This Wednesday I was helping Mel with the POSSE class in Singapore. Basically, I covered what open source content in Fedora does (technical docs, process docs, community self-knowledge docs), the common tools and styles we try to propagate, and then walked the class through how to contribute to the release notes. The exercise was focused […]
Category Archives: Classroom
How to become a docs contributor – video
13-Nov-09Chris Dawson, I understand you are concerned about your school system being sued by the RIAA in your post, “Let me say it again: Stop sharing music!” But spreading nonsensical fear and misinformation isn’t the way to do it. It seems an odd choice to restrict academic openness and freedom for the sake of bad […]
Thanks to this dent from the Creative Commons team, I reviewed some tools about copyright and fair use. The tools cover libraries making reproductions, instructors performing or displaying works, and an overall tool that helps you determine what is or is not in the public domain. Very useful for instructors who might otherwise be tempted […]
Wow. It’s not just that the student-designed and -built OSWALD devices are innovative and cool (they are, and I saw the on-campus sweatshop to prove the student-built part.) The brilliance is the way the OSWALD is the linchpin in an OSU strategy that reinvents computer science teaching, while making room for disciplines outside of CS […]
Intersections — “Open source lifestyle: classroom to career and beyond” from FOSSLC (was OSBootCamp)
06-Apr-09In the Fedora Ambassador gig, at nearly every event there is an opportunity to get a view of the intersection of Fedora, open source, and the many backgrounds, experiences, and questions of other people at the event. Take last Fall’s OSBootCamp as an example. This series of no-cost events was put on by an organization […]
Dead tree irony
26-Mar-09A school district in Texas has US$4.6 million in textbooks sitting in warehouses and school backrooms. Why? Because they must provide textbooks for all children according to the state constitution, and they do so in the classroom, but don’t give them out to take home because of damage and loss being charged to the school […]
The last day of CUE 2009 I was stuck by the pure awesomeness of one of the final presentations in the open source pavilion. It was titled Intro and Demo Open Source (Free) Software Programs for Educators! (found 1/3rd of the way down the conference sessions page). The three presenters, Shin, Katalin, and Branka, were […]
Moodle as a killer K-12 app
06-Mar-09We talk about killer applications, the killer app, which are programs so good they change the nature of a situation. Email is long considered a general audience killer app, when you think about the impact it has had over the years. For educators, is Moodle the killer app? Sure looks like it. This is written […]
Stumbling around in the K-12 space
06-Mar-09This week I’m fulfilling a talk obligation that David Nalley and I set up last Fall, to talk about the advantages of bringing a culture of participation to the classroom. In particular, this is the Computer-Using Educators (CUE) conference, with teachers and technology coordinators from K-12 districts across the country. K-12 is short-hand for primary […]
Docs virtual hackfest over the holidays
18-Dec-08The Fedora Docs team is going to have a series of hackfest days over the coming holiday weeks. Topics being so far include: Wiki training – how to, do this, don’t do that, etc. Conversion of an existing Fedora Docs guide to Publican Finishing of the F9 User Guide, possible conversion to XML Start work […]