control of the network must belong to its members," he tells us. "Open courses, open teaching -- this is dangerous."...

...At Moodle Moot it begins to dawn on me exactly how subversive these ideas are and I am feeling more like a teacher-ninja by the minute. What Downes and the other speakers are advocating is the right to keep the tools and ideas of our age open and available to all rather than packaged and sold to the few who can afford them. "The more expensive it is to develop educational systems," Downes instructs us, "the greater push there is to commercialize programs."

Open source advocates are not against profit, but as Downes says, "Commercial use should not block access." Herein lies the schism: as long as a B.C. education is a rare commodity, it can fetch a pretty price. Some B.C. school boards have been turning to international students in order to balance their books. Offshore schools are sprouting overnight like mushrooms, mostly in China, offering B.C. dogwood diplomas from the comfort of one's own country, all for a fee, of course. A quick search of Learn Now BC reveals 58 distributed learning schools operating in the province. Many of these are independent schools.

It threatens the status quo when a group of people are working in order to give this away.
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