Re: [WikiEducator] Abridged summary of wikieducator@googlegroups.com - 2 Messages in 1 Topic

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 11:40 PM, matai tagicaki
 wrote:
> Hello everyone, I am excited to say that Fiji will be joining India in
> the near future in adopting OER on a national platform.

For what grade levels and subjects?

Are they aware that Bangladesh has published a complete suite of
primary and secondary textbooks, all in Bangla with some in English,
under Creative Commons?

> Matai Tagicaki
>
> On 8/27/13, wikieducator@googlegroups.com  
> wrote:
>> =
>> Today's Topic Summary
>> =
>>
>> Group: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> Url: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator/topics
>>
>>   - Reminder: Open course on OERs, copyright and Creative Commons starts 4
>> September 2013 [2 Updates]
>> http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator/t/c474f43cbe0bea9
>>
>>
>> =
>> Topic: Reminder: Open course on OERs, copyright and Creative Commons starts
>> 4 September 2013
>> Url: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator/t/c474f43cbe0bea9
>> =
>>
>> -- 1 of 2 --
>> From: Wayne Mackintosh 
>> Date: Aug 26 03:44PM +1200
>> Url: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator/msg/72ad977fb3c617bc
>>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> The next Open Content Licensing for Educators course will be facilitated by
>> the *UNESCO-COL OER Chair Network*. The course starts on 4 September 2013
>> and registrations are open.
>>
>> -- 2 of 2 --
>> From: Tony Cairns 
>> Date: Aug 26 09:32PM +1200
>> Url: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator/msg/f2e3063056d95136
>>
>> i have done this but it looks like fun on mOOCs
>> so i may join it
>> i loved the feedback and collegiality and chance t meet new friends
>> so i may do this
>> will have a wee think about it
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Open Access in the right direction.

[Edward Cherlin]

Thank you for this information. I had only seen the versions in Bangla
previously. I will bring this to the attention of One Laptop Per Child
and Sugar Labs, and add it to the Sugar Labs project that I manage for
creating OERs.

On Fri, Aug 2, 2013 at 11:49 AM, jim kelly  wrote:
> During the Tuesday (6 August 2013) discussion on “Drivers of fundamental
> change in Education “ it might be interesting to examine the implications of
> Bangladesh’s  National Curriculum & Textbook Board, which recently released
> its Textbooks for the Academic Year 2013. The elementary and secondary
> school mathematics textbook series (level 1 to level 10) are both in Bangla
> and English language versions and are Free to download.
> (http://www.nctb.gov.bd/downloadpage22.php )
>
> Bangladesh is much to be respected for its Open Access (OA) approach to help
> improve mathematical learning. I hope we all get in the “front seat” with
> Bangladesh.
>
>
>
> Jim Kelly
>
> www.k-12math.info
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Open Access in the right direction.

[Edward Cherlin]

Have a look at the resources I collected on OERs at Sugar Labs, and at
our Replacing Textbooks project (link in my signature block below).

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Educational_Resources

There are significant numbers of Math OERs in English, for example in
the California Free Digital Textbooks Initiative, which has multiple
texts in most of the following subjects.

http://www.clrn.org/fdti/

Probability and Statistics
Calculus
Linear Algebra
Triginometry
Algebra
Geometry

and in many other subjects besides math. There are many other such
projects. I can also point you to Free Software for use with some such
books, including specifically math software, and programming languages
that can lead elementary school children into elementary math and all
the way up from there. This is most of what I work on at Sugar Labs.

On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 8:29 PM, Tomo  wrote:
> Thanks Jim,
>
> I was a sharing the Bangladesh link with my friends at the Tuvalu  Ministry
> of Education (Tuvalu is a very small coral atoll in the middle of the
> Pacific). They have introduced a new curriculum and want to trial OERs for
> the Maths subject instead of printing their own books.
> We will develop a project to do that over the next couple of months.
>
> They were quite surprised at the available resources and asked if there is
> something similar to the Maths resources, but for English. There are some in
> the  Bangladesh list, but only secondary school and contextual for the
> country
> I had a search around and found lots of resources for English and ESL, but
> no Open text books. COL has some Open Course material, but no text books
> Does anyone know of any such Open Text books, preferably for developing
> countries where English is a a second language?
>
> Ian
>
> On Monday, August 5, 2013 10:42:26 AM UTC+12, jim kelly wrote:
>>
>> The arithmetic thread in the first 4 textbooks is very interesting.
>>
>> On the copyright issue - not all Open Access (OA) materials are Open
>> Educational Resources (OER). I have been trying to locate a spokes person
>> for the series. E-mails have been sent.
>>
>> (I hope that you have had better luck in downloading Class VI materials –
>> on my XP and Windows 7 machines the download has taken 30 minutes, the other
>> textbooks download within minutes. Not sure what the problem is?)
>>
>> Thank you
>>
>> Jim Kelly
>>
>>
>>
>> On Friday, August 2, 2013 8:31:44 PM UTC-7, Tomo wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Jim,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the link and the resources look very interesting.
>>>
>>> I notice that they are copyright to the National Curriculum and Text Book
>>> Board, but you say they are free to download.
>>>
>>> I cant find anything else about copyright on the site.
>>>
>>> Ian
>>>
>>> On Saturday, August 3, 2013 3:49:42 AM UTC+12, jim kelly wrote:

 During the Tuesday (6 August 2013) discussion on “Drivers of fundamental
 change in Education “ it might be interesting to examine the implications 
 of
 Bangladesh’s  National Curriculum & Textbook Board, which recently released
 its Textbooks for the Academic Year 2013. The elementary and secondary
 school mathematics textbook series (level 1 to level 10) are both in Bangla
 and English language versions and are Free to download.
 (http://www.nctb.gov.bd/downloadpage22.php )

 Bangladesh is much to be respected for its Open Access (OA) approach to
 help improve mathematical learning. I hope we all get in the “front seat”
 with Bangladesh.



 Jim Kelly

 www.k-12math.info
>
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Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] What futures are possible in education? Last week to register for free scenario planning course.

[Edward Cherlin]

Can those of us working on real-world scenarios offer our plans and insights?

On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 7:14 PM, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> What futures are possible in education? Education is rapidly changing
> locally and globally stimulated by the evolution of digital technologies
> worldwide. While it is difficult to predict the future, foresighting
> techniques can help us to capture the dynamic of change by placing today's
> reality within the context of tomorrows' possibilities.
>
> Scenario Planning for Educators (SP4Ed) is a free open online course that
> will introduce educators in all sectors of education to the technique of
> scenario building to improve strategic planning with the aim of drawing us
> towards better futures.
>
> Facilitated by the University of Canterbury and the OER Foundation, you will
> join participants from +25 countries as we plan education futures together.
> The course starts on 29 July 2013.
>
> Register today at: http://wikieducator.org/SP4Ed
>
> You are most welcome to share the gift of knowledge with colleagues, friends
> and student (see poster link)
>
>
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director OER Foundation
> Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic
> Commonwealth of Learning Chair in OER, Otago Polytechnic
> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter | identi.ca
> Wikiblog
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] new instructional designer seeking to learn

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Janet Bickel-Burton
 wrote:
> This resource was suggested to me to follow and explore in my quest for 
> knowledge to do a better job of assisting faculty teach online courses.

That is a very broad goal. Can you tell us what sort of assistance
your faculty have been asking for, and what you think might help them?

My particular piece of the puzzle is Open Educational Resources under
Creative Commons CC-Sharealike licenses, so that teachers and students
can improve them. The rationale is not only that, but the fact that
computers running Free/Open Source Software with OERs cost much less
than printed textbooks. If OERs are of interest, you might like to
talk to Wayne Macintosh of OERu/OER University, and check out my link
below.

However, I keep up with how my piece fits in with the rest of the
pieces, so I might know others whom you should talk to. What else?
Subject-specific tools and methods? Moodle, MOOCs, Open Access,
publishing and collaboration tools...?

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] HTML5 and eLearning

[Edward Cherlin]

The Sugar Labs developers who support One Laptop Per Child are also
developing HTML5 applications, including versions of our Sugar
education software. I expect to be able to use this technology in our
Replacing Textbooks program (link below).

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 9:55 AM, dhinckley  wrote:
> What technology is the future of elearning? and how do you account for
> legacy and unsupported systems?  This article provides some insight:
> http://leanforward.com/elearning-development-and-html5/
>
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>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Creating Cityscape Intersecting Pathways of Multiple OER

[Edward Cherlin]

It isn't possible to compose an OER that provides all possible and
desirable pathways through a topic, but it is possible to provide an
entrance into the real-world set of pathways, using the resources
available in Free Software, Creative Commons, OERs, the Internet, and
even reality itself. There are some excellent teachers who give no
lessons, but only present questions for the students to investigate,
each in their own way, and then share their results.

If you would like to try out this idea, I recommend that you go to the
Gapminders Web site and experiment with it.

http://www.gapminder.org/

Allow yourself plenty of time. This site provides visualization tools
for mapping a wide range of economic and social factors by country
over time for the whole world. You should quickly discover a wealth of
questions that conventional accounts do not raise for you. Which are
the most informative views I can generate? Which variables seem to
have more explanatory power than others? What information is missing?
Why is this country an outlier, with better health than the economic
statistics would suggest? Why is this country a laggard, with worse
outcomes on some points than some other indicators would suggest? Why
did development go awry at certain times for so many countries? When
did it go right, and why?

Now, how do we get answers to those questions? Mere supposition will not do.

It is essential to understand that good questions are better than good
answers. You cannot advance by giving the best possible answers to the
wrong questions, but you can advance by raising a question that has no
answers at all yet.

There is no shortage of open-ended questions. For example, although
most people know almost nothing about this quest, mathematicians have
not finished answering the question, What is a number? in the most
practical sense of the problem. Conway numbers and games are the
biggest recent advance in this area, as explained in On Numbers and
Games, and in Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, and books on
particular games of particular depth.

The biggest and most consequential questions, and the most neglected
in conventional pre-programmed education, are among the simplest to
state. Among them are

What is real?

How do you know?

What should we do next?

Applying this way of thinking to civics, for example, gives rise to
these questions:

How are governments supposed to work?

How do they work, or fail to work, in practice?

What can we do about that?

Thus a useful starting point for any school subject, or any other, is
to begin with the key set of questions for exploration:

What questions are asked in this subject?

What counts as an answer?

How can you tell?

What do we think we know?

What do we think we don't know?

How are we going to find out more?

What don't we even have any idea that we don't know?

That last is a tough one, inherently unanswerable. Well, we
occasionally do get part of an answer to it, but when that happens,
that new question immediately gets transferred to what we think we
don't know. But it is useful to consider such an unanswerable
question, even if only as a reminder of how little we do know. Dark
matter was in that category fairly recently, and dark energy even more
recently. The notion of human rights was once unimaginable. Before
writing was invented, and much later ink and then paper, and indeed
for long after, the notion of a printing press was unthinkable. What
have we not thought to ask about yet?

"Only two things are infinite, the Universe and human ignorance, and
I'm not sure about the Universe."--Albert Einstein

On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 1:38 AM, Dr R C Sharma  wrote:
> Dear Folks,
>
> Course design should incorporate a number of OER on different pathways to
> best suit each learner’s own choices and level. While Derntl, Parrish &
> Botturi (2010) simply entangle themselves in Figure 4 (p.197) trying to show
> a route from start to end with either zero, one, two, or three waystations,
> there are available platforms that we could utilise for the desirable
> complexity we want for OER pathways and interactive courses.
>
> These multimedia platforms now available can be used to create interactive
> narratives with choices that appear depending on the user’s activity, eg
> inklewriter at http://www.inklestudios.com/inklewriter, varytale at
> http://varytale.com/books/ or storify at http://storify.com among others. If
> an end-user has difficulty in an interactive task, the text / platform can
> raise options for remedial study, or to other tasks or routes. The platform
> could perhaps host a whole course involving multiple intersecting pathways.
>
> The inklewriter platform was the topic of a blog posting by Anastasia Salter
> yesterday, and I think the application of this technique to OER could be
> tremendous. What do you think ?
>
> All best wishes
>
> Paul Kawachi
>
> Derntl, M., Parrish, P., & Botturi, I. (2010). Beauty and precision :
> Weaving complex educat

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Why classrooms are important?

[Edward Cherlin]

Several countries, including Hungary, the Netherlands, and Denmark,
have every student from kindergarten onward play an instrument. The
usual starting instrument is a soprano recorder
(furulya/blockfluit/blokfløjte). Alternatively, consider the Peanuts
comic strip reproduced at

http://popemichaelfilm.com/about/over-the-river-jordan-long

On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 10:08 AM, Randy Fisher  wrote:
> Or Music (really, a universal language) that benefits largely from
> mathematics, and is about relationship, complexity and harmony.
>
> I recall Guy Laliberte of Cirque de Soleil talking about Music as the
> Universal Language.
>
> - Randy
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 10:31 PM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>>
>> Seymour Papert asked the question, what if we could create an
>> environment in which children would learn to speak mathematics as
>> readily and as fluently as they learn natural languages?
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 3:27 PM,   wrote:
>> > Right on...classrooms, online platforms, telephones, e-mail, even
>> > hand-written letters are all simply means of communication...the process
>> > of
>> > relationship building and building students' self-confidence so that
>> > they
>> > can be self-directed are the crucial components...that said, some means
>> > of
>> > communication are "warmer" than others...telephones and other
>> > synchronous
>> > means of communication are probably somewhat more effective than
>> > asynchronous written communication for relationship building and
>> > face-to-face may be even more so but video doesn't add all that much to
>> > teleconferencing and the technological issues probably outweigh the
>> > benefits.   Back in the late 1980's when I was in graduate school at
>> > Penn
>> > State we used both a video-system and a teleconferencing system.  The
>> > audio
>> > produced better learning because there were fewer systems breakdowns and
>> > more importantly, audio is an active medium (even then people were used
>> > to
>> > making important decisions on the telephone) while video is often a
>> > passive
>> > medium, that folks use for entertainment, thus there is less engagement
>> > even
>> > in interactive video than in audio connections...we also learned that
>> > one of
>> > the main challenges is to match the communication medium, learners and
>> > content appropriately...just some thoughts at random.  Joyce McKnight
>> >
>> > -wikieducator@googlegroups.com wrote: -
>> > To: "wikieducator@googlegroups.com" 
>> > From: Don Beadle
>> > Sent by: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> > Date: 01/10/2013 03:01PM
>> > Cc: "wikieducator@googlegroups.com" 
>> > Subject: Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Why classrooms are important?
>> >
>> >
>> > Yes Joyce, my two cents worth , is that learning does not depend on
>> > building
>> > so much, as it does on relationships.
>> >
>> > Don
>> >
>> > Sent from my iPhone
>> >
>> > On Jan 10, 2013, at 10:08 AM, joyce.mckni...@esc.edu wrote:
>> >
>> >> I agree that young people and probably not so young people need a
>> >> teacher,
>> >> mentor or coach to guide them but that person might be an academic
>> >> advisor
>> >> available on the web or perhaps even better an on-site mentor/coach who
>> >> could work with students to choose OER resources that will best suit
>> >> their
>> >> learning needs and build logically toward appropriate learning
>> >> outcomes.
>> >> One of my community organizing students (working in Haiti) suggested
>> >> that
>> >> such "coaches" might be located in schools or some other kind of
>> >> "educational resource sites"...they could provide face-to-face guidance
>> >> for
>> >> those who could access the site physically and perhaps telephone
>> >> coaching
>> >> for those who cannot.   Even the addition of voice contact through cell
>> >> phone might give inexperienced students the confidence they need as
>> >> well
>> >> as
>> >> guidance through the often confusing world of academic preparation.   I
>> >> wonder what people think of this idea.   Joyce McKnight, Associate
>> >> Professor, Empire State College (US)
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> From:j

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Why classrooms are important?

[Edward Cherlin]

Seymour Papert asked the question, what if we could create an
environment in which children would learn to speak mathematics as
readily and as fluently as they learn natural languages?

On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 3:27 PM,   wrote:
> Right on...classrooms, online platforms, telephones, e-mail, even
> hand-written letters are all simply means of communication...the process of
> relationship building and building students' self-confidence so that they
> can be self-directed are the crucial components...that said, some means of
> communication are "warmer" than others...telephones and other synchronous
> means of communication are probably somewhat more effective than
> asynchronous written communication for relationship building and
> face-to-face may be even more so but video doesn't add all that much to
> teleconferencing and the technological issues probably outweigh the
> benefits.   Back in the late 1980's when I was in graduate school at Penn
> State we used both a video-system and a teleconferencing system.  The audio
> produced better learning because there were fewer systems breakdowns and
> more importantly, audio is an active medium (even then people were used to
> making important decisions on the telephone) while video is often a passive
> medium, that folks use for entertainment, thus there is less engagement even
> in interactive video than in audio connections...we also learned that one of
> the main challenges is to match the communication medium, learners and
> content appropriately...just some thoughts at random.  Joyce McKnight
>
> -wikieducator@googlegroups.com wrote: -
> To: "wikieducator@googlegroups.com" 
> From: Don Beadle
> Sent by: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> Date: 01/10/2013 03:01PM
> Cc: "wikieducator@googlegroups.com" 
> Subject: Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Why classrooms are important?
>
>
> Yes Joyce, my two cents worth , is that learning does not depend on building
> so much, as it does on relationships.
>
> Don
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 10, 2013, at 10:08 AM, joyce.mckni...@esc.edu wrote:
>
>> I agree that young people and probably not so young people need a teacher,
>> mentor or coach to guide them but that person might be an academic advisor
>> available on the web or perhaps even better an on-site mentor/coach who
>> could work with students to choose OER resources that will best suit their
>> learning needs and build logically toward appropriate learning outcomes.
>> One of my community organizing students (working in Haiti) suggested that
>> such "coaches" might be located in schools or some other kind of
>> "educational resource sites"...they could provide face-to-face guidance
>> for
>> those who could access the site physically and perhaps telephone coaching
>> for those who cannot.   Even the addition of voice contact through cell
>> phone might give inexperienced students the confidence they need as well
>> as
>> guidance through the often confusing world of academic preparation.   I
>> wonder what people think of this idea.   Joyce McKnight, Associate
>> Professor, Empire State College (US)
>>
>>
>>
>> From:jim kelly 
>> To:wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> Date:01/10/2013 12:40 PM
>> Subject:[WikiEducator] Re: Why classrooms are important?
>> Sent by:wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>>
>>
>>
>> Agree. There is no doubt that interactions between a young (or beginning)
>> learner and an educator are very important. Failure here guarantees that
>> knowledge will be misused. The value and enthusiasm to learn require the
>> presents of an educator. But a lack of qualified educators in many
>> learning
>> communities, money to obtain an education and a world in which the human
>> knowledge base has gone global is requiring communities to redefine how a
>> learner learns.
>>
>>
>> Examine the observation made in the  Youth Version of the 2012 UNESCO
>> Education for All Global Monitoring Report (
>>
>> http://www.unevoc.unesco.org/e-forum/Be%20skiller%20be%20employed%20be%20change%20generation.pdf
>> ) by Ali Zayaan a 19 year old from Maldives "Even right now, many young
>> people that can’t afford full schooling are able to access the internet.
>> They can use the internet (whether at home or somewhere public like a
>> library) to learn at their own pace for free, even if they have to work in
>> the daytime or can’t afford or access regular schooling. If they want to
>> get a qualification like a high school diploma, then they just need to
>> afford time and money for one or two days to attend an exam. This lowers
>> the cost barrier of pursuing an education a lot."
>>
>>
>> Traditional educational approaches need to adapt.
>>
>>
>> Jim Kelly
>> ( www.k-12math.info)
>>
>>
>> --
>> -- 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 

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Guardian: Are OERs the key to global economic growth?

[Edward Cherlin]

Particularly if you think about restructuring curricula so that OERs
and Free Software are integrated with each other across all subjects,
eliminating paper and pencil drudgery in favor of collaborative
exploration, and Doug Engelbart's program of Enhancing Collective
Intelligence. Our educational institutions, educational research, and
educational politics have not even started to address these issues
seriously.

We are at a stage comparable to Gutenberg's contemporaries thinking
about which existing manuscript books to print, before any of the new
forms of publication appeared, from the novel to the scientific
journal. We are as if filming stage plays with a fixed camera, before
any of the techniques appropriate to film were invented and the first
location shot planned.

On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Samuel Klein  wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 10:15 PM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 1:02 AM, simonfj  wrote:
>> > In a word, No.
>>
>> This turns out not to be the case.
>
> In a word, Yes.  A key, not "the" key, but one of the next ones the world
> will see.
>
>> OERs are as big an advance as printed textbooks were
>
> Yes.
>
> If you think of OER as "transparent, static, non-reusable publications
> related to education" then I can see why you would not be excited about
> their generative potential.
>
> But if you think of the movement as "global communities collaborating to
> unify, organize, interconnect, enrich, and freely share knowledge" in the
> context of education, then you have one of the cornerstones of societal
> development in our generation.
>
> Sam.
>
> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
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> To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator
> To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Guardian: Are OERs the key to global economic growth?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 1:02 AM, simonfj  wrote:
> In a word, No.

This turns out not to be the case. OERs and computers now cost less
than printed textbooks, so that they can greatly improve education
while saving money. This is the only way we can graduate children from
high school with 12 years of computer skills, ready for information
age jobs.

I can understand your political misery in an age of financial and
political malpractice on a global scale, but those are not new factors
in our history. Printing has greatly cut into political malpractice
over the centuries, and we are getting spectacular results from even
our primitive social media. There is much more to come.

OERs are as big an advance as printed textbooks were in the time of
Gutenberg. They will have equally large consequences.

> OERs, as the content-centric part of a philosophy

practice

> which is demanding more
> transparency of ALL our institutions. has about the same chance as all the
> other "opens" = edu, gov, networks, software, science, etc.

There are millions of children learning computer and cognitive skills
with Free Software and OERs. A recent study by Peru confirms these
gains.

> Taken separately, as they all are,

By you, evidently, and the financial media such as The Wall Street
Journal and The Economist, but not by all governments, school systems,
universities, and the rest.

> they are isolated parts of a lovely idea.
> E.g. The OER concept couldn't exist if its individual projects weren't
> funded by some government or philanthropic organisation.

Incorrect, as I noted above.

> So we know, as the
> GNP of most nations reduces, so will the funding for its well-intentioned
> participants' projects. The reasons for this are quite clear. OERs is simply
> about producing content and reducing its production, aggregation and
> distribution. So it misses the primary point (leaving out most ideas about
> an aethestic education. i.e. education for its own sake). It doesn't focus
> on the jobs for which an education is required.

Incorrect, as I noted above.

> So the accountants can keep playing with their stimulus plans (as they do).
> But if you want a picture of economic growth over the past 4 years, this one
> addresses reality.
> http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-chart-tears-apart-stimulus-package

There is this joke of which the punch line is, "So who are you gonna
believe? Me, or your lying eyes?" Why would you believe anything from
a such a conspiracy theory financial Web site?

> As for the picture on the other side of the Atlantic; as you know, it's much
> worse, especially if you're under 30 (with a degree or two or three). And
> that doesn't take into account the (30%) reduction in teaching wages and
> pensions in countries like Spain, Portugal, and Greece, or municipal
> bankruptcies in the US.

It is also quite likely that children graduating with 12 years'
experience in social media will have a different take on governance
and on regulation of the financial interest than their elders. I
cannot predict the direction they will take once they have that
opportunity, but I can quite confidently predict that the status quo
is not it.

> So in light of much hard evidence, and the length of time OER projects have
> been running, I think WE can conclude that our institutional habits and
> dreams about making content freely available have become, and are becoming,
> increasingly irrelevant to economic growth.

You might as well say that four centuries of Catholic Church hostility
to Galileo has prevented the development of any form of modern
astronomy, or that Young-Earth Creationism is preventing the advance
of molecular biology. You might as well fault Gutenberg for not
starting an Open Access scientific journal.

> It seems to me, as I haven't the
> well-developed belief system of people of people in the political/education
> system, that the drivers to economic growth are provided by reasons like
> this.
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-europe-economics-teaching-idUSBRE86207O20120703

Although this article is correct about the fatuousness of most
economic theory and all economics textbooks, I fail to see the
connection to OERs.

> Mind you, I treat ALL media (like the links above) as an OER. It's just the
> stuff which comes out of edu/research institutions which i find largely
> irrelevant, because it always relates to a National public employee's
> institution and not my (their?) Global private communities. Thankfully, they
> DO seem to be starting to coincide.
>
> N.B. Institutions DO matter. Just not the ones we've got today.
> http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=JIE_009_0003

I fail to see the relevance of this article, as well.

> regards, si

Thanks for sharing.

> On Saturday, 7 July 2012 02:38:59 UTC+7, Cable Green wrote:
>>
>> Follow up article to the 2012 Paris OER Declaration...
>>
>> Guardian: Are OERs the key to global economic growth?
>>
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-e

Re: [WikiEducator] 2012 Paris OER Declaration (CC post)

[Edward Cherlin]

Decent PR, but no substance.

On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Cable Green  wrote:
> Our (all of us) collective work in helping governments understand "openness"
> and why open policies are important got a boost last week when UNESCO
> members states unanimously approved the 2012 Paris OER Declaration.
>
> Creative Commons blog post: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33089
>
> Well done UNESCO, Commonwealth of Learning and everyone who worked hard for
> the last year to get this Declaration passed!
>
> See the list of recommendations, for governments, on the blog post.  We have
> plenty of work to do.
>
> Your partner in all things open,
>
> Cable
>
> PS - Please "tweet":   2012 Paris #OER Declaration passed @UNESCO. Read #CC
> wrapup & full declaration: http://bit.ly/LFJqzs  #openpolicy
>
> --
>
>
> Cable Green, PhD
> Director of Global Learning
> Creative Commons
> http://creativecommons.org/education
> http://twitter.com/cgreen
>
> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Can you test drive an idea for me?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 10:22 PM, Declan  wrote:
> Dear Ramakrishnan,
>
> Thank you for your kind offer.
>
> My hope is that interested professors like yourself would develop some
> materials on Wikieducator to walk students through the basics of
> statistical analysis.

If I can get permission (a Creative Commons license on a particular
book) I will create a digital statistics text using current software
in which every math statement is executable, like the algebra book I
have been working on.

http://booki.treehouse.su/algebra-an-algorithmic-treatment/_v/1.0/edit/

The point of the book was to teach students how to write their own
statistics routines, and not be dependent on canned software.

> Eventually there will be enough material on the
> site so that you could choose a set from Texas (7 specimens came in
> the post today) and a set from Alaska (I have 6) and use the data for
> a t-test.  I have 10 from the Northeast US and more than that from the
> West.  Alternatively one could choose a series from a range of
> latitudes to run a regression.  Another way to illustrate regression
> would be to ignore latitude and simply measure length and width from a
> series of skulls and regress one against the other.
>
> It has been my experience that simply providing data to biology
> students falls flat.  They are happier if they collect their own
> data.  In my own course I can bring out 30 skulls and calipers to let
> them measure.  But I suspect that few professors have a box of skulls
> in their lab...even fewer high school teachers have such a strange
> resource.  That was the basis for the idea.  When my students return
> in September we will photograph more skulls and upload them.  This is
> actually a common research method; scientists usually do this by
> visiting museum collections; I think the photographic approach is
> fairly uncommon.

It is very common in some kinds of archaeology, including 3-D images
of cuneiform tablets, Mayan monuments, and other artifacts. A
professor of the History of Mathematics once told our college math
club that after a while you can get to recognize individual
handwriting in Babylonian. Computational linguistics is full of
statistical models.

