open education - Page number 4

Matt Jadud and Mel Chua have been friends of opensource.com from the beginning. Together with others they "are working on (the) Craft of Electronics, a curriculum for college-level electronics in a craft-first (and theory-sometime-later) format, through learning from, participating in, and contributing to the open hardware movement."

In efforts to explain what it means to operate in the "open source way," Matt wrote a set of guidelines for their team. We thought he was on to something so we’ve taken the liberty (with Matt’s blessing, of course) to build on what he started. We think they make fine tips for anyone contemplating a project the open source way. » Read more

The recent announcement by Blackboard (Bb) that it was acquiring two Moodle service providers was quite interesting to anyone who follows open source in higher education. Over the years, Blackboard has emerged as a market leader in the learning management system (LMS) arena, through both product development and acquisition.  At the same time, Blackboard has attracted considerable heat and a large dose of scorn for a patent the company filed and tried to enforce. That patent was viewed by many to be an attempt to corner the LMS market and to claim invention of many LMS features in use well before Blackboard’s supposed date of invention. (Read coverage of the long story and eventual Blackboard loss in the courts.) Particularly for fans of open source, this sort of behavior does not make Blackboard an admired company, and acquisitions in the Moodle niche are much more likely to raise eyebrows than cheers. » Read more

The words unschooling and open source often make people take a step back. But if there is any mode of learning that fully embraces the philosophy of the open source way, it is unschooling. Some even use the phrase open source learning to describe unschooling. Both unschooling and open source are revolutionary concepts based on freedom of choice. They encourage us to rethink and reassess what, when, where, how, and why we learn. » Read more

Some folks at UNICEF asked me to help them articulate a process for how to make their research projects (usually “is this program we want to do a feasible one?” or “what was the impact of this program we did?” into open content ones. Here’s what I wrote them back.
There are some pretty basic things that a researcher can do to make their work into an open content project. Here are a few. » Read more

My husband and I are librarians. We were talking recently about library training, the library profession, the open source movement, and how open source digital content is being distributed today in public libraries. We were struck by the way that open source thinking has infiltrated many areas—but not yet the profession or institution of librarians. » Read more

Creative Commons, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Open Society Foundations are offering up to $25,000 in cash prizes to "the best short videos that explain the use and promise of free, high-quality open educational resources and describe the benefits and opportunities these materials create for teachers, students and schools". » Read more

Australia is ranked first among English-speaking counties and second in the world in leading a global, digital, open education revolution. Australia follows closely behind top-ranked South Korea –a nation with a bold policy goal of all textbooks and the entire school curriculum available in digital formats by 2015. In February 2012, the Australian government released a new version of their My School website. Users can now search nearly 10,000 Australian schools for statistical information and other details on a particular school, or to compare similar schools. The website provides a range of measures, including the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy, to help parents with school enrollment. » Read more

What a great article in Sunday’s New York Times about East Mooresville Intermediate School.

A bunch of quotes from the article that stood out to me. First, about the program’s success: » Read more

On January 19, Apple held a large, education-related event on in New York City. Just as with almost any other Apple event, pre-event speculations were all over the place. It was clear that the announcement was going to target the textbook market, but what wasn't clear was its scope. As AllThingsD's Peter Kafka wrote: "the key thing to watch at the Guggenheim is whether Cue brings up reps from the big textbook publishers like Pearson and McGraw-Hill onstage, or whether the focus is on letting educators and others build their own books, so they can bypass both the publishers and the antiquated textbook procurement system." » Read more

There is something about a new year that always seems so promising and energizing. It doesn’t seem like too long ago we were saying thank heavens for 2011, and now it’s time to bring in 2012. Before we close this chapter, let’s take a quick look at the ten most popular articles in the education community for 2011, starting with number ten and counting down.

10. How open source tools can create balanced learning environments » Read more