User:Vtaylor/Sugar Replacing Textbooks Project


 * OER economics for a billion children


 * Replacing textbooks

=== Overview===

catalog system


 * age / grade / ability (reading / math)


 * prerequisites


 * subjects - Language Arts, Mathematics, Music, Physical Education, Reading, Science, Social Studies,  Art, Health, Second Language


 * Software used
 * Curriculum standards met
 * Related research

individual entries
 * textbooks - curriculum model for xx weeks / lessons / teaching hours

- California, for example, has OER listings for conventional calculus and calculus with infinitesimals (non-standard analysis).
 * OERs - sections / lessons / topics within textbook which would further require curriculum mapping - sequence, previous knowledge, learn more...

>> "collection" - OER catalog, curriculum mapping, cross-reference between OERs / directories / repositories and curriculum maps >> "textbooks""

== Replacing Textbooks==

Replacing Textbooks Project - comprehensive index / robust retrieval - many OERs exist, curriculum requirements are known, match up OERs with curriculum, identify gaps, prioritize creation, encourage collaboration, showcase excellence through peer reviews and ratings

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks


 * communication / status - big picture - what is available, what is needed, work in progress, requests for collaboration
 * curriculum outlines - identify what is needed
 * existing OERs - find, categorize, dynamic / real-time map to big picture
 * identify gaps > create missing
 * manage volunteers efforts - guidelines, questions
 * project management

sub-projects
 * proof of concept - Sugar Labs activities, 3-5 schools, 1 grade level, 1 subject area
 * manageable chunks - grade level, subject area, language

=== Sugar OER collection===

links collection / curriculum map


 * activities - XO Sugar labs
 * directories, repositories
 * OERs - open access, collaborative (write too), example Turtle calculus (Gr 5-6)
 * network - connections, direct links, categories, curriculum topics/subjects, age/grade level, reading difficulty

OERs
 * activity
 * challenges
 * categories, tags
 * reviews
 * rating
 * links - sequential (previous, next), related and interesting

features
 * Delicious-style capture
 * controlled vocabulary for categories
 * sequencing - if then
 * retrieval
 * collaboration status - invited, use as is only, here is what is needed
 * entity status - work in progress, final / in use as is ? wikibooks block
 * RSS - notification, retrieval
 * subscriptions - new, revisit existing
 * you are here > now what - more/less detail/knowledge level, background, more advanced
 * agents /subject matter experts / instructional designers - sequence of groups/presentation
 * contributions - append, examples, expand - templates rather than just "edit" wiki page, more structured than "comments" / "talk"
 * reviews
 * rating - 0, 1, 2 > star for exceptional (top 10%) cf. everything has 5 stars
 * basic and more detail versions of input
 * capture links with annotations, categories

http://wikieducator.org/Template:ContentInfobox - includes list of parameters and possible values

=== Use cases===

User: Teacher, student (level), Teacher trainer, instructional designer, researcher, curators, curriculum specialists, collection administration, operations

Subject matter: Sugar Labs Replacing Textbooks curriculum / OER links directory

Purpose: links directory interactions


 * add an entry - OER, curriculum unit, directory, repository
 * create a user account
 * add a review
 * curate categories, entries, reviews
 * search / retrieve entries - simple
 * search / retrieve entries - advanced / complex
 * follow one or more curators
 * submit a support request
 * request / suggest enhancements
 * subscribe to updates, new entries, reviews, curator notes

administration
 * administer user accounts
 * analystics reports - usage, categories of interest
 * maintenance reports - operations information, support requests, errors
 * backup / restore
 * spam avoidance

Format
 * User: Teacher, student (level), Teacher trainer, instructional designer, researcher
 * Subject matter: Topic, skill, data
 * Purpose: Lessons, discoveries, challenges, self-teaching...
 * Process: We start at point A, and we want to get to point B. What are the known routes? What is done now?

