Hi all, On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 13:29, Heidi Ellis <heidijcel...@gmail.com> wrote: > constraint is time. Computing profs already have to keep up with the latest > technology changes. Involving students in OSS is a change in teaching
I had a detailed response to some of the earlier posts, but let it sit. (I didn't like having college and university faculty compared to children who need to learn to make their bed---it was a bad analogy.) Like educators at all levels, faculty work long hours because they are passionate about their students, and the ones who will go the extra mile to introduce their students to FOSS need more barriers knocked down, not morality tales. I'm completely with Heidi on this, and I want to take it a step further. The majority of students graduating today are not in computing. I'm going to claim that a lot (most?) of management positions are held by people who graduated with degrees in History, Literature, Business, Philosophy, Psych, Econ... you get the picture. If you want POSSE to have an impact---that is, if you want faculty beyond computing departments bringing their students into the ecosystem---then you need to lower the barriers until an overworked member of the faculty at a small community college teaching technical writing can easily (1) learn the tools and (2) help their students to work with those tools in open communities. (Or, not. See my last comment.) More questions and discussion about the needs of the users (the faculty---who are they, who do we want to support?) and how best to meet those needs is a good idea. While I understand the spirit of Chris's point of view, I don't think it gets at the reality of the vast majority of POSSE participants to date, or the broader community of educators that we hope (need?) to engage. To that end, more user-centered discussion and questions to people like Mel (who has helped run just about every POSSE to date) would be a Very Good Thing. Cheers, Matt _______________________________________________ tos mailing list tos@teachingopensource.org http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
