Copyleft and Web 2.0: Opportunities for engaging learners

Copyleft and Web 2.0: Opportunities for engaging learners David M. Kennedy Faculty of Education The University of Hong Kong iCOOL2007: Pedagogical Scripting for ODL Invited Keynote 13 June 2007

Overview
Students – now!
Copyleft and Web 2.0 – what does this mean for educators?
for learning, engagement, collaboration
Examples from practice
Audacity, Hot Potatoes, Drupal, Moodle
Conclusions – what does the convergence of these tools really offer, and to whom?
students, teachers, administrators

New tools for a new generation? There is a new group of people born between 1980 and 1984 (approximately), that have been described as Digital Natives . They are more familiar with, and have used more often, a wide variety of digital devices from a very young age. In short, they have ‘spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age’ (Prensky, 2001, p. 1)

Using a computer today
Students were overwhelmingly positive about the use of ICTs to support their studies. The key activities included:
Using a computer for general study purposes (94%)
Searching for information (93%)
General course administration (84%)
Communicating via SMS (84%) and instant messaging (75%)
Using a CMS to access course-related materials (81%)
An Australian study, University of Melbourne (Kennedy, Krause, Churchward, Judd, & Gray, 2006)

What are students doing?
Emerging technologies
Blogs (reading 38%, commenting – 27%, maintaining – 21%)
File-sharing (music – 38%, photos – 31%)
Social networking (24%)
VOIP telephony (19%)
Web-conferencing (19%)
International students use a wide range of tools and technologies – more than local students
An Australian study, University of Melbourne (Kennedy, Krause, Churchward, Judd, & Gray, 2006)

Changing landscape – new literacies http://www.eur.nl/ub/english/instruction/skills/informationliteracy LITERACY

What happens tomorrow? http://www.paraburdoo.det.wa.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/Maths.jpg

Open source
Freedoms to
run the program, for any purpose (0)
study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (1)
redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour (2)
improve the program, and release your improvements to the public (3)
NOT FREE TO SELL, MODIFY and then KEEP GNU Public Licence (copyleft)

Open source – not just software
Forms of open source
Open source courseware or content
the MIT initiative - http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
The South Africian curriculum and eBook Wiki http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/South_African_Curriculum
Open source Science Commons
http://sciencecommons.org/
Open source documents (text, spreadsheets etc)
http://www.oasis-open.org/home/index.php
Open source curriculums (mainly schools)
http://www.openplanner.org/

Why FOSS, why Copyleft?
Issues
Ethical Guidelines needed? Commercial Are there real costs? Political Educational Ad/dis-advantages?

Open source examples I
Moodle - course management system – Winner, EDUTOPIA awards (G. Lucas Edn Foundation)
Drupal - content management system
SAKAI – ePortfolios and LMS
HOT POTATOES – online quizzes (free to Education)
Audacity - audio recording software – runner-up EDUTOPIA awards
OpenOffice.org - office suite

Open source examples II
Mediawiki - wiki server software, the software that runs Wikipedia
Word Press – blogging software
Mozilla Firefox - web browser
Mozilla Thunderbird - email client
GIMP – image/ graphics manipulation
Greenstone – library database software
DSpace – library database software

Audacity
Open source audio digital editor
Record live audio.
Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.
Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
And more! (from the Audacity website)
DEMO

Open source operating systems
OpenSolaris - Unix Operating System from Sun Microsystems
Ubuntu – Linux-based desktop operating system
Linux kernel - operating system based on Unix
25% of servers and 7.5% (2008) of desktops - (Gartner)
75% of super computers
the MIT $100USD+ laptop has a Linux OS
mobile phones (currently 6%)

Open source web tools
Apache - HTTP web server
Tomcat web server - web container
http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

Web authoring
Nvu - open source WYSIWYG HTML editor (webpage/ website builder)
Amaya 9.5x - open source HTML editor
Sea Monkey – all-in-one browser etc.

