Raleigh, NC
I'm a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University with an intense affection for all things FOSS. I'm particularly interested in leveraging Open Source in the classroom and expanding the commons of freely-licensed educational courseware. I'm a Computer Scientist, so FOSS is obviously a big part of what I'm interested in, but I would particularly like to see Open Source and Libre Culture penetrate the non-technical disciplines, since there's a whole lot more to it than computing!
Authored Comments
There was a big hype over e-textbooks, but putting a book on a computer screen is like broadcasting a 75-minute lecture: you can't just take old teaching styles and apply them to new technology. You need to make a new kind of courseware with a new generation of teaching styles in mind from the ground up!
Moreso than e-books in OER collections (which are important) I would love to see modular educational apps - specialized apps that teach specialized topics. It's kind of silly to use these multimedia iPads and Nexuses to read the digital equivalence of print media. OER can't just follow in the footsteps of the established big players if it wants to compete. It needs to take the initiative and lead the way in changing the playing field itself.
Furthermore, by making it evident to children at a young age that "what you see doesn't have to be what you get", we might be able to inspire more folks to pursue computer science in the future, especially in underrepresented fields.