Sample 1
 * User: Teacher
 * Subject matter: Civics
 * Purpose: How to organize a protest
 * Process: Connecting with people on line

Sample 2
 * User: Teacher trainer
 * Subject matter: Any
 * Purpose: Student questions
 * Process: Getting from pure rote teaching to individual questions, then to question time for the whole class

== Curriculum mapping==


 * huge job - millions? of OERs
 * no consistency, retrieval, categorization, quality control
 * no curriculum mapping

Sugar Replacing Textbooks project - proposed solution
 * OER collection database - identify, collect, catalog, curate, map to curriculum
 * community - add, review, tag / keywords, maintain, retrieve, adopt, adapt, reuse, remix
 * curators - curriculum mapping, categories
 * gap analysis, prioritization
 * create OERs for curriculum as needed

Curriculum map *** really important and difficult
 * structured, direct access
 * OER collection categories
 * format, content
 * multiple language support
 * transparent - contributors, sources, history

Areas of interest


 * Calculus by and For Young People
 * language teaching
 * discovery learning
 * the economics of education and ending poverty
 * textbooks for every school subject in every country for every age in every required language
 * teacher training
 * versions of a subject (such as health, civics, history or geography) specific to each country

Sugar Activities / curriculum cross-reference


 * sharing and collaboration are built into Sugar activities - unique feature


 * emphasize discovery learning where appropriate. Other modes of teaching, including instruction and drill, are also sometimes appropriate.


 * matrix of activities - breadth, depth, use Sugar activities, mix & match to cover all units in semester, student-directed, deliverables add to repository of OERs for follow-on student learning

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities, FM Activity book

http://musicaenlaescuela-fiesta.blogspot.com/
 * 1. Música en la Escuela ¡una fiesta! - School music party! Didactic construction, for a music education fun, enthusiastic, available to all in Spanish. Selection of songs, rhymes, games, tips. With links to videos, sounds and letters. Also data on meaning, authors, performers, history of songs ... Using any musical instrument (recorder, xylophone ...), but referred explicitly to the keyboard TamTamMini (XO).

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Physics
 * 2. Activity: Physics - Physics is a physical world simulator and playground -- you can add squares, circles, triangles, or draw your own shapes, and see them come to life with forces (think gravity, Newton!), friction (scrrrrape), and inertia (ahh, slow down!).

http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4059
 * 3. Activity: Tam Tam

Grade 5 Curriculum Maps


 * Language Arts
 * Mathematics
 * Music
 * Physical Education
 * Reading
 * Science - /Properties of matter/, /Mixtures and solutions/, /States of matter/
 * Social Studies


 * Art
 * Health


 * Spanish

Source: Volusia county curriculum maps and guides - Elementary (K-5) - Grade 5 - Science

Algebra 1


 * outline http://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/Algebra_1


 * curriculum map http://blackboard.volusia.k12.fl.us/bbcswebdav/xid-27077_3

== Categories, tags, keywords==


 * categories - limited set, curated, controlled vocabulary, predicable retrieval results
 * tags, keywords - anyone can add, minimal limitations, increase visibility, personalize retrieval

OER entry/document information: title, url, contributor, date, description
 * minimal entry
 * ? contributor must have user account, log in
 * only limited by spam guard - captcha, etc.
 * each curriculum unit / atom must have a URL, preferably a wiki page to track history of contents

guide: yes/no
 * Yes - instructions for "guide on the side"
 * No/null, not specified - default - intended for direct use by the learner

baseline: reading 1-5, math 1-5

Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) - Based on their performance they are grouped into 5 categories. (The word "aser" means impact in Hindustani. If development programs are to lead to desired outcomes, their impact on the ground needs to be regularly assessed.)


 * For the reading component, children are categorized into those who cannot read, those who can read only letters, those who can read words, those who can read a paragraph and those who can read a story.


 * For arithmetic, the levels are those who cannot read anything, those who can recognize numbers, those who can add, those who can subtract and those who can divide.


