Guiding Principals

Douglas, Paco and I have been discussing the need to lay out the guiding principals of the Juan Chacon Free Software Project in order to more effectively communicate what we are hoping to do.

Using the guiding principals of an educational conference of which I am very fond as a starting point, we arrived at the following:

Guiding Principals of the Juan Chacon Free Software Project

1. Education should be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members of the educational community.
2. Education must be about co-creating the 21st century citizen, prepared to play a participatory and protagonistic role in a democratic society.
3. Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4. Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate.
5. Learning can - and must - be networked, and educational software and digital resources must be free.

Translated into Spanish, this reads:

Directrices del Proyecto Juan Chacón de Software Libre

1. La educación debería ser impulsada por la investigación, reflexiva y de empoderamiento para todos los miembros de la comunidad educativa.
2. La educación debe ser sobre co-crear el ciudadano del siglo 21, dispuesto a desempeñar un papel participativo y protagónico en una sociedad democrática.
3. La tecnología debe servir a la pedagogía, no a la inversa.
4. La tecnología debe permitir a los estudiantes investigar, crear, comunicarse y colaborar.
5. El aprendizaje puede - y debe - ser conectados en red y el software educativo y los recursos digitales deben ser libres.

I hope this statement of guiding principals will help us locate the kindred spirits in El Salvador with whom we can build the community we seek.