> I hope I can convince a few teachers or scientists to make
> measurements from the existing photographs to see how this works.  We
> should be able to get the same measurement for length from the left
> side and the right side of the same skull.  Width should be the same
> on the top and bottom views.  Different teachers should arrive at the
> same number.  Also I want to make sure that the instructions are
> intelligible.

I have a long-term plan to create materials for teaching statistics
based on the century and a half of records of many major sports,
including baseball, soccer, cricket, and so on, and of chess, go, and
other mind games.

> Cheers,
>
> Declan

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Book Chapters on Reserve/On-line

[Edward Cherlin]

Thus we have to go to Open Courseware, Open Educational Resources, and
Open Access, and cut commercial publishers out of the loop. I wrote a
market research study many years ago predicting that technical
journals would cease to depend on commercial print publishing, which
has high costs and heavy restrictions, and I am delighted to see my
prediction coming true, even though very, very gradually. As an
example, Harvard has just come out for moving entirely to Open Access
for all of its faculty. Bangladesh digitized all of their primary and
secondary textbooks, and other countries are doing so or making plans.
There are well over a hundred thousand digital learning modules under
Creative Commons.

I am doing my part as Program Manager for Replacing Textboks at Sugar
Labs, the Free Software and OER partner of One Laptop Per Child. I get
to make presents for millions of children every day, and we can all
look forward to the time when that expands to a billion children at a
time. (All of them, except perhaps in North Korea.)

What we need to do next is to get organized to produce complete suites
of OERs, new curricula (with supporting research) incorporating
software and OERs into every subject at every level, translations for
every country and language community that needs it, and teacher
training. Wayne is organizing OER University. The New York Regents
have asked for proposals to do the same, and been turned down by every
commercial publisher. Who would like to help me start OERK-12, and
have a go at it?

On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 3:00 PM, Ivan K.  wrote:
> Wayne Mackintosh  writes:
>>
>> Register for the next Open Content Licensing for Educators
>> workshop :-).
>>
>> This is a free professional development opportunity on OER, Copyright and
>
> Thank you for the tip;
>
>
>> In short you will need to consult your national copyright act to identify
>> whether there are any specific educational exceptions which would cover the
>> practice you suggest.
>
> Ok; I am in the USA.  I should have written that up-front.
>
>> However, in most countries,  restricting access to students for scanned
>> copies of all-rights reserved texts would not qualify as fair dealing --
>> format shifting is not permitted under "standard" copyright.   Your
>> institution may participate in a licensing arrangement, which in return for
>> a fee, may permit these activities (But this is not a fair dealing / fair
>> usage practice.)
>
> So in this digital age, for me to assign my students to read ten pages
> from a book, they would have to physically check out the book on
> reserve in the library rather than read a PDF on the web?
>
> That seems rather draconian.
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] The Guardian on Harvard Memo

[Edward Cherlin]

I saw that, and sent them a note about my prediction of Open Access in a
1992 market research report I wrote for BIS CAP, now GIGA Information Group.

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 00:57, Cable Green wrote:

>
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices
>  [image: The Guardian home] 
>
>
>   Harvard University says it can't afford journal publishers' prices
> University wants scientists to make their research open access and resign
> from publications that keep articles behind paywalls
>
>- Ian Sample , science
>correspondent
>- guardian.co.uk , Tuesday 24 April 2012
>12.45 EDT
>- Article 
> history
>
>  A memo from Harvard's faculty advisory council said major scientific
> publishers had made scholarly communication 'fiscally unsustainable'.
> Photograph: Corbis
>
> Exasperated by rising subscription costs charged by academic publishers, 
> Harvard
> University  has
> encouraged its faculty members to make their research freely available
> through open access journals and to resign from publications that keep
> articles behind paywalls.
>
> A memo from Harvard 
> Library
>  to
> the university's 2,100 teaching and research staff called for action after
> warning it could no longer afford the price hikes imposed by many large
> journal publishers, which bill the library around $3.5m a year.
>
> The extraordinary move thrusts one of the world's wealthiest and most
> prestigious institutions into the centre of an increasingly fraught debate
> over access to the results of academic research, much of which is funded by
> the taxpayer.
>
> The outcome of Harvard's decision to take on the publishers will be
> watched closely by major universities around the world and is likely to
> prompt others to follow suit.
>
> The memo from Harvard's faculty advisory council said major publishers had
> created an "untenable situation" at the university by making scholarly
> interaction "fiscally unsustainable" and "academically restrictive", while
> drawing profits of 35% or more. Prices for online access to articles from
> two major publishers have increased 145% over the past six years, with some
> journals costing as much as $40,000, the memo said.
>
> More than 10,000 academics have already joined a boycott of 
> Elsevier,
> the huge Dutch publisher, in protest at its journal pricing and access
> policies. Many university libraries pay more than half of their journal
> budgets to the publishers Elsevier, Springer and Wiley.
>
> Robert Darnton ,
> director of Harvard Library told the Guardian: "I hope that other
> universities will take similar action. We all face the same paradox. We
> faculty do the research, write the papers, referee papers by other
> researchers, serve on editorial boards, all of it for free … and then we
> buy back the results of our labour at outrageous prices.
>
> "The system is absurd, and it is inflicting terrible damage on libraries.
> One year's subscription to The Journal of Comparative 
> Neurology 
> costs
> the same as 300 monographs. We simply cannot go on paying the increase in
> subscription prices. In the long run, the answer will be open-access
> journal publishing, but we need concerted effort to reach that goal."
>
> In traditional journal publishing, researchers submit articles to editors
> who send them out for peer review, a task that is usually unpaid. The final
> versions of the articles are then formatted and sold back to university
> libraries. Open access comes in various guises, but one model requires
> authors to pay to have their articles published and made freely available
> to anyone.
>
> According to the Harvard memo, journal subscriptions are now so high that
> to continue them "would seriously erode collection efforts in many other
> areas, already compromised". The memo asks faculty members to encourage
> their professional organisations to take control of scholarly publishing,
> and to consider submitting their work to open access journals and resigning
> from editorial boards of journals that are not open access.
>
> It adds that the library must insist on transparent contracts that prevent
> universities from discussing in public the fees they pay certain publishers.
>
> In a statement to the Guardian, Elsevier said: "The Harvard Faculty
> Advisory Council letter does not specify any specific publisher. We have a
> good relationshi

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Interactive functions for etextbooks -- teacher wish list and ensuring cross platform functionality (Restart to use different email)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 14:16, Glenn Ross  wrote:
> You can find a test EPUB file here, if you like:
>
> www.opensourcetext.ca/samples/Samples.html
>
> This is an EPUB with MathML, an externally linked javascript scientific
> calculator, and embedded video. Note that you have to enable javascript in
> the EPUBReader preferences.

OK. I also had to give permission in NoScript.

> It runs in Firefox with the EPUBReader plugin. The math fonts are STIX.

I tried it in Chrome and Firefox both. Chrome was no trouble, and
Firefox worked well once I had both sets of permissions right. I will
test it in Sugar on Fedora Linux within VirtualBox later.

> There's a little bit of CSS thrown in to jazz up headings. Not sure how well
> that will move over.

No problems so far.

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Interactive functions for etextbooks -- teacher wish list and ensuring cross platform functionality (Restart to use different email)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 08:32, Glenn Ross  wrote:
> FOR: Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
>
> Hi Edward,
>
> booki
> 
>
> I had a look at booki and have a few of comments.
>
> 1. What are you doing to ensure accuracy and prevent abuse of booki generate
> works? Are you relying on the general community to correct errors and report
> abuse?

We have had no significant abuse. We do have a vigilant community,
very protective of its work, and we keep the complete edit history of
our projects so that we can roll them back if necessary. Editing is
only permitted for logged-in users, both in order to guarantee correct
copyright attributions, and for security against vandalism.

> 2. Isn't the creation of a new book authoring system asking content
> producers to do extra work if they also want to use a more wide spread
> option like EPUB?

Booki and its forthcoming replacement BookType offer EPUB as one of
several output formats. The question is whether other tools offer a
similar variety of outputs (including print-on-demand) and whether
they are as powerful, both in terms of tools for creating and editing,
and in terms of collaboration. As is the way of Free Software, we do
not demand that others use our tools; but since our source code is
publicly available, we do demand that competing tools be as good as
ours.

> 3. It isn't clear to me that collaboration can't just be done in the word
> processor stage.

It can be, but with a much greater effort. It cannot be done live in
word processors. I have used that process extensively as a Senior
Technical Writer, mostly in Silicon Valley. One person must be the
primary author, distributing copies to others to edit, and receiving
the edited versions in order to merge changes. In booki and BookType,
the moment one author or editor closes a chapter, all others on line
at the time are notified in real time, and can immediately examine and
edit the most recent changes or begin to add other content. At
face-to-face book sprints, this is augmented by talking together.

> Multiple Languages
> 
> In Canada, the Belinda Stronach Foundation has taken the lead in delivery
> OLPCs to Aboriginal communities, which, I am embarrassed to say, face
> significant challenges due to a lack of proper diligence by our federal
> government.
>
> Inuktitut and Cree are two major languages here that we have already thought
> of as logical progressions, certainly in the humanities. I hope to initiate
> discussions this year with the elders, aboriginal academics, and other
> stakeholders as to language usage in the sciences which are perhaps best
> left in English.

Sugar Labs supports localizing our Sugar education software into any
language where the user community is willing to do the work. We would
be happy to host Cree, Inuktitut, or any other language of interest. I
have worked on the Haitian Kreyòl and Cambodian Khmer projects as an
administrator, primarily doing recruiting and training, since I speak
neither language.

http://translate.sugarlabs.org

> These languages are all encoded into the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics which
> work just fine in Firefox.

I have done extensive work with Unicode, and I am familiar with CAS.
See, for example, the entry for Susan Aglukark/ᓱᓴᓐ ᐊᒡᓗᒃᑲᖅ  at

http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode-example.html

a page that I have contributed to.

> Jsoftware
> --
> Thanks for mentioning this one. Will look into it. Not sure how comfortable
> I am with GPL 3 versus the Creative Commons. A discussion on their relative
> merits might be interesting. Certainly a CC licence frees you from having to
> watch over downstream users.

GPL is for software, and Creative Commons is for content, including
music, videos, art, and documents. Both sets of licenses require some
care to make sure that any published reuse is under the same licenses,
including any requirements for availability of source code and source
content, and that authorship is properly acknowledged.

> Our Content
> -
> Our content will follow two basic streams: PDF and EPUB. The PDF version is
> essentially the status quo of Canadian textbooks while the EPUB will explore
> innovations in interactivity.

I would be very interested to hear more, since I was not aware of
interactive EPUBs. Sugar makes extensive use of the Python, Smalltalk,
and Logo programming languages, and I am working to add J. It is
highly practical to write learning materials within these languages,
and I would like to be able to embed such materials in other
documents.

> Our process involves taking OER content already available and editing it
> (i.e., from CK12.ORG)

Have you looked at the resources listed on my OER page? There are well
over 100,000 items just at OER Recommender.

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources

> and/or creating content to match Canadian curriculum
> requirements. Our focus is on providing a tool which matches existing
> require

Re: [WikiEducator] Interactive functions for etextbooks -- teacher wish list and ensuring cross platform functionality

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 11:33, Glenn Ross  wrote:
> Open Source Text Canada (OSTC) is a new foundation seeking to create Open
> Source versions of K-12 Canadian curricula.

As Program Manager for Replacing Textbooks at Sugar Labs, I would like
to invite you to work with us. We have started with a booki server for
collaborative authoring of Open Educational Resources, soon to be
upgraded to the forthcoming BookType.

http://booki.treehouse.su
http://booktype-demo.sourcefabric.org/

I assume that you are going to produce French and English versions.
What about First Nation languages? Sugar Labs is working in about a
hundred languages so far, and can support any others for which a
community of interest is willing to do the work.

> Even before Apple launched iBooks textbooks for iPad and raised the bar,
> teachers were telling us that they wanted ways to engage their students and
> at the same time leverage etextbooks to help them manage the workload of
> testing and assignments.
>
> OSTC is seeking the broadest possible platform at the least expense for the
> electronic versions of texts which appears to be the EPUBReader plugin for
> Mozilla's Firefox with javascripts running within an EPUB. This platform
> provides MathML, MusicML through free plugins, and superior conformity to
> HTML5 and CSS3.
>
> So we are seeking input from the broader education community on in-book
> apps, how testing might work, the roles and ratios of written sections
> versus multiple choice, innovative ideas for assignments to encourage
> students to read a section and submit a review, and any other idea you might
> be willing to share.

I am just completing a new edition of an executable algebra textbook,
Algebra: An Algorithmic Treatment, by Turing Award winner Kenneth E.
Iverson. It is available on the two servers I mentioned above, along
with a draft of my project, Discovering Discovery and others. In the
algebra book, every math statement can be copied and pasted into a
software session for evaluation. The J software that it uses was put
under GPL3 last year.

> The resulting ideas will move on to programmers (either hired or volunteers)
> and made available under the Creative Commons Canada licence.
>
> Looking forward to your responses,
>
> Glenn Ross CEO, Open Source Text Canada

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Calling All College Spanish OER and Open Textbooks!

[Edward Cherlin]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 02:27, Tom Caswell  wrote:
> Hello OER Friends,
>
> I'm putting out a call for college-level first year Spanish OER, especially
> open textbooks.

There are many sources of OERs listed at

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources

This includes many modules on particular aspects of Spanish language,
literature, and culture, and whole courses. OpenCourseWare in
particular is for college-level materials, while OER Recommender goes
for the greatest volume and the broadest range, with more than 100,000
items.

Here are two Spanish courses that stand out.

MIT has one under CC-NC-SA

http://www.folksemantic.com/visits/66151
Spanish I
As taught in: Fall 2003

Spanish I is very different from other classes at MIT. The central
component of the text and workbook is a series of 26 half-hour video
episodes. The videos allow students to learn authentic Spanish and
experience its cultural diversity while following a good story full of
surprises and human emotions. Students also listen to an audio-only
program integrated with the text and workbook.

In the classroom, students do a variety of activities and exercises,
which include talking in Spanish about the video program, practicing
pronunciation and grammar, and interacting in Spanish with classmates
in pairs and small groups. The class is conducted in Spanish as much
as possible, but English is used where necessary for clarity and
efficiency. This course deals with all basic language skills: aural
comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. This class assumes no
previous knowledge of Spanish.


The Foreign Service Institute of the US State Department developed
courses for many languages, and placed them in the Public Domain,
including textbooks and audio. They are now freely available on the
Web.

http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php
Spanish Programmatic Course

Welcome to fsi-language-courses.org - the home for language courses
developed by the Foreign Service Institute.

These courses were developed by the United States government and are
in the public domain.

This site is dedicated to making these language courses freely
available in an electronic format. This site is not affiliated in any
way with any government entity; it is an independent, non-profit
effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages. Courses here are
made available through the private efforts of individuals who are
donating their time and resources to provide quality materials for
language learning.

http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Spanish%20Programmatic
Spanish Programmatic Course
Student Text
Workbook
Instructor's Manual
Tapes for 45 units

> The Open Course Library is building a Spanish I course, but
> our faculty course designers are struggling to use 100% open materials. I
> want them to avoid building around a copyrighted publisher text because it
> will limit the usefulness of the course materials in the long run. But that
> may be the only choice if they cannot find enough existing open materials.
>
> If you know of college Spanish OER, especially open textbooks or other
> curated curriculum, please share them here (the page is editable by anyone
> with the link):
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgEQ2GydgaExXNLPOYZn8WMJaFZoFp3CpTonMIrHO64/edit

Done.

> Thanks,

Thank you for your work. I am in the middle of the FSI course, and can
make good use of several of the other resources you listed. One Laptop
Per Child and Sugar Labs have more than 2 million Spanish-speaking
students using our XO laptops and Sugar education software.

> Tom
> --
> Tom Caswell
> Open Education Policy Associate, SBCTC
> (w) http://opencourselibrary.org (p) 360-747-7301
> (b) http://tomcaswell.com (t) @tom4cam


-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Access to UNESCO OER forums in 2012

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 01:33, j. Tim Denny wrote:

> Friends
>
> I  was  excited when I saw that there will be regional OER forums   as
>  seen on this site..
> http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/events/calendar-of-events/events-websites/world-open-educational-resources-congress/
>
>

World Open Educational Resources Congress

*Wednesday 20 – Friday 22 June, 2012
Room XII, UNESCO HQ, Paris, France*

OER Logo 2012 J. Mello,used under a Creative Commons license CC-BY

In full partnership with the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and through the
generous support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, UNESCO is
organizing the 2012 World OER Congress, which will take place on 20 – 22
June 2012 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
It is a 2-part event with an official negotiation component by UNESCO
Member States and selected invited organizations and individuals
negotiating the text of the 2012 Paris Declaration, and an open exhibition
of OER practices and workshops and seminars.

>
> In fact  the one in Thailand is not far from me,
>

Which one are you interested in?


> thus I quickly sent an email to inquire about attending the event.  Yet my
> repeated attempts to contact the organizers goes unnoticed.
>

Is this what you tried?

http://ict.unescobkk.org/forum/

*Email:* ict@unesco.org
I have just completed a project, an executable algebra textbook,

http://booki.treehouse.su/algebra-an-algorithmic-treatment/

and was thinking about contacting UNESCO Bangkok next, at the suggestion of
Abel Caine of UNESCO's OER discussion forum, to open a discussion about
creating OERs for primary schools, as Bangladesh has done, and Uruguay and
South Korea plan.

http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/announcements/view/107072/

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources

I'll go do that, and let you know.


>  In light of this I am assuming that UNESCO is making worldwide
> announcements for OER events while encouraging the world to get involved,
> yet when it comes down to it these events are probably closed to a small
> group of  insiders,thus the reason my emails to the organizers go
> unanswered.  And further why there is no clear or  open process of applying
> to participate in the forums.
>

I think that this is not the case in general (although some events are
clearly for the country representatives to UNESCO, and not the public), and
that UNESCO is understaffed and underfunded for its mission. But we can
ask.

>
> Here I would suggest to UNESCO and all tax supported organizations to not
> advertise events that are closed. Best to work in darkness than to announce
> exciting events that are limited to friends.
>
> I bring attention to this as I feel that we should be promoting openness
> on all levels. We need to encourage organizations that talk about
> open education to also practice open involvement in the process.
>
> Of cours we I may be very wrong, but from my experience in attempting to
> attend recent UNESCO events happening in my area I have  been repeatedly
> rejected even the honor of showing up to say hello. It is very sad as I
> have so much to share.
>
> So my solution to this mess...  I hope that we can fill the gap with
> organization of regional meetings for those of us not in the inner circle,
> those without institutional funding.Lets organize events that are
> affordable to teachers and students alike. In order to attain OER we must
> practice openness at all levels.
>
> Cheers
> Tim
> __
> j. Tim  Denny, Ph.D.
>  Consultant - International Development, Education  and ICT
>   SKYPE - jtdennyGoogletalk - denny.jt
>   http://www.linkedin.com/in/jtdenny
>   https://www.avuedigitalservices.com/VR/id130765695
> .
> While SAT scores might predict your success in the classroom, beyond a
> basic level of intelligence your passion, motivation, initiative,
> networking and hustle matter more than your grade-point average.  Dale
> Stephens founder of UnCollege.org
>
> https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=esi2y0whdhk52&utm_source=txemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=referral
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 11:56, Cable Green wrote:
>
>> As William Gibson said ,
>> "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.*"
>> *
>> OERu will be a key part of the new education ecosystem.
>>
>> Kudos to Wayne and everyone who are leveraging the affordances of digital
>> content, open licensing, the Internet(s) and the academy's genuine
>> willingness to share... so many, many more people can access a high
>> quality, affordable education.
>>
>> Well done!
>>
>> Cable
>>
>>
>> Cable Green, PhD
>> Director of Global Learning
>> Creative Commons 
>> CC Education 
>>  (e) ca...@creativecommons.org
>> (t) @cgreen  
>> @cc
>> /  (b) OER 

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: [OERU] Re: [OER] UNESCO OER logo -- Copyright holder leads by example!

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 23:57, Prof. Supten Sarbadhikari
 wrote:
> Dear All,
> In Bangla / Bengali, it will be:
> অবারিত শিক্ষাগত সম্পদ
> In Hindi, it may be:
> अप्रतिबंधित शैक्षिक संसाधनों
>
> With warmest regards
> Supten

I would like to get translations to the hundred or so languages that
Sugar Labs is working on.

http://translate.sugarlabs.org/

> --
> Prof. Suptendra Nath Sarbadhikari, MBBS, PhD
> Founder and Director, Supten Institute, Coimbatore, India
> Visiting Professor in Health Informatics, Bangladesh Institute of Health
> Sciences, Dhaka, Bangladesh
> Email: sup...@supten-institute.org
> Associate Editor: Network Modeling Analysis in Health Informatics and
> Bioinformatics [Springer, 2011-2014]
> Associate Editor: International Journal of User-Driven Healthcare (IJUDH)
> Former Editor-in-Chief, Indian Journal of Medical Informatics [2007-2010]
> Former (Founder) Editor, ACM SIGHIT Record [2011]
> Chair, and, Chair-Education Committee,  HL7 India [2011-13]
> The Vice President, Indian Association for Medical Informatics [2011-13]
> Supten Institute Supten Institute e-Learning site Supten Institute Wiki
> Personal Home Page
>
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Nagarjuna G  wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 9:02 AM, Wayne Mackintosh
>>  wrote:
>> > Dear Prof Kamat,
>> >
>> > Perhaps you can contribute a Hindi translation of "Open Education
>> > Resources"
>> > to add to Jonatha's list of current translations
>> >
>> > (see: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources/global-oer-logo/ )
>> > .
>> >
>> > Now with a CC-BY license -- users have the freedom to translate (which
>> > is
>> > considered an adaptation under most national copyright acts and would
>> > not
>> > have been easy with a ND license.)
>> >
>>
>> Dear Indian colleagues,
>>
>> what is the accepted translation of OER in Hindi and other Indian
>> languages.  I can create the Indian versions and update the page.
>>
>> --
>> Nagarjuna
>> http://metaStudio.org/
>>
>> --
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>
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] children philosophy curriculum

[Edward Cherlin]

On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 23:48, Nagarjuna G  wrote:
>
>
> 2012/2/4 Wong Leo 
>>
>> Dear all , anyone know anything about this area ??

I know about a program that put Yale Math professors into middle
school classrooms. They dealt with the deep philosophical questions in
Foundations of Mathematics that children come up with, which their
teachers know nothing about. Many of these questions become great
obstacles to learning if not properly addressed. Questions addressed
include

* What is a number?

* Is 0.9...necessarily equal to 1?

* Is there a largest number?

* How many numbers are there?

* Is 0 nothing, or is it really a number?

* How can you have a negative number of anything?

I encountered an example after I left Yale, when my mentor told me
that she could not do algebra because she had been taught that a
variable is a number that changes its value. This is obviously
nonsense, since numbers are constants, but she could not get the
teacher to see this. Without a resolution of the conundrum, she could
not do algebra, even though she remembered the formulas. I explained
that variable names are pronouns that can refer to different numbers
at different times, just as the pronoun "you" can refer to whomever
you are talking with. She went away for twenty minutes, and on
returning said that she could do algebra now, and that there was
nothing more to discuss.

I am working on a digital version of a Ken Iverson computer algebra
textbook that takes this exact tack. I will work on his Arithmetic and
Calculus textbooks next.

http://booki.treehouse.su/algebra-an-algorithmic-treatment/

number, character, array, list, table=noun
variable=pronoun
function=verb

and so on.

http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Books

http://jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/partsofspeech.htm

http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Essays/English%20Grammar

http://jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/dict2.htm
Grammar

The following sentences illustrate the six parts of speech:

> Please follow the references cited in this paper, which may give you some
> links.
> http://www.springerlink.com/content/yllt2884x64p4121/
>
> --
> Nagarjuna
>
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Something to consider getting involved in

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 15:48, Ravi Limaye  wrote:
> Hello Edwards,
> I visited sugarlabs and found it fascinating.
> How does one go about using it?
> Please give the pathway.

There are many pathways, depending on what you would like to
accomplish. There are several ways to install and try Sugar:

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Downloads/Landing_page

and many ways to join in:

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Getting_Involved

Sugar and XO manuals are available from

http://en.flossmanuals.net/

and the Replacing Textbooks program at Sugar Labs

http://booki.treehouse.su/

My part of the work is managing the Replacing Textbooks program, which
aims to create textbooks on every subject at every level for every
country in every language needed. I am working on a suite of math
books (Arithmetic, Algebra, Analysis/Calculus) using recently GPLed
software, and there are many other such projects.

> Regards,
> Ravi


-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] looking for creative ways to design a teacher education curriclum

[Edward Cherlin]

May I ask which minorities these teachers will be teaching? Are any of
the teachers themselves minority, or are they all Han Chinese?

A topic of great interest to minorities is the experience of other
minorities, and of even majorities subjected to foreign oppression, as
in the British-Chinese Opium Wars and the succeeding Unequal Treaties
period, or all of China under Mongol and Manchu rule. This is a
sensitive topic in China, so one would have to be careful not to let
it turn into anything the authorities would consider revolutionary, or
perhaps I should say counter-revolutionary. For example, on the
positive side one could look at the Swiss experience of cooperation
among groups speaking several languages (Italian, French, German, and
Romansch), and among its Catholic and Protestant populations.

I would assume that study of mistreatment of minorities in the US and
the Soviet Union, and of anti-imperial revolutions, particularly
liberation struggles against Spain, France and the UK, would be within
the acceptable boundaries. But I would check before taking anything
into the classroom unless it is already in the curriculum.

Can you ask your teachers what minority issues they are aware of, what
they are allowed to teach about them, and how much they listen to
their students on these questions?

I recommend the video Vis à Vis: Native Tongues on this issue. It
presents a series of teleconference sessions between a Native American
performance artist, James Luna, and an Australian Aborigine actress
and playwright, Ningali Lawford, exploring their work and sharing
issues that are at the core of their communities' experience. The
biggest is that both communities suffered greatly from forced
attendance at English-only boarding schools designed to destroy their
cultures. (Canada also, with the addition of massive, systematic rape
of students.)

What issues do minorities in China share, that they should be talking
with each other about, and what does the majority have to say about
this?

A separate issue: Although it is not time to teach teachers how to use
technology that is not yet available to their students, it is not too
soon for them to think about what will happen and what they will need
to do when that technology arrives, which will be during their active
teaching careers. I say this because

1) Computers are already less expensive than printed textbooks.

2) Several countries, from Bangladesh to South Korea, are digitizing
all of their textbooks.

3) China, more than most other developing countries, has a plan for
getting electricity, phone service, and Internet out to its remote
towns and even villages as part of its more general economic
development plan. (Compare US Rural Electrification, including the
Tennessee Valley Authority.)

Internet use in China went from less than 2% of the population to 36%
in the last decade. Extrapolating along a logistic curve indicates
that it should achieve well over 90% penetration in another decade or
so.

