Re: [school-discuss] my puzzle about OSS in education

[Phil Carinhas <pac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jun 03, 2005 at 10:13:22PM -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 03, 2005 at 11:10:47PM -0400, David Crusoe wrote:
> > All, 
> > 
> This is no doubt why Tux Paint has been so successful, while Tux Math has
> been stuck in a rut.  There are dozens of excuses I can think of as to why
> I haven't "finished" Tux Math, and one of them is lack of feedback from
> educators (this was so in the beginning; since then, teachers have actually
> discovered the app and sent me email about it :^) )

  A few years ago I tried to start a project that would allow for peer
review and feedback for OSS documentation; It never got off the ground,
but the same "process" would be relevant to software. Its clear that
to develop excellent teaching materials and software, you need an excellent
process by which to evolve it. We never really got this process well
defined, but as you can imaging, it looks like a feeback loop between
the developers and teachers. 

  As we all know, its a significant challenge to define, much less,
implement such a process. You also need dedicated teachers willing to 
use their classes as testing grounds.

Although it may seem to be an extra overhead burdon to the development
process, it's needed and important.

 -Phil
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 | Philip A. Carinhas      | http://fortuitous.com        | 
 | Fortuitous Technologies | Linux Consulting & Training  | 
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