A passion for content

Some of you may have noticed that through this summer, I've been writing a little less on this blog. The reason is that over the past year, I have gotten very involved in the area of Open Education (similar to open source software, but focused on content) and thinking and writing a lot about that.

This interest has grown out of my work in developing content for mobile devices. I have come to the conclusion that mainstream textbook publishers are not likely to come out with meaningful content for mobile devices, and so we are forging on without them. :) After developing a large library of content on a contract basis for schools, we are now looking at open-licensed work as a more far-reaching strategy.

If you are interested in Open Ed and my thoughts on it, you might also want to read my Open Ed blog and check out our new open dictionary project.

In the meantime, I'll still be here on Mobile Musings as well. :)

Throwing out the textbooks

I presented a keynote a couple weeks ago on Open Education. In talking about the reasons for open ed, I make the following points:

• We must differentiate instruction if we are going to engage and reach students who have increasingly diverse backgrounds, skills, and interests.
  
• Textbooks are not an effective tool for differentiating (or engaging) students.
• Technology can be a better tool, but high quality content is required for effective integration.
  
• There is a huge industry that has grown up around the development and adoption of textbooks. There is a lot of money invested in this industry, and it is not likely to change, regardless of the benefits to learning.
  
• Open educational resources (OER) provide a new approach to this challenge.
  

So after my presentation, a very excited teacher came up to me and said, "I've done just what you've said! I've thrown out our textbooks!" (He told me later that they actually sold their textbooks. Great idea for a fund-raiser!)

He then went out to his car and brought back the materials he's developed to share with me. He is a history teacher and has developed a very innovative system that he calls the "dynamic classroom." It involves binders that the kids construct over the course of the year, bringing together predictable learning routines, effective strategies, and hands on activities.

What most struck me in talking to this gentleman was 1.) his passion for his subject matter and for teaching, 2.) how much personal time and effort he's put into his teaching, and 3.) the results he's gotten with his students.

Then I started thinking about the potential of this approach. The materials appeared to be perfectly suited to building a wiki. I began imagining each kid with a $300 laptop building interactive web sites instead of binders. The possibilities are rich. Then I started thinking about this project built as an open-licensed curriculum. Everyone could benefit from the work this industrious teacher has done.

I know that there are teachers all over the world doing creative things like this, prompting their students to have rich learning experiences. These teachers know more about their content and engaging kids than most textbook publishers do. I think that most of these teachers are willing to share.

This is the potential of Open Education.
----------
Image courtesy of Alexander Baxevanis.

MAHETC rocks!

Wow -- I had a great time at the Mid-Atlantic Handheld and Emerging Technology Conference again this year. It had all the elements of a great conference: small, high energy, interesting people, very hands on and interactive, and an intriguing mix of pedagogy and technology.

Thanks to everyone who helped put this together and who attended. Stay tuned for upcoming posts on some things that got me thinking there.

If you didn't get a chance to attend, check out the wiki. All the session and workshop materials are here.

And for those who did attend, I posted some follow-up things from my sessions that answer some questions raised or otherwise might be of interest. (This on-going communication is one of the things I love about PD wikis.)

The first kids open dictionary

For months, I have been writing about our project to create the first kids open dictionary.

I am very excited to unveil the first piece of this: a collaborative, wiki-based dictionary builder. If you have a second, check out the site and add a quick definition (or click on recent changes to edit one someone else has done). Whatever you do doesn't have to be perfect. Others can add to it and edit it later.

This project grew out of the need we have seen in classrooms and other informal learning environments for a dictionary that is kid-appropriate (both in terms of language level and content) and open for everyone to use in any context.

Down the road, we'll be publishing this as a completely open, public domain dictionary that can be used on the web or offline on desktops, laptops, handhelds, ipods, phones, etc. Teachers will also be able to export custom glossary lists to incorporate into their own lessons, ebooks, web sites, etc.

We are excited about this project and hope many of you will join in and contribute. It only takes a couple minutes and is a great way to share and become a part of the Open Educational Resources movement.

Free literacy resources

I am working on creating some sight word videos from the word lists at FreeReading. (If you haven't seen this site, it is a phenomenal resources for early literacy.) Before I crank out more of these, I'm looking for input from early literacy teachers.