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 05:29, Wong Leo  wrote:
> Dear all ,
>
> I will be teaching a teacher education unit for about 400 middle school
> teachers to help them prepare for their future teaching job for minority
> people in remote china , i am wondering if anyone who have the similar
> teaching experience on teacher education program , the name of the course is
> called curriculum and teaching .
>
> i am thinking about trying something in wikieducator like involving each
> teacher to design a teaching unit , and asking them to put on wikieducator
> website
>
> however , i need the advices from you !
>
> something creative is the best ！！
>
>
> --
> Leo Wong
> Teacher and teacher trainer
> --
> http://wikieducator.org/User:Leolaoshi
>
> 机构博客：http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com
>
> 个人博客 http://blog.sina.com.cn/leolaoshi1  （在努力中）
>
>  Skype:leolaoshi
>
> Malaysia number +006 010 2718251
> -
> There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly with
> the real teacher and real Kids.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
> To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] OERu most noticeable development in OER for 2011

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 16:34, Randy Fisher  wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> With all due respect to Tony and OERu, what about the $500M awards in the US
> for OER development? - http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/29195
>
> OR, Washington State's completion of 42 Phase I courses in the Open Course
> Libary Project - http://www.opencourselibrary.org/

I disagree with all of these ideas. The big news in 2011, IMNSHO, was that

* Bangladesh digitized a complete suite of primary and secondary
school textbooks in Bangla and posted them on the Internet for free
distribution. Uruguay and South Korea then announced comparable
initiatives. California, South Africa, and others have partial suites
of digital secondary school textbooks under Creative Commons licenses.

* There are more than 100,000 OERs for all levels, primary through college

* Bangladesh announced the Doel education computer, to be distributed
to schoolchildren in Bangladesh on the One Laptop Per Child model.
India and Peru are among other countries building their own school
computers or setting up factories to produce OLPC XOs.

* Various countries including Peru now provide Internet to villages,
and more, including Rwanda, have announced plans to do so. Almost
every country now has fiber optic connections to the world, or an
active project to install them.

There are more than 2 million OLPC XOs in the hands of schoolchildren,
and substantial numbers of other computers.

One of many reasons why I consider this more important is that it will
inexorably lead to OERs for every subject at every grade level in
every language whose speakers want them.

I am personally working on translating a suite of textbooks, newly
placed under Creative Commons, for primary through early college math,
from proprietary 1970s software to the latest GPLed version. For
example:

Algebra: An Algorithmic Treatment, by Kenneth E. Iverson
http://booki.treehouse.su/algebra-an-algorithmic-treatment/

Other titles by Ken Iverson will be

* Arithmetic

* Elementary Functions: An Algorithmic Treatment

* Elementary Analysis

We have other works in the pipeline, and plan several publications for
teachers explaining the software and the pedagogical approach possible
when the computer can take over the drudgery of computation. A
multitude of other such initiatives exists.

See

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources

> - Randy
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 3:35 AM, Wayne Mackintosh
>  wrote:
>>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> As we start preparing for the holidays, Tony Bates cites the OER
>> university as the most noticeable development in OER for 2011.
>>
>>
>> See: http://www.tonybates.ca/2011/12/13/e-learning-in-2011-a-retrospective/
>>
>> Tony's scholarship in open distance learning and technology mediated
>> learning has informed much of my own thinking in this field over the last
>> two decades.  Tony, therefore, you can claim some responsibility for
>> informing the foundations on which our founding anchor partners are building
>> the OER university ;-).
>>
>> Earlier this year I intimated that 2011 would be a quantum shift year for
>> seeding the mainstream adoption of OER in the formal education sector. The
>> OERu is the vehicle enabling us to facilitate this transformation.
>>
>> I wonder what 2012 will promise for open education and the OERu? Any
>> thoughts?
>>
>> Wayne
>>
>> --
>> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
>> Director OER Foundation
>> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
>> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
>> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator
>> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
>> Skype: WGMNZ1
>> Twitter | identi.ca
>> Wikiblog
>>
>> --
>> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>
>
>
>
> --
> 
> Randy Fisher, MA (Fielding)
> President
>
> iCentro Corporation
> Ottawa, Canada (Eastern Time)
> +1 613.722.5577 - home/office
> +1 613.899.0475 - cell (seldom on, but I check messages regularly)
>
> Improving Organizational Performance
> Specializing in marketing, e-learning / distance learning and program
> evaluation
>
> LinkedIn Profile
> Wordle
> Skype: wikirandy
>
> --
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Silent Thunder

Re: [WikiEducator] Something to consider getting involved in

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 16:27, Patricia Schlicht  wrote:
> Dear All
>
> I don’t normally do this, but Dr Ravi Limaye is new to WikiEducator, so I am
> leading the way. Ravi wishes to undertake a Research study in Open Learning
> with the following components:
>
> a) Opinionnaire from Technical institutes and other stakeholders on
> relevance, readiness for Open Education for states of Madhya pradesh,
> Chattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Maharastra ( some sample institutes).
>
> b) Study of Technical and Management Frameworks of existing Open
> Universities.
>
> c) Survey of Pedagogical approaches adopted in Instructional design.
>
> If you would like to get involved, here is your opportunity:
> http://wikieducator.org/Virtual_Institutes_Technological_and_Management_Framework.
> A nice way to collaborate and team up for people with similar interests

I would like to suggest another approach. We have established that
computers with Free Software and Open Education Resources cost less
than printed textbooks. This means that we have a direct path to
improving education at reduced expense. Bangladesh, Uruguay, and South
Korea have all undertaken to replace all of their textbooks with free
materials. (Links at
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources) They and others
are also undertaking to build their own computers for education.

However, only a few other Ministries or Departments of Education have
given any indication of even considering this approach. What are the
mental and political obstacles?

Any such study must take account of former California Speaker and San
Francisco Mayor Willie Brown's advice to me when I asked him about an
egregious political statement: "Your problem is that you think
politicians mean what they say."

> Warm wishes
>
> Patricia
>
> Patricia Schlicht
>
> Programme Assistant
>
> COMMONWEALTH OF LEARNING
>
> LEARNING FOR DEVELOPMENT.
>
> COL is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of
> Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and
> distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.
>
> Suite 1200 - 1055 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC  V6E 2E9  Canada
> PH: +1.604.775.8227 | FAX: +1.604.775.8210 | WEB: www.col.org | E-MAIL:
> pschli...@col.org
>
> Announcement: Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Education will co-host COL’s
> Seventh Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF7) in Abuja, in November
> 2013. Exact dates to be confirmed.
>
>
>
>  A 'Green' reminder: P Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need
> to. Thank you.
>
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Conclusions of the OERu meeting for those who couldn't attend

[Edward Cherlin]

Would you be interested in helping to digitize existing textbooks and
getting them translated to Kinyarwanda? This will be particularly
important as Rwanda rolls out OLPC XO laptops to primary school
students who do not yet speak either French, the former language of
instruction, or English, which is now intended to be the new language
of instruction.

Several countries have already digitized some or all of their
textbooks, or are in the process of doing so, and of organizing local
manufacture of educational laptops. The result is that the laptops
cost less than the printed textbooks used to, so that we can improve
education at lower cost, and more easily make it available to all
children.

On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 06:28, rwagasana  wrote:
> Hi dear all.
>
> I am Rwagasana Gerard, 65 old, retired professor from the National
> University of Rwanda, independent researcher and consultant ICT in
> education. I live in Kigali, Rwanda. Because of a very slow internet
> connection, I could not attend the OERu meeting virtually.
> OERu initiative has a very great importance and interest for Rwanda,
> where more than 50% of people cannot access high education because of
> social, financial and other obstacles.
> I am sure that it is the case especially for all developing countries
> (and even in some way for developed ones).
> I will try to interest our Minister of education and some
> Universities'  Rectors I know well, hoping they will agree to support
> and be involved in our project.
> I am waiting for the publication of the meeting's conclusions.
>
> Many many thanks to all those who initiated this fantastic project and
> to all of you who are actively involved in.
>
> rwagasana
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Call for Mathematics teachers !

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 14:45, Rashmi Kathuria
 wrote:
> Dear all,
> I am a Mathematics teacher working in India. I am interested in
> developing an open resource for learning Mathematics through hands on
> activities. This is a call for all Mathematics enthusiasts to come
> forward and contribute. Please visit my page 
> http://wikieducator.org/User:Rashkath
> and share your ideas on this project.

See the resources listed at

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Open_Education_Resources#Sources_and_Directories

There are several suites of high-school math texts listed there, plus
over 100,000 other OERs on every subject.

As part of the Sugar Labs program for Replacing Textbooks (because
computers with Free Software cost less and do more) I am entering
three math/computer books by Turing Award winner Ken Iverson. They
were just put under Creative Commons licenses, starting with Algebra:
An Algorithmic Treatment. The software to use them, called J, has just
been put under GPL3.

http://booki.treehouse.su/algebra-an-algorithmic-treatment/

http://www.jsoftware.com/

> Regards
> Rashmi Kathuria
> http://mykhmsmathclass.blogspot.com
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Help with creating a "book" in wiki-educator

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 12:54,   wrote:
> I have a lot of essays and things on human services and community organizing
> that I would like to put into my wikieducator pages in a sort of book form,
> but I can't seem to figure out how to do it.

We can help you more if you give us an idea of what form you are
trying to put your material into, and how you expect people to use it.

Assuming that you mean a form that would permit publishing as a PDF,
e-book, or perhaps print-on-demand paper book, I can offer you the use
of the Sugar Labs server for Replacing Textbooks,
http://booki.treehouse.su . Anybody can start an education book
project there. Create an account (required so that we can properly
document copyright ownership) and have a look around. See also

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/

where a community creates manuals for Free Software and related
topics. You might find our Collaborative Futures book of interest.

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/collaborative-futures/_edit/

Wikis are not designed for book authoring, but it is likely that we
can work out how to import a group of Wiki pages into Booki for
publication.

> I know there must be something
> simple I am missing.  Could someone please help.  Dr. Joyce McKnight.
> SUNY/Empire State College--Anchor Member OER-U
>
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Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Bangladeshi teachers to lead content development

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 13:21, Steve Foerster  wrote:
> http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/online-resources/databases/ict-in-education-database/item/article/bangladeshi-teachers-to-lead-content-development/
>
> I thought this was interesting.  Does anyone know whether these
> materials will be openly available?

Yes, but so far only in Bangla/Bengali.

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/OER#Sources_and_Directories

Bangladesh National e-Content Repository in Bangla. Story: PM
opens e-content repository. 30,000 teachers, 148 government
organisations and 50 local and foreign non-government organisations.
50,000 pages, planned to increase to 5,000,000.

e-Book ::. ই-বুক জগতে স্বাগতম in Bangla. Story: PM opens online
version of textbooks Access to Information (A2I) Project of the PM’s
Office and the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) jointly
transformed 33 primary level and 73 secondary level textbooks into
e-books in collaboration with the UNDP.

> -=Steve=-
>
> --
> Stephen H. Foerster
> http://hiresteve.com
> http://wikieducator.org/steve
>
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Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: M$ Windews Live ID (was Re: [WikiEducator] Your thoughts and suggestions...)

[Edward Cherlin]

It appears that I am wrong. Both the M$ and Open ID logins are
supported. I still object.

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 21:13, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
> I object to edutechdebate.org using the proprietary Microsoft Windows
> Live ID sign in rather than OpenID for a discussion of OER and Free
> Software, and I am about to complain directly to the editors.
>
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 18:43, Wayne Mackintosh
>  wrote:
>> The World Bank Group and the African Development Bank, with the support of
>> the African Union, have commissioned a study to explore how ICT has the
>> potential to change fundamental business models in key sectors for Africa.
>> This study includes a blog-research component with several blog posts
>> inviting comment and feedback. The goal is to provide input into the
>> forthcoming study.
>>
>> The OER Foundation has prepared a blog post on the OER university concept.
>> Is the OER university network a viable model for widening access to learning
>> opportunities is Africa?
>>
>> Feel free to post your feedback, ideas and comments:
>>
>> https://edutechdebate.org/digital-learning-resources/towards-free-learning-opportunities-for-all-students-worldwide/
>>
>> Wayne
>>
>> --
>> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
>> Director OER Foundation
>> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
>> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
>> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator
>> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
>> Skype: WGMNZ1
>> Twitter | identi.ca
>>
>> --
>> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>
>
>
> --
> Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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M$ Windews Live ID (was Re: [WikiEducator] Your thoughts and suggestions...)

[Edward Cherlin]

I object to edutechdebate.org using the proprietary Microsoft Windows
Live ID sign in rather than OpenID for a discussion of OER and Free
Software, and I am about to complain directly to the editors.

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 18:43, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> The World Bank Group and the African Development Bank, with the support of
> the African Union, have commissioned a study to explore how ICT has the
> potential to change fundamental business models in key sectors for Africa.
> This study includes a blog-research component with several blog posts
> inviting comment and feedback. The goal is to provide input into the
> forthcoming study.
>
> The OER Foundation has prepared a blog post on the OER university concept.
> Is the OER university network a viable model for widening access to learning
> opportunities is Africa?
>
> Feel free to post your feedback, ideas and comments:
>
> https://edutechdebate.org/digital-learning-resources/towards-free-learning-opportunities-for-all-students-worldwide/
>
> Wayne
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director OER Foundation
> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter | identi.ca
>
> --
> 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
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> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Your thoughts and suggestions regarding how OER and digital learning resources can support education in Africa

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 18:43, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> The World Bank Group and the African Development Bank, with the support of
> the African Union, have commissioned a study to explore how ICT has the
> potential to change fundamental business models in key sectors for Africa.
> This study includes a blog-research component with several blog posts
> inviting comment and feedback. The goal is to provide input into the
> forthcoming study.
>
> The OER Foundation has prepared a blog post on the OER university concept.
> Is the OER university network a viable model for widening access to learning
> opportunities is Africa?

Excellent. I will add one on OER for K-12.

> Feel free to post your feedback, ideas and comments:
>
> https://edutechdebate.org/digital-learning-resources/towards-free-learning-opportunities-for-all-students-worldwide/
>
> Wayne
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director OER Foundation
> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter | identi.ca
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: math project as free content

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 01:09, shijna  wrote:
> I am starting a book called mathematics a s a language
> http://wikieducator.org/User:Shijna/Books/Mathematics_As_A_Language

Is that related to the Seymour Papert program that he described a bit
in Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas? To make math
work as a language learnable by children in the same way as
conventional languages, without special teaching? Math is of course a
language in many other ways as well, several of which I studied at
college and since.

> This is the address
> Your suggestions and additions are welcome

I would definitely like to join this. Please also take a look at
http://booki.treehouse.su/ , the test server for the Sugar Labs
Replacing Textbooks project. If you wish, you can use booki rather
than Wiki markup to compose your work. This is Free Software designed
by the FLOSS Manuals project for making books.

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/

Please give us an idea of what topics you would like to cover and what
approach you would like to take.

> Thanks
> Shijna http://wikieducator.org/User:Shijna
>
> On May 12, 4:35 am, kirby urner  wrote:
>> Sounds like fun.
>>
>> I've contributed some materials on numeric sequences, with link to the
>> On-Line Encyclopedia of Same (Integer Sequences).
>>
>> 1, 12, 42, 92... is one I write about most, and my name appears in the
>> OEIS links section under that entry.
>>
>> The work I've posted is cast in a contemporary computer language and
>> is used along a college level training track run from California.
>>
>> We charge money for the courses, but the courseware is free and
>> copiable via Wikieducator and elsewhere.
>>
>> We find that if the free stuff is good, they're more likely to sample
>> the for-trade stuff (not a new idea).
>>
>> Kirby
>>
>> On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 4:32 AM, Sebastian Panakal
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  wrote:
>> > Shijna,
>> > COUNT ME IN.
>> > Regards
>> > Sebastian Panakal
>>
>> > On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 11:26 AM, shijna  wrote:
>>
>> >> I wish to do a project in math as part of free content in wikieducator
>> >> as my contribution.If anyone interested in joining this project please
>> >> contact me
>>
>> >> Thanks
>> >> Shijna
>>
>> >> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: 50th Learning4Content Workshop - Invitation

[Edward Cherlin]

Yes, Free as in Beer, not as in Speech.

On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 19:21, simonfj  wrote:
>
> Wayne,
>
> You're right. It doesn't have a GNU/linux client yet.
> If you know of any "complete solutions" that does, or might have in
> the next couple of years, I'd love to know. (please)
> N.B. The vucast functionality is important.
>
> The talk about OS solutions go on. This recent cross-Atlantic get
> together is probably the closest we'll get to it for another few
> years. http://www.terena.org/activities/media/meeting4/programme.html
> (Matterhorn being the highest mountain to climb. Big Blue Button
> functionality being a while off.)
>
> I'm suggesting vivu as
> 1. it's (should be) free. (to a few global communities long term = to
> be negotiated)
> 2. It works as an extension of Skype (so it should be pretty intuitive
> to use).
> 3. The recordings won't require a user to download a player. (until
> html5 gets traction, and no player is required)
> 4. Aarnet have a relationship with them.
>
> In all of this kind of development, the front end isn't really that
> important. aarnet already have had talks abut using an "off the shelf
> & open" client, along with quite a few other NRENs; independently of
> course. They don't collaborate on one client (or backend) because none
> of their user communities (except the big boys like the astro-physics
> communities) are big enough, and don't talk to their National
> engineers as a global group.
>
> The main costs here are bandwidth usage, and that's a mess at the
> moment because NREN engineers spend most of their time talking to
> "their" National clients. So when WE talk across borders, the routing
> between networks is always "off net". 
> http://www.infocellar.com/networks/Switched/onnet-vs-offnet.htm
> i.e. It costs money in both directions (and glitches are common).
>
> My only interest here is finding a solution which, if it's picked up
> and used regularly by a few global groups, will enable my mates at
> aarnet to talk to their global mates about reconfiguring their pipes.
> i.e. WE's inter-NREN usage and storage becomes "on net".
>
> The other consideration here is offering a "fixed" room. i.e. WE would
> have a virtual room/(streaming) channel, and its archive, that has a
> fixed position (a fixed url) in cyberspace (not necessarily at
> vivu.tv), which hopefully they would want to share between time zones
> and (at times) with other communities like P2P uni. It's a bit hard to
> follow things at the moment when WE et al spread everything around so
> many urls and tools.
>
> Of course, if, as you say "many WE users have Linux (as their client's
> operating system)", then I guess we can't even consider this approach.
> But it is an attempt to offer a stop gap for the next few years. And
> so long as it's free, (and i can come up with a business case for Vivu
> that keeps it that way) it's helps to get the NREN engineers to focus.
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: 50th Learning4Content Workshop - Invitation

[Edward Cherlin]

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 20:02, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi Simon,
>
> Looks like a great technology.  The problem is that the solution will
> exclude many WE users as the technology. from what I can see, does not
> support a GNU/Linux client.
>
> It would be better for us to support open solutions.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne

Without Linux it is hopeless for OERs, especially for OLPC's 2
million+ students.

> On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 11:16 AM, simonfj  wrote:
>>
>> Dear Patricia, Ramesh,
>>
>> I'm starting to negotiate on behalf of a few global communities, with
>> these guys.  http://vivu.tv/vivuweb/products/vuroomskype/
>>
>> The main aim is to offer global communities like WE a virtual room for
>> free, 24/7 & for the long term; in a fixed spot.
>>
>> Now I know you will have your preferred tool. I'm negotiating with
>> these guys primarily as they are new and are doing some work with our
>> NREN in Australia = aarnet. I'm just starting to ask some of the other
>> NRENs to collaborate and develop the "back end" of this tool. The main
>> consideration (as I see things)  is that you can hit a record button
>> at any time, and stream live should you want to. The other stuff will
>> make your eyes glaze over.
>>
>> So could you have a look at it = kick the tyres = and see if it is of
>> some use to you. And what it needs.
>> If it is useful I'll attempt to get an agreement in place before your
>> sessions start.
>> All the best, simon
>>
>> --
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>
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director OER Foundation
> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter | identi.ca
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Important: Unesco Replaces OER Acronym

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 20:47, simonfj  wrote:
>
> This is not a joke!

wHat eye sed: knot uh yoke, ah Troll-de-rol-de-rol-rol-rol.

> This is a serious improvement to the OER edukashunal meatketing
> stratigi.
>
> Bought to youse bi UNESCO - the Universally Noladgable Edukashun
> Sckeme to Confus Optimusts.

Shud bee re(re(re(re(cursive than: UNESCO = UNESCO Nolodgerble
Edyoucashin Skeema Confuciusing Optimus'.

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Made you look!
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Important: Unesco Replaces OER Acronym

[Edward Cherlin]

Good one, Steve, and totally timely. How long did that acronym take to
compose? The rest of you: You have been Trolled and PWNed.

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 01:20, Steve Foerster  wrote:
> Unesco has announced that they are discontinuing the "OER" acronym in
> favor of a longer but more inclusive term!

FOERSTER, to be specific. Like on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

TV's Frank: Who did win the World series?
Dr. Forrester: _I did_, Frank.
Frank: Oh, OK.

(Invasion USA episode)

> More

Less. IFYP.

>  information is
> available here:
>
> http://hiresteve.com/2011/04/01/important-unesco-replaces-oer-acronym/
>
> Cheers,
>
> -=Steve=-
>
> --
> Stephen H. Foerster
> http://hiresteve.com
> http://wikieducator.org/steve
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] UNESCO social networking platform for the OER community -- Worth joining

[Edward Cherlin]

Is anybody using this site? I went to look again, and I don't see any
discussion.

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 01:01, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> UNESCO have established a social networking platform for OER community
> discussions with particular emphasis on building policy for sustainable OER
> futures.
>
> I must compliment Abel Caine and the team at the UNESCO's Communication and
> Information sector because:
>
> This fills an important gap in the burgeoning field of OER -- namely focused
> international discussions on policy development for open education.
> UNESCO have listened to the feedback and comments from many OER
> practitioners around the world for a web-based environment for these open
> discussions -  preferably a list which remains open and not "closed down"
> after each scheduled discussion.
> Running the platform using the popular open source elgg environement. I
> understand that UNESCO have contributed code improvements back to the
> community. Well done UNESCO!
>
> I encourage all WikiEducators with an interest in helping form and co-design
> international policy around OERs to join the community.
>
> See:
>
> http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/groups/14358/open-educational-resources-oer/
>
> I look forward to sharing ideas with international colleagues via this great
> community resource.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director OER Foundation
> Director, International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter | identi.ca
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Open Business Resources

[Edward Cherlin]

Forwarded to Stacy at Librarianchick.com. She collects and catalogs
free textbooks.

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 11:44,   wrote:
> Hi all:   My husband who teaches non-profit management found a wonderful
> free site sponsored by the University of Minnesota that offers all kinds of
> free resources...the link is www.managementhelp.org and the site name is
> the
> Free Management Library.   His students use it all the time.   Perhaps just
> putting links to this somewhere (or many somewheres) in our wikieducator
> world would be helpful.   J.
>
>
>
> From:   Randy Fisher 
> To:     wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> Date:   10/07/2010 09:42 AM
> Subject:        Re: [WikiEducator] Open Business Resources
> Sent by:        wikieduca...@googlegroups.com
>
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> Valerie - your raise a very important issue - and I believe that our
> community ought to support an initiative like this.
>
> I recall trying to get my hands on a Volunteer Handbooks - to support in
> the business operations of a nonprofit - How difficult it was to find!
> Contacting local businesses - they were loathe to part with any of their
> cherished manuals (which are usually out of date by the time they're
> printed, anyways - .
>
> Eventually, community radio open source pioneer KRUU FM has shared its
> Handbook, which I have added the the
> http://www.wikieducator.org/Community_Engagement page. Also, over time, I
> have been collecting resources related to Human Resources -
> http://wikieducator.org/Category:Human_Resources
>
> My thought is, that it would be great if we could get a school that has a
> business program,  to develop some of its material on WE, and also start
> leveraging that to get more resources, to support "Open Business". The
> other part to this, is about the nature of changing business models in the
> open space. Red Hat Linux comes to mind, and also the work we're doing in
> WikiPublishing - www.wikieducator.org/WikiPublishing.
>
> Great idea - let's get a cluster of folks togetherand why reinvent the
> wheel - use WikiEducator as a production environment, and other
> communications technologies for rallying folks too!
>
> - Randy
>
> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 8:50 AM, Wong Leo  wrote:
>  http://ibmpcd.com/
>  this is a wiki written by IBM employee , which mainly to do with
>  bussiness and how to survive in a bussiness world , very good writing ,
>  but of course it is written mostly in Chinese and English too
>
>  2010/10/7 Wong Leo 
>
>   Hey Vaylor ,
>
>   I am working in a business cooperate college  in China ,
>   http://gem-group.com , our CEO was working as CEO for INTEL before , one
>   time I was chatting with him about Google decision to step out of
>   China , and right now , in China , google.com is being blocked for some
>   months now
>
>   Google is trying to do things OPEN here , and many google services like
>   GMAIL I am using now are really popular now in China , however , what
>   google is doing now really put the customers of google in a awakard
>   situation , which many people don't agree
>
>   I agree with what you said about to create the OBR to benefit everyone ,
>   however , we also need to consider the local situation , I think OER or
>   OBR need to think GLOBALLY BUT also ACT locally , something called
>   glocally http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glocalisation
>
>
>   Supply chain management is a good topic , but maybe it is more realistic
>   to start something both of parties are all intersted , like some real
>   projects and things we can use into our bussiness strategy or even
>   marketing .
>   If you are interested ,I am willing at my side to push some of small
>   ways to do something , but it need to be win win
>
>   but to start with some of questions
>
>   1 does bussiness OBR canot use what educator's thinking model ? I am
>   from academic background , but I found the bussiness world is even
>   simpler than academic world
>
>   2 When I am facing a bussiness problem , I like to use google sometimes,
>   but right now after working in bussiness world for around 2 years ( I
>   was teaching at the college for 3 years ) , I found google doesnot give
>   me the info I need most of time , I tried to find answers from people I
>   know , or from people we know , so ,maybe we should try to see how many
>   people are intersted in doing this
>
>   3 Supply Chain management
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain_management
>   What resources you are talking about different from above link ??
>
>   2010/10/7 Vtaylor 
>
>     In her PLENK session, Janet Clarey mentioned that businesses don't do
>     "open". I'm working with a business software service provider. We have
>     been thinking about putting the non-proprietary training / information
>     someplace as open resources but haven't come up with an appropriate
>     place to put it. The primary subject is best practices in supply chain
>     management - a function that every business does at some level.
>
>     The 

Re: [WikiEducator] prototyping voting machines in democracy-funded schools

[Edward Cherlin]

I have been proposing for some time that we get the Open Voting
Consortium software onto One Laptop Per Child XOs and succeeding
hardware. (I am a Founding Member of OVC.) This system takes the
voter's decisions on screen, and prints a summary ballot with the
voter's choices in human-readable and bar code forms, and with various
security and auditability features.

Our software is available in source code form for those who can read
or at least compile it, and we would provide a comprehensive test
suite that anybody could run. Or interested parties could write their
own tests and offer them for general use.

I talked with Larry Lessig about this once, and about the possibility
of an OER civics "textbook" that would explain not only how
governments are supposed to work, but what to do when they don't. He
was interested in taking part in the project.

FLOSS Manuals has software available to use on its Web Site or to
download for use elsewhere, for collaborative writing and editing of
software manuals and OER materials.