 * Do it yourself ASER kit

curriculum reference: subject, level, unit, learning object type, unique identifier, language
 * coverage of curriculum - needs a systematic scaffolding for ambitious project goal to cover curriculum for all
 * will require huge community effort to link all OERs with all curriculum areas
 * allow for multiple curriculum identifiers per OER as OER may address multiple curriculum areas, levels, even languages
 * required for curriculum-specific retrieval - reference to specific curriculum map(s)
 * controlled vocabulary, defined meaning, usage applied consistently across collection (cf. user tags for personalized, special application keywords)

curation: curator, categories, keywords, comments, rating
 * curriculum specialists, reliable source
 * additional status, earned ?
 * apply categories - training, needs to be fairly consistent/reproduce-able/replicate-able
 * additional information
 * curator as a retrieval criteria - followers

review: contributor, keywords, comments, rating
 * encourage feedback, use stories, more ways to find through keywords
 * additional information
 * some filtering beyond contributor
 * reviewer as a retrieval criteria - followers
 * not reviewed / reviewed
 * recommended - really simple - yes/no

user tags: contributor, keywords
 * anyone can add, minimal limitations, increase visibility, personalize retrieval
 * ? banned words list
 * part of initial entry - encouraged, not required ?
 * can be added separately

sequence: previous, next, learn more...
 * prerequisites, next in sequence, advanced follow-on, supplemental information

history: last updated, last accessed, access count
 * useful to have > display sequencing, maintenance
 * volunteer work assignments - check on old, infrequently accessed

possible features / nice to have / future enhancements
 * is contributor also the creator, reviewer
 * track records / trust for contributors, reviewers, curators
 * potential curator identification, training
 * prioritization > volunteer jobs - find/create OERs for curriculum areas under represented / in-demand


 * communications - newsletter, subscription service, follow curators, reviewers > news, updates, recent additions, most requested

== Data collection, curriculum cross reference, retrieval==


 * MongoDB An object/document-oriented database - # insertion order is automatically preserved: we don’t need to create an index on timestamp. Document-oriented / JSON is a great format for log information. Very flexible and “schemaless” in the sense we can throw in an extra field any time we want. Web-based Interface MongoHQ provides all users with a nice web interface that allows not only viewing of the details of a database, but also on-the-fly editing, statistics and, in some plans, query logs and performance graphs.

what and how - prototypes


 * Yelp model for OERs - entries, reviews and ratings, retrieval; The Daily Shoot - model for building community and index, daily  contribution, sharing, personal interests


 * Delicious daily post, subscription email newsletter - This experimental feature creates a daily post of your latest bookmarks to your blog. This information will be stored in your Delicious account and and you may edit or delete this information at any time. It supports Movable Type, Typepad, Wordpress, and other kinds of blog software. example post - xosugar tag @ 16:00 GMT daily

open search engine - retrieval, browsing, data analysis of searches and results > best of...
 * Nutch http://nutch.sourceforge.net/docs/en/faq.html

collection / social bookmarks ? open delicious-like - anyone can add links, comments, categories / tags ? scuttle
 * Elgg http://www.elgg.org/about.php - open source social networking engine that provides a robust framework on which to build all kinds of social environments

harvester / aggregation - automated identification, possibly even updates
 * gRSShopper

user interface - friendly, lots of information of general interest, some customization based on, invitation to collaborate, see and be seen - contributions immediately available to community

other applications considered


 * Monotone A distributed version (revision) control system
 * SiSU documents - structuring, publishing in multiple formats and search
 * Elgg

Search "repository" ? assumes all documents are on single server - need to work with 10,000s of repositories, individual web pages, files


 * Hyper Estraier is a full-text search system., compared to Xapian

Search "document" "database"


 * CouchDB RESTful document oriented database, system DB - CouchDB is designed to store and report on large amounts of semi-structured, document oriented data. ? "document" - links to OERs, actual documents, attachments + fields - attributes, categories,...

learn from others' mistakes
 * data recovery - system must be really robust - huge problem if data is damaged and unrecoverable - see Magnolia


 * open directory project (ODP) - DMOZ - May 2011 - category for lesson plans but no category for OERs. ODP probably not appropriate as human editors have considerable discretion to accept / reject entries and provide "unbiased" descriptions ie. not open. Better to have some more open, inclusive way to identify content (aka social bookmarking) then review, rate so all submissions are included with more community access and filtering.


