Open source course notes book
8:56 pm on the 27th of April, 2009I’ve been spending some time recently writing up a book of notes for Standard Grade Craft and Design. There is a booklet of notes that have been in every school I’ve been in. I think they were originally written by a teacher at Penicuik High School, but I’m not sure.
They are a pretty comprehensive set of notes and I use them a lot, however nobody seems to know about where they came from or what the copyright issues are for sharing them about. So, I’ve been writing up my own booklet based quite closely on these existing notes, with the intention of releasing them freely under a Creative Commons license so people can change them to suit their own needs. I’ve done about 45 pages so far.
Then I got thinking though, after reading We-Think by Charles Leadbetter, if I should be doing this all myself or if I would be better to try and get them written collaboratively, in a more open source sort of way. I’m not sure how if would work but I envisage some place – like a wiki but with more control over the layout – where people can contribute, edit, discuss, and importantly take, the content.
Does anyone know of something like this happening for a school book already? Or of an online environment that would allow for this easily?
Does anyone think it could work?
And the big question: Does anyone want to help? Or would I end up writing it all myself anyway?
Tags: collaborative, Craft and Design, textbook, we-think, wiki
April 27th, 2009 at 9:05 pm on the 27th of April, 2009
I would love to volunteer Sandy in my Dept. (He won’t mind honest)
I think you would be best with 2 parts.
A text book part with the traditional images. I think a DTP would be best (Publisher seems available in most tech dept) and shred via something like live mesh. I know that Live Mesh will not be available in schools but then I don’t know what would be.
The wiki part would work with the text book and hold multimedia
April 27th, 2009 at 9:12 pm on the 27th of April, 2009
Some of the BEd/PGDE D&T students might be up for contributing to this…
April 27th, 2009 at 9:15 pm on the 27th of April, 2009
Some sort of CVS would be a must. I don’t know Live Mesh, but as long as it allows for some sort of directed progress on a piece of work, and prevents over writing then great.
I had other thoughts about pupils putting together their own text book in a wiki over the course of the two years, but this never seems to get off the ground when I try. Need more time with my classes and/or a PC in the workshop.
April 27th, 2009 at 9:39 pm on the 27th of April, 2009
After publishing this post I sent a quick couple of messages to twitter saying:
and
Within a few minutes I had received a lot of replies and a discussion followed. I’ll copy bits of it below.
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