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 18:54, kirby urner  wrote:
> VOTING MACHINES IN SCHOOLS
>
> Those following the many conflict-of-interest stories
> that have always plagued the voting vista, might
> appreciate the advisability of having schools serve
> as "testbeds for democracy" in those systems
> favoring this form of self-government (not all of
> them do).
>
> The idea is to use both paper ballots and electronic
> systems of various kinds (optical scanners, touch
> screens...), with vendors invited to field test, getting
> some positive visibility for so doing.
>
> It's not just the "polling booth" that we care about,
> but the back end tabulation system and, most
> important, all the safeguards and cross-checks that
> make election results auditable, perhaps permanently
> on record (just like famous sports contests, forever
> archived to videotape (yes, I know, videotape has a
> half-life)).
>
> Students and faculty will have responsible administrative
> roles in what amount to realistic simulations, using
> equipment the vendors hope will someday see the
> light of day in higher stakes arenas.
>
> Not every high school would need to test every make
> and model.  However, a lot the the proposed electronic
> systems run as open source software on commodity
> hardware, perhaps with some custom peripherals (a
> particular kind of touch screen for example).
>
> I say "high schools" without meaning to exclude
> colleges and universities from running similar experiments
> (many already do).  However, I'm particularly interested
> in moves to revitalize the "teenage wasteland" layer,
> which by most accounts is where major breakage
> occurs.
>
> GATHERING PUBLIC SECTOR RESOURCES
>
> I'm not sure what materials on Wikieducator and
> other open courseware repositories already contain,
> as far as technical information regarding the various
> secret balloting technologies (from paper based
> tabulation to LCD based).
>
> A context for this thread is my having just attended
> a conference called DjangoCon, here in Portland,
> Oregon.  Django is a free and open source framework
> for developing web applications, anything that runs
> through a web browser and likely talks to a back
> end database.  Congressman Wu, chairman of a
> House subcommittee on Technology and Innovation,
> gave one of the keynotes.
>
> I've been watching this initiative take shape through
> my Pauling House Campus connections as well.
> Linus Pauling, x2 Nobel prize winner, launched many
> of his chemistry studies right here near the foot of Mt.
> Tabor, an extinct volcano within our city limits.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tabor,_Portland,_Oregon
>
> From a recent posting to our discussion list:
>
> """
> PS: getting working voting machines in the high schools is a really
> good idea. Encourage kids to learn what makes them tick. Have
> several mock elections every week, on all kinds of student and
> faculty proposed topics. Look for cheats, discover schemes, do some
> dry runs for that real world you're about to get into... It's also
> a good idea because it'll be vry interesting to find out what
> politicians feel the have the political capital to fight against it.
> What, too expensive? Open source? C'mon!
> """
>
> I'll post a follow-up link to the Math Forum when it appears,
> then to more journalism in the blogosphere I might happen
> across (I'm mostly looking into the Python community these
> days, i.e. those using the Python programming language,
> an eclectic group).
>
> Here it is already:
> http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7203847&tstart=0
>
> MAKING CYBERSPACE SAFER
>
> What's related to this thread, even if you're not looking at
> prototyping voting infrastructure, is creating a safe intranet.
> I'm a liberal arts type in espousing free and unfettered access
> to information, but the flip side is vulnerability to malware,
> malignant memes, a lot of those crazy ideas a strong
> education will

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Example wanted of government supported OER for K12

[Edward Cherlin]

The salient fact today is that netbook computers cost less than
printed textbooks. As soon as we get a sufficient set of texts for all
courses in all grades (possibly one each for Texas and one for the
rest of us), we can get school systems and teachers colleges to switch
over at a moderate rate of speed. (This is politics, after all, not
simple economics.)

My question is who wants to fund the transition? A hundred e-learning
packages, costing perhaps $50,000-$200,000 each to start, would put us
ahead of where we are today, and let us do the research to determine
what can be taught better and at an earlier age once computers are
ubiquitous. I intend to get answers to that question, and to seek
contracts.

On Sun, Aug 1, 2010 at 16:54, Paul Seiler  wrote:
> A friend has just sent me a link to an interesting article on Curriki.
> While there are a range of CC licenses used there is a large number of
> resources suitable for K12.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/technology/01ping.html?hpw
>
> Paul.
>
> On Jul 31, 11:16 am, gene aronin  wrote:
>> Thus was a useful response because it inspired others to act. I like the
>> response of the Utah legislature because it gives us from other states ideas
>> to pursue.
>> Others can also replicate this response.
>> Gene
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 8:39 PM, Paul Seiler 
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > I want to learn a little more about other government funded/supported/
>> > endorsed, school-sector work in the OER space. The New Zealand
>> > Ministry of Education has been supporting WE in small ways over the
>> > last year and this activity is now being looked at by the wider
>> > Ministry. Policy staff want to know of others jurisdictions involved
>> > in similar work. Any assistance appreciated.
>>
>> > Paul.
>>
>> > --
>> > 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> > wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>>
>> --
>> With Best Wishes for an Even Better Day
>>
>> Gene-loeb
>> Gene-loeb Aronin, Ph.D.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Teachers Without Borders (TWB)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 05:25, Jan Visser  wrote:
>
> Ed, you wrote, in response to the assertion that "Printed material is of 
> greater value to a participant because she can take it home" the following: 
> "That is true without one-to-one, 24/7 computing. With it, software is of 
> greater value to children than textbooks, because it includes multimedia, is 
> of much greater capacity, and can be provided at no cost and with the freedom 
> to modify it and share the results. In addition, computers and software are 
> now essential subjects for schools. Not so-called "Computer Literacy" but 
> computer mastery."

Obviously I disagree. I have joined TWB, and will see about raising
these issues with members. I will respond further to the points you
raise here.

> I beg to differ with both positions. Your claim, I think, is assuming too 
> much for the moment as far as the potential impact of computing technology is 
> concerned, and I am saying so inspired by the more than 40 years I've been 
> working (and living for more than half that time) in countries deprived of 
> even the most basic resources like, in the school context, something that 
> could function as a blackboard and a piece of chalk, or even a decent piece 
> of stone or wood to sit on while in class (not necessarily under a roof or 
> complemented with something that could resemble a desk), let alone materials 
> with which to engage in collaborative activities with one's fellow learners 
> for, say, the purpose of exploring and understanding the workings of nature. 
> Doing one's homework at home may be less dependent on having a computer or a 
> book than on having the kind of home that minimally resembles the dwellings 
> you and I live in (not to speak of the homes of the likes of Schwarzenegger, 
> McChrystal and McCain) and particularly on having economic conditions that 
> don't put you as a child in charge of all kinds of tasks that must 
> necessarily be performed to sustain the life of the family and that heavily 
> interfere with fruitful participation in a regular school environment.
>
>
>
> Of course, I'm all for the great and important things you and others are 
> pursuing, but I'm afraid there are no silver bullets. The solutions to 
> improving the quality of human learning around the world in diverse 
> circumstances and multiple cultural contexts are complex because learning is 
> a complex phenomenon. One-to-one computing is possibly part of the solution 
> to reshaping the learning landscape, enabling all to learn, but so are books, 
> TWB, WE and a host of other things. None of them will do the job alone and 
> much will depend on co-evolving contextual factors. One of the important 
> lessons I’ve learned is that it usually stifles the creativity if we focus 
> too strongly on just one dimension of the problem.
>
>
>
> And, while I am at it, let's not forget that there is an enormous wealth of 
> learning beyond formal schooling whereas most of the efforts, including our 
> own in WE, continue to be inspired by the predominant school metaphor, which 
> is strongly rooted in the western culture of the industrial era. We really 
> need to broaden our thinking beyond the perspectives that follow from our 
> primary inclinations.
>
>
>
> I’m sorry to paint a less satisfying picture, but, with due respect to the 
> efforts of TWB (whose coming into being and growth I have followed since my 
> first contacts back in the 1990’s with its founder Fred Mednick), and fully 
> recognizing the valuable intentions of those involved in making one-to-one 
> computing a reality, as well as with deep appreciation for the work of those 
> engaging in producing print or screen based text  and other software, I’m 
> afraid we are only scratching the surface of a problem that is immensely more 
> complex than what is imagined.
>
>
>
> Jan
>
>
>
> --
>
> Jan Visser, Ph.D.
>
> President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute
>
> E-mail: jvis...@learndev.org
>
> Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev
>
> Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: wikieducator@googlegroups.com [mailto:wikieduca...@googlegroups.com] On 
> Behalf Of Edward Cherlin
> Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2010 11:10 PM
> To: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Teachers Without Borders (TWB)
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 12:56, Vtaylor  wrote:
>
> > Hello Edward
>
> >
>
> > We were not sure exactly what you were asking. If this doesn't answer
>
> > your question, let's talk further

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Teachers Without Borders (TWB)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 23:39, Vtaylor  wrote:
> Thanks, Edward.
>
> I am suggesting that someone from TWB contact you directly.

Thank you.

> On May 16, 2:09 pm, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>>
>> Let's, whether in this mailing list or offline.
>
> --
> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] MDG - Universal Education

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 12:40, Vtaylor  wrote:
> Just heard this on NPR this morning
> http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=126828775&m=126848215
>
> In one interview, they talk to a young man who is a trained teacher
> but doesn't have the $6000 bribe money necessary to get a teaching
> job. He hopes that he will save up enough to pay this in 2 years or
> so.

Thanks.

> This certainly makes it more difficult to reach the UN Millennium
> Development Goal (MDG) Universal Education goal when there are such
> huge barriers to entry for qualified teachers in a country like India
> where access to education is desperately needed.
>
> How prevalent is this practice? How many qualified teachers are
> prevented from teaching? How many hundreds of kids are not being
> educated as a result?

I would estimate tens of millions in India, actually, out of a
school-age population of about 150 million.

> Is there anything that can be done about this
> situation?

Yes. It will happen, but it may take decades to complete. I recommend
OLPC XOs in villages, to provide not only education, but the ability
to join together all across the country.

See also Mritak Sangh, the Association of the Dead, also reported on
NPR but not currently on its Web site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mritak_Sangh

These are people declared legally dead so that someone can grab their
property. The practice is only possible in corrupt regions far from
public oversight by government, news media, and civil society
organizations.

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
> To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Teachers Without Borders (TWB)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 12:56, Vtaylor  wrote:
> Hello Edward
>
> We were not sure exactly what you were asking. If this doesn't answer
> your question, let's talk further.

Let's, whether in this mailing list or offline. I'm talking about the
coming wave of one-to-one computing in schools, now that netbook
computers cost less than textbooks. See, for example, the resources
listed at

http://www.librarianchick.com/ The most complete listing
http://www.clrn.org/fdti/ Math and Science texts for CA
http://www.flossmanuals.net/ Free Software manuals, and how to use Free Software

I am one of the co-authors of How to Bypass Internet Censorship at
FLOSS Manuals. It has become available in Russian, Chinese, Farsi, and
other relevant languages. I am currently writing an introduction to
the Sugar software for the OLPC XO, now available for most other
computers., and trying to organize a project to create free textbooks
for every school subject in every grade for every country in the
world. We believe that there are major funding opportunities available
from the US Dept. of Education and various international sources. One
of the projects at county level in the US tells me that it has a team
of grant writers it can call on.

Gov. Schwarzenegger in California is sold on the idea of free digital textbooks

http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/blog/issue/20090608-arnold-text-blog-textbooks/

and Gen. McChrystal in Afghanistan seems to be a recent convert. Sen.
John McCain also sees one-to-one computing in education as an
important anti-insurgent tool. It also will allow girls to learn at
home in areas where the Taliban tries to interfere with the public
school system.

http://blog.laptop.org/2010/05/15/on-afghanistan-2/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/sets/72157622267805539/

> All the TWB course materials are available online.
> http://courses.teacherswithoutborders.org/
>
> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Perfect.

> The TWB Certificate of Teaching Mastery is being added to WikiEducator
> http://wikieducator.org/Teachers_Without_Borders/Certificate_of_Teaching_Mastery
>
> For face-to-face training, these are distributed to participants in
> paper format.
>
> I passed along your question to Konrad Glogowski, TWB Program
> Director. Here is Konrad's reply -
>
> Do you mean our current offline programs? That would translate into
> providing all participants with laptops,

Exactly. That is why I am talking about one-to-one computing, where
the student gets to take the computer home to use on homework and in
family activities. We find that students from subsistence economies
are helping their parents increase their incomes.

> which would require quite a bit of funding.

When we get the promised $75 laptops,
(http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/10/olpc-spin-off-plans-75-laptop/) it
will come to $20 billion annually for the billion or so children in
the whole world, plus the cost of installing renewable electricity and
broadband Internet out to the poorest and remote villages. This
assumes a replacement cycle of four years for the laptops. The
electrical and wireless communications systems will last much longer.
We can expect trillions of dollars of increased economic activity as a
result, and we have the opportunity to educate the next generation on
sustainability, among other things.

> Printed material is of greater value to a participant
> because she can take it home.

That is true without one-to-one, 24/7 computing. With it, software is
of greater value to children than textbooks, because it includes
multimedia, is of much greater capacity, and can be provided at no
cost and with the freedom to modify it and share the results. In
addition, computers and software are now essential subjects for
schools. Not so-called "Computer Literacy" but computer mastery.

I would love to have this conversation with all of your members who
are interested, and to help you set up a program to address these
issues, needs, and opportunities.

> - Konrad
>
>
>
> Konrad Glogowski, Ph.D.
> Program Director
> http://teacherswithoutborders.org
> http://twitter.com/teachersnetwork
> Skype: teachandlearn
> Teachers. Leaders. Worldwide
>
> o (206) 623-0394, ext. 9   |   f (206)-623-0396   |   m (647) 200-1528
>
>
> On May 14, 8:36 pm, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>> Does TWB have any interest in replacing printed textbooks with free
>> software and content?
>>
>> --
>> Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
>> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
>> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my 
>> destination.http://www.earthtreasury.org/
>>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "

Re: [WikiEducator] Teachers Without Borders (TWB)

[Edward Cherlin]

Does TWB have any interest in replacing printed textbooks with free
software and content?

On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 13:29, Vtaylor  wrote:
> I recently joined Teachers Without Borders. This group shares the
> WikiEducator vision for global access to education. Both organizations
> need our support. We need to work together so membership in both TWB
> and WE will help both organizations expand toward our common goal.
>
> Teachers Without Borders is looking to expand its membership base.
> Membership is free and easy and members benefit from free resources, a
> large online global network and access to many programs. TWB currently
> has over 6,500 members and is looking to expand.
>
> TWB is recruiting excellent teachers and education advocates
> (students, parents, community leaders). Sign up and leverage TWB to
> make education a priority in your community. You have the ability to
> create an even larger impact on global education and include many more
> individuals in the fight for advancing human welfare through
> education.
>
> http://teacherswithoutborders.org/
> http://mytwb.org/signup
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Free. But will users find it?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 22:43, john stampe  wrote:
> Hi, all
>
> I just read the article "Online. Indexed. Catalogued. Free. But will users
> find it?" (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/20100213). The following
> quote from the article pretty well sums up the issue: "...making content
> free will not guarantee its discovery or usage..."

Absolutely. But Open Learning Exchange, Commonwealth of Learning, and
others do a good job of letting their members know about what they
have developed and collected.

> The article is about journal articles, but I as I read it I realized that
> the basic issue also applies to open education - specifically, WE and the
> CollabOERate concept. It is not an issue with marketing (at least not in the
> narrow sense of the word), but about being able to get users to find the
> material from the internet, especially with the bias that exists toward
> proprietary and other copyright restricted material.
>
> Any thoughts?

Schools that adopt one-to-one computing for students will also adopt a
set of free educational materials, and may provide teachers and
students with links to more. We need to create a free guide for
teachers about what is available and how to use it. Then we need to
write articles, go to conferences, lobby politicians, etc.

Schools that don't have one-to-one computing will find out more about
it, including the salient fact that netbook computers with free
materials cost less than printed textbooks, and provide far more
choice to schools, teachers, students, and parents.

Whenever you talk about the issues, make sure that you give out the
Librarian Chick and California Learning Resource Network Free Digital
Textbook Initiative URLs, and ours.

http://www.librarianchick.com/ Directory of free learning materials
http://www.clrn.org/fdti/ Math and science textbooks officially
adopted for California schools

And be sure to pass information on new materials to Stacy Reed, our
Librarian Chick.

> Cheers,
> John
>
>
> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS
> http://johnsearth.blogspot.com
>
> --
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Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: What's the OER equivalent of the "co-opetition" model?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 12:17, valerie  wrote:
> How about a little grassroots project? Does anyone have a curriculum
> project that would be an appropriate pilot and would be willing to
> have WE collaborators work on?

We actually have numerous grassroots projects worldwide, alongside
numerous official projects. California has 16 math and science texts
going into classrooms under Creative Commons licenses. You can
download them from http://www.clrn.org/fdti/ . There are large numbers
of free texts listed by Stacy Reed, the Librarian Chick, at
http://www.librarianchick.com/ , on all school subjects.

Worldwide, we need about 10,000 topic modules and sample lesson plans
to cover every subject in every grade, K-12. Alan Kay, inventor of
Object Oriented Programming, Graphical User Interfaces, and the
Dynabook education computer concept, has a gravity lesson for third
grade which I have reworked in Turtle Art and published at
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art-0.86#Lessons .

If you want to start a new project, we should ask everybody here what
the possibilities are. What subjects do we know? What tools can we
use? Where can we make a difference?

A tiny project that could use help is to gather links to curriculum
materials by state, country, and subject matter in one place at
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education/Curriculum_Standards . It is
just a matter of finding the Web sites for Departments and Ministries
of Education, and subject matter organizations like NCTM, and locating
their curriculum documents.

> Ideally, this would be a real workshop or course that will be
> delivered in the near future - 3-4 months (June 2010?). An outline and/
> or objectives would be good - doesn't have to be elaborate, but needs
> to set the tone for the contributors. Then we will invite others to
> collaborate.

It's complicated, because we have little or no idea of what children
and computers together are capable of, except that it is far more than
is generally expected, as in the cases of the Edison Talking
Typewriter teaching two-year-olds to read and type, or the various
projects that have taught different programming languages in the third
grade. How ambitious would you like to get? How will we test and

> I'm have some time to contribute to such a 'proof of concept' project
> as project coordinator, editor, researcher...
>
> Are you interested in working on this proof of concept project? In
> what capability?
>
> Do you have a project that would be appropriate to collaborative
> development? What subject matter expertise is required? What other
> resources would be needed?
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: What's the OER equivalent of the "co-opetition" model?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 12:17, valerie  wrote:
> How about a little grassroots project? Does anyone have a curriculum
> project that would be an appropriate pilot and would be willing to
> have WE collaborators work on?

We actually have numerous grassroots projects worldwide, alongside
numerous official projects. California has 16 math and science texts
going into classrooms under Creative Commons licenses. You can
download them from http://www.clrn.org/fdti/ . There are large numbers
of free texts listed by Stacy Reed, the Librarian Chick, at
http://www.librarianchick.com/ , on all school subjects.

Worldwide, we need about 10,000 topic modules and sample lesson plans
to cover every subject in every grade, K-12. Alan Kay, inventor of
Object Oriented Programming, Graphical User Interfaces, and the
Dynabook education computer concept, has a gravity lesson for third
grade which I have reworked in Turtle Art and published at
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Turtle_Art-0.86#Lessons .

If you want to start a new project, we should ask everybody here what
the possibilities are. What subjects do we know? What tools can we
use? Where can we make a difference?

A tiny project that could use help is to gather links to curriculum
materials by state, country, and subject matter in one place at
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education/Curriculum_Standards . It is
just a matter of finding the Web sites for Departments and Ministries
of Education, and subject matter organizations like NCTM, and locating
their curriculum documents.

> Ideally, this would be a real workshop or course that will be
> delivered in the near future - 3-4 months (June 2010?). An outline and/
> or objectives would be good - doesn't have to be elaborate, but needs
> to set the tone for the contributors. Then we will invite others to
> collaborate.

It's complicated, because we have little or no idea of what children
and computers together are capable of, except that it is far more than
is generally expected, as in the cases of the Edison Talking
Typewriter teaching two-year-olds to read and type, or the various
projects that have taught different programming languages in the third
grade. How ambitious would you like to get? How will we test and
refine our work?

> I'm have some time to contribute to such a 'proof of concept' project
> as project coordinator, editor, researcher...
>
> Are you interested in working on this proof of concept project? In
> what capability?
>
> Do you have a project that would be appropriate to collaborative
> development? What subject matter expertise is required? What other
> resources would be needed?
>
> --
> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>
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>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: What's the OER equivalent of the "co-opetition" model?

[Edward Cherlin]

There is growing demand for digital learning materials that can be
shared freely, now that netbook computers cost less than textbooks.
The idea was in the air for years, and recently California took the
lead. They are up to 16 math and science titles. See

http://www.clrn.org/fdti/

This is clearly an idea whose time has come. I'm in contract discussions now.

Ultimately, we need multiple versions of a complete K-12 curriculum in
at least a hundred languages. Bryan Berry of OLE Nepal estimates that
this amounts to 10,000 topic modules and lesson plans. I have started
collecting links to curriculum materials at
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Education/Curriculum_Standards. Please
add any you know about.

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:46, David Wiley  wrote:
> Discussions of "demand-side" issues in OER have been around for
> several years and continue to fascinate me. I hope no one takes my
> remarks as a personal criticism, because they are not directed toward
> any particular person.
>
> To my mind, OER is primarily about sharing. We all hope that the OER
> we share will actually be useful to others. However, there's something
> that strikes me as odd in thinking about one user's "demand" that
> another user "share" something. This starts to sound like entitlement
> thinking to me.
>
> Personally, I think the most productive version of the demand-side OER
> conversation is the one that makes clear what kinds of resources are
> in demand. An empirically validated "wish list" - sort of like a
> wedding gift registry. Then people who are in a position to share OER
> can look at the list and see if there's something they can contribute
> that would be useful. If not, they may still choose to contribute
> something "unneeded," and we should still be grateful for their
> generosity.
>
> This is indeed a very interesting conversation that I'm sure we will
> continue to have...
>
> David
>
> On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 10:12 AM, jkelly952  wrote:
>> The following link will  help in answering some of your questions:
>>
>> http://www.oerafrica.org/acemaths/ACEMathsMaterials/ACEMathsUnitSix/tabid/268/Default.aspx
>>
>> Jim Kelly
>> Pittsburg, CA
>>
>>
>> On Mar 29, 9:52 pm, valerie  wrote:
>>> Is there a way to work from the demand side? Are there unmet needs
>>> that collaborative OERs can address most quickly and effectively?
>>>
>>> Who will use OERs? What topics are most needed? Can we find some
>>> specific end users of the collaboratively built OERs? Are there some
>>> important courses topics without course materials?
>>>
>>> Who wants to collaborate? What is your subject expertise?
>>>
>>> I wonder if any of the 1000s of instructors teaching the top 50
>>> enrolled courses are the ones who need OERs most? Are they the most
>>> likely to use and benefit from these collaborations?
>>>
>>> Just asking...
>>
>> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Google has finally stepped out of China

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 07:17, vaishali patel  wrote:
> Dear Leo,
>
> Is it so?

It does not appear so. Google has redirected its traffic from China to
its Hong Kong servers. Hong Kong law permits serving uncensored
results.

> its terrible!!!
>
> Vaishali
>
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Wong Leo  wrote:
>>
>> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html
>> If  you are in China , or if you travell to China , you can not get access
>> to Google from yesterday , I mean in Mainland of China
>> I don't know what to say , but my hat to Google , a company with Integrity
>> .
>>
>> Leo
>>
>> --
>> Leo Wong
>> Co-director of HELP in China
>> --
>> http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com/ HELP
>> There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly with
>> the real teacher and real Kids
>>
>> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] WE pages editing and connection

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 14:24, Randy Fisher  wrote:
> Hi Roberto,
>
> You could develop your pages in Open Office (resident on your PC), then
> export the files to Mediawiki format,

Or in any text editor in Mediawiki markup, and just paste into the
page. You will no doubt want to print a cheat sheet, or save one to
your hard drive.

> and copy and paste them into your
> desired wiki page. (in some cases you can directly import the files into the
> page.)
>
> Others may have other ideas...
>
> - Randy
>
> On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 5:21 AM, roberto  wrote:
>>
>> hello,
>> i'd like to ask you if it possible to do wiki editing offline (even if
>> in a somehow limited way):
>> it may be really helpful for me and my students since we don't have
>> easily an internet connection in the classroom :(
>>
>> i know this is a not-existent problem for the most of you, but please
>> consider this may be a time consuming problem for communities where an
>> internet connection is not to spread
>>
>> thank you !
>> --
>> roberto
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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>
>
> --
> Open Education is a sustainable and renewable resource.
>
> 
> Randy Fisher, MA, OMD
> Senior Consultant, Organization Development, E-Learning & Performance
> Intersol Group, Canada
>
> Senior Consultant, Organization & Capacity Development
> International Centre for Open Education / OER Foundation, New Zealand
>
> Elected Member, WikiEducator Community Council, www.wikieducator.org
> +1 613.722.5577 (EST)
> Skype: wikirandy
> Twitter: wikirandy
>
> * Stakeholder Engagement & Project Implementation
> * Change & Transition Management
> * E-Learning, Online Collaboration & Learning Communities
> * Coaching & Facilitation
> * My Bio: http://www.communitybuildingexpert.com
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Improving our our search capability -- WE need your advice

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 05:20, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> Apology for the long post -- but this is potentially an important policy
> decision for the WikiEducator community. Since our inception, both
> WikiEducator and the OER Foundation have subscribed to open philanthropy --
> where we discuss and take decisions transparently and collaboratively :-).
>
> We are thinking about improving our search capability by enabling the Google
> Custom Search box on the WikiEducator site. At that same time we need to
> think carefully about the conditions and possible policy implications for
> WikiEducator.
[snip]
> The substantive issue here is using a web service on the WIkiEducator site
> which does not meet the requirements of the free cultural works definition
> for an ancillary activity of the WikiEducator project, Our core business is
> the creation, remix and reuse of OER which must always meet the requirements
> of the free cultural works definition. This is non-negotiable and a core
> value of our community.

Of course.

> A few reflections:
>
> Speaking personally,  I'm keen for us to seriously consider using the Google
> Custom Search under clearly defined paramaters - I think this will add value
> to WikIEducator without compromising our core values.  So here are the
> questions to think about:
>
> Should we provide a Google Custom Search box on the WikiEducator site for
> using Google search technology on the WIkiEducator site? Yes/No?

Yes.

> Is the community comfortable with Google's terms of service most notably the
> closed ownership of the search results and the use of closed software to
> produce the search results? (Personally, I'm OK with this on the grounds
> that search results are not core content of the WE project --- our OERs must
> always comply with the free cultural works definition). See Google's terms
> of service: http://www.google.com/cse/docs/tos.html .

Please quote the offending sentence on "closed ownership of the search
results". I can't find it. The worst I see is that Google would own
the metadata from a search.

I'm OK with closed software on the Web.

> Regarding advertising -- our practice is not to permit advertising on the
> WikiEducator site. So I'm pleased to see that Google will allow registered
> non-profits advert free results. In the event that Google's policy changes
> in this regard, we would need to reconsider the use of Google Custom search
> and discontinue the service if we are forced to display text adverts with
> the search results.

Fine.

> With reference to our thoughts on advertising - -we are required to use the
> Google branded search box. I think this is justifiable and not
> necessarily an "advert" for Google. For example, the Mozilla Foundation
> allow the brand identities of the searchproviders to be displayed in their
> software.

Fine. It is an ad, but a justifiable one, in my view.

> Please let us know your thoughts on these issues. In the event that we
> decide to go with the Google Custom Search facility -- I propose that we
> table a policy decision for the WIkiEducator Council with regards to
> non-core services which may not meet all the requirements of the free
> cultural works definition.

Certainly.

> Cheers
> Wayne
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director,
> International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
> Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> User Page: http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Do WikiEducator's want to embed links to video in their OER resources?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 00:40, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi Edward,
>
> BTW -- congrats on the progress with the open text book project. Well done!
> (Have been a little snowed under to get to the posts on the list :-(.)
>
> From a values perspective that sounds very reasonable.

Thank you.

