Love the idea of making things that students can use!
There seem to be two parts of the note-sharing idea: * Taking the notes * Sharing the notes -- Two existing note-sharing services to take a look at: http://www.notetopia.com/ * (for some reason @usc.edu won't get me in...) http://www.noteutopia.com/ * (this caused a bunch of controversy because they buy/sell the notes) I'm certain that there are others ... -- The note TAKING step seems just as compelling, though. On one extreme, I see many many students taking notes in the Microsoft Office notetaking program (OneNote)? On the other, my personal note-taking workflow involves vim + mediawiki. What's a good half-way point between these approaches that encourages sharing? Some of my classmates swear by a non-free Mac program called Scrivener: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php And I know some others who have a similar relationship to Zim: http://zim-wiki.org/ Maybe a specially modified version of Piratepad for students? A project like this could start a bigger conversation about the best tools/practices for students who care about their computing freedom. Exciting stuff! Kevin > 6. Ideas for a Paper/Notes Sharing Webapp (Rich Jones) > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 20:40:29 -0500 > From: Rich Jones <[email protected]> > Subject: [FC-discuss] Ideas for a Paper/Notes Sharing Webapp > To: Discussion of Free Culture in general and this organization in > particular <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > (I'm submitting this as an idea to FC-discuss to see what everybody thinks > about it, if we decide to move forward, we can discuss the implementation > details on FC-Hackers). > > With the conference in New York rapidly approaching, I think it would be > really cool if we made something that we could show off to everybody by the > end of the conference. If we get the ball rolling now, I'm sure we can have > something cool by the end if we have a hackathon during the conf. > > So while I was in school I remember noticing that damn near everybody in > most of my classes had a laptop to take notes on. I think it'd be really > sweet and super handy if we set up a website where we could all easily share > our notes and the other course materials we make. There are some companies > doing something similar, but none that are free and use creative commons > licensing. I think this a cool opportunity to experiment with the free > culture philosophy in education, and we could actually end up making a > difference in the way people learn. I found that in school I learned just as > much from my peers as I did from my professors, and this could be a good > tool for facilitating and enhancing that aspect of peer to peer learning. > > There are some pros and cons to this idea: > Pros: > - Utility! People would be able to come to class more prepared and be able > to learn from the notes of others as well as their own. > - Display scholarship! Our handsome friend Parker has suggested that perhaps > it could be used to highlight good scholarship, to display papers we are > proud of. It would be cool to share them with each other and comment on > their content. > - Novelty! I'd love to be able to see the coursework and notes that people > in other majors take, simply for my own curiosity. > - Promote SFC! I can't think of anything that would bring in more members > than a useful, public service. > - $$$ for SFC: If it became popular enough, perhaps we could slap up some > ads and bring in a little cash to the organization. > > Potential Cons: > - Plagiarism/Cheating: This is going to be a difficult issue. Some people > may abuse the service to simply copy and paste other people's work. While I > think that outright plagarism is a really bad bad thing, I don't think > there's anything wrong with remixing somebody else's ideas and learning > about what makes a good paper and what makes a bad paper. In fact, this is > really the whole heart of our organization, right? > - Copyright: Some teachers may object to having their courses 'notesified' > and uploaded public consumption. IANAL, but I believe I remember the supreme > court (or perhaps is was the supreme court of Florida (??)) ruling that a > students' notes are their own property. This could be a good way to test > that ruling. (Legally, I think we'd be okay thanks to the DMCA safe harbor). > - Damaging our relationship with professors: Parker has been having success > promoting OpenCourseware at Dartmouth and affords much of the success to > friendliness, handsomeness and cooperation with professors. This idea may be > too subversive and could damage rapport for members who want to establish > these ties. > > What do you guys think? Would you use this service? Would you be willing to > upload your own notes to it? > > I've learned Django recently and I'm pretty sure we could whip up a > prototype in a couple of days. > (Also!: Please join fc-hackers ( > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fc-hackers ) if you are > interested in developing this or any other FC ideas.) > > Thanks! > Rich _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
