Re: [seul-edu] Resources and environment (was Reservations ..: site tools ..)

["David M. Bucknell" <david@members.iteachnet.com>]

Hi Larry, 

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I agree with your characterization of the
wiki as a good tool during the thought formation process. I have found it
useful in that sense myself, and didn't recognize it until you said so.

Let me say that I now understand how the curriculum aspect of schoolforge is,
or could be, just a small, though important part of it. But what should that
part be? Does anyone really think that we need a tool by which people can
explore their thoughts and store information on which they and others can
comment? Perhaps, but isn't that possible somewhere else? How does that fit in
schoolforge?

For me, the concept of schoolforge is about people who have gotten far enough
in their education and experience to have the knowledge, skills and desire to
give something back, to build something useful to those running schools (not
excluding home schooling or even self-schooling or de-schooling ;-)).


Suppose a group of math teachers wants to design a free and open curriculum
for middle school math and even wants to build the courses and lessons needed
to teach it? Another possibility is that some teachers will want to help
develop an open source alternative to the Advanced Placement or International
Baccalaureate programs. These projects would need a means of planning, posting
drafts, comparing them, commenting on them and editing them. They would also
want a way to organize the result in an effective, accessible way and to
ensure that it is clearly linked to any courses that contain pre-requisite
lessons, similar lessons, or subsequent lessons.

In other words, what is called for here is not a way to explore thoughts, but
a way to collaborate, organize and publish thoughts.

"Prevett, Larry" <Prevettl@cochise.cc.az.us> said:

> | Do you think they [wikis] would allow different groups to work on their 
> | own projects, each with a project leader a la sourceforge/open 
> | source dev process?
> 
> David,
> 
> let me start a new thread here and not talk about tools, but
> about use of resources and an environment that fosters creativity.
> 
> The thing is, there are different parts to any creative process.
> First you get an idea, then you research and enrich your idea, then
> you represent the idea in some way. Finally, you find a way to
> exchange your representation (whether it is a piece of software, a web
> page, a piece or art, etc.) for something that allows you to
> continue the creative process. This completes the cycle.
> (Ok, I realize that in framing things this way, I'm excluding a
> large number of other things about the creative process.)
> 
> The mailing list is a source of ideas for me. Tools like search engines
> and wikis allow me to research and enrich the ideas, I can represent
> these ideas as course materials or web pages, etc. Since I am a  
> teacher, I teach to complete the cycle.
> 
> Programmers might find an application like Sourceforge useful for
> many parts of this process, especially the 'exchange' component of 
> the creative process. If you are maintaining a web site for education, 
> then that site is one way you can 'exchange' things for the purpose 
> of continuing your creative activities. That 'exchange' could be for
> money, or resources, or anything that allows you to continue on.
> 
> The exchange part is tricky, and a real puzzle for many open source
> programmers. It's the source of many arguments. It's important to 
> protect something that allows you to perpetuate your endeavors. 
> I think the proposed education coalition, and the consolidation of 
> resources, might be a way for programmers and others to strengthen 
> their position for exchanging things, but I'm not exactly
> sure how. I don't think a wiki is necessarily the best staging area for 
> this 'exchange to perpetuate the process' thing. 
> 
> But a wiki is a wonderful tool for the research and enrichment part of
> the creative process. You might be able to use it for other things
> too, don't know. It does have an 'experimental' aura about it. 
> 
> I don't know why I like the SEUL wiki. I think I like the environment 
> that Doug and Roger have created. I trust them, and their reports are 
> a lifeline. I think they have a great thing going and I really want 
> them to succeed. But they don't seem to be to concerned about 
> succeeding in a commercial sense, so the 'exchange' part of the process
> doesn't appear to be prominent. They just want to have fun while 
> doing a good thing, which is a great environment to collaborate in!
> 
> lp
> 



-- 
David M. Bucknell
http://members.iteachnet.org/~david
http://www.OpenSourceSchools.org
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Fax: (US) 775-244-0803