> Personally I don't have the technical knowledge to assess any security
> related issued with embedding links to external code. This is way above my
> salary level ;-)

This is within the context of an education suite with strong security
built in. Sugar for the XO laptop gives schools control over who can
share sessions with their students, and secures school servers where
lessons would reside. Access to the underlying file system and to
administrator commands can be largely open, for students of
programming and Computer Science, or completely shut down, or anything
in between. The idea is to make a fairly standard Linux distribution
at least as safe as a Java sandbox. We would only allow lessons to
call Sugar activities, including Python, Etoys Smalltalk, UCBLogo, and
Turtle Art. We will Sugarize other programming languages as needed.

Some years ago I documented security APIs for VeriSign, and the
security people at OLPC and Sugar Labs know a great deal more about
the matter than I do.

> That said -- I know that you will be able to provide us with valuable advise
> on the security issues -- have a chat with Jim. Lets see what we can do.

Certainly.

> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
>
> On 26 February 2010 18:22, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>>
>> I am interested in embedding links to Python and Smalltalk software of
>> considerable generality, including graphics, animations, and video,
>> and then capturing videos for posting elsewhere.
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 19:26, Wayne Mackintosh
>>  wrote:
>> > Hi Everyone,
>> >
>> > In the past we've received requests from many community members to
>> > implement
>> > the functionality to embed links to video hosted on third party sites
>> > (eg
>> > Youtube, BlipTV Vimeo etc). Now that WikiEducator is hosted
>> > independently by
>> > the OER Foundation, we have more flexibility and autonomy to take a
>> > community decision concerning on third party video.
>> >
>> > Do WikiEducators want the ability to embed links to video clips?
>> > What is the best way for us to take this decision?
>> > Should we have a trial period to see how this works?
>> >
>> > We need and invite your feedback -- so please post your replies to this
>> > list.  We will consider all feedback posted over the next two weeks,
>> > before
>> > deciding on the next steps. Apology for the long email -- but I provide
>> > some
>> > discussion points below. Third party video is not a simple matter when
>> > it
>> > comes to the values and meaning of freedom as interpreted by our
>> > community
>> > values.
>> >
>> > Discussion
>> >
>> > Embedding video is not a simple question of turning a switch to enable
>> > links
>> > to third party hosted video. Technically speaking, this is relatively
>> > easy
>> > to achieve. However,  there are many issues associated with digital
>> > video
>> > and our core values of the WikiEducator project which we need to
>> > consider,
>> > most notably the essential freedoms.
>> >
>> > WE subscribe to the free cultural works definition and WE need to find a
>> > solution which aligns with what we believe as a community OER project.
>> > I've
>> > been sound boarding a few ideas with colleagues and friends and would
>> > appreciate your input and feedback on a few baseline requirements and
>> > suggestions.
>> >
>> > Licensing.  We must be able to identify and search for appropriately
>> > licensed video content. This is to ensure that video content we embed
>> > adheres to the requirements of the definition of free cultural works. In
>> > practice this means we can only use video hosting sites which clearly
>> > tag
>> > their video content with the relevant copyright license as well as
>> > corresponding search functionality to identify resources which are
>> > appropriately licensed (eg. CC-0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, GFDL and the public
>> > domain declaration), Therefore,  Youtube (for example) would not meet
>> > this
>> > requirement as their existing conditions of service would not enable the
>> > implementation of license tagging. Currently WIkiEducator users would
>&

Re: [WikiEducator] new courses at peer 2 peer university (especially to Wayne)

[Edward Cherlin]

There are other such resources, such as Commonwealth of Learning, with
huge libraries of distance learning modules.

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 01:10,   wrote:
>  Can't speak for SUNY/Empire State, of course, since I am just a small frog
> in this pond :-) but I did send a memo to the new Center for Distance
> Learning Dean and the former Dean, who is now a Vice-president to see if
> there is some way students of efforts like peer to peer might be eligible
> for credit through something like our current practice of awarding credit by
> evaluation through prior learning assessment.   Our credit by evaluation is
> incredibly cheap so the process or the cost probably wouldn't be exactly the
> same but it is an intriguing thought.   Problem, of course, is that since
> the State of New York pays only a small portion of our budgetary costs we
> are tuition driven...not as much as private schools but it is still a
> consideration.  I am kind of lost in all of the legalities of copyrights
> etc. but partnership is fascinating.   All the best.  Joyce
>
> Wayne Mackintosh 
> Sent by: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> 02/26/2010 06:02 PM ZE12Please respond towikieduca...@googlegroups.com
>
>  To   wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>  cc   Rebecca Kahn 
>  bcc   Joyce McKnight/SUNY
>  Subject   Re: [WikiEducator] new courses at peer 2 peer university
>
>
> Hi Philipp
>
> Congratulations on the the next round of courses @ P2P!  The core mission of
> the OER Foundation and WikiEducator is to facilitate and nurture the
> development of sustainable OER ecosystems. The real value of the free
> culture lies in the remix and colloboration -- not where the content resides
> ;-)  Apology for my long post -- but an indication of my excitement in
> seeing the potential. Working together we achieve far more than working
> alone.
>
> I must commend P2P in choosing a license which meets the requirements of the
> free cultural works definition. In this way we can realise the REAL
> potential of digital and free knowledge a rare resource which grows in value
> by sharing.
>
> I visited your site -- there are a great list of courses @ P2P. Very COOL.
> I also like the Dashboard layout of the courses -- and you've inspired me to
> hack a wiki equivalent of this course structure -- so we may be able to help
> you out on the authoring front for new courses. I'd love to see more courses
> from WikiEducator being taught @ P2P :-D.
>
> I suspect the OER Foundation may be able to help with exploring and
> experimenting with a few of the credentialisation challenges facing
> innovative projects like P2P and WikiEducator. I'm thinking about developing
> and remixing a range of course materials for a graduate (postgrad) level
> elective in OER. The idea is to have a set of high quality materials on OER
> as OER for an elective, in for example an Masters in Educational Technology
> or Postgraduate certificate.  The idea is that individual institutions would
> credentialise - -but the P2P community could certainly assist with teaching
> services hey?
>
> I was particularly interested in the Copyright for Educators Course
> (http://p2pu.org/copyright-educators-cycle-2-mar-2010) -- the WIkiEducator
> community has a need to extend our teaching materials on this topic. I have
> a little funding (not much :-( ) which I'd like to invest in adding value to
> training support in Copyright for Educators. Lets talk.
>
> I'm in discussion with a number of Univeristies about the postgrad elective
> on OER and I'll certainly add P2P to list.
>
> Lets make free culture futures happen.
>
> Wayne
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 26 February 2010 18:28, Philipp Schmidt  wrote:
> Dear WE community:
>
> I'd like to beat the drums a little bit for the new round of courses
> at P2PU. Sign-up is still open for a few days and it would be great if
> some of you were interested in participating. See below for a list of
> all new courses. We'd also love to find ways to work closer with WE
> (maybe future course content could be developed and hosted on WE and
> run on P2PU?).
>
> For those of you, who need a "certificate" for the informal learning,
> the Mashing up the Open Web course is the first in a series of courses
> that will eventually lead to an open degree backed by the Mozilla
> Foundation. Hacking eduction, one day at a time.
>
> Best - P
>
>
> ANNOUNCEMENT
>
> The Peer 2 Peer University announced its second round of free and open
> online courses earlier this month opening sign-ups for 14 courses.
> Some of the courses were offered in the first phase of the pilot which
> launched last September, but seven are brand new, including the first
> Portuguese language courses organized by Brasil’s Casa de Cultura
> Digital. The P2PU community has grown and is excited to have these new
> courses and their organizers on board.
>
> The P2PU community consists of a diverse group of people. They are
> writers, teachers, designers, doctoral and alternative grad students,
> artists, copyright spe

Re: [WikiEducator] Do WikiEducator's want to embed links to video in their OER resources?

[Edward Cherlin]

I am interested in embedding links to Python and Smalltalk software of
considerable generality, including graphics, animations, and video,
and then capturing videos for posting elsewhere.

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 19:26, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> In the past we've received requests from many community members to implement
> the functionality to embed links to video hosted on third party sites (eg
> Youtube, BlipTV Vimeo etc). Now that WikiEducator is hosted independently by
> the OER Foundation, we have more flexibility and autonomy to take a
> community decision concerning on third party video.
>
> Do WikiEducators want the ability to embed links to video clips?
> What is the best way for us to take this decision?
> Should we have a trial period to see how this works?
>
> We need and invite your feedback -- so please post your replies to this
> list.  We will consider all feedback posted over the next two weeks, before
> deciding on the next steps. Apology for the long email -- but I provide some
> discussion points below. Third party video is not a simple matter when it
> comes to the values and meaning of freedom as interpreted by our community
> values.
>
> Discussion
>
> Embedding video is not a simple question of turning a switch to enable links
> to third party hosted video. Technically speaking, this is relatively easy
> to achieve. However,  there are many issues associated with digital video
> and our core values of the WikiEducator project which we need to consider,
> most notably the essential freedoms.
>
> WE subscribe to the free cultural works definition and WE need to find a
> solution which aligns with what we believe as a community OER project. I've
> been sound boarding a few ideas with colleagues and friends and would
> appreciate your input and feedback on a few baseline requirements and
> suggestions.
>
> Licensing.  We must be able to identify and search for appropriately
> licensed video content. This is to ensure that video content we embed
> adheres to the requirements of the definition of free cultural works. In
> practice this means we can only use video hosting sites which clearly tag
> their video content with the relevant copyright license as well as
> corresponding search functionality to identify resources which are
> appropriately licensed (eg. CC-0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, GFDL and the public
> domain declaration), Therefore,  Youtube (for example) would not meet this
> requirement as their existing conditions of service would not enable the
> implementation of license tagging. Currently WIkiEducator users would not be
> able to differentiate openly licensed videos from all rights reserved
> content. However, BlipTV allows users to choose from a number of Creative
> Commons licenses to apply to their work, and videos are searchable by
> license. This would enable WIkiEducators to use the Creative Commons search
> (http://search.creativecommons.org/) facility to easily identify
> appropriately licensed video on BlipTV.
> Open file formats. This is a requirement to ensure that our content is
> stored and accessible in formats which can be edited using free/open source
> software. In addition this means that source files should be available for
> download. No WikiEducator should be forced to purchase a license for
> non-free software in order to remix and create a derivative work from our
> site. Most video sites (with the exception, for instance, of the Wikimedia
> Commons) encode video for web delivery using the Flash Video Format (flv)
> which is a proprietary file format. BlipTV provide a service for their
> registered users who also have an account with the Internet Archive
> (http://blip.tv/prefs/archiveorg/ ). In short this facility enables
> archiving of downloadable video files including the open file format (ogg
> Theora). Therefore, WikiEducator users who upload video files to BlipTV
> could register for the Internet Archive service making it easier for
> educators to download video in the formats of their choice for remix
> purposes. However, this feature would not solve the problem of open file
> formats for the video uploaded by BlipTV users who do not register for the
> Internet Archive service.  Fortunately BlipTV provides the functionality to
> download the video files, even though these are generally supplied in the
> flv (proprietary file format). The open source FFmpeg project
> (http://www.ffmpeg.org/) provides tools to convert flv files into open file
> formats. Therefore, all WikiEducator would have access to free software
> tools for remixing source video, thus meeting the requirements of the free
> cultural works definition.
>
> Therefore the BlipTV hosting site would provide a service which aligns with
> our values. There are also Mediawiki wiki extensions available for embedding
> BlipTV video on WikiEducator pages.
>
> Pending a positive assessment of the stability and security of the BlipTV
> extensions for WikiEducator -- Would the com

[WikiEducator] Math on Web

[Edward Cherlin]

Anybody know about this? I wonder whether he would be willing to let
us adapt his materials to laptops.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/north_america/jan-june10/khan_02-22.html
Feb. 22, 2010
Math Wiz Adds Web Tools to Take Education to New Limits
-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Invitation to the Environmental Glossary

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 15:23, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> On 11 February 2010 03:24, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>>
>> How about making it multilingual?
>
> Hi Edward --- Agreed, WE need to extend our multilingual reach.
>
> Do you have any thoughts, ideas or advice regarding the best way to approach
> a multilingual glossary?

I know that we will have to get help from each language community.
There is no guarantee that we can create a one-to-one mapping of terms
from one language to another. For example, even within English a
tomato is botanically a fruit and by custom a vegetable. The legal
classification of tomatoes for tax purposes was litigated all the way
up to the US Supreme Court.

There are many free software tools for managing translations,
including translation memory systems for keeping track of standard
equivalents between languages.

> Is is better to keep multiple languages in the
> en.wikieducator or host these on the specific language install?

We will certainly need some of both.

> Kim has been working on language / multilingual related templates, see for
> example:
>
> http://wikieducator.org/Template:Languages
> http://wikieducator.org/User:KTucker/My_Sandbox/Multilingual
> http://wikieducator.org/User:KTucker/My_Sandbox/Flashcards

Thanks, Kim.

> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director,
> International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
> Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> User Page: http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
>
> --
> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Invitation to the Environmental Glossary

[Edward Cherlin]

For immediate needs, see the Sugar Labs Pootle localization server,
which lists projects in nearly a hundred languages.

http://translate.sugarlabs.org/

and the laptop deployments data (somewhat out of date)

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Deployments

For further needs, see Ethnologue

http://www.ethnologue.org/

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 06:43, john stampe  wrote:
>>What languages you are targeting?
>
> Any :)
>
> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS
> http://johnsearth.blogspot.com
>
> 
> From: Sima 
> To: "wikieducator@googlegroups.com" 
> Sent: Sat, February 13, 2010 10:25:10 PM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEducator] Invitation to the Environmental Glossary
>
> Hello,
> What languages you are targeting?
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> On Feb 12, 2010, at 4:30 AM, john stampe  wrote:
>
> Edward,
>
> Of course, I am all for a multilingual glossary.
>
> Anyone wanting to help do this is welcome, it is a wiki after all.
>
> Volunteers?
>
> John
> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS
> http://johnsearth.blogspot.com
>
> 
> From: Wayne Mackintosh 
> To: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Thu, February 11, 2010 3:23:35 AM
> Subject: Re: [WikiEducator] Invitation to the Environmental Glossary
>
> On 11 February 2010 03:24, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>>
>> How about making it multilingual?
>
> Hi Edward --- Agreed, WE need to extend our multilingual reach.
>
> Do you have any thoughts, ideas or advice regarding the best way to approach
> a multilingual glossary?  Is is better to keep multiple languages in the
> en.wikieducator or host these on the specific language install?
>
> Kim has been working on language / multilingual related templates, see for
> example:
>
> http://wikieducator.org/Template:Languages
> http://wikieducator.org/User:KTucker/My_Sandbox/Multilingual
> http://wikieducator.org/User:KTucker/My_Sandbox/Flashcards
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director,
> International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
> Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> User Page: http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
>
> --
> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
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> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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>
> --
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>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

-- 
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[WikiEducator] Contract opportunity in education

[Edward Cherlin]

I had an excellent meeting with an Asst. Superintendent of Bartholomew
County schools in Indiana. They plan to give every student a computer
that will cost less than printed textbooks. We will discuss contracts
to write the replacements for textbooks, funding sources for those
contracts, and alliances across the US and the world, as described at

http://www.earthtreasury.org/wiki.cgi?ReplacingTextbooks

I will be contacting all of our actual and potential partners (on that
page and elsewhere) on this ASAP. Our next meeting is scheduled for March 4.

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

ey.
> Fascinating.
>
>
>
> http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/370719.aspx
>
>
>
> "Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information
> source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just
> when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel,
> Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles
> on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature
> record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On
> Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm
> Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He
> rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who
> were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the
> world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets,
> followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and
> Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
> authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.
>
> All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His
> control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he
> obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act
> with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain
> article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions
> disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others
> were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors
> who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further
> contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global
> warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In
> these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the
> global warming movement."
>
> Read
> more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/370719.aspx#ixzz0aPONblVN
> The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 5:57 AM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>
> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 03:28, Steven Parker  wrote:
>> Hi Edward
>>
>> Sorry mate no fallacy,
>
> How do you know? You ignored the very fact that I have evidence.
>
>> no conspiracy IPCC climate scientists actually
>> have been scandousily  busted cooking and destroying the data on
>> global warming,
>
> Not so. There are a number of cases of cooked data, where the
> malefactor was drummed out of the scientific community. This isn't one
> of them.
>
> In any case, one researcher, or a few researchers, cooking data says
> nothing about the validity of the rest of the investigators in the
> field. To argue otherwise is a clear evidence that you have come to a
> predetermined conclusion, and you are cherry-picking data to support
> it, following the lead of the anti-scientific Global Warming deniers.
>
> My question to you is, Why do you want Global Warming to be false?
>
>> this should be welcomed by wikieducators with an open
>> mind (No denial)
>
> Having an open mind does not mean allowing one's brain to fall out.
>
>> for what this means fro teaching (The scientific
>> process) why not give students links to this controversy, have a a
>> learning activity on climate change science, denialism, crime and
>> fraud, sociology, behaviorism, media, computer hacking you name it.
>
> Maybe, but it should be about real fraud.
>
>> I'll not try to convince you on what this means for the global warming
>> science that's up to you, read the climategate info though it sounds
>> like you have it figured out as conspiracy (ok) for others Google
>> "climategate" and read the news,
>
> I told you I did that. You prefer to believe corporate shills and
> cranks rather than scientists on this. I can't help you, unless you
> are willing to do the homework yourself, rather than relying on
> politically motivated junk science.
>
>> there is a great student activity
>> within.
>>
>>
>> http://www.google.com.au/search?q=climategate+new+zealand&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
>>
>> I found this video interview with Dr Tim Ball rather interesting
>
>> "Retired climatologist Dr. Tim Ball joins us to discuss the
>> significance of the recently leaked emails and documents"
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydo2Mwnwpac
>
> Bal

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

Quite right. Connolley was enforcing NPOV--Neutral Point of View--as
defined by Wikipedia from its beginning. Science gets quoted as
authoritative, cranks only as cranks. This allegation of bias is as
biased as anything the climate cranks, AIDS deniers, or flat Earthers
have ever put out.

If you want to dispute climate science, you have to do your own
science, which the deniers have never done. Claiming that you have
poked holes in the science, so your job is done, doesn't fly. It is a
willful misreading of Karl Popper on falsification, and has been
extensively refuted by Thomas Kuhn.

Now it is a fact that all of the climate model predictions have been
wrong. The reality turns out to be much worse.

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 04:34, Steven Parker  wrote:
> Hi Edward
> You might be interested in this article in relation to the alleged biased
> editing of wikipedia info on climate change by William Connolley.
> Fascinating.
> http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/370719.aspx
> "Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information
> source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just
> when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel,
> Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles
> on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature
> record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On
> Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm
> Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He
> rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who
> were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the
> world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets,
> followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and
> Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics,
> authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.
> All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His
> control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he
> obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act
> with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain
> article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions
> disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others
> were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors
> who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further
> contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global
> warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In
> these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the
> global warming movement."
> Read
> more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/370719.aspx#ixzz0aPONblVN
> The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.
> On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 5:57 AM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 03:28, Steven Parker  wrote:
>> > Hi Edward
>> >
>> > Sorry mate no fallacy,
>>
>> How do you know? You ignored the very fact that I have evidence.
>>
>> > no conspiracy IPCC climate scientists actually
>> > have been scandousily  busted cooking and destroying the data on
>> > global warming,
>>
>> Not so. There are a number of cases of cooked data, where the
>> malefactor was drummed out of the scientific community. This isn't one
>> of them.
>>
>> In any case, one researcher, or a few researchers, cooking data says
>> nothing about the validity of the rest of the investigators in the
>> field. To argue otherwise is a clear evidence that you have come to a
>> predetermined conclusion, and you are cherry-picking data to support
>> it, following the lead of the anti-scientific Global Warming deniers.
>>
>> My question to you is, Why do you want Global Warming to be false?
>>
>> > this should be welcomed by wikieducators with an open
>> > mind (No denial)
>>
>> Having an open mind does not mean allowing one's brain to fall out.
>>
>> > for what this means fro teaching (The scientific
>> > process) why not give students links to this controversy, have a a
>> > learning activity on climate change science, denialism, crime and
>> > fraud, sociology, behaviorism, media, computer hacking you name it.
>>
>> Maybe, but it should be about real fraud.
>>
>> > I'll not try to convince you on what this m

Re: [WikiEducator] Invitation to the Environmental Glossary

[Edward Cherlin]

How about making it multilingual?

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 03:01, john stampe  wrote:
> This invitation is to all those interested in the environment, and
> especially to biologists. I have set up an environmental glossary at
> http://www.wikieducator.org/EnvGloss, and am now invited anybody to join the
> fun by adding terms.
>
> There is no set format for glossary entries, as the fields of study are so
> diverse (biology, chemistry, engineering, social sciences, etc.). For some
> example entries, see http://www.wikieducator.org/EnvGloss/S.
>
> Hope to see you on the wiki.
>
> Cheers,
> John
>
> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS
> http://johnsearth.blogspot.com
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
> To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] perception

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 20:50, valerie  wrote:
> As an assignment in a community college course, my students  are asked
> to find a learning resource in WikiEducator. Finding good learning
> objects in WE can be difficult, so I have included this assignment to
> have students find what they thought was complete and interesting.
> Although there is usually some frustration, they find some amazing WE
> pages. I'm accumulating a list of pages they discover.
>
> However, sometimes I get more information and feedback than I
> bargained for... I though this was an interesting comment from one of
> my students.
> "Also, the color scheme and design of the website is exactly the same
> as Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia is known for false information, and cannot
> be used for research papers. I feel that this site is similar to
> Wikipedia; therefore, this site's information cannot be trusted."

A very common and elementary fallacy.

Assuming
A and B have property X.
A has property Y.

we are given the incorrect conclusion

Therefore B has property Y.

Easily shown to be nonsense using a Venn diagram, which unfortunately
I cannot include in a text message. X and Y should be overlapping
regions, with neither included in the other. Then A is in X and Y,
while B is in X but not in Y.

> Sigh... Yes, some of our faculty are convinced that Wikipedia and by
> association, all wikis, especially those that look like Wikipedia
> because they use Mediawiki are evil and populated by gangs of internet
> hooligans intent on provide false information to unsuspecting web
> users. They explicitly forbid the use of Wikipedia.
>
> Has anyone else heard of similar credibility issues for WikiEducator
> content?

It is true that Wikipedia should never be cited as a primary source
for research. The same is generally true of other Wikis. The correct
attitude is not to ban use of Wikis, but to require that students find
the original sources for the information in the Wiki, and to study and
cite those sources. You should not take the word of any participant
here for fact, but should yourself look at the research papers,
software, learning materials, and methods recommended and evaluate
them accordingly. Wikis are neither more nor less reliable than other
published encyclopedias, newspapers, TV, or other secondary and
tertiary sources.

Of course, many primary sources, such as research articles using
improper methodolgy and drawing unwarranted conclusions, are also
utterly unreliable. There is no magic in correct scientific method,
only careful work.

> Is this something that is limiting adoption of WE learning
> objects?

No.

> ..Valerie
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/
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Re: [WikiEducator] Biology in Elementary Schools

[Edward Cherlin]

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 07:08, Randy Fisher  wrote:
> Hi Declan,
>
> Great work - here's a thought...
>
> Encourage these 40 students to actively share their experiences with the WE
> community 'after' they have finished their formal coursework. - this way, we
> can have 40 additional WE Ambassadors

Exactly. But not just WE. I plan to write about this for OLPC News as
an example of what I want to encourage worldwide, and I invite
students in this project to write guest posts there. I will introduce
you to Adam Hyde of FLOSS Manuals, with the idea of creating a book on
using Free Software to study Biology. We can bring in some teachers at
schools in the OLPC program.

> - Randy
>
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 12:40 AM, Savithri Singh 
> wrote:
>>
>> Declan, I've always admired your Elementary Biology pages and have
>> suggested these pages exemplars to many educationists.  I've very glad that
>> you have more students joining you.  Welcome to the lovely world of sharing
>> and learning together!!  We are looking forward to your contributions.
>> All the best!
>> Savithri
>>
>> 2010/1/8 Patricia Schlicht 
>>>
>>> This is wonderful news, Declan. Hello everybody and welcome to
>>> WikiEducator. You will enjoy this discovery and it will open up your
>>> thinking on the endless possibilities in the classroom. You have a
>>> wonderful role model in Declan. Enjoy this opportunity. It will get your
>>> mind going and feel free to come back for more.
>>>
>>> Warm wishes,
>>> Patricia Schlicht
>>> Learning4Content Coordinator on Wikieducator
>>>
>>> -Original Message-
>>> From: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>>> [mailto:wikieduca...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Declan
>>> Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 7:42 PM
>>> To: WikiEducator
>>> Subject: [WikiEducator] Biology in Elementary Schools
>>>
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> Please join me in welcoming 40 new wikieducators.  They college students
>>> are registered for Biology in Elementary Schools and are currently
>>> establishing user accounts and completing parts of the tutorial before
>>> their course begins.  From there they will develop lessons to implement
>>> in the classrooms of our partner schools in Vermont (USA).
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Declan
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>>> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> डॉक्टर सावित्री सिंह
>> प्रधानाचार्य
>> आचार्य  नरेन्द्र देव कॉलेज
>> ( दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय )
>> गोविन्दपुरी, कालकाजी
>> नयी दिल्ली 110019
>>
>> Dr. Savithri Singh
>> Principal
>> Acharya Narendra Dev College
>> (University of Delhi)
>> Govindpuri, Kalkaji
>> New Delhi 110 019
>>
>> Tel: 2629 4542, 2629 3224, 2641 2547
>> Fax: (011) 2629 4540
>> Res: 2584 8151     2584 9786    2584 3496
>>
>> http://eduframe.net/andc
>> http://andcollege.du.ac.in
>> http://wikieducator.org/Acharya_Narendra_Dev_College
>> http://wikieducator.org/User:Savi.odl
>> http://wikieducator.org/India
>> http://wikieducator.org/India/wikieducator_launch
>> http://www.slideshare.net/singh.savithri
>>
>>
>> --
>> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>
>
>
> --
> Open Education is a sustainable and renewable resource.
>
> 
> Randy Fisher, MA, OMD
> Senior Consultant, Organization Development, Intersol Group, Canada
>
> Senior Consultant, Organization & Business Development
> International Centre for Open Education / OER Foundation, New Zealand
>
> Elected Member, WikiEducator Community Council, www.wikieducator.org
> +1 613.230.6424 x144 (EST)
> Skype: wikirandy
> Twitter: wikirandy
>
> * Stakeholder Engagement, Change / Transition Management & Performance
> * Organization Design & Development
> * Sustainable Project Implementation & Community-Building
> * E-Learning, Online Collaboration & Communities of Practice
> * Coaching & Facilitation
> * My Bio: http://www.communitybuildingexpert.com
>
>
> --
> 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
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> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
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>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherli

Re: [WikiEducator] Biology in Elementary Schools

[Edward Cherlin]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 22:42, Declan  wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> Please join me in welcoming 40 new wikieducators.  They college
> students are registered for Biology in Elementary Schools and are
> currently establishing user accounts and completing parts of the
> tutorial before their course begins.  From there they will develop
> lessons to implement in the classrooms of our partner schools in
> Vermont (USA).

Is there a plan to publish the results? If so, under what terms?

> Cheers,
>
> Declan
>
> --
> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/
-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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Re: [WikiEducator] How wikieudcator make money ?

[Edward Cherlin]

Thank you. This is excellent.