* How is the music? Too distracting or ok?
* How is the timing?
* Does the "pointing finger" idea work?

Any input anyone has is appreciated. I'm hoping to produce a whole library of these to match the FreeReading lists over the next few months. The intent is that they could be used on the web or on mobile devices, such as Palms, PSPs, etc.

Free interactive math ebook

Here is another free resource from K12 Handhelds. This is a good example of the interactivity that Mobipocket provides that we like so much.

This ebook can be used on Palm or Pocket PC and includes problem sets for:

- integers (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing positive and negative integers),

- algebra (simple one- and two-step problems), and

- fractions (simplifying, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions).

Enjoy.

Webquests for March Madness

We have created three webquests for the March Madness NCAA Tournament. These are available as offline versions using Plucker, so you can use them on handhelds that don't have Internet access. They are also available as regular web versions.

Cheap + Mobile = Access

I did a hands-on session this week on my new favorite topic, Open Educational Resources, that was really well received. (I'll be presenting this at NCCE in Seattle on Feb. 28 and at CUE in Palm Springs on March 7 for those of you who will be there.)

This seems to be a topic that generates a lot of enthusiasm and passion; I know it has for me. While I was presenting, one woman raised her hand and said that this all sounded great, but her kids didn't all have access to computers. That's why I got into mobile technology, I answered. It provides cheap access to technology.

In OER, we think a lot about access in terms of the developing world, but it's important here too. This was a big a-ha moment for me, connecting OER with my "real job," mobile tech.

I'm becoming more convinced that a part of the answer is cell phones.

Come to Seattle!

This weekend NCCE recorded a Skype interview with me about mobile technology and the upcoming conference in Seattle. NCCE is one of my favorite conferences. The conference has a great energy level, and the presenters and the attendees are a step ahead on the technology curve.

This year, I'll be facilitating 3-hour workshops on audio and video podcasting. Participants will receive a recording headset and a podcasting CD as a part of the workshop.

I'll also be doing a workshop called "Using Mobile Technology to Differentiate Instruction." This is a new workshop that I'm really excited about. Bring your own laptop and mobile device to participate. It's also available as a free open wiki if you'd like to do it on your own or with a group at your school or district.

I'm presenting several sessions in Seattle. The one I'm most excited about is called "Free Content + Open Tools + Massive Collaboration = Learning for All." This session is about the big world of open source tools and content. Pretty cool stuff and I'll share a lot of resources that you may not know about.

See you in Seattle!

Free Kids Dictionary Project

For a long while, many of us have seen the need for a free kids dictionary that could be used on mobile devices. Since none seem to exist that are at a kids' level and are "kid appropriate," I've always had an idea to make my own, but haven't done much about it.

Now that's about to change! With my recent growing interest in the Open Education movement and mass collaboration, I'm going to start a collaborative project to create such a dictionary. Most likely, this will be on a wiki platform, like Wikibooks.

The focus will be on having simple kid-appropriate definitions targeted at a grade 5-8 level. Everyone will be able to contribute, and we'll be looking for lots of help!

Then after we have a critical mass of words, we'll download the content and convert it to a variety of platforms, including Mobipocket for handheld use and probably some kind of offline desktop format. We might even do a skinny version for mobile phones.

If you are interested in working on this project, stay tuned for more details. We'll be getting a prototype and perhaps a mailing list together for this soon. And whatever we come up with will freely usable by anyone.

New OER search tool

ccLearn is working with the Hewlett Foundation and Google to create a new “open education web-scale search."

The ccLearn group is devoted to the support of open educational resources. These are educational resources that are licensed in a way that they can be freely shared and used by others.

This new tool should offer much wider access to all the great open resources already out there. Hopefully, it will also increase awareness so that more people consider open licenses for materials they write and publish.

ccLearn

Creative Commons today announced the formation of a new division, ccLearn. This group is "dedicated to realizing the full potential of the Internet to support open learning and open educational resources" and has a stated mission "to minimize barriers to sharing and reuse of educational materials — legal barriers, technical barriers, and social barriers."

That's very exciting. If you've heard me speaklately, you know that I am a very big advocate of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. I believe that this movement coupled with massive collaboration has the opportunity to reshape education by providing valuable resources needed to differentiate instruction.

Stay tuned for more info on this as it develops.