Connexions: Create Globally, Educate Locally

4th International Conference on Open RepositoriesThis presentation was part of the session : Conference PostersFounded in 1999, Connexions (http://cnx.org/) was built upon the philosophy that high-quality, open-licensed scholarly materials can revolutionize the way we think about education. Built upon a core of open software and driven by innovators in the open education movement, Connexions has made it possible for authors worldwide to publish content that teachers and learners can rip, mix, and burn to develop customized learning solutions at no cost. Authors create learning objects, called modules, that can be assembled into online courses, printed textbooks, or academic journals. All content in the Connexions repository is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license, giving educators the tools and materials necessary to create unique works tailored to the needs of their students and colleagues. As the Connexions content repository continues to grow, traditional educational consumers will find themselves in a position to become producers, taking full advantage of the knowledge available in a global, digital society.Rice University; Hewlett Foundatio

Designing relational pedagogies with jam2jamXO

This paper examines the affordances of the philosophy and practice of open source and the application of it in developing music education software. In particular I will examine the parallels inherent in the ‘openness’ of pragmatist philosophy in education (Dewey 1916, 1989) such as group or collaborative learning, discovery learning (Bruner 1966) and learning through creative activity with computers (Papert 1980, 1994). Primarily I am interested in ‘relational pedagogies’ (Ruthmann and Dillon In Press) which is in a real sense about the ethics of the transaction between student and teacher in an ecology where technology plays a more significant role. In these contexts relational pedagogies refers to how the music teacher manages their relationships with students and evaluates the affordances of open source technology in that process. It is concerned directly with how the relationship between student and teacher is affected by the technological tools, as is the capacity for music making and learning. In particular technologies that have agency present the opportunity for a partnership between user and technology that enhances the capacity for expressive music making, productive social interaction and learning. In this instance technologies with agency are defined as ones that enhance the capacity to be expressive and perform tasks with virtuosity and complexity where the technology translates simple commands and gestures into complex outcomes. The technology enacts a partnership with the user that becomes both a cognitive and performative amplifier. Specifically we have used this term to describe interactions with generative technologies that use procedural invention as a creative technique to produce music and visual media

Constructing the Learning Environment in Classroom Convivial Computer Tools for Higher Education

New education technologies are coming on stream, enabling connectivity among teachers, facilitators and students. Students have to learn how to access Managed Learning Environments each time they move to different course websites. These barriers can hinder the real understanding of the subject matter for a course. This research calls for a rethink of pedagogical process towards blending together commonly used emerging social software and legacy educational tools rather than developing new tools for the classroom. Indeed, a learning tool should fit well to the learning model and philosophy of that course. Three case studies were conducted through different courses in the Digital Media master program and Informatik program at the University of Bremen, Germany. Students worked in small groups to design digital media and learning portal that should make learning more interesting and meaningful for them. At the end, this research proposes the concept of Constructing the Learning Environment in classroom and Convivial Computer Tools for higher education, where students and teachers, via dialogues in the class, can negotiate to deploy a set of selected tools and functions to match their learning needs. It is also to show that a tool with too many functions can cause confusion, rather than enhance effectiveness. To empower collaborative, interactive and personal learning, this work proposes the blended learning and classroom procedures for a convivial selection of educational tools. At the end, our innovative attempt is to bring constructionist learning into the higher education context

FOSS tools and applications for education in geospatial sciences

While the theory and implementation of geographic information systems (GIS) have a history of more than 50 years, the development of dedicated educational tools and applications in this field is more recent. This paper presents a free and open source software (FOSS) approach for education in the geospatial disciplines, which has been used over the last 20 years at two Italian universities. The motivations behind the choice of FOSS are discussed with respect to software availability and development, as well as educational material licensing. Following this philosophy, a wide range of educational tools have been developed, covering topics from numerical cartography and GIS principles to the specifics regarding different systems for the management and analysis of spatial data. Various courses have been implemented for diverse recipients, ranging from professional training workshops to PhD courses. Feedback from the students of those courses provides an invaluable assessment of the effectiveness of the approach, supplying at the same time directions for further improvement. Finally, lessons learned after 20 years are discussed, highlighting how the management of educational materials can be difficult even with a very open approach to licensing. Overall, the use of free and open source software for geospatial (FOSS4G) science provides a clear advantage over other approaches, not only simplifying software and data management, but also ensuring that all of the information related to system design and implementation is available

e-Sem: Dynamic Seminar Management System for Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Education

This paper describes the dynamic seminar management system named 'e-Sem', developed according to the opensource software philosophy. Due to its dynamic management functionality, it can equally adapt to any education environment (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary). The purpose of the proposed dynamic system is ease of use and handling, by any class of users, without the need of special guidance. Also, students are given the opportunity to: a) register as users; b) enroll in seminars in a simple way; c) receive e-learning material at any time of day any day of week, and d) be informed of new announcements concerning the seminar in which they are enrolled . In addition, the administrator and the tutors have a number of tools such as : management seminars and trainees in a friendly way, sending educational material as well as new announcements to the trainees; the possibility of electronic recording of presence or absence of the trainees in a seminar, and direct printing of a certificate of successful attendance of a seminar for each trainee. The application also offers features such as electronic organization, storage and presentation of educational material, overcoming the limiting factors of space and time of classical teaching, thus creating a dynamic environmen