Is anybody in your department, or elsewhere working with you, looking
at the issues of infrastructure for adult education? For example, West
Africa has had an optical fiber connection for only a few years, and
East Africa got its first just last summer. There are six more cables
in various stages of deployment or organization. There is a funded
plan to run optical fiber cables from the coastal landing points to
the dozen landlocked countries of Africa, with Rwanda in the lead.
Rwanda also has an international communications company laying out a
system of optical fiber cables from the capital to all of its other
cities, with plans for further connections in a mix of technologies
all the way to the villages.

The other essential element of infrastructure is electricity. Plans
for national power grids are far behind communications deployments.
This means that we need research and development to find and deploy
the most appropriate renewable power solutions locally for every
inhabited terrain and climate. Options include solar (PV or thermal),
wind, microhydro, biofuels (preferably not made from food crops,
unless a quite large surplus can be created), animal, and (for
schools) child power.

Two other essential elements are microfinance and replacing printed
textbooks with interactive electronic learning materials. OLPC XO
laptops already cost less than textbooks in most countries, and with
the expected appearance of a $75 successor to the XO, that will extend
to all but the poorest of poor countries, those that simply cannot
afford good textbooks of any kind now. Microfinance is essential for
the creation of jobs in countries with bad government planning and
policies, and also to fund the infrastructure for both jobs and
education.

Each of these is an area where training of adults is vital--teachers,
entrepreneurs, microbankers, translators, subject-matter experts to
create the learning materials on local agriculture, forest products,
water, health, and all the rest. We need at least one electricity
vendor and one sysadmin/ISP person per village, able to maintain
equipment and services and manage a business. Then we can discuss
e-commerce for art and craft items unique to a village or a region;
larger business opportunities by processing, storing, and marketing
fresh and processed agricultural products; IT services for other
businesses, including Web sites and software development; outsourcing;
and the rest of the base for a globally integrated economy.

I have tried to interest business schools in these topics, so far to
no avail. Everybody talks about the bottom of the pyramid, but it
seems that nobody wants to be the one to do anything about it.

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 22:11,   wrote:
>  It will be quite comprehensive and will include several different strands
> that will enable students to design their degree programs (as they can in
> our undergraduate programs).  It does have an international stands, an
> online/distance learning stand, and a social justice strand (along with a
> human resource development thread and an adult learning/cognition strand).
>  We think that most students will already be practitioners who want a high
> quality online program that can be designed around their own area of
> practice.  We will use a praxis model.   The social justice thread that I am
> helping to create will be largely based on Freire, Myles Horton, and Gandhi
> among others and will include literacy issues.  The international and
> distance learning components will include OER.   As I said, students will be
> able to "mix and match" studies under the guidance of a faculty mentor.
> Since we are one of the largest primarily adult serving educations in the US
> and have about forty years of serving adults with limited access to higher
> education, we anticipate that those students who do not presently have a
> practice site will be able to work with us in internships.  (Pardon me if my
> terminology is shaky...it is 1 a.m. here.   J.
>
> Edward Cherlin 
>
> Sent by: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> 12/17/2009 10:00 PM PSTPlease respond towikieduca...@googlegroups.com
>
>  To   wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>  cc
>  bcc   Joyce McKnight/SUNY
>  Subject   Re: [WikiEducator] How wikieudcator make money ?
>
>
> Will your curriculum cover adult education in the US only, or will you
> take a wider view? I have done some work on adult literacy, and there
> are many other such issues.
>
> On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 21:57,   wrote:
>>  Yes sir.   In fact we are in the process of developing our graduate
>> curriculum right now in preparation for applying to the Department of
>> Education of the State of New York for certification.   I am part of the
>> team creating the program and will suggest that we offer this course as a
>> part of our curricu

Re: [WikiEducator] How wikieudcator make money ?

[Edward Cherlin]

Will your curriculum cover adult education in the US only, or will you
take a wider view? I have done some work on adult literacy, and there
are many other such issues.

On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 21:57,   wrote:
>  Yes sir.   In fact we are in the process of developing our graduate
> curriculum right now in preparation for applying to the Department of
> Education of the State of New York for certification.   I am part of the
> team creating the program and will suggest that we offer this course as a
> part of our curriculum.  I have already suggested something similar.  J.
>
> Wayne Mackintosh 
> Sent by: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> 12/18/2009 05:12 PM ZE12Please respond towikieduca...@googlegroups.com
>
>  To   wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>  cc
>  bcc   Joyce McKnight/SUNY
>  Subject   Re: [WikiEducator] How wikieudcator make money ?
>
>
> Hi Joyce,
>
> With reference to your new MA in Adult Learning -- you may be interested in
> a project we will be moving forward in the new year.
>
> The OER Foundation will be co-coordinating and facilitating the development
> (and remix of available materials) for a graduate level course on OER. The
> idea is for individual organisations to get the necessary approvals for an
> OER elective in their respective degree and/or graduate certificate courses.
> We will collaborate on the development and remix of learning resources which
> can be used for the OER elective.  These core materials on OER will be
> licensed under a free cultural works approved license.
>
> Athabasca University, Massey University (here in New Zealand), Otago
> Polytechnic and BYU have indicated a strong interest in getting the local
> certifications and approvals in place for a graduate OER elective. There are
> other institutions who have expressed interest -- but are still to confirm
> participation. Perhaps SUNY/Empire State College would like to join us on
> this adventure :-)
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
>
>
>
> 2009/12/18 
>
>  The research arm is a great idea.   Will you be working with Athabasca on
> that?   SUNY/Empire State College has close connections there both
> institutionally and personally with Terry Anderson.  We are also seeking to
> increase our research publications especially in adult and online learning
> (and education) and are in the process of trying to launch a Master's of
> Arts in Adult Learning that will have strong social justice and online
> components.   My own leaning is toward a Gandhian approach so
> philosophically it is a perfect match for me and for many others here as
> well.   This is deeply exciting to me.  Joyce McKnight
>
>
> Wayne Mackintosh 
> Sent by: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> 12/18/2009 10:13 AM ZE12Please respond towikieduca...@googlegroups.com
>
>
> To   wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> cc
> bcc   Joyce McKnight/SUNY
> Subject   Re: [WikiEducator] How wikieudcator make money ?
>
>
> Hi Joyce,
>
> All excellent suggestions --- We will definitely be using making lists of
> institutions of who we might like to approach for prospective memberships
> and keep track of our progress in terms of who we've contacted, feedback
> etc. Using an open philanthropy model -- this is easily done :-)
>
> Our reach and support throughout the developing world is very important for
> us -- WE believe that we should share knowledge freely and build capacity in
> partnership with educators from around the globe. I suspect that many of us
> in the "industrialised" countries will learn and gain more than we
> contribute.
>
> You're right -- the public service and outreach missions (associated with
> modern universities) provides a justifiable framework for collaboration in
> OER. That's a good point. We are also planning to cover the research mission
> through the launch of WikiResearcher.org in the near future :-)
>
> These are exciting times and WE're most appreciate of your advice and
> guidance in helping us make OER futures happen.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
>
> 2009/12/18 
>
> Idea:  How about making a list (if you don't already have one of
> well-established distance education institutions that we especially want to
> have as partners and develop a strategy for "courting" them.   In the US the
> Pennsylvania State University World Campus and the University of Maryland
> would be two in addition, of course, to SUNY/Empire State College   I am
> sure there are many others worldwide.  In the US public universities have a
> research, teaching, and public service as the three "legs" of the mission.
>  Wikieducator with its focus on the developing world (and for that matter
> peripheral areas of the so called "developed" world) clearly would be within
> the public service mission of these organizations.   Within the
> institutional level, you might want to identify and "court" folks who share
> your Gandhian views.   You have certainly "hooked" me that way.  :-)   All
> the best.   Joyce McKnight, SUNY/Empire State College
>
> --
> You received this message because you are

Re: [WikiEducator] Re: WE blog or newsletter?

[Edward Cherlin]

FLOSS Manuals does the kind of collaborative writing and editing you
propose, with a wiki-like editing interface and a chat channel open on
the same Web page. It is extremely productive, and produces results of
high quality, according to us and to our reviewers. I haven't seen it
tried on blog posts, but I expect that we can make it work. We would
need to have several pages for blogs in progress so that would could
let some stew longer and still have something to post every day (or
however often).

On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 14:45, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi Chris, Valery and Kirby
>
> The planetplanet software is great and well aligned with our open community
> values :-)
>
> I don't see any issues with installing this as a WikiEducator subdomain.
> This will be great way for aggregating blog-feeds about WikiEducator from
> our community members.
>
> The only issue is going to be one of timing - -we're currently migrating
> WikiEducator over to the Athabasca servers --- however, our test
> installation is not yet performing at the levels we would like :-(. We're in
> the process of putting more metal into the cluster so that our site will
> perform at the levels we expect from WikiEducator.
>
> If possible, We'd prefer to avoid double work with two installations of the
> planet software. We would appreciate a couple of weeks breathing space to
> get this operational -- Is that OK?
>
> An open question -- with regards to the WikiEducator blog itself, we've been
> throwing around a few ideas. What do you think about the WikiEducator blog
> being more wiki-like -- in other words where the WE blogging team
> collaborate openly on the post in the wiki way -- a blog post which everyone
> can edit.  We'll need to take a look at available extensions and think about
> RSS feeds, comments etc. Personally, I think this would be rather COOL.
> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 2009/12/10 Chris Harvey 
>>
>> I would assume this is an easy task for some of the technical people
>> involved in wikieducator.
>>
>> 1. Someone download and install the planetplanet software maybe use a
>> subdomain e.g blogs.wikieducator.org
>>
>> 2. Ask people interested in this to give the address of their rss/atom
>> feed or perhaps have a wiki page for organizing that.
>>
>> 3. My favorite part, teach people how to make their own
>> hackergotchi(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackergotchi)
>>
>> For planet talo I made most peoples hackergotchi for them with their
>> permission.
>>
>> 4. In a way this is covered in step 1, schedule a task to update the
>> stream, I update mine at 12 noon and midnight
>>
>> I guess Ive been running mine around 3 years, the only thing Ive had to
>> bother doing was modify a text file to add/remove/update the feed list. You
>> kind of set it and forget it.
>>
>> I would suggest talking to Jim or Brent about it, maybe run a trial.
>>
>> I don't expect it to automatically be the best idea just because its
>> something I do, perhaps something like wikinews model is good too. I dont
>> know, I do know that you have some talented technology people with the
>> skills and experience to provide the community with a free web hosted
>> service for this purpose.
>>
>> Kind warm loving regards and best wishes sincerely
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 3:58 PM, valerie  wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks Chris
>>>
>>> Yes, your solution looks great and has clear advantages. What do we
>>> need to do get get one going for WikiEducator?
>>>
>>> There was some interest a couple of months ago, but not much action.
>>> If this is easy to initiate, I'm happy to work on it.
>>>
>>> ..Valerie
>>>
>>>
>>> On Dec 9, 5:30 pm, Chris Harvey  wrote:
>>> > The way I've approached this is using planetplanet software.
>>> >
>>> > You can see how I use it here.http://superuser.com.au/planettalo
>>> >
>>> > I believe many free culture communities also use planetplanet,
>>> > Wikimedia
>>> > have a planet too.http://en.planet.wikimedia.org/
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>>> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>>
>> --
>> 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>> wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director,
> International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
> Founder and Community C

Re: [WikiEducator] How wikieudcator make money ?

[Edward Cherlin]

There are numerous sources for large amounts of education grant
funding springing up, some of it specifically targeted for electronic
learning materials, and some for educational innovation. I don't have
time to list them today, because I am moving from California to
Indiana, but I can provide them after I get reconnected there. The US
Dept. of Education is the biggest source.

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 19:21, Wong Leo  wrote:
> http://www.hudong.com/ is a wiki software are getting quite strong lately in
> China ,where a lot of Chinese educator there to share and talk ,
>  I am wondering if there is possiblity for wikieducator to make money in the
> future ? or how for a OER turned into a
> a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship ??( now China have
> unblocked the Wikipedia for many months )
>
> I would like to know your idea
>
> Leo
>
> --
> Leo Wong
> --
> http://helpsuzhou.blogbus.com/ HELP
> There is something very special and powerful about engaging directly with
> the real teacher and real Kids
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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[WikiEducator] Scientific revolution on xkcd

[Edward Cherlin]

http://xkcd.com/675/

Be sure to read the mouseover text.

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
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Re: [WikiEducator] Where to report spam

[Edward Cherlin]

Have you checked the page history? If there was content there before,
a revert is more appropriate than a delete.

On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 19:27, Alison Snieckus  wrote:
> Is there a page on the wiki where we can report pages that appear to be spam
> for review and deletion by administrators? I thought about using the delete
> template, but wasn't sure whether it's used for this purpose.
>
> Thanks, Alison
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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[WikiEducator] Important New Global Warming Book

[Edward Cherlin]

Added to http://wikieducator.org/Global_Warming_Bibliography

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1608192008?ie=UTF8&tag=daikos-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1608192008
Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate
Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity (Hardcover)
~ James Hansen
-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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[WikiEducator] Conservative supporter of Global Warming

[Edward Cherlin]

An interesting case. Rick Moran is the only Conservative blogger I
have found so far who rejects _some_ of the Global Warming argument
and accepts _some_, resulting in support for doing something about it.
But then, he is also one of the few who rejects his party's far right
nonsense while still holding to what are considered Conservative
principles.

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2009/11/28/its-still-a-good-idea-to-reduce-co2-emissions/
-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Open philanthropy is the way to go!

[Edward Cherlin]

Very good. I'll have to take some time to reply, because I am in the
middle of moving from California to Indiana.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 17:46, simonfj  wrote:
>
>> My group, Earth Treasury, is on it. The absolute minimum requirement
>> to run computers appropriately is electricity and Internet. We have a
>> wide range of renewable power technologies, including solar, wind,
>> water, biofuels, animal power and child power. The hand crank on the
>> prototype OLPC XO was removed after Kofi Annan broke one off in a
>> demo, but it was becoming clear that hand cranking was inefficient,
>> and that it was necessary to be able to use any available power
>> source. So users can charge XOs from anything that will charge a
>> 12-Volt car battery.
>>
>> WiMax is the most promising broadband technology for general use, with
>> an installed cost of $10 per person in whole countries, for better
>> than 90% coverage. On the other hand, the XO has built-in mesh
>> networking, with a range comparable to WiMax. It is necessary also to
>> consider fiber optic landing points into countries, and the
>> distribution system from there. Although the very first cable to
>> Africa was put in only a few years ago, there are now numerious fiber
>> optics projects springing up, including undersea cables, links
>> overland to land-locked countries, and countries making deals with
>> international companies for building up a grid to link all cities and
>> towns. Plans to extend this network to villages are taking shape in
>> some countries, often using point-to-point wireless technology.
>>
>> It would be helpful if someone would undertake to create a
>> co-ordinated and funded research plan to determine the best
>> combinations of available technologies for every inhabited terrain and
>> climate, out to the poorest and remote villages, considering both
>> available financial resources and new economic possibilities.
>
> Thanks Edward,
>
> I did mean to write to you but got hang up on reading what yu where up
> to.
> I take it you do mean researching this on a country by country basis.
> It does happen quite consistantly, (probably) as yu know through a
> whole range of similar groups in may institutions; from the world bank
> (who have just funded India to take a big leap forward) to
> http://www.ubuntunet.net/vision_mission (who have huge cultural
> differences to address).
>>
>> We propose to tie all of this together with microfinance: electricity,
>> Internet, education, jobs and new businesses. Preliminary study
>> indicates that it should be possible to do all of this at a profit, if
>> countries themselves can fund the basic education functions. In many
>> countries this should be straightforward, given that XOs already cost
>> less than printed textbooks in many places, and we can recruit
>> translators locally.
>>
>> The remaining gap in the plan is then to create the digital
>> replacements for textbooks in every subject for every grade level.
>> Given the potential savings, it should be possible to get governments
>> to fund creation of these materials for free distribution.
>
> If humans where logical animals and technology was all that stood in
> our way, yes.
> But this is a continuum, with all sorts of beliefs and value systems
> which need to adapt. The primary one being, I'm a teaching
> institution; if you study hard yo can have a piece of paper which will
> get you a job. To give you some idea of how out of kilter this is; I'm
> reading in the local Manailan paper that 200,000 trainee nurses will
> graduate this year. There are a maximum of 10,000 positions
> available.
>
>>
>> To make this plan a reality requires finding the people and resources
>> to do it. I hope that the possibility of employment in creating a new
>> generation of digital teaching materials, superior in every way to
>> books, would interest some here, and that we can network to find
>> others to take part.
>>
>> For example, do we have anybody interested in creating materials to
>> teach village power engineering and finance, and village wireless? Do
>> we have anybody with access to grant writers? The US Dept, of
>> Education wants to hand out $44 billion in stimulus money for projects
>> in educational innovation. Politicians often have staffers available
>> to help navigate the bureaucracy. I have started that conversation,
>> and will have much more to say about it after I get settled in in my
>> new home in Indiana.
>
> It's been a while since i looked at what engineers without borders
> were doing. The grant writing one is one worth considering. Many of
> the technical projects fall over beacuse few take the longer term view
> of working through where an NREN (or a regional) RREN aims to be, and
> when. Another cutural challenge (in the developing world) is, we have
> this problem that the NRENs don't consider that they can be marketing
> arms of commercial carriers. Most of the developing NREN tend to be
> fairly thin islands surrounded 

[WikiEducator] Economists vs. Market Fundamentalists

[Edward Cherlin]

Another even trickier topic for would-be epistemologists. What do you
do when the pseudoscientist, in this case Milton Friedman, has won a
Nobel Prize? Kary Mullis is another Nobel laureate turned denier, in
his case over HIV/AIDS. I'm packing for my move to Indiana today, but
I'll get pages up in the Wiki on these and other such issues when I
can.

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

 man who taught
> us the facts of evolution—no controversy as far as he was concerned) once
> lent me a copy of Wegener’s book about that author’s continental drift
> hypothesis (this was around 1955, before the work on paleomagnetism had
> started accumulating solid data in favor of the hypothesis). My teacher told
> me that the book explained a theory that was not yet proven, but interesting
> all the same. I read the book with great interest, acutely aware of my
> feeling about ‘how nice it would be if this were indeed true.’ It took a
> couple more years, until after I had meanwhile graduated from my school,
> before the scientific community was convinced about Wegener’s views. I owe
> it to this teacher to have had, as a young adolescent, the experience of
> getting excited about something for which there was as yet no conclusive
> evidence, having had to exercise the discipline of keeping myself from
> accepting it as a theory while considering it a beautiful hypothesis. In
> retrospect, I consider this a highly educational experience. I guess it
> requires a teacher to be part of the process of a student’s interaction with
> given content for such an experience to become highly educational and thus
> profoundly influential.
>
>
>
> Jan
>
>
>
> --
>
> Jan Visser, Ph.D.
>
> President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute
>
> E-mail: jvis...@learndev.org
>
> Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev
>
> Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Edward Cherlin [mailto:echer...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 8:02 AM
> To: wikieducator@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)
>
>
>
> Excellent overview. My ony concern is where you write, "I am assuming
>
> that the WE audience has insufficient prior
>
>> knowledge to make the validity judgments themselves." Students and
>> untrained teachers in developing countries? Inadequately trained teachers in
>> developed countries? People coming into our community?
>
>
>
> I want the ability to judge science vs. pseudoscience debates to be a
>
> fundamental part of education. I don't expect anybody to get to the
>
> point of judging science vs. science debates, which even scientists
>
> cannot do until the needed data arrive.
>
>
>
> The fallacies of pseudoscientific debate are not too many to grasp.
>
> They include cherry-picking data, selective quotation, refusing to
>
> provide sources, failing to do their own research, pretending to be
>
> greater in number than they are, demanding proof, accusing scientists
>
> and others of massive conspiracy, claiming that the slightest error
>
> invalidates a whole field of research, and others. I can explain each,
>
> and provide detailed examples. I intend at some point to get a book
>
> project going on this subject at an appropriate grade level.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 05:08, Jan Visser  wrote:
>
>> I have no time at present to check the detail of all the information
>
>> provided in newspaper articles and am particularly unable, when reading a
>
>> newspaper report, to check the quality and veracity of the interpretation
>> of
>
>> what actually happened.
>
>
>
> I can provide a guide to the literature, the attacks on the science,
>
> and the reporting, but because of some hostility to me doing that, I
>
> won't to begin with. I have created two new pages, one on Global
>
> Warming, and one on Evolution, listing a selection of books and DVDs
>
> on each subject in alphabetical ordero all available on Amazon, and
>
> most with Look Inside browsing provided. I invite a discussion, where
>
> we can play out a version of what we hope to get schoolchildren to do.
>
>
>
>> I do know, however, and have evidence to back it up, that the scientific
>
>> community is quite capable of identifying breaches of ethics, reporting
>
>> them, and taking appropriate measures to repair the damage. One need but
>> go
>
>> through the past several years of Nature and Science to find the various
>
>> instances in which published papers were retracted, sometimes at the
>> request
>
>> of the researchers themselves when they found that something had gone
>> wrong
>
>> in carrying out their research, sometimes following the discovery of
>
>> deliberate fraud. I know few other areas of human endeavor where such
>
>> rigorous self-control within the community exists. Typically, newspapers,
>
>> whatever their h

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

Excellent overview. My ony concern is where you write, "I am assuming
that the WE audience has insufficient prior
> knowledge to make the validity judgments themselves." Students and untrained 
> teachers in developing countries? Inadequately trained teachers in developed 
> countries? People coming into our community?

I want the ability to judge science vs. pseudoscience debates to be a
fundamental part of education. I don't expect anybody to get to the
point of judging science vs. science debates, which even scientists
cannot do until the needed data arrive.

The fallacies of pseudoscientific debate are not too many to grasp.
They include cherry-picking data, selective quotation, refusing to
provide sources, failing to do their own research, pretending to be
greater in number than they are, demanding proof, accusing scientists
and others of massive conspiracy, claiming that the slightest error
invalidates a whole field of research, and others. I can explain each,
and provide detailed examples. I intend at some point to get a book
project going on this subject at an appropriate grade level.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 05:08, Jan Visser  wrote:
> I have no time at present to check the detail of all the information
> provided in newspaper articles and am particularly unable, when reading a
> newspaper report, to check the quality and veracity of the interpretation of
> what actually happened.

I can provide a guide to the literature, the attacks on the science,
and the reporting, but because of some hostility to me doing that, I
won't to begin with. I have created two new pages, one on Global
Warming, and one on Evolution, listing a selection of books and DVDs
on each subject in alphabetical ordero all available on Amazon, and
most with Look Inside browsing provided. I invite a discussion, where
we can play out a version of what we hope to get schoolchildren to do.

> I do know, however, and have evidence to back it up, that the scientific
> community is quite capable of identifying breaches of ethics, reporting
> them, and taking appropriate measures to repair the damage. One need but go
> through the past several years of Nature and Science to find the various
> instances in which published papers were retracted, sometimes at the request
> of the researchers themselves when they found that something had gone wrong
> in carrying out their research, sometimes following the discovery of
> deliberate fraud. I know few other areas of human endeavor where such
> rigorous self-control within the community exists. Typically, newspapers,
> whatever their high quality from on investigative journalism point of view
> may be, should not be considered reliable sources for validation. The final
> validation of recognized error or established committed fraud is still best
> done by the scientific community itself. I thus look forward to reading
> about the outcome of such processes in the relevant scientific literature.

Well said.

> On the basis of what I know so far (and knew already before this
> conversation started), there is reason to be alert to the possibility that
> the mix of politics, science, and corporate interest that surrounds climate
> change, in addition to the propensity in humans (members of the general
> public) to wish to believe what they already believe, may potentially lead
> to biased research and even fraud (as well as to advocacy that is based on
> erroneous interpretation of scientific findings and conclusions).

I would include other factors, which I will not mention here in order
not to distract anyone from the main point.

> Alertness
> to such dangers has always been a key ingredient of the collective mindset
> within the scientific community. In some cases the danger is more prominent
> and more obviously present than in others. Investigative journalism plays a
> role, though, just as it does in politics. It is sometimes at the origin of
> identifying fraud. Besides, newspapers, when they have good science
> reporters on their staff, also play a great role in bringing the results of
> research and their societal implications to the attention of their
> readership. So, wait till the Times reports on what eventually appears in
> the relevant literature and then check the newspaper report against the
> cited literature if, as a scientist, you want to help the public understand
> the issues well and are thus willing to write letters to the editor to back
> up or challenge the reporting.

We must ask why and to what extent the Times can be considered
authoritative, given that it makes mistakes and has a point of view.
This will be part of a more general evaluation of sources.

> Validity of what is offered in an open environment like WE is very important
> from an educational point of view. Users of WE must be able to trust that
> the utmost has been done to ensure the validity of what they get offered. In
> saying so, I am assuming that the WE audience has insufficient prior
> knowledge to ma

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

I see that we have a Global Warming page.

http://wikieducator.org/Global_warming

Would you like to set up a Climate Skepticism page?

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 02:24, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 01:31, Steven Parker  wrote:
>> Alot of passionate opinion here, alot has been shared, to get back to
>> the point I was originally making  that contentious issues need a
>> platform with 'Climategate' as an example for those who are still
>> interested in what's happening.
>
> Every element of this story is contradicted by other stories. I think
> we can agree that at least one side is lying or deluded. Now we have
> to determine which. How would you suggest we go about it? We could set
> up a set of Wiki pages for the facts, the charges and countercharges,
> and how we might teach this controversy.

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

OK, but not until I get up tomorrow morning.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 02:34, NELLIE DEUTSCH
 wrote:
> Edward,
> Let's stop speculating and let's start moving. We can always edit and make
> changes; after all that's the wiki way on WikiEducator.
> Warm wishes,
> Nellie Deutsch
> Sharing is Caring!
> Doctoral Student
> Educational Leadership
> Curriculum and Instruction
> Integrating Technology for Active Life-long Learning (IT4ALL)
> http://www.integrating-technology.com/pd
> Get ready for CO10 at WiZiQ: http://connecting-online.ning.com/
> Free online workshops using WiZiQ: http://www.wikieducator.org/Workshops
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 2:24 AM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 01:31, Steven Parker  wrote:
>> > Alot of passionate opinion here, alot has been shared, to get back to
>> > the point I was originally making  that contentious issues need a
>> > platform with 'Climategate' as an example for those who are still
>> > interested in what's happening.
>>
>> Every element of this story is contradicted by other stories. I think
>> we can agree that at least one side is lying or deluded. Now we have
>> to determine which. How would you suggest we go about it? We could set
>> up a set of Wiki pages for the facts, the charges and countercharges,
>> and how we might teach this controversy.
>>
>> > The Telegraph and Times have published this article on the University
>> > of East Anglia destroying the climate data for the past 150 years upon
>> > being pressed under the Freedom of Information act. Pretty shocking to
>> > me that this has occurred preventing other scientists to verify the
>> > results.
>> >
>> > Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation
>> > Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed
>> > to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.
>> >
>> > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
>> >
>> > Climate change data dumped
>> > http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
>>
>> "The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and
>> then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were
>> collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored
>> on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU
>> moved to a new building."
>>
>> Do you think they are lying?
>>
>> > “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling
>> > questions and resolving debates with science,” he said."
>> >
>> > "(Jones) He and his colleagues say this temperature rise is
>> > “unequivocally” linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by
>> > humans. Their findings are one of the main pieces of evidence used by
>> > the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says global
>> > warming is a threat to humanity."
>> >
>> > Also other IPCC scientists are turning on each other. Dr. Eduardo
>> > Zorita writes: “CRU files: Why I think that Michael Mann (Of Hockey
>> > Stick debacle fame), Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred
>> > from the IPCC process.”
>> >
>> > "These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is
>> > a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very
>> > well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and
>> > I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and
>> > authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations,even based
>> > on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly
>> > blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to
>> > tweak their data so as to fit the 'politically correct picture'. Some,
>> > or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy
>> > makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties
>> > under a unified picture. I had the 'pleasure' to experience all this
>> > in my area of research."
>>
>> So you reckon he'
>> > http://coast.gkss.de/staff/zorita/myview.html
>> >
>> > Doesn't surprise me. Lots more revelations to come, great resources to
>> > talk around the science and politics of climate change with students.
>> >
>&g

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 01:31, Steven Parker  wrote:
> Alot of passionate opinion here, alot has been shared, to get back to
> the point I was originally making  that contentious issues need a
> platform with 'Climategate' as an example for those who are still
> interested in what's happening.