Open source for schools
Also, the open source movement for K-12 education is gathering momentum
http://www.k12opentech.org/
wide industry support (Apple, IBM, HP)
Consortium for School Networking
http://www.cosn.org/
leadership and decision making for using ICTs in teaching and learning

Hot Potatoes
Not open source, but free to educational institutions
MCQ, gap, short answer, mixed, crosswords
html live – can use graphics, video (You Tube), URLs and/or audio
plug-ins for Moodle

Collaboration: Wikis and media wiki
The wikipedia is free and open source
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/South_African_Curriculum
Mediawiki
software for installation on a local server
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki
create your own documents, track changes, innovate

Open source ePortfolios
New forms of evaluation
addressing graduate attributes
http://www.osportfolio.org/
Used in schools and HE
can store, manipulate, articulate a variety of media and resources for different purposes
being trialed at HKU (SAKAI)

What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 = attitude change
users becomes the creators
Information becomes dynamic/usable
Information can be aggregated, collated and published on demand
Information has longevity – use and reuse
Users have control of information
can categorise, comment, rate, manipulate, share AND publish

Dion Hinchcliffe http://web2.socialcomputingmagazine.com/ 2007 …???

Perspectives Kathy Sierra http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/06/mosh_pit_as_inn.html

FOSS and Web 2.0
Applications
WordPress - Blogging
Zoho writer – web-based documents
Del.ic.ious – social bookmarking & cloud tags
Digg – communities
Flickr – photos
Writely – Google docs
YouTube – video

Open source CMS/ LMS
Drupal
open source content management platform
‘ Drupal is software that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a great variety of content on a website’
http://drupal.org/
Moodle
http://moodle.org
Joomla
http://www.joomla.org/

Drupal
Community web portals
Discussion sites
Personal web sites or blogs
Resource directories
Social Networking sites
Blogs
Collaborative authoring environments
Forums
Peer-to-peer networking
Newsletters
Podcasting
Picture galleries
File uploads and downloads
DEMO

Moodle
Moodle – Demo http://web.edu.hku.hk/moodle/
http://moodle.org/

Decisions for using FOSS I
Compatibility
will the FOSS software on the OS systems?
will the FOSS applications produce files that can be read by other non-OS applications?
Are there applications that meet needs?
most pressing needs – students or staff?
identify FOSS to meet needs
testing of FOSS before a full scale roll out
http://www.k12opentech.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=43

Decisions for using FOSS II
Hardware
is existing equipment adequate?
in the case of Web 2.0 applications, can you dedicate the software to specific servers (or multipurpose)?
Quality support
are there staff who can install and support the OS systems or applications? OR Can it be self-installed?
is the OSS solution sustainable – people, hardware and software?
have you identified the potential mentors (early adopters)?

Decisions for using FOSS III
Leadership and change management discipline
who are the key stakeholders that need to support your new solution?
is the proposed software likely to be appealing to the users?
how can users have their say in the adoption process or choice of software?
Socio-political processes
these are likely to be make-or-break

Mozilla manifesto
Principles: The Internet
is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
must allow individuals to have the ability to shape their own experiences.
in order to be and effective public resource depends retaining interoperability, innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/mitchell/archives/2007/02/the_mozilla_manifesto_introduc.html

Why open source I
Cost
License Fees and TCO
limits costs ( Vista expected to provide 100,000 new US jobs - IDC )
Data integrity/interoperability-
use of common formats improves efficiency
Independence and Flexibility
open source code, customizability, innovation, voluntary upgrades
Stability and Reliability
a viable future, independent of vested interests (ODF)
open source operating systems - reliability, performance, easier management
http://www.netc.org/openoptions/pros_cons/comparing.html

Why open source II
Features and quality
don’t pay for what you don’t need
OSS can be more reliable and secure (Linux)
customisation
Users and migration
students can take it home – piracy issues disappear
FOSS is now easy to use and install
FOSS and Web 2.0 technologies are HOW our students are engaging NOW !
Rights (IP and IC)
can be acknowledged
FOSS is more empowering for individuals and orgs

Conclusions
FOSS and Web 2.0 software – it is the learning design that matters
e.g., commercial LMSs do NOT offer any more than the open source solution (current research)
FOSS and Web 2.0 tools offer solutions that suit ways in which current students work
e.g., Moodle as an enterprise system
Dublin City University
http://odtl.dcu.ie/wp/2004/odtl-2004-01.html
Open University (UK)
http://www3.open.ac.uk/media/fullstory.aspx?id=7354
UCLA (USA) - http://ccle.ucla.edu/

What happens in the future? http://calper.la.psu.edu/tech_workshop_2005/images/digitalnative.jpg Thank you David M. Kennedy : dkennedy@hku.hk

Copyleft and Web 2.0: Opportunities for engaging learners

by deekaay on Apr 17, 2008

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 8

Statistics

Copyleft and Web 2.0: Opportunities for engaging learners — Presentation Transcript