CuDAS: An interactive curriculum combining pedagogic composition with interactive software for the teaching of music technology

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Within the framework of education of Music Technology for 16-18 year olds there exists a lack of thorough teaching and learning resources sufficient for a broad understanding of the basics of audio and electronic synthesis. This PhD submission outlines the role of the composer in the classroom in addressing this fundamental issue through the development of a curriculum containing pedagogic composition and interactive software. There will be a discussion of the principles of pedagogic methodologies developed by various composers and of the current model of learning provided in Music Technology Alevel. The programming tools used to develop the software are investigated, as well as an exploration into the current learning psychology that informed the curriculum development. This submission consists of a written thesis that accompanies a set of compositions and a multimedia DVD, which includes the software for the CuDAS curriculum. Within this software is contained a presentation of a series of interactive tutorials alongside compositions in the form of scores, recordings and interactive exercises. There is also include written supporting documentation and sound files of techniques and recordings from contrasting genres of music history

The adoption of open sources within higher education in Europe : a dissemination case study

For some time now, the open-source (OS) phenomenon has been making its presence felt; disrupting the economics of the software industry and, by proxy, the business of education. A combination of the financial pressure Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) find themselves under and the increasing focus on the use of technology to enhance students' learning have encouraged many HEIs to look towards alternative approaches to teaching and learning. Meanwhile, the "OS" has challenged assumptions about how intellectual products are created and protected and has greatly increased the quantity and arguably the quality of educational technologies available to HEIs

Networks Of Users And Powers: Blackboard Software Roadmap As Cultural Practice

With the rapid growth of eLearning applications - the software providing for learning through the Internet - it has become commonplace to describe those technologies as both simple tools and user-friendly. These two vague yet suggestive terms make the operating of the technology appear as social value and any related issues as a user\u27s problem. Interested neo-liberal groups take a step further when considering eLearning technologies as the solution for the problems faced in the field. STS studies recognize that technology fetishism is strategically employed to justify the latest developments of capitalism as technological and logical. This doctoral study examines the complexity of the LMS software, a widely used platform in higher education, from a learner\u27s perspective by both problematizing the term user and highlighting the systemic nature of user\u27s issues. Becoming an LMS user is viewed as a social process of sense-making in which the system is transformed to the point that learner feels in a personal relationship with the system. The surrounding fetishistic discourse represents a capitalistic philosophy not only associated with the industrial production of software but also aimed at the commodification of learner, contradicting the social image/function of education. This study draws mainly from an ethnographic data collection on the experiences and perspectives of a team in charge of updating and troubleshooting Blackboard software in an American higher education setting during the 2012-13 school year, from a selection of hundreds of Internet related documents, and from my personal experience with online teaching. The study first outlines the origin and historical rise and expansion of LMS technologies; it describes how the system was socially reconstructed for fitting technology and situating learner within consumer structures; and it explains the social processes through which a learner becomes a Blackboard user. By using Blackboard as a case study, this dissertation attempts to narrow the gap between similar studies in education that often take technology/user for granted and the valuable insights achieved by STS studies in surrounding areas to LMS

save to DISC: Documenting Innovation in Music Learning

The paper discusses an approach to determining the worth and value of innovation in music education and measuring it’s capacity for meaning and engagement. It also aims to identify new examples of innovation across a broad range of music learning contexts and establish a rigorous digital process for documenting, evaluating and distributing innovative cases and resources for present and future contexts. It discusses specifically a pilot project that seeks to document innovation in sound curriculum (DISC). save to DISC is an exploratory study in an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project that proposes to establish flexible and effective procedures for the sourcing, evaluating, refereeing, editing, producing, validating, storing, publishing, and distributing of a wide range of media and content types. It involves documenting innovative and successful practice in music education, creating and evaluating programs in difficult/challenging school contexts and commissioning and encouraging the production of resource materials for 21 st century contexts

Knowledge Cartography: Software tools and mapping techniques

Knowledge Cartography is the discipline of mapping intellectual landscapes.The focus of this book is on the process by which manually crafting interactive, hypertextual maps clarifies one’s own understanding, as well as communicating it.The authors see mapping software as a set of visual tools for reading and writing in a networked age. In an information ocean, the primary challenge is to find meaningful patterns around which we can weave plausible narratives. Maps of concepts, discussions and arguments make the connections between ideas tangible and disputable. With 17 chapters from the leading researchers and practitioners, the reader will find the current state–of-the-art in the field. Part 1 focuses on educational applications in schools and universities, before Part 2 turns to applications in professional communitie