Education

An open source education--for educators

One of the challenges of working in the space between academia and open source communities is translating the cultural and timescale differences. One approach to bridging the gap is to empower people already in the academic space–like professors--to navigate the free and open source software (FOSS) world and bring that knowledge back to the institutions they come from. The week-long POSSE Professors' Open Source Summer Experience (POSSE) workshop, sponsored by Red Hat, aims to do just that. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 2 Sep 2010 by Mel Chua (Red Hat)

The Secret Lives of Faculty: The Door to Tenure

It's taken me months to approach this article. It was going to be about the day-to-day life of tenure-track faculty. But, in the end, I can't write it. I've started this article a half-dozen times in the past few months, and writing about the day-to-day life of the faculty is not something I can do right now. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 24 Aug 2010 by Matt Jadud

The importance of open data in education

The following article is largely based on a talk by Andy Pethan and Colin Zwiebel, "State of Open Data in Education," at the LinuxCon 2010 education mini-summit.

What happens when you open data?

Six months ago, the MTA in New York released a dataset under GTFS, a format for transporation timetables. Timetables themselves aren't very interesting. What is interesting is what you can do with the data. » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 9 Aug 2010 by Ruth Suehle (Red Hat)

Bryant Patten on open source education (LinuxCon session recap)

In LinuxCon's education mini-summit, Bryant Patten of the National Center for Open Source and Education gave a presentation titled "Can open source save the world?" He noted a quote from Mary Lange, Educational Technology Resource Teacher at San Diego Unified School District. She says that we often assume students know how to use computers and that they are really good at it. But the truth is, they know how to use technology for personal reasons but not necessarily for education. They will say "I know how to do that," but when it comes to reality, they don't. » Read more

3 CommentsPosted 9 Aug 2010 by Ruth Suehle (Red Hat)

Why incentives don't work in education—or the business world

Even as the U.S. economy recovers from a financial meltdown led by a number of white-collar Wall Street swindlers, critics of the public education system push for more “business” in the classroom: specifically the implementation of incentives and the hiring of CEOs for superintendents.

There's just one little problem. According to 40 plus years of academic research, incentives—and disincentives—don't normally work. And when they do, they often don't make people behave quite like their proponents anticipate. » Read more

4 CommentsPosted 5 Aug 2010 by Rebecca Fernandez

OLPC and FOSS@RIT--Education innovation the open source way

The Rochester Institute of Technology is a technical university offering undergraduate and post-graduate programs including co-ops, internships, study abroad, and research opportunities to more than 16,000 students in Rochester, NY. One of RIT’s research and educational outreach efforts is the Laboratory for Technological Literacy, a group that focuses on issues of technology and information distribution. » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 3 Aug 2010 by bascha (Red Hat)

Crafting an open web qualification

School of Web Craft

For working in the open web, people need to know more than one technology. They need to learn, hack, and be creative. Mozilla is driving a project to create a broad, university-style, comprehensive course of study: Mozilla's Drumbeat Open Web Developer degree. Currently, they're calling for tutors and mentors to join the discussion about what this might look like. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 15 Jul 2010 by Heather James

Uncovering open education challenges with ISKME’s Lisa Petrides

Creative Commons is helping to shed some light on open education resources in a recent interview with Lisa Petrides from the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME): Open Education and Policy. The good news, there is a lot of policy change at all levels of education. The challenge is » Read more

1 CommentPosted 30 Jun 2010 by Jason Hibbets (Red Hat)

The correlation of Mirabelles and sustainability

What most people do not know about the making of software: It Is Hard. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 10 Jun 2010 by Sebastian Dziallas

Scholarships for open source contributors

Proponents of getting students involved as contributors in open source projects often cite the benefits of having a portfolio and a stellar network of references for job or even school applications. What some don't know is that there are scholarships specifically geared towards open source contributors - and that, for those who want to encourage more young people to get involved in FOSS, these scholarships are quite easy to set up and administer. » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 2 Jun 2010 by Mel Chua (Red Hat)