open education - Page number 3

Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. For many years, it was regarded as the breadbasket of Africa. But since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980, Robert Mugabe has been the leader, and the fate of the country has largely been tied to him and his policies.

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It’s official. In California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed two bills (SB 1052 and SB 1053) that will provide for the creation of free, openly licensed digital textbooks for the 50 most popular lower-division college courses offered by California colleges. The legislation was introduced by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and passed by the California Senate and Assembly in late August. » Read more

In information technology (IT) and software development fields, there are a few fairly common misconceptions about the use of open source software. These misconceptions were debunked in a discussion at POSSE RIT 2012, and we’d like to share (and spread) that conversation. » Read more

If you’re neither a scientist, nor active in the open source community, it can be difficult to properly understand why people write open source software. Why would people just give away the products of so much hard work? » Read more

Forty years ago, John Holt wondered whether an educational revolution as profound as open education could survive unless it became part of a wider and deeper movement of social change. Until open source and the concept of an open education began to take hold, John Holt's vision of an open education seemed to be a pipe dream. » Read more

Dr. Sameer Verma first learned about open source software when a college friend gave him a weekend crash course in Linux. Now a professor of information systems in the College of Business at San Francisco State University, Verma has taken those lessons to heart—and is teaching his own students the open source way.

Recently, we talked with Verma about the challenge of open source pedagogy, about integrating open source technologies and values into the college classroom, about the benefits of learning open source project management, and about his work with One Laptop Per Child. » Read more

How do you build free language education in every language, for everyone? This is the central question that motivates our work at Wikiotics and today we unveil the first step toward that goal. We call it "The Last Language Textbook." » Read more

Teachers and students have a new portal to find open educational resources: OER Commons. It is the first comprehensive open learning network where teachers and students from kindergarten to graduate school can access OER materials, share, and work together. Users can search, browse, and discuss over 32,000 open educational resources. Examples include: university courses, math or physic stimulations, digital textbooks, and elementary lesson plans, worksheets, and activities. » Read more

Common Core State Standards and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) have designed standards and frameworks to support learning in the classroom. However, their approaches on English Language Arts and the use of digital technology and open source need to be better aligned.

Common Core State Standards is a state-led initiative to provide a set core of common knowledge for children to succeed in life and learning. Each state has the option to adopt the standards or not. It is primarily based on performance and on expectations of what children are to learn at every grade level and subject. The Common Core State Standards claims that this practice will help better prepare children for high school, college, the workforce, and a global economy. The standards are heavily based on print and book-based learning. » Read more

Digital technology and open educational resources have enormous potential and power with young children. For parents of special needs children, especially those who are blind or visually impaired, dyslexic, or physically or cognitively impaired, the situation is compounded. Parents usually have to advocate to ensure that teachers and schools, even preschools, have educational materials are accessible and available for their child's use. » Read more