 * bookmarking services gone - Ma.gnolia database file recovery unsuccessful, Markaboo

== Sugar and XO==


 * Yves Behar on Designing OLPC, 2007 - The product designer behind $100 lap top talks about the challenges of designing for kids in the developing world.


 * XO of grownups

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Downloads#Apple_Mac_OS_X

Download instructions

--Valerie Taylor 19:46, 24 April 2011 (UTC)... doesn't explicitly say 64-bit on my Macbook Air - says Intel Core 2 Duo
 * only for 64-bit processor machines. (To identify the processor type, choose Apple menu > About This Mac. A small window will appear titled About This Mac. The processor type is displayed in this window


 * Discovering Discovery - http://booki.treehouse.su/discovering-discovery/


 * Undiscoverable - http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/The_Undiscoverable

CBBs


 * system upgrades - push, automate
 * XO for grownups ? wayback machine

== OERs, open textbooks - directories, repositories, reference==


 * non-textbooks - http://booki.flossmanuals.net/, where there are a number of OLPC XO and Sugar manuals, and manuals on many other topics, and at the rest of http://booki.treehouse.su


 * State of Washington to Offer Online Materials as Texts - Money-saving effort at 2-year colleges faces vexing problems January 9, 2011


 * Community College Open Textbooks - may be a bit advance for Grades 10-12 but more likely to be available as OERs, but good foundation for guiding additional materials and XO activities.


 * CNX - statistics


 * K-5


 * Grades 6-9 - Science6


 * Grades 10-12+


 * sample course list - Florida Virtual School for middle and high school


 * elementary school ? Burns Sci Tech


 * http://www.fhsst.org/node/8097 - free high school math and physical science textbooks - .pdf


 * cnx textbooks, wikieducator

== Thinking out loud...==


 * brainstorming - http://replacingtextbooks.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/brainstorming-oer-development/ background and questions, assumes teacher training (which is being paid for anyway, and only needs now teaching materials); How can we fund and otherwise speed up the process of generating the needed OER? - assumes many/most don't already exist

-- 16:12, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm becoming more convinced that the "solution" is a robust index / retrieval system. Provide the "big picture" - what OERs are currently available, how they map to the Replacing Textbooks vision of curriculum for all, what is missing, where there are works in progress and the status. This needs to be really up-to-date and easy to update. And of course, open software.

Let the OERs live where ever works for the creators. Make open space available by all means. Suggest outlines, vocabularies, categories. Peer reviews and ratings, librarian / curator function for tags and categories would be helpful, too.

My first pass of the tasks for this would be:


 * communication / status - big picture - what is available, what is needed, work in progress, requests for collaboration
 * curriculum outlines - identify what is needed
 * existing OERs - find, categorize, dynamic / real-time map to big picture
 * identify gaps - so work can be directed to create missing
 * manage volunteers efforts - guidelines, questions
 * project management

>> there are lots of >> disconnected education resources but little overall structure. This is not >> a criticism of the community, without the community, the resources would >> not exist.

> We will also need a repository that can handle a multidimensional > collection of documents > > * on every school subject and teacher training subject, plus many more > * at every level of child development > * for every country > * in every language needed

That's why I am suggesting an index because the problem is too complex for a single repository which doesn't scale.

> > There are several useful structuring principles. Mine is the growth of > children's mental capacities.

The solution must support several useful structuring principles.

