Steve O’Connor> wrote a thought-provoking post “Is Open Source too difficult?” in response to the formation of the K-12 Open Source Community on ning.
I’ve been slow to respond, in part, because life is a bit chaotic for me right now and, in part, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to weigh in on what could be perceived as overly critical of the K-12 Open Source Community, which I think, on the whole, is a benefit to the Open Source movement in schools.
The issues are gnawing at me, though, so so here are some thoughts:
- If the “proponents” of the movement aren’t using FOSS tools for a community dedicated to FOSS, there is a problem. (I have some ideas of what could be done to help address this, but I’ll save them for another post.)
- Open Source tools, on the whole, are more difficult for most users than standard proprietary tools. (I base this on hundreds of hours of workshops with tools like MediWiki and Wikispaces, Open Office and Office, GIMP and Photoshop, etc.)
- Steve’s fifth graders are undoubtedly more adventuresome (and probably more skilled) than most middle-of-the-road teachers.
- Middle-of-the-road teachers have to be the target for any broad-scale educational initiative.
- You have to pick your battles.
- An important 21st century skills to be be able to evaluate tools and to choose the best tool for each task, which varies according to the task.
- For all of his contributions, Richard Stallan-type thinking will not add to the expansion of FOSS or OER. One of my great concerns for OER is that it won’t ever grow beyond being a fringe movement.
For these and other reasons, I’ve chosen to focus more of my personal time on open content as opposed to open tools. Related points:
- Most people see the weaknesses of textbooks and have identified a need for better content resources that are feasible (and legal) to modify for the purposes of differentiating instruction
- Most teachers are much more facile with content than they are with software.
- There are not IT barriers to open content (though there are substantial barriers presented by the educational-industrial complex).
- Education can be positively and substantially improved with open content.
Food for thought. I’d be interest in your comments.
Thanks, Steve O., for starting this discussion, and Steve H. for starting a community to discuss this in.
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Karen–
My reactions to the latter part of this post–open content can be found in my blog post:
Open Content…well, during the 36 years I was working in a school, I believe I was the only one who wrote my own teaching materials, not completely relying on textbooks. Teachers are not generally authors. Teachers understand the value of well drawn illustrations and good photographs to combine with the text. Writing a good worksheet takes effort. Writing a good unit with text and illustrations needs more effort. Writing a full curriculum (textbook) is a daunting task. Getting the raw material takes significant effort, especially when needing to verify the copyright of the chosen illustrations. Doing the job for local “distribution” is one thing, but going outside the classroom walls? My district tried to get teachers to develop a cohesive set of evaluation instruments for classes taught by more than one teacher. It took massive effort and time, and wasn’t even close to the work of developing common teaching materials or a text for a course.
Mash-up authorship by a wide-spread team of compatible contributors using their own skills to combine words with open content might turn out to be something else, though.
Perhaps you already know about the COSTP World History Project. It sounds much like what you have in mind. As for me, it won’t work. I am not a history buff, nor was I a former social studies teacher.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/COSTP_World_History_Project
Please contact me. This sounds like a project worth being part of. My own background is science and computer courses.
Very good points you make, Algot.
I agree that creating high quality curriculum resources is hard work. (I used to work in textbook publishing….somewhat to my embarrassment now. :)
However, in today’s world of collaborative user-published content, I think this is more feasible than ever. I am often gratified by how many teachers are actively creating their own curriculum — part mashup and part original. If more of this could be harnessed (as Wikibooks does) and perhaps refined by a team of professional editors/curators/publishers, we’d really have something.
I am currently thinking a lot about this for a project in writing. I’m imagining this as being strongly led by a core team of developers (otherwise, I worry it would lack cohesiveness but also possibly never get “done”), but also open for a wider group of collaborators to contribute to.
I’d appreciate any input you’d have on this, and/or help as we get going. You’ve proven yourself a worthy contributor on the dictionary! We appreciate all your contributions.