This ~8min YouTube video is a testimonial by a professor explaining about his use of an open textbook for teaching and studying physics at a community college.
Physics Open Textbook Testimonial
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Monthly Archives: February 2010
Keynote: Chris Lehmann
The PETE&C Tuesday Morning Keynote: Chris Lehmann:Chris Lehmann is the Principal at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. http://scienceleadershi…
more about "The PETE&C Tuesday Morning Keynote: C…", posted with vodpod
Creative Commons Photos
I keep providing links to examples of media content that can be freely used within your own work, provided it is given appropriate attribution. Here is a link to literally millions upon millions of images that people have licensed under Creative Commons for reuse on Flickr. Thanks to all those people.
The Commons public photo collection
The Commons on Flickr is a collection of public photographs (with no known copyright restrictions) from a host of public archives including:
- The Library of Congress
- DC Public Library Commons
- New York Public Library
- London School of Economics (LSE) Library
- Bibliothèque de Toulouse
- and others
LSE Library's photostream
Bibliothèque de Toulouse's photostream
Photo of Abraham Lincoln from The Library of Congress' photostream
Digital Literacy
BECTA does some great stuff. School age is where digital literacy is instilled and developed, not HE.
BECTA has come up with a short guide (pdf) which explains what digital literacy is. Also, there is a Digital Literacy Planning Tool (pdf) that helps digital literacy to be incorpoated into teaching.
Next Generation Textbooks – Flexbooks
Sometimes you encounter something that changes your own mindset, the way you work, the way you want to do things. You want to get involved, to make this better. I’ve just come across one such idea.
The work of the CK-12 Foundations is mindblowingly excellent. Their mission is to create access to cheap textbooks both for the US and Worldwide. How will they achieve this? Well, they’re pioneering the ‘Flexbook‘, which is an open-content, web-based collaboration model where it’s possible to take Creative Commons Licensed content from one of the available standard text on the site and repurpose it for the learning experience required. This is achieved using the online software to extract chapters or sections from the text, mix it with your own content from a Word file for example, and package it together into a ‘book’ that can be exported to a pdf file for printing out and use with learners.
For cK-12′s much better explanation:
Screenshot of Flexbook site
This needs to be made to work in a much wider contexted. This template could be used throughout education. It’s brilliant. It works for both formal learning setting and individual, informal learning.
Radio 4 – In Our time
All of the In Our Time Radio 4 programmes in which Melvyn Bragg and guests “discuss the history of ideas” are available in one place to listen to. The catalogue can be sorted by Genre, Alphabetical Title, and Era.
Open Video Alliance
I can’t remember the route that got me there, but I’m glad I took the journey to the Open Video Alliance site. What is trying to be achieved is encapsulated in this linked to video available to watch there or download.
What is open video? is explained via the wiki pages http://openvideoalliance.org/wiki/?l=en :
Open Video is a broad based movement of video creators, technologists, academics, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, remixers, and many others. When most folks think of “open,” they think of open source and open codecs. They’re right—but there’s more to Open Video than open codecs. Open Video is the growing movement for transparency, interoperability, and further decentralization in online video. These qualities provide more fertile ground for independent producers, bottom-up innovation, and greater protection for free speech online. YouTube and other online video applications are rightly celebrated for empowering end-users; however, online video lacks some of the essential qualities that make text and images on the web such powerful tools for free speech and technical innovation. Email, blogs, and other staples of the open web rely on ubiquitous and interoperable technologies that have low barriers to entry; they are massively decentralized and resistant to censorship or regulation. Video, meanwhile, relies on centralized distribution and proprietary technologies which can threaten cultural discourse and innovation. Open Video is about the legal and social norms surrounding online video. It’s the ability to attach the license of your choice to videos you publish. It’s about media consolidation, aggregation, and decentralization.