This is a tall order but I think it will have the best outcomes for educators and learners. And with this group behind it, it can attract the critical mass necessary to be seriously important and interesting. :o)

-- 11:08, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

YOU are systematic. It is the rest of us who need help.

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Walter Bender  wrote: > On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Valerie Taylor  wrote:

>> I think there is merit in having a public repository like the Sugar Labs wiki to encourage educators and others to see what is being done, and build on that in a systematic way.

> We are not exactly systematic about it, but Tony links to his most relevant blog posts in the wiki. Please see http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt#Tutorials and http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt/Using_Turtle_Art_Sensors

> As far as how to make these posts have more impact, we are open to suggestions.

Good example - the first encounter with the Turtle Art page is a little overwhelming - Obviously tons of wonderful information with pictures and code...

Some us need to know "what can it do?" and "why do I need to know all this stuff?" (rather than "how does it work?"). The Challenges are great! This is where it starts to make some sense for me. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt#Challenges

Provide a way to showcase and contribute learning objects - basically challenge descriptions with categories / tags - subject, degree of difficulty, ... and optional information like learning objectives and additional information for teachers or students - setup, curriculum integration, links to more advanced related challenges. There should be a mechanism for adding reviews to challenge entries, too.

The Turtle Art page is sooo organized that it doesn't invite contributions or collaboration. If there was a "button" that said "add your own challenge" or "add a review of this challenge" it would create a safe way to contribute. A form pops up with boxes to fill in, including some options, save and it is added to the page in the proper place without the risk of messing up what is already there.

This would also help educators (and students) find challenges to try themselves. Once they locate a couple of challenges that seem appropriate and interesting, then they will be motivated to work through all the terrific material provided.

--18:33, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it was Tony's blog that got me thinking about how to make the wiki entries more additive with templates/forms (rather than wiki-style edit everything). His blog entry would be great as a "section" or page or link associated with Activity:Turtle Art. More connectivity and networking to facilitate retrieval, adoption, adaption, contribution and collaboration.

Annotated bookmarks Diigo, Delicious address some of the problems associated with making existing OERs retrievable but it is hard to limit vocabulary or require all categories types be provided.

I think there is merit in having a public repository like the Sugar Labs wiki to encourage educators and others to see what is being done, and build on that in a systematic way. It wouldn't diminish the contribution that Tony is making via his own blog, but it would focus activities of retrieval and casual contribution into a really useful framework with examples, guided contributions, peer review, adaptive uses, technical support...

--15:11, 12 May 2011

How to generate the best collaborative environment to provide educators with effective access and adaption of resources across a broad spectrum of curriculum areas and age-appropriate activities? Oh, yes - it must allow for casual contributions without the need for labor intensive moderation and editing and dispute resolution.

"Everyone" talks about OERs - collaboration, adoption. adaption but there isn't really as much activity as there "ought" to be given the interest, time and money that have gone into discussion these education revolutionizing ideas.

This is something that has been needed for many years and still hasn't materialized. Perhaps the Replacing Textbooks program can address some of the functionality. A wiki-based solution could work. Although people are willing to contribute and collaborate, there is a reluctance to change the work of others without some explicit "authority" to do so. This has been a frustration with WikiEducator - even with notations that collaboration is invited, there are no contributions. There is a frustration with Wikipedia contributions that are promptly removed by the "editor".

Perhaps there is some middle ground. The idea of comments on a blog post works out pretty well. The commenter augments the information in the post, without modifying the original text. In the Sugar Labs wiki, there are entries for all the Activities which could serve as the basis for the collaborative framework. How about a forms/template based contribution function that will add sections to a wiki entry? For example, I came up with a sixth grade math activity based on Turtle Art and I would like to share it. It would be nice to add this to an inventory of middle school math activities connected to Turtle Art. Others could then find my activity and others based on a search for "middle school," "math" and/or "Activity:Turtle Art."

Just thinking... Would something like this overcome potential contributors' resistance and get the ball rolling? ;o) Other ideas?