A first attempt at creating a FaceBook Fan page. The intention is to inform the ca. 320,000 pupils/parents and teachers involved in Life- and Agricultural-Sciences in schools in South Africa during 2017, about the free CAPS curriculum-referenced content that has been constructed using the CAPS framework as 'foundation' home webpages; not static MS Word tables....
Each CAPS Topic (Level 1), is es
tablished as a webpage that links to a wiki page—a 'meme' (Level 2) that contains content that is explicitly related (structurally coupled) to the curriculum; i.e. this content is learning-process focused. This in contrast to a subject-focused textbook/eBook that is structured to conform with the syllabus. These (Level 2) memes contain hyperlinks to various kinds of (Level 3) information such as pictures, glossary terms, webpages, HTML slide shows, interactive tables, and several other kinds of knowledge objects. Links at Level 3 give access to Level 4, selected, library of resources. For example, instead of just mentioning say Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species, it is incorporated (structurally coupled) in the CAPS-based, OmniDelta Knowledge Ecosystem. Not just the traditional textbook but a whole selection of 'upstream' books that should be in school libraries (if/where these exist). Two other features make a critical difference:
Firstly, the entire knowledge ecosystem can be downloaded, and freely copied [please;-)] on DVD, USB etc. It can be saved to mobile phones so that your phone becomes both a terminal and the web-system itself: on a desk, in a shirt-pocket... wherever. Why connect to the Internet when you can download to a PC, tablet or phone—in the case of Life Sciences Gr. 10, information that would cover more than 40,000, A4 pages if printed? Information that is written and shared by learners, parents, teachers and community-level, indigenous knowledge experts, thereby to function as a process that harnesses distributed cognition in a way that would enable any one of us to know and use what all of us can contribute. Secondly, this is not a closed system containing the mind products of a few experts. It is an open system that enables a teacher, who has found a really effective way of explaining something, to share this innovation with all teachers, pupils and parents everywhere immediately. If you are an expert botanist able to explain an aspect of botany to your own child, this Omnidelta system would enable you to benefit all children and not only your own. OmniDelta is not only a wiki. Instead, it is driven by an industrial strength relational database that uses wiki conventions for communication. Wiki's are OK for information, but knowledge requires something much more than fixed one-to-one (e.g. not one-to-many) links. This is why we refer to it as a 'relational wiki'. I learn because we learn. We learn because I learn, or as Albert Einstein put it: No ONE of us is as smart as ALL of us. So, you are invited to light a candle rather than curse the darkness.