Every element of this story is contradicted by other stories. I think
we can agree that at least one side is lying or deluded. Now we have
to determine which. How would you suggest we go about it? We could set
up a set of Wiki pages for the facts, the charges and countercharges,
and how we might teach this controversy.

> The Telegraph and Times have published this article on the University
> of East Anglia destroying the climate data for the past 150 years upon
> being pressed under the Freedom of Information act. Pretty shocking to
> me that this has occurred preventing other scientists to verify the
> results.
>
> Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation
> Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed
> to get away with the Climategate whitewash, says Christopher Booker.
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/6679082/Climate-change-this-is-the-worst-scientific-scandal-of-our-generation.html
>
> Climate change data dumped
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

"The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and
then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were
collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored
on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU
moved to a new building."

Do you think they are lying?

> “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling
> questions and resolving debates with science,” he said."
>
> "(Jones) He and his colleagues say this temperature rise is
> “unequivocally” linked to greenhouse gas emissions generated by
> humans. Their findings are one of the main pieces of evidence used by
> the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says global
> warming is a threat to humanity."
>
> Also other IPCC scientists are turning on each other. Dr. Eduardo
> Zorita writes: “CRU files: Why I think that Michael Mann (Of Hockey
> Stick debacle fame), Phil Jones and Stefan Rahmstorf should be barred
> from the IPCC process.”
>
> "These words do not mean that I think anthropogenic climate change is
> a hoax. On the contrary, it is a question which we have to be very
> well aware of. But I am also aware that in this thick atmosphere -and
> I am not speaking of greenhouse gases now- editors, reviewers and
> authors of alternative studies, analysis, interpretations,even based
> on the same data we have at our disposal, have been bullied and subtly
> blackmailed. In this atmosphere, Ph D students are often tempted to
> tweak their data so as to fit the 'politically correct picture'. Some,
> or many issues, about climate change are still not well known. Policy
> makers should be aware of the attempts to hide these uncertainties
> under a unified picture. I had the 'pleasure' to experience all this
> in my area of research."

So you reckon he'
> http://coast.gkss.de/staff/zorita/myview.html
>
> Doesn't surprise me. Lots more revelations to come, great resources to
> talk around the science and politics of climate change with students.
>
> Cheers
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Re: Open philanthropy is the way to go!

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 18:13, simonfj  wrote:
> Congrats guys,
>
> Yu really are doing wonderful stuff.
>
> Can I bring up this one about the "technology required to make the OER
> vision a reality". I wish i could talk about the physical
> infrastructure/distribution meaningfully but this is beyond me.

My group, Earth Treasury, is on it. The absolute minimum requirement
to run computers appropriately is electricity and Internet. We have a
wide range of renewable power technologies, including solar, wind,
water, biofuels, animal power and child power. The hand crank on the
prototype OLPC XO was removed after Kofi Annan broke one off in a
demo, but it was becoming clear that hand cranking was inefficient,
and that it was necessary to be able to use any available power
source. So users can charge XOs from anything that will charge a
12-Volt car battery.

WiMax is the most promising broadband technology for general use, with
an installed cost of $10 per person in whole countries, for better
than 90% coverage. On the other hand, the XO has built-in mesh
networking, with a range comparable to WiMax. It is necessary also to
consider fiber optic landing points into countries, and the
distribution system from there. Although the very first cable to
Africa was put in only a few years ago, there are now numerious fiber
optics projects springing up, including undersea cables, links
overland to land-locked countries, and countries making deals with
international companies for building up a grid to link all cities and
towns. Plans to extend this network to villages are taking shape in
some countries, often using point-to-point wireless technology.

It would be helpful if someone would undertake to create a
co-ordinated and funded research plan to determine the best
combinations of available technologies for every inhabited terrain and
climate, out to the poorest and remote villages, considering both
available financial resources and new economic possibilities.

We propose to tie all of this together with microfinance: electricity,
Internet, education, jobs and new businesses. Preliminary study
indicates that it should be possible to do all of this at a profit, if
countries themselves can fund the basic education functions. In many
countries this should be straightforward, given that XOs already cost
less than printed textbooks in many places, and we can recruit
translators locally.

The remaining gap in the plan is then to create the digital
replacements for textbooks in every subject for every grade level.
Given the potential savings, it should be possible to get governments
to fund creation of these materials for free distribution.

To make this plan a reality requires finding the people and resources
to do it. I hope that the possibility of employment in creating a new
generation of digital teaching materials, superior in every way to
books, would interest some here, and that we can network to find
others to take part.

For example, do we have anybody interested in creating materials to
teach village power engineering and finance, and village wireless? Do
we have anybody with access to grant writers? The US Dept, of
Education wants to hand out $44 billion in stimulus money for projects
in educational innovation. Politicians often have staffers available
to help navigate the bureaucracy. I have started that conversation,
and will have much more to say about it after I get settled in in my
new home in Indiana.

> I've
> set myself up an impossible enough task by attempting to get the
> content creators, many of whom are OERers, and the infrastructure
> guys, to collaborate. Or at least gain some understanding of what each
> community is doing. Their ends do coincide, if not their language and
> agendas.

We should share resources.

> Most of the global infrastructure developments in the edu/research/gov
> domains can be seen through this euro centric portal. http://global.dante.net/

Another important source is WiserEarth.org.

> So far as the language in this technical space is concerned, the main
> language revolves around what is called "Middleware"; the software
> layer that helps apps talk to one another and sits above different
> operating systems. The apps are what content creators just want access
> to. We need a user name & password, usually issued by single
> institution to their version of an app and content = duplicate ad
> infinatum. This is something the OER Foundation is addressing
> fundamentally.
>
> At the moment, throughout the (mainly developed) world, there is a
> push on by all NREN to create federations. Rather than going into
> great detail, let me just point you at this Aussie initiative. Take
> for granted with a bit of work i could point at a similar initiative
> in your country. http://www.aaf.edu.au/index.php/services/
>
> Long story short, we are getting to the point whare the NREN are
> reconfiguring to support global groups (taskforces/ committees) rather
> than national institutions.

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 13:11, kirby urner  wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>
>>> = Kirby (me)
>> = Edward
>  = Kirby
> Mostly what I say in cocktail parties is I only respect the opinion of
> Dutch engineers on the matter of global warming (they're pretty
> serious about it for obvious reasons).  That's of course just a polite
> way of changing the subject.
>
>>> and start
>>> realizing that GCC is somewhat under the conscious control of humans.
>>
>> Past time.
>>
>
> So here you celebrate and welcome GCC being under the CC of humans...

I celebrate us taking responsibility for our actions. We have no
choice about having control, only whether it is in fact conscious.

>>> If humans have found a way to play with thermostat, that could come in 
>>> handy.
>>
>> Matches are handy, but I don't see any value in letting children play with 
>> them.
>>
>
> ... but here you seem more ambivalent, looking at humans as children,
> which is risky in terms of what kind of prophet you want to sound
> like.

The children are those who have not reached the age of responsibility,
not humanity as a whole.

> Given you seem to study the internal affairs of the USA's southeast
> e.g. Alabama, I'm speculating as to what extent you yourself might be
> influenced by Biblical models, even though you're on the record as not
> being especially Biblical.

Influenced how? I certainly have a strong interest in the Bible. It is
a remarkable record of a people going from tribal barbarism, with
genocide and other major issues, to some of the highest ideals of
conduct, education ("...neither shall they learn war any more."),
government, and so on. I mostly favor Ecclesiastes and Job, but there
are many other good bits.

> The Middle Eastern religions tend to be patriarchal in outlook and to
> encourage a kind of cantankerous "father knows best" attitude among
> older men.  They come off sounding patronizing.  You and I have never
> met so I'm clearly in no position to have an informed view, just
> wondering.

I have a continuing "Life of Brian" issue.

"You are all individuals!"
Crowd: "We are all individuals!"
Individual: "I'm not."

> We should have a beer someday or other drink in a social setting so
> that we might continue our mutual evaluation and assessment.

Sure.

> In the meantime, I mostly only discuss GCC with Dutch engineers (my
> line on the ISEPP list as well, where I mostly stay with other
> topics).

Quite right.

> Kirby Urner
>
> isepp.org (board)
> python.org (voting member)
> wikieducator.org (wikibuddy)
>
> --
>>>> from mars import math
> http://www.wikieducator.org/Martian_Math
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 11:44, kirby urner  wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>
> << snip >>
>
>> Let's hear it then from the rest of you. What are your issues with
>> Global Warming science vs. the carbon fuel industry and their
>> scientific and political shills and common or garden variety dupes?
>
> Hey there Ed, nice chatting, see you on on edu-sig (Python.org) sometimes too.

Sure.

> Our little think tank, isepp.org, meeting @ Linus Pauling's boyhood
> home in Portland, Oregon, have talked over GW and/or GCC extensively,
> including in our Yahoo! archives.
>
> This is the heart of the Silicon Forest and we pride ourselves on
> being engineers, good ones.
>
> The decision tree is clear and you spell it out:  is there a warming
> trend (yes or no) and if yes, are humans responsible to some degree?
>
> I think you and I would say "yes" and "yes".

There is much more to the tree, and much more to any serious answer.
The full scientific decision tree has had tens of thousands of
decision points so far, and many more to come. They tend to be of the
form, "This observation/model/theory/what have you may be extremely
important, therefore we should put significant resources into
confirming or refuting it, and to improving it." The policy tree has
to ask and answer quite different questions. For example, "What are
the upside and downside of the science for the economy, the
environment, and human survival on scales from purely local to
global?" "At what point should we spend money to avert possible
catastrophe?" "Wait, could we _save_ money by going to renewable
power?"

An expenditure of $3 billion on levees would have prevented the flood
in New Orleans, which has cost well over a hundred billion dollars in
damage and associated expense, and the politically deliberate
destruction of any possibility of recreating that part of the city.
The people who gave us that disaster are the ones arguing against both
science and policy today.

> But then there's a pause point we need to insert:  is humanity having
> responsibility for climate change a bad thing?  If we have long term
> plans to terraform Mars (some say we do),

A question that has some interest, but currently comes over as
rearranging the deck chairs on the plans for the successor to the
Titanic.

> then we need to get our sea
> legs with this Gaia Hypothesis (appears to be correct)

There are many versions. I don't know which one you mean.

> and start
> realizing that GCC is somewhat under the conscious control of humans.

Past time.

The Chernobyl reactor "accident" was intended as a safety experiment,
or rather, demonstration, because management assumed that they knew
what they were doing. They ordered the engineers to turn off all five
safety systems, allow an excursion, and then turn the safety systems
on again to restore the reactor to normal operation.

The two Space Shuttle disasters were caused primarily by managers
overriding engineers, not by the engineering problems with the design.

We now have much of the management of Spaceship Earth far more
concerned with corporate profit and assorted racist and sectarian
hatreds than with human and global welfare.

Many of the leaders in Easter Island society recognized that cutting
down the last trees to raise bigger and bigger statues would be
disastrous, but Conspicuous Consumption prevailed. If the tentative
results of the latest climate science are correct, we have done that
to ourselves, and cannot prevent the disaster. So I hope that our
worst fears are wrong, but I will not fudge the data or the results to
make anybody feel better about themselves.

> Will they be able to self-organize successfully?  Somehow that's
> always the question, in every age.
>
> Remember that vast climate cycling is characteristic of this planet so
> that even without human influence, we were expecting another Ice Age
> soon.

Within a few thousand years, most likely. But there was a conjectural
theory, even before Global Warming became so dire, that humans had
already changed the cycle of ice ages through agriculture, and that is
why the current ten-thousand year interglacial has been longer than
any other of the current climate age. Hooray for us if so, up to a
point that we have now reached.

> If humans have found a way to play with thermostat, that could come in handy.

Matches are handy, but I don't see any value in letting children play with them.

> On the other hand, giant geodesic domes inside of which we have
> climate control, outside of which we have much less (because we don't
> control solar cycling), may be the evolutionary trend, not claiming to
> be all-knowing.
>
> Such pockets of climate control (inside domes) is already

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 11:27, Jan Visser  wrote:
> On the other hand, Edward, while you apparently fail to see the connection
> between Wayne's two posts, I had no problem seeing how they are related to
> each other and the conversation that had been going on.

So you could explain the matter to me, then?

> While I agree with the points you made in your first post concerning this
> subject, I find it unfortunate that the tone you increasingly choose for
> this dialogue is one of confrontation rather than of collaborative
> exploration of a complex area of concern. It is surely unhelpful in such a
> situation to demand that participants in the conversation declare upfront
> which side they are on as if 'yes' or 'no' are the only possible
> alternatives.

Not what I did.

> A friend theoretical physicist at the CNRS in Paris, Basarab
> Nicolescu, once called this the "unfathomable pornography of binary
> thinking."

You think I'm doing it to you, and I think you're doing it to me.

> Also, as another friend recently pointed out to me and a couple of other
> colleagues in a discussion about ‘building the scientific mind’, there is a
> huge difference between ‘asking a question’ and ‘having a question.’ The
> fact that you asked a question does not necessarily mean that you should be
> given an answer.

Such a statement with no further explanation is entirely unhelpful.

> I also find it unfortunate that you seem to equate denial and skepticism.

I don't. The Global Warming Deniers/"Climate Change" skeptics do, by
denying that they are denying.

> Skepticism connotes thoughtfulness, exploration, consideration. Denial is
> close to the opposite of these notions.

Exactly. Scientists are skeptics. They test every experimental result
and theory rigorously. Pseudoscientists are deniers of data, theories,
competence, and motives. Everything in science is to them conspiracy.
Why would scientists conspire? I have never heard a plausible theory
of why, nor of how. Conspiracy at that level is hard. Some joker is
bound to leak the plan.

But those are not the only two choices. There are the innocent
ignorant and the willfully ignorant as well. The Talmud distinguishes

He who knows not; and knows not that he knows not
is a fool, shun him.
He who knows not; and knows that he knows not
is a child, teach him.
He who knows; and knows not that he knows
is asleep, wake him.
He who knows; and know that he knows
is wise, follow him.

but there are further distinctions to be made.

> I would only hope that all who
> participate in this dialogue, whatever position they may find themselves
> comfortable with at a particular moment, are skeptics.

> More importantly, this dialogue was not meant to be about the science and
> politics of climate change. Rather, the way Phil voiced it initially, it was
> meant to be about how an educational community that is dedicated to
> providing open educational resources, such as WE, should deal with issues
> around which there is controversy. I propose we bring the discussion back to
> that issue or otherwise consider it closed for now for the simple reason
> that we don’t seem to advance. We can always take it up later again.

Yes, indeed. We do need to address how a community should address such
issues, and not by putting them aside. It is too timorous to reject
the possibility that a discussion can make progress and illuminate the
larger question before it has even been joined seriously.

> Jan
>
>
>
> --
>
> Jan Visser, Ph.D.
>
> President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute
>
> E-mail: jvis...@learndev.org
>
> Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev
>
> Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 01:08, Wayne Mackintosh
>
>  wrote:
>
>> Edward,
>
>>
>
>> 2009/11/29 Edward Cherlin wrote:
>
>>>
>
>>> Wayne, I fear that you don't know what you are talking about.
>
>>
>
>> My concern relates to assumptions you are making about what members of
>> this
>
>> list know or do not know.
>
>
>
> I fail to see any connection between what you said, and what you now
>
> say you meant. Anyway, what assumptions do you assume I am making?
>
>
>
> You neither answered nor even acknowledged my question.
>
>
>
> "Are you also a global warming denier/"skeptic"? Or just grotesquely
>
> politically correct, treating all points of view as equally to be
>
> respected? If it's something else, please tell us what."
>
>
>
>> In our WikiEducator community we play the ball --
>
>> not the person. We treat people with mutual respect,

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

Again, you have not responded to good faith questions, and you resort
to accusation, sort of, almost.

I have some experience of being trolled by the competent and the
incompetent, and I can assure you that if _I_ wanted to troll this
list you wouldn't know I was doing it. ^_^ The best practitioners (in
part because they are non-malicious) are to be found in the
alt.religion.kibology Newsgroup.

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 11:12, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> 2009/11/30 Edward Cherlin 
>>
>>> I fail to see any connection between what you said, and what you now
>>> say you meant. Anyway, what assumptions do you assume I am making?
>>>
>>> You neither answered nor even acknowledged my question.
>>>
>>> "Are you also a global warming denier/"skeptic"? Or just grotesquely
>>> politically correct, treating all points of view as equally to be
>>> respected? If it's something else, please tell us what."
>>>
>
> We assume good faith in WikiEducator.
>
> Trolls live under bridges -- however, not everyone under a bridge is a
> troll. See for example:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/What_is_a_troll%3F
>
> I hope this is not the case, because there are significant educational
> related issues in this thread --- but I don't want to feed any trolls.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

You failed to respond to my offered data or any of my previous
questions about your understanding of Global Warming, and now you take
my offer to assist you as an insult. I take this as evidence (not
proof) that your ignorance _is_ willful. You have an opportunity to
demonstrate otherwise, by responding to my previous message with the
CO2 and other data and the questions.

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 10:41, Steve Foerster  wrote:
> Edward wrote:
>
>> Only if you are willfully ignorant, as I propose to demonstrate
>> to you that you are.
>
> Very few people would be inclined to continue a conversation with
> someone so obnoxious, and frankly, I'm not one of them.

Curious. I converse with people far more obnoxious than you or I. One
of my best friends (O irony) is a Holocaust Denier and much worse.
Certainly they don't always enjoy it, but we have made some progress,
and they are usually willing to continue.

> The irony here is that I'm not a climate change skeptic.  I'm an
> intelligent layperson who simply doesn't know who to believe.

Why not?

> When I
> said I could stand to learn more, amazingly, I actually meant it.

Exactly. And, amazingly, I meant my offer to help.

> It's the "agree with me or you're a Nazi" approach that I won't
> accept,

LOL. You are no Nazi.

Do you talk to the Cosmos this way? Nature doesn't care what we wish
to be true. We have to deal with what _is_ true.

A man said to the Universe,
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," the Universe replied,
"That fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."
--Stephen Crane

A traveler, perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"I see," he said, "that nobody has passed here
In a long time."
Later, he perceived that each blade
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other ways."
--also Stephen Crane

>not at all the actual position that happens to be underneath
> it in this particular instance.
>
> For what it's worth, I'm still interested to learn more.  But I'll do
> it from someone with a talent for communicating about science, not
> from someone who responds to honest inquiry with arrogance and
> disrespect.

You're confused. When I respect people, I tell them the unvarnished
truth. I thought you were willing to face facts, pleasant or not. Your
quarrel is with the facts, not with me.

> -=Steve=-
>
> --
> Stephen H. Foerster
> http://wikieducator.org/steve
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 02:08, Alex  P. Real  wrote:
> I agree with Nellie that fear to listen may indeed be harmful, same as not
> realizing who our audience/readers, etc may be & how our own backgrounds
> model perceptions. But silence (understood as refusal to speak) can be
> equally pernicious for then unidirectional monologues replace any
> substantial dialogue despite individual impressions.  No offence meant, but
> can’t but try a reading of the discussion:
>
> 1.   Phil posts one of his great rants (top marks)
>
> 2.   TALOnian Steven (“Sparks”)  is well-known for his thought-provoking
> posts , leading to enriching discussion whether one agrees or not with his
> viewpoints J. If I recall correctly he’s rather environmental-conscious.
>
> 3.   If I was living in the US amidst Creationism odds are I’d have a
> similar initial reaction to Edward’s; but I’m not, same as I think all the
> other people involved with this discussion (?).

I live in the world, not just in the US. I spent more than a year each
in Korea, Japan, and the North of England (at the time when London was
somewhat occupied by Enoch Powell and IRA bombings). There is AIDS
denial all over Africa; Holocaust denial all over Europe, including
the UK; World War II denial in Japan; official Armenia denial in
Turkey; and so on. We have more of it than many in the US, but it is
your problem too.

> 4.   Thanks Steven (Foerster) for voicing what many WE were likely to be
> thinking.

Let's hear it then from the rest of you. What are your issues with
Global Warming science vs. the carbon fuel industry and their
scientific and political shills and common or garden variety dupes?

> 5.   Wayne may have appeared as politically correct for
> community-building and peace-keeping reasons, was there any other way out?
> Does critical thinking involve being “incorrect” 24/7?

Yes, there is. It is possible to discuss both science and politics on
the basis of facts rather than what we wish to be true.

"Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own
facts."--Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Critical thinking includes not being a respecter of persons, as Paul
put it in Rom. 2:11. This means that all are welcome, regardless of
opinion, but nobody gets to hijack the conversation using the
techniques of McCarthyism, as Deniers routinely try to do.

> 6.   Then  Edward has turned it into a personal thing (or so it
> appears). I can’t help wondering why, this thread seemed rather promising in
> terms of intercultural awareness.

I am attacking pseudoscience. I have forcefully stated my claims that
Steven and Wayne are in error. I am not attacking them as people. I do
not understand your usage of the phrase "intercultural awareness"
unless it refers to excessive political correctness. I will match my
intercultural _experience_ with anybody here, including my experiences
of Black and White cultures in Newark, New Jersey and Nashville,
Tennessee during the Civil Rights period, and my experiences of
scientific and pseudoscientific cultures, and education and
anti-education cultures. I go out of my way to talk to the deniers in
order to understand them better. I do not think of them as obstacles
to be swept away and otherwise ignored.

> 7.   I’m not going to discuss pro/con Climate Change discourses for I’m
> no expert

It is not necessary to be an expert to discuss what the experts have
found. The fundamental question is whether you can tell the difference
between the scientific work and the opposition on the basis of the
methods used. How do you understand the scientific method? How do you
understand the McCarthyist method?

> and when debates are rather heated & receive ample media coverage
> I normally become skeptical and focus on the underlying political-economic
> interests.

Quite right. There are two primary sets of interests in Global Warming
denial. One is the obvious financial interest of carbon fuel
companies, who are financing the other.

The second requires understanding US political history, specifically
the Republican Southern Strategy of pandering to racists and to
intolerant, racist, Southern White churches. The racists are fighting
the American Civil War, or as they call it the War of Northern
Aggression, for the third time. The second was the Civil Rights
Movement of the 1960s. The Lost Cause is losing yet again, as its
population base shrinks steadily. Projection of opinion poll results
from decades past indicates that they will become minorities in every
state by 2024, obviously with some margin of error. At that point they
will be able to elect their own kind locally (city, county, House of
Representatives), but not statewide (Governor, Senator) or nationally
(President and Vice President).

Much of the agenda of the South and the extended Bible and Book of
Mormon belt is denial of Federal authority over civil rights and
resistance to social programs. In the current overheated political
atmosphere (haha) 

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 01:08, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Edward,
>
> 2009/11/29 Edward Cherlin wrote:
>>
>> Wayne, I fear that you don't know what you are talking about.
>
> My concern relates to assumptions you are making about what members of this
> list know or do not know.

I fail to see any connection between what you said, and what you now
say you meant. Anyway, what assumptions do you assume I am making?

You neither answered nor even acknowledged my question.

"Are you also a global warming denier/"skeptic"? Or just grotesquely
politically correct, treating all points of view as equally to be
respected? If it's something else, please tell us what."

> In our WikiEducator community we play the ball --
> not the person. We treat people with mutual respect, recognising our diverse
> cultures.
>
> My post had nothing to do with global warming per se, but rather education
> in a broader context and what our community is about.  This is the way we
> play the game in WikiEducator -- please respect our community values and how
> we interact with each other -- we have welcomed your membership with open
> arms respecting that everyone has value to contribute to education as a
> social good.
>
> There is a lot I don't know -- but I'm learning everyday.
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director,
> International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
> Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> User Page: http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "WikiEducator" group.
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 19:06, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Steve,
>
> Well said and excellent post!

Wayne, I fear that you don't know what you are talking about. Are you
also a global warming denier/"skeptic"? Or just grotesquely
politically correct, treating all points of view as equally to be
respected? If it's something else, please tell us what.

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 18:36, Steve Foerster  wrote:
> The use of the word "denialism" to describe climate change skeptics is
> the most obnoxious tactic in political discourse today,

Nowhere near it.

Calling yourself a skeptic when you accuse the entire scientific
community of fraud and conspiracy is one of the more obnoxious tactics
in political discourse today, but it does not compare in nastiness
with Dog Whistle race politics and some other practices. See my page
http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Code_words for a large and extremely
snarky set of translations of the widespread but unacknowledged greed,
racism, and intolerance. Countering lies and intentional ignorance
with facts, using clearly defined terms supported by evidence, is not
a tactic. It is a central part of the Scientific Method.

We cannot settle the issues between us by arguing about language. Let
us begin with facts. I need to know which scientific data, theory, and
conclusions you accept, and which you reject.

1) CO2 in the atmosphere is rising. Here is the chart of CO2 in the
atmosphere for the last 50 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg
Do you believe that this dataset has been faked? If so, how?

2) Do you accept the data on the burning of carbon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#In_the_Earth.27s_atmosphere
"Emissions of CO2 by human activities are currently more than 130
times greater than the quantity emitted by volcanoes, amounting to
about 27 billion tonnes per year."
"The oceans have absorbed about 50% of the carbon dioxide (CO2)
released from the burning of fossil fuels, resulting in chemical
reactions that lower ocean pH. This has caused an increase in hydrogen
ion (acidity) of about 30% since the start of the industrial age
through a process known as “ocean acidification.”

Do you believe that these measurements have been faked?

3) If both of those are true, and also the established fact that CO2
is a greenhouse gas, does it follow that global warming is man-made?
If not, what would count as sufficient evidence?

4) If global warming were real and man-made, do you accept that we
would have to do something about it?

5) Who are the reliable sources among the Global Warming
Deniers/"Climate Change Skeptics", many of whom have obvious conflicts
of interest in working for the carbon fuel industry?

After you answer those, I will give you links to CO2 in the oceans; to
air, water, and land temperatures; to the melting of ice and
permafrost; to tree-ring and other archaeological data on CO2 and
warming; and a good deal more.

> and I would
> like to think that in a community like ours it would be entirely
> unwelcome.

Denialism is a widespread and well-documented phenomenon, whether or
not you accept that you suffer from it. See, for example Mistakes Were
Made (but not by me).

We have had in recent times AIDS denial, Holocaust denial, Global
Warming denial, evolution denial/Creationism/Creation
Science/"Intelligent Design; economics denial (Voodoo Economics),
Apollo moon mission denial, 9/11 denial, vaccine denial, and a number
of other such movements. Each has the same characteristics, as did
fluoridation denial, Communist conspiracy theories, the Protocols of
the Elders of Zion, and much more.

