Wayne, I do like the name Open Computing, so I started a page, http://www.wikieducator.org/Open_Computing , a place where we can organize materials that are already available and make plans for development of what's needed. I copied over the majority of this discussion to the discussion page for reference.
Getting funding for the development of learning materials would be fabulous. I included a section for the planning needed to develop funding proposals. As you suggested, we'll continue discussions on the Open Computing page as well as the wikieducator-ccnc google group. Thanks very much for your insightful comments. Alison On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Wayne Mackintosh <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi Alison (& Anil) > > Due to my travels I may have missed an earlier post on the list -- Do we > have a "home-page" in the wiki where we are planing and discussing the > redevelopment? If not -- maybe a good idea to copy and past all the points > and thoughts over to a wiki page for the planning and development. > > A thought - We may be able to raise some external funding to help the > development along. For example, the Mozilla foundation may be interested in > helping us out with some funding on the Internet module which is based on > Firefox. Similarly, Sun or the Open Office community may want to help out > with the word processing, spreadsheet modules. Check out the Funding > Proposal page where we draft proposals as free content. Do you think > external funding would help speed up the development process? > > I like the way you have reallocated my comments into the three areas :-) > Further responses in text below. > > On Fri, 2009-04-10 at 21:08 -0400, Alison Snieckus wrote: > > Anil, > > Thanks for the kind words. I am happy to help. > > Wayne, > > Thanks for posting your thoughts. I've reallocated your comments into three > areas for our continued consideration: > > *Audience* > I want to start by commenting on a point Wayne makes throughout his post -- > > > Who is the audience for instructional materials designed to help beginners > learn how to use a computer and select open source software tools? A few > statements in Wayne's post, > > --"my passion is to see the development of high-quality teaching materials > supporting basic ICT skills development using free software." > > --course materials should be "available for use in multiple contexts." > > --"A key question for our group to consider will be whether the course > materials should meet the requirements of the ECDL/ICDL curriculum." > > support the creation of instructional materials for all who might need > them, and not limiting our scope to the purposes of ECDL/ICDL -- > European/International Computer Driving License -- certification, that we > should consider creating a collection of instructional materials on how to > use a computer and select open source software tools, and design it such > that relevant modules meet the needs of ICDL. > > I like this idea. It fits well with my broad educational vision (a pool of > well-designed modular instructional content from which users/learners take > what suits them). > > *Versioning* > One of the issues we have is how to structure content modules that we know > will be updated regularly in the future (e.g., software applications), and > where we suspect that users will move to the newer versions of > software/hardware at different times. In our discussion of revamping CCNC we > had taken the approach that maybe the whole project should reflect the fact > that the instructional materials reflect Open Office 3.0. But Wayne's > comment about "...confusing subpages like Version 2, Version 3..," suggests > that users will find this aspect confusing. But we need to have some sort of > mechanism to manage the content written for different versions of software. > > Versioning shouldn't be too hard as long as we keep all related content as > sub-pages. When we need to develop a new version -- we simply copy over all > the relevant subpages to a new landing page for the relevant version. We can > ellimate the confusing url by using template {{MyTitle|}} ( > http://www.wikieducator.org/Template:MyTitle ) which will remain in tact > for the new version pages. It would also be a good idea to use Categories > for the different versions. > > Let's say we want to create a structure that has no WE-imposed version > numbering, what guidelines might we implement to maintain such a structure > into the future? Some thoughts: > 1. Top page points to most current content first, older content is > referenced in later sections of the page. > > That works for me > > 2. Page titles include version numbers according to publisher's naming > convention, e.g., OpenOffice 3.0, Firefox 3.0 version. (Although we may want > to use #.x for these to indicate that conent is kept relevant for most > recent release within major version). > > Keeping with the official vendor release numbers makes sense. > > 3. Page titles include distribution names as appropriate, e.g., Ubuntu 9.0 > > Perhaps categories or a userbox-like feature embedded in a footer template > will do the trick. > > 4. For instructional materials designed to be generally applicable to many > applications (maybe file managment and printing fall into this category?), > content is regularly updated to keep it current and appropriately general > and new pages are started when content seems to be a somewhat large break > from previous content. Avoid using version numbers in titles. > > Agree -- thinking carefully about a modular design upfront will save us > lots of time down the track. > > > My expertise is not in computer hardware and applications, so please > comment on these guidelines. I believe that we will be much more successful > in creating these instructional materials, if we can establish a shared > vision for how to structure and manage them. > > *Naming* > Wayne suggested "Open Computer Navigator's Course (OCNC)" as an alternative > name. It's a good beginning (I like the inclusion of "Open"), but let's > consider more options before we settle on something. Here are a few issues > for us to think about: > > For the record -- I'm not wedded to any name ;-), just wanted to make the > point that we are free to change the name. Folk who are more creative than > me usually come up with better names. > > 1. If our vision is to create instructional materials to support basic > information and communication technologies (ICT) skills development, are we > creating a "course"? > > Good point -- these materials are not necessarily a course. > > 2. The name is long and probably should include an apostrophe (although > Wayne didn't include one), not practical for a url.User's may find it more > difficult to work with long urls. > 3. New, and therefore uncommon, abbreviations, e.g., OCNC, contribute to a > steeper learning curve. The audience for this content is beginners. > > Other options here? > > I think we want something simple and direct, that clearly communicates the > instructional contents within, which is "how to use a computer and select > open source software tools for beginners". Let's not dwell on these issues > too long, but rather have a bit of discussion and then decide. Of course WE > can always change it later. > > Easily achieved with the {{MyTitle}} template --- What about "Open > Computing" as the generic home page, then we can have Open Computing for > Beginners, Open Computing for ICDL etc. > > > If you have some thoughts on this, please contribute. > > Alison > http://www.wikieducator.org/User:ASnieckus > > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
