"Michael R. Wolf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> What do you think of material that has this material?
>
> How would you present it to students in an "Intro to Perl Programming"
> course?
>
> What would you do about it if you were employed by the company that
> wrote it?
>
> What about if you contracted to them?
>
> ================================================================
I thank the many of you who replied to my original posting regarding
the course material. You reinforced what I already knew -- my
responsibility to the students requires that I present it in a context
that has them learn good Perl programming skills.
In experiential (e.g. ropes courses) training, there's a fairly common
3-step process
- what? # getting over a wall is difficult
- so what? # our complementary skills got it done
- now what? # we can work together in the office, too
We seem to have agreed on the "what?" part. The material is grossly
out of sync with standard syntax, formatting, idioms, and focus.
So what? Now what?
As a supporter of many of the philosophical underpinnings of the Open
Source and Free Software movements, I'm drawn to improve this
material. That would be the best move to "advance society", for some
definition of advance, and society. But there's business,
relationships, and copyright mixed in there, too.
Although the topic of courseware development/ownership has been
discussed here before, I'd like to raise it again.
- Has anyone successfully worked collaboratively on course material?
- Has anyone successfully rented good course material to (or from)
others?
- How have these relationships been structured? What was the
financial relationship like?
Here are my ideal goals for courseware development and delivery,
- create courseware that is of such high quality that it is a
recognized industry leader, capable of being a strategic advantage
in the sales process
- create courseware that provides tremendous value to students
- create courseware that relieves an instructor's burden and lets
their own brilliance shine through
- create an organizational relationship that rewards all contributers
for their contribution to the courseware development (i.e. they all
get a portion of the profit that it generates)
- create courseware that's a profit center, not a cost center
The problems I see with much of the current courseware
- sole author -- leaves the material susceptible to the author's blind
spots, weaknesses, and limited experience
- sole deliverer -- can't replicate the material enough to amortize
the cost of creation
- author/deliver separation -- deliverer has no structure or
incentive to feed improvements back into future editions
- sales/deliver separation -- the gap between the sales team's "good
enough" and the student's needs leaves that instructor to fill the
gap
For what it's worth, I've had some course ideas stewing for a year or
two, but am reluctant to make the investment in their creation without
a set of organizational structures that would have it be successful in
the business. I've seen and been part of structures and relationships
that prevent the symbiosis of members' collective talents. I'm
interested to explore structures that honor, reinforce, and reward
everyone's contributions.
I appreciate your ideas, and suggestions, and would be interested in
talking further with you if you'd like to set up a phone call.
Thanks,
Michael Wolf
--
Michael R. Wolf
All mammals learn by playing!
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
