The founders of Wikipedia and Connexions, an open-access source for educational material, revealed their Cape Town Open Education Declaration in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday.
The declaration grew out of a September 2007 meeting to spur the open-education movement. The goal is to create more educational resources that anyone can freely access and contribute to. Members of the Open Society Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation, which support education, attended the September meeting.
Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia) and Rich Baraniuk (Connexions) write that open education “promises to turn the textbook-production pipeline into a vast dynamic ecosystem that is in a constant state of creation, use, reuse, and improvement.” —Hurley Goodall
5 Responses to Open-Access Activists Publish Declaration
Lee Gibson - September 15, 2011 at 9:55 pm
This is a really cool idea – mind if I mention it in an upcoming pd session? I think we still have much to learn about the potential for classroom response systems.
I’m fast discovering the super power of having students in small teams share a 2′x3′ whiteboard. Then, no doc cam needed, you can just set the whiteboard in the chalkboard tray. You could even have more than one group do the same proof, set them up side by side, and ask for comparisons.
I take pictures of the boards and post them on photobucket for a record and for futher review – e.g., we got the proof done but ran out of time for the discussion.
I’ve been surprised at how much more effective small team tasks have been once everyone is looking at the same physical space for creating their response.
Here is a discussion of the hardware options. The 12 boards I made a few weeks ago cost $25.
http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Shower_Board_as_a_white_Board
Robert Talbert - September 16, 2011 at 6:02 am
Good point about the whiteboards, Lee. And I didn’t realize you could make them so cheaply! (At that price, I might try making a few for my kids, just to play around on.)
Please feel free to mention this in that PD session.
dpsinha - September 16, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Robert, Your approach overlaps with some other approaches to transition to proof courses (and deeper teaching more generally), which an MAA panel I helped run tried to highlight together. The idea we tried to convey is that there are a number of techniques and tools one can use to put student thought and work first (both temporally and in emphasis). If someone wants to change their own teaching to meet this goal, it can be better to see these approaches together, so that they can start shaping things to work with their own strengths and weaknesses. See:
http://pages.uoregon.edu/dps/inquiryproof.php
Would you be interested in joining us, perhaps in running an MAA training session?
Best,
Dev Sinha
University of Oregon
Robert Talbert - September 16, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Sure, just email me the details. (robert [dot] talbert [at] gmail [dot] com)
Lee Gibson - September 16, 2011 at 7:55 pm
I was curious that the theories from Realistic Mathematics Education didn’t appear on the list on the site you referenced. Seems like guided discovery would fit in nicely with that list. I’m having some pretty good luck with Abstract algebra using some materials Sean Larsen at Portland St. is putting together.