Open Source in Education: From Cooperative Synchronicity to Intentional Collaboration
Judi Harris, College of William & Mary
What is “open source” and how can it support K-12 education? How can curriculum-based open source/open content materials be developed, refined, and licensed?
Software that is developed with a code, completely open and accessible. No charge, if it is licensed in that way. Software that continues to grow and be revised among a network of interested people.
In education there is a long tradition of something that very much fits with the open philosophy. A long tradition of teachers sharing freely and other teachers adapting for use in their classrooms.
“The best ideas are common property.”
24 national leaders met - tech leaders, corp, programmers, journal editors (Overview in T&L)
4 teams
content areas represented
Looked at 4 parts
Wanted a K-12 shared resource tool
will share specific models and how this will make sense in education
Overview of model
Educators & Students Liasons Software Developers
Bridging
Technology savy teachers
School based educational technology coordinators
University professors an graduate students
Creatively/ technology creative gifted students K-12
educators give feedback on software needs, ongoing feedback, review content, generate furth project ideas, initiate revision cycles
software developers listen & respond with code, cooperate to refine code, transfer core ode to liaisons, revise code in response to feedback
liaisons find/match educators & programmers, locate needed resources, facilitate “development loops”, build “buy-in” , role-related rewards
educators & students- acquire & use customized materials, materials better address learning needs, materials can’t expire/be taken away, postive publicity for innovation, professional acknowledgement
liaisons - solve a problem/address a need, interpersonal professional networking, career advancement, postitive publicity for innovation, may become part of job description, reduce isolation
software developers - mental stimulation in problem solving, resume listing if the program is widely used (did not get rest of them)
First step:
collaborations betwen educators and software developers are rare
first rounds of software development will have to be strategically preplanned
work teams will have to be artificiallyassembled at first
first products must be well-chosen, high quality well tested and well publiziced
govet or private funding needed
Ideas for classroom
grammar tools - ways to look at how lang works - Metaphor Poetry
mathematics - Geometer’s Sketchpad, Excel, etc.
Science - digital microscopy and digital astronomy, digital camera communicating- could hook up to night sky
social studies - online respository of shared images to communicate oral histories, invite postings and reflection from students across the globe
What about a license?
gpl - general public license - these could be servicable but they thought they needed to take another look
open content vs. open source GPL
Free Curricula License
http://www.osef.org/fcl.html
Why might teachers be motivated to license and share their works?
need a searchable well-indexed forge
publications on resume
Key: :new & different kind of professional development
None of us is as smart as all of us - collaborative learning adage
Contributors receive notificatios of extensions/modifications of their work (other grade levels, different formats, etc.)
quality of forge contnets? - Why not include items of “lesser quality” so that other teachers can build on these
Forge needs a “full-time” tendor
What else must be considered as we look to a model like the learning loop license” as a professional learning community?
To what extent will teachers buy into this collegial “sharing at a distance” as professional development?
Audience:
Wikipedia - he uses their license to put it on his wiki, then put it back up to wikipedia, not too many teachers on this now, but 1000’s review the work, so students get to see that their contributions go on the web, he is 12th grade English
If not all teachers will buy into this what kinds of teachers will be drawn to it?
What kinds of support must be in place to ensure that teachers can use this kind of opportunity to its fullest extent for professional development?
original lessons and all variations will remain there.
—–