> In the highly charged environment we have when it comes to
> this issue, where there is so much noise and the truth is so often
> hidden by melodramatic rhetoric on both sides,

The noise is entirely on the shrieking deniers' side. Scientists speak
calmly about data, conjectures, evidence, theories, peer review,
experiments, confirmation, refutation, and the like. I will cite
examples sometime, and you can do the same. I will then refute your
examples. Actually, let us begin with Senators James Inhofe, R-OK, and
Al Gore, formerly D-TN, and look at their rhetorical styles. Start
here.

http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20091129/LETTER/91128/1078&ParentProfile=1055
When Democratic Sen. Harry Reid announced last week that any vote on
the climate change bill was being postponed until 2010, Republican
Sen. James Inhofe from Oklahoma, the leading climate change skeptic in
the Senate, said to Barbara Boxer in a Senate speech: “It's over. Get
a life. You lost. I won.”

> it is not only fools
> and liars who are skeptical of global warming, it is entirely possible
> to hold that position in good faith.

Only if you are willfully ignorant, as I propose to demonstrate to you
that you are.

> Edward, if you want to point out how the science behind this works,
> and explain why those who are skeptical (1) that climate change is
> occurring, and (

Re: Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 03:28, Steven Parker  wrote:
> Hi Edward
>
> Sorry mate no fallacy,

How do you know? You ignored the very fact that I have evidence.

> no conspiracy IPCC climate scientists actually
> have been scandousily  busted cooking and destroying the data on
> global warming,

Not so. There are a number of cases of cooked data, where the
malefactor was drummed out of the scientific community. This isn't one
of them.

In any case, one researcher, or a few researchers, cooking data says
nothing about the validity of the rest of the investigators in the
field. To argue otherwise is a clear evidence that you have come to a
predetermined conclusion, and you are cherry-picking data to support
it, following the lead of the anti-scientific Global Warming deniers.

My question to you is, Why do you want Global Warming to be false?

> this should be welcomed by wikieducators with an open
> mind (No denial)

Having an open mind does not mean allowing one's brain to fall out.

> for what this means fro teaching (The scientific
> process) why not give students links to this controversy, have a a
> learning activity on climate change science, denialism, crime and
> fraud, sociology, behaviorism, media, computer hacking you name it.

Maybe, but it should be about real fraud.

> I'll not try to convince you on what this means for the global warming
> science that's up to you, read the climategate info though it sounds
> like you have it figured out as conspiracy (ok) for others Google
> "climategate" and read the news,

I told you I did that. You prefer to believe corporate shills and
cranks rather than scientists on this. I can't help you, unless you
are willing to do the homework yourself, rather than relying on
politically motivated junk science.

> there is a great student activity
> within.
>
> http://www.google.com.au/search?q=climategate+new+zealand&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
>
> I found this video interview with Dr Tim Ball rather interesting

> "Retired climatologist Dr. Tim Ball joins us to discuss the
> significance of the recently leaked emails and documents"
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydo2Mwnwpac

Ball is a well-known crank on other issues who doesn't really believe
in chemistry. It took no effort to discover this fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Ball
"The plain fact is there was never any evidence of CFCs affecting the
ozone layer."

He is one of those I had in mind when I noted that the deniers claim
that models don't include factors that they do include, and that they
ignore all of the facts.

"Water vapor is effectively ignored in the computer models. Yes,
that's right. The climate models used as the basis for the entire
global warming argument do not include the effect of clouds."

"Since 1940 and from 1940 until 1980, even the surface record shows cooling."

Both claims are factually incorrect, and require us to believe in a
global conspiracy within all of climate science.

Ball was featured in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary
film produced by Martin Durkin that was first aired in March 2007. The
film showcased scientists, economists, politicians, writers, and
others who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming.
In the film, Ball was misattributed as a professor in the Department
of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg (the University of
Winnipeg has never had a Department of Climatology and Ball retired
more than ten years before the show aired).[11] Since then, he has
also appeared numerous times on the Glenn Beck Show, with a role in
the special, "Exposed: Climate of Fear."

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Durkin_%28television_director%29
Always critical of environmentalism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/04/comment.comment
Why Channel 4 has got it wrong over climate change

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/21/climatechange.carbonemissions1
Why does Channel 4 seem to be waging a war against the greens? The
Guardian, July 22, 2008
As Channel 4 is once again fiercely criticised by the TV watchdog for
distorting the views of climate scientists, George Monbiot lays bare
the channel's shameful history of misleading its viewers on global
warming

> Fascinating, I'm sure there is more to follow.
>
> http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/11/26/lawrence-solomon-new-zealand-s-climategate.aspx
>
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017977/climategate-the-scandal-spreads-the-plot-thickens-the-shame-deepens/
> ,
> Cheers
>
>
>
>
> On 11/28/09, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
>> This turns out not to be the case. More below.
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 23:16, Ste

Denialism (was Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants)

[Edward Cherlin]

This turns out not to be the case. More below.

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 23:16, Steven Parker  wrote:
> "denial of the existence of global warming, or denial of the truth of
> evolution? The space race is a product of movie special effects? The earth
> is flat? It is difficult for me to imagine my believing such. Do they
> deserve a hearing?"
>
> Some of these are obviousily very ridiculous but yes it is a real problem
> giving controversial issues a hearing, for example alot of educational
> resources have been created and taught to students on the existence of
> global warming based on the impact of human carbon emissions.
>
> From an education point alot has been politically and personally invested in
> this premise based on IPCC data but yet only recently as I'm sure many of
> you are aware there has been the "Climategate" controversy whereby the
> British Climatic Research Unit's computers at the University of East Anglia
> where hacked. From this emails and documents have been published which show
> IPCC endorsed  scientists engaged in the the falsification and destruction
> of data

Humpty Dumpty fallacy: Words mean only what I want them to mean,
rather than having different meanings in different contexts.

By no means. In fact, shame on you for being fooled by industry shills
and True Believers in Conspiracy Theories.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/26/17302/203

DS: When Phil Jones wrote in 1999, "I've just completed Mike's Nature
trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years
(i. e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the
decline," what did he mean?

Michael Mann: Phil Jones has publicly gone on record indicating that
he was using the term "trick" in the sense often used by people, as in
"bag of tricks", or "a trick to solving this problem ...", or "trick
of the trade". In referring to our 1998 Nature article, he was
pointing out simply the following: our proxy record ended in 1980
(when the proxy data set we were using terminates) so, it didn't
include the warming of the past two decades. In our Nature article we
therefore also showed the post-1980 instrumental data that was then
available through 1995, so that the reconstruction could be viewed in
the context of recent instrumental temperatures. The separate curves
for the reconstructed temperature series and for the instrumental data
were clearly labeled.

and so on.

> and vindication of "sceptical scientists" with data contrary to the
> global warming hypothesis.

Cherrypicking fallacy.

Also not the case, as discussed in the same story and many others on
Daily Kos and elsewhere. The scientists have taken account of daily
and annual warming and cooling cycles, the cooling effect of volcanic
aerosols and warming from volcanic CO2, variations in El Niño/La Niña,
and a multitude of other measured and modeled effects tending to more
or less warming at particular times. Carbon-industry pseudo-scientists
follow the techniques pioneered by tobacco industry pseudo-scientists,
picking out one factor or another and claiming that it invalidates the
analysis that actually includes it, while ignoring all of the real
data, and expecting the public not to check up on them.

> i.e the science is most definitely not closed.

Strawman fallacy.

Science is never closed. A theory can only be closed if it is held in
a closed mind.

We are still running tests on General Relativity, such as the recently
completed Gravity Probe B. Initial analysis suggested detection of
frame dragging, but a problem in tracking the rotations of the test
spheres has put that result under a cloud. It was not clear when I
last checked whether further analysis will clear up the matter. Denial
of global warming would be equivalent to claiming that the failure of
this experiment to return a valid result somehow calls General
Relativity into question, even though the GPS system couldn't possibly
work without GR time calculations for orbiting atomic clocks.

The issues in global warming do not extend to whether it is occurring.
The measurements of global air and water temperature, and of melting
ice and permafrost, are unequivocal. The questions are how much, how
fast, and with what effects on sea levels, agriculture, disease,
extinctions, and other matters that affect human well-being.

It is correct to say that all global warming models have been wrong.
This does not help the deniers, because the models have all been wrong
in the wrong direction. All of the major indicators show that warming
is worse than expected, and accelerating faster than predicted.

Contrary to all conspiracy theories, climate models have been
consistently conservative. The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is
apparently saturated, as it has recently begun releasing about as much
CO2 as it absorbs. If this extends to the whole ocean, the rate of
accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere will roughly double from the
current rate. If the Arctic sea ice disappears, ocean c

Re: [WikiEducator] Phil's Rants

[Edward Cherlin]

A good set of questions. The problem we have is that school has been
socially defined as a place where students are taught the right
answers to all essential questions. (We can go into the history of
that notion some other time.) We cannot readily pretend to teach all
of the right answers and at the same time teach critical thinking or
multiple sides of any question. Worse than that, the most important
questions don't even have right answers. That's supposed to be what
politics is for, deciding what to do when we have no other way to
decide.

Every child, while learning language, culture, physics, what to eat
and what not, and so on, also has to come to grips with the essential
questions.

What is this? Is it real? (Ghosts, races, countries, money, syle, the
Higgs boson,...)

What is true? Should we believe each other, or anybody else in
particular or in general? Why or why not?

What is important? What should I do even if I don't want to?

The two-dollar words for these questions are ontology, epistemology,
and ethics. Children, who have no idea of such words, are remarkably
good at absorbing, or sometimes choosing among, the answers to such
questions given by family, friends, the culture, schools, and so on.
Some children come up with their own answers to some of them.

Right now the US is fighting the third round of a centuries-long
battle over many of these questions, the ones that relate to slavery
and racism. Round one was the Civil War/War of Northern Agression, and
round two was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Demographic
changes and geverational changes have been steadily moving in the
Progressive direction since then on race, women's rights, gay rights,
the Cuban embargo, and other issues of identity, plus other related
issues such as "Darwinism". The problem with evolution is that it says
that we are all descended from presumably black Africans. Statistics
show steady progress on most social issues, so that they will go away
by 2025 as national and statewide issues, even in Mississippi and
Alabama. Nevertheless they will remain important in some local
elections. Once the desire to prevent social programs for minorities
and women goes away, the desire to strangle the government and never
allow tax increases for anything will also largely dry up. At that
point we will be able to discuss education policy without these
unacknowledged issues poisoning our discourse. Then we can tackle the
real problems, such as corporate power and global warming.

But we can do much better than we have been by making an end run
around political-social control of textbooks. Free digital learning
materials cannot be blocked by "Starve the Beast" policies, nor by
political control of curricula. When we can use computers to teach
deeper understanding at earlier ages, we will create enough space
around tests to have time to do other things

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 20:43, Phil Bartle  wrote:
> Rant for this weekend is about controversial subjects
> See: http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Philbartle#Phil.27s_Rants
> Cheers,
> Phil
> If the coach does the pushups,
> The athlete will not get stronger
> Community Empowerment:
> www.scn.org/cmp/
> WikiEducator
> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Philbartle
> Join our discusssion forum
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Community_Strengthening
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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Re: [WikiEducator] Open philanthropy is the way to go!

[Edward Cherlin]

Congratulations.

Are you interested in discussing the infrastructure needed to make
this happen globally? How will schoolchildren use these Open Education
Resources in regions without an electric grid or a communications
grid? When we have educated the children, what do they do in countries
that do not know how to create jobs?

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 14:47, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Apology for any cross postings -- but good news for all WikiEducators!
>
> The OER Foundation is the non-profit entity which funds WikiEducator and our
> activities.
>
> As you know, these past few months we have been working on the open and
> transparent development of the strategy and 3-year operational plan for the
> OER Foundation. A personal note of thanks to all the WikiEducators around
> the world who have provided inputs to help develop and refine our plans
> through various channels including the wiki, our discussion lists and the
> hundreds of personal emails sent through to my desk. Thank you!
>
> The Board of Directors of the OER Foundation met today and have approved the
> strategy and 3 year operational plan for the OER Foundation -- without any
> changes! The Board has complemented our open approach and the quality of our
> planning. This bodes very well for the ongoing success of the WikiEducator
> project --- we have a solid foundation on which to build -- with thanks to
> all the educators around the world who are committed to creating, remixing
> and reusing OER for the social good of education. Open philanthropy is the
> way to go!
>
> Today I scanned the page documenting our early history (see:
> http://tinyurl.com/yase8m9 ) -- It's great to reflect on the fact that we
> were celebrating 2.3 million cumulative hits on the WE website after one
> year's operation. During October 2009, we recorded over 10.5 million hits to
> the site in one month! WE have come a long way.
>
> Now, with your help, lets make the future happen!
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
> Links
>
> Planning:
>
> http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Planning
>
> Strategy:
>
> http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Strategy
>
> Operational plan - (2009 -  2011)
>
> http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Operational_plan
>
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
> Director,
> International Centre for Open Education,
> Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
> Board of Directors, OER Foundation.
> Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
>
> --
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-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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[WikiEducator] Re: Can Educators Learn?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 13:41, kirby urner  wrote:
>
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Edward Cherlin  wrote:
[snip]
>> The first can be tackled when computers start to be integrated into
>> education, and we find that we can teach most topics more deeply and
>> at earlier ages. Then we will have some space in which to explore
>> without testing pressure, until the tests start to catch up with
>> classroom practice. By then, we should have further advances that will
>> give us a different set of spaces to work in.
>>
>
> It's easy to change the testing such that computers are required.
> Writing an algorithm to produce pi to a million places is not
> practical *except* using a computer language atop a sufficiently
> powerful library.

Technically easy, politically hard, as long as the South and the rest
of the Bible Belt wants everything dumbed down. I hear that many
teachers who give calculator homework in math don't want to allow
calculators in tests. I, naturally, want Open Book testing extended to
Open Computer, Open Internet.

>> I do not have a solution to the political problems that currently
>> bedevil curriculum development, except to wait them out, and do as
>> much as we can on everything else. Some of those political forces,
>> such as Republican support for Creationism and against meaningful sex
>> education, are predicted to die out in 15-20 years due to demographic
>> shifts. I can give you the statistical basis for this prediction and a
>> number of instances where we see the effects now, in issues other than
>> classroom education.
>>
>> The ultimate solution to the problem is this: Teachers who dreaded
>> having to learn and use OLPC XOs have become their strongest
>> advocates. The verdict is clear from multitudes of teachers in the
>> field: "I can teach now." Once this is experienced widely enough, the
>> education schools will teach the computers to students who grew up
>> with computers, and no new teacher from then on will have the current
>> problem.
>>
>
> I'm glad we live in a parallel processing system such that if Lower48
> USA gets bogged down in fighting the Scopes Trial, turns itself into a
> Monkey Island,

To expand what I wrote earlier: We have encouraging polling data
showing that the Old South racism and intolerance are shrinking by
about 2% annually, almost all from the old dying off and more of the
young each year having actual multicultural, multiethnic experience to
convince them that invidious distinctions are evil. That means that
the tipping point on a number of political, social, and educational
issues will come in about 10-15 years, even in darkest Alabama and
Mississippi. I can give anyone interested the references. We also have
wonderful anecdotes, such as a Klan rally of about 10 at Ole Miss
(University of Mississippi, Oxford MS) confronted by about 250
students, many wearing Turn Your Back on Racism T-shirts and standing
with their backs to the Klansmen.

> we still have other regions chomping at the bit to make
> meaningful contribution to the advancement of our collective human
> saga.  They're not really stuck in line in some sequential pipeline.
> We're *not* all waiting for the USA to get its act together, praise
> Bob.

Amen.

> Iceland has been doing a good job, as has Ireland... South Africa.
> I'm proud of many nations.

Check out Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Nepal.

> Some of our newest curriculum modules, for example these four new ones
> on Wikieducator coming through my corner (including Martian Math)
> maybe won't develop a following in Portland, Oregon, my home town,
> despite my being on hand to teach it, share it with other teachers.
>
> Perhaps my true fan base is in Vilnius or Gothenberg?

Certainly Andrius Kulikauskus is there, running Minciu Sodas and
working on a math book for Earth Treasury.

> Given the Internet, that's not necessarily a problem, although I'd
> prefer to have more team members locally (working on recruiting,
> including through Pauling House).  Thanks to Wikieducator, I'm already
> finding a new community of collaborators.

We also have the FLOSS Manuals, Squeakland, MIT and other Ed schools,
OLE, Creative Commons ccLearn, various museums, and others involved.
Also the state of California digital textbook program and the Open
Access movement, and more. See Stacy Reed's
http://www.librarianchick.com/ for available materials.

> Web 2.0 is like that.
> OLPC/XO is going to introduce a lot more children into this privileged
> way of networking and I'm quite happy about that (during the Duke's
> event, we upgraded one of my two XOs, to a more recent version of the
> system (767)).

Exactly.

> Kirby


-

[WikiEducator] Re: Can Educators Learn?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 02:14, Phil Bartle  wrote:
>
> John raised the question:
> "But I have a question. And this is addressed not just to you, but to
> everyone. Why is it that educators -- the people whose job it is to teach
> students about new technology and concepts -- do not want to learn the
> technology themselves?

People are interested in learning things that will save them work,
make them money, improve outcomes, or give them enjoyment. Until
computers can be integrated into the curriculum, they do none of these
four things for most teachers. Solving this problem needs to address
several intertwined problems. Two of them stand out to me.

* the perverse incentives in education, such as teaching to the test

* the impossibility of integrating computers into the curriculum until
every student has one 24/7 for use in class and for homework

The second will be straightforward to address in the long run,
although quite difficult to explain to those who don't see the bigger
picture. We need digital replacements for textbooks, and we need a
known base of free software that every child will have so that we can
integrate that software into the learning materials and the
curriculum. Sugar and Free Software in general give us this base on
OLPC XOs and on other computers using Sugar on a Stick. A number of
organizations are interested in creating, testing, and refining the
new materials. Funding would help, as we discussed a few days ago.

The first can be tackled when computers start to be integrated into
education, and we find that we can teach most topics more deeply and
at earlier ages. Then we will have some space in which to explore
without testing pressure, until the tests start to catch up with
classroom practice. By then, we should have further advances that will
give us a different set of spaces to work in.

I do not have a solution to the political problems that currently
bedevil curriculum development, except to wait them out, and do as
much as we can on everything else. Some of those political forces,
such as Republican support for Creationism and against meaningful sex
education, are predicted to die out in 15-20 years due to demographic
shifts. I can give you the statistical basis for this prediction and a
number of instances where we see the effects now, in issues other than
classroom education.

The ultimate solution to the problem is this: Teachers who dreaded
having to learn and use OLPC XOs have become their strongest
advocates. The verdict is clear from multitudes of teachers in the
field: "I can teach now." Once this is experienced widely enough, the
education schools will teach the computers to students who grew up
with computers, and no new teacher from then on will have the current
problem.

> I am not taking a position on use, or ease of use, of technology, I am just
> curious why this attitude exists. Thoughts?
> Cheers,
> John"
>
> The old saying went:
> Them that can, do
> Them that can't, teach
> and them that can't teach, teach teachers
>
> I have been an educator al my life.
> In the widest sense of the word.
> When I turned forty, my magical ability to learn languages disappeared
> I have been steadily dropping in my learning abilities since I was three
> In the eighties my fellow social scientists thought I was some sort of
> a nerd (not a nice term then) because I was the only one of them with
> an apple two clone and modem and able to use the university computer
> from my home for grading, composing and so on.
> Now I find it hard to keep up with all these educators using wikis and
> other web .0 technology
> So I am now in my mid sixties, retired and disabled.
> Age might have something to do with it.
> Perhaps I should put this together into another rant. . . . .
> :-)
> Cheers,
> Phil
>
> If the coach does the pushups,
> The athlete will not get stronger
> Community Empowerment:
> www.scn.org/cmp/
> WikiEducator
> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Philbartle
> Join our discusssion forum
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Community_Strengthening
>
> >
>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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[WikiEducator] Re: I'm sorry, HOW much?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 17:10, Wayne Mackintosh
 wrote:
> Hi Edward,
>
> That's a very good example, and FLOSS Manuals is a great project.
>
> The OER Foundation is looking to develop the educational equivalent for open
> textbooks, study guides etc. A small commission from book sales and
> distribution - eg 10% which as a non profit, we reinvest back into paying
> authors to develop open texts in high priority areas.

Excellent. As I wrote earlier, Earth Treasury is looking for contracts
to develop digital replacements for paper textbooks, for our members
to write, and to bring in experts from all subject matter areas and
all of the countries concerned. You can read about the concept and our
partners on our Web site.

The OLPC XO, at its current price of $189 in quantity 10,000, is
already cheaper than textbooks in many countries, even before you
consider the millions of other books that become available at no cost
over the Internet. We have had credible assertions that a successor
laptop can be built to sell for $75, which will be cheaper than
printed books almost everywhere.

I have been costing out computers, electricity, and Internet for
worldwide rollout of XOs, and considering microfinance business
opportunities that result. Using Grameen Phone as a model, it appears
that the whole thing could be done at a profit, with sufficient seed
funding.

> Not unlike the Pediapress service for ordering bound book copies of user
> generated collections of WikiArticles. Incidently we use the same technology
> for our wiki ==> pdf collections and WE collaborated with WMF in developing
> this technology.

Have you looked at the new Booki technology in development for
creating books at Floss Manuals?

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer/the-adventures-of-tom-sawyer/edit/

> The OER Handbook developed in WikiEducator is also a good example. We
> developed this collaboratively in the wiki
> (http://wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook/educator_version_one ), and the text
> is available for purchase on Lulu
> (see: http://www.lulu.com/content/3597933 )
>
> However not fully automated yet -- there was some manual DTP work to produce
> this pdf example -- but no substantial reason why we couldn't automate this
> process with a little work.
>
> It would be great to provide tertiary education institutions, schools etc
> with their own customised open textbooks developed collaboratively in
> WikiEducator. These texts could use the institutional logo of the Univeristy
> / School for branding and a small commission of the print sales would come
> back to the OER Foundation to pay authors for developing OER.  In reality it
> would be cheaper to produce texts using industrial technologies than the
> comparable cost of printing out a text on a domestic printer.
>
> Classic win-win -- students will get cheaper text books, publishers can
> still earn a fair income for print-on-demand and distribution services and
> academics retain their rights to earn fair remuneration for their inputs.
>
> Now to make this happen :-)
>
> Cheers
> Wayne
>
> 2009/11/16 Edward Cherlin 
>>
>> California is certifying free digital textbooks, so here the original
>> source does not matter much.
>>
>> FLOSS Manuals and Earth Treasury have as part of their business models
>> looking for development contracts for Free Software manuals and Free
>> replacements for paper textbooks. I was paid to participate in the
>> book sprint for How to Bypass Internet Censorship, which was
>> commissioned by Sesawe.net, and has been translated into several of
>> the relevant languages, such as Farsi.
>>
>> http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/CircumventionTools/WebHome
>> https://sesawe.net/-Manuals-fa-.html
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 06:58, valerie  wrote:
>> >
>> > Sam got this right, especially in US education - Right now people
>> > "trust" the "brand" of MIT - the infallibility of anything that costs
>> > a lot of money and has a great PR department.
>> >
>> > Wikipedia, Connexions, MERLOT are free, so most of my colleagues are
>> > unwilling to consider these as academically rigorous. This is a
>> > surprisingly big hurdle to overcome. Students are having to drop out
>> > of school because everything is so expense - $100-150 textbooks,
>> > $30-50 course packs,  even though their tuition is essentially free -
>> > California community college s about $20 per unit.
>> >
>> > But like the man said - Times, they are a changin...
>> >
>> > ..Valerie
>> >
>> >
>> > On Nov 15, 6:20 am, Samuel Rose  wrote:
>> > >
>> >
>&g

[WikiEducator] Re: Collaborative Document sharing

[Edward Cherlin]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 22:36, 2web3  wrote:
>
> I have a somewhat generic question related to editors in general. I
> feel this discomfort with current state of document creation. Let me
> explain.

To summarize: The question is partly about how to create formatted
documents, and also partly about how to manage various aspects of
collaboration. In addition to the types of document creation and
repository software discussed below, there are applications in Google
Docs and in Sugar, the OLPC software, that allow multiple users to
edit a document at the same time. Each has a cursor at a separate
location, and each has control of keyboard, fonts, and styles at their
respective locations. Sugar also supports collaboration in art, music,
presentations, programming, and other functions.

FLOSS Manuals provides collaborative publishing applications on the
Web. I have taken part in several FM book sprints.

http://en.flossmanuals.net/write

> In the beginning there were just simple text editors. Then they got
> more sophisticated, visual, WYSIWYG, culminating with products such as
> MS Word and alike. This is all great, but the document is stored in
> individual files (silos) and is hard to share and collaborate with a
> team.

> Of course, you can send via e-mail, but then the proliferation
> of versions and comments makes this kind of collaboration difficult.

How much do you know about author and version tracking, commenting,
and merge capabilities in Word, Acrobat, and other software? I have
used them many times to send out a document for comments and integrate
the responses.

> Then came centralized systems such as SharePoint that allow to store
> the documents in one place, lock the document so that only one person
> can edit it. However this again is far from perfect: I cannot easily
> track the history, who did what, what has really changed. And I still
> cannot properly comment on the document. But is better than e-mail.

There are other document repositories that track version history. Some
of them provide understandable diffs. A few allow merges from more
than one source, in much the same way that branched program code trees
can be merged.

> Then wikis came along. They made a whole bunch of stuff easy
> (versioning with diff, easy access to information, search, permissions
> etc). But they lack several important features a modern editor has:
>  * They are not truly WYSIWYG. Any wiki is light-years behind Word
> from editing capabilities. This is a major impediment why wikis are
> not widely used in our organization.

An inherent limitation of HTML.

>  * They are not easy to work with in offline mode (when traveling on
> a plane)

So you need a checkout function?

>  * They generally rapidly degrade in performance as more users use a
> wiki installation

Wikipedia is a counterexample. I think the reality is that poorly
administered Wikis degrade in performance.

>  * It is not easy to just send a wiki "document" to somebody,
> especially to an external partner, when the wiki is on intranet. It
> has to be opened to external users, security policies need to be put
> in place etc. E-Mail is just light years easier in this respect.

There are Wiki extraction tools available that can take a list of
pages and create an archive that preserves links between pages that
are included. This is how Wikipedia subsets are created for inclusion
on OLPC school servers.

>  * Wikis, being web application, poorly support rich formatting that
> we've come to expect from a Word doc. I cannot easily take a wiki
> "document", print to PDF and send it to external partner - usually the
> document will not look professional. And to make it look professional
> in wiki will take way more time and resources than just to write it
> from scratch in Word.

Normally I would not put a Wiki meant for regular use into print, but
I can see how such a use can be organized. I have a similar issue with
text files provided by engineers and other Subject-Matter Experts.
Usually the first task is to remove all manual formatting and
substitute tables and styles.

> So here's my dilemma... Can anybody help me point out to a solution?
> Or if you experience the same issue - share your feelings as well, let
> me know that I'm not suffering alone.

We face a new issue on top of these. What are the effective methods of
presenting learning materials in software rather than in linear text
or hypertext?

> >
>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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[WikiEducator] Re: Knowledge as a Public Good

[Edward Cherlin]

Thank you. I have been wishing for that kind of work, but haven't
known where to look. I'm moving to Indiana soon, so I will see whether
I can meet with Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom at IU. I have been
considering the economics of Free Software, Creative Commons content,
and universal Internet access in the One Laptop Per Child program. I
knew already that it would result in tens of trillions of dollars in
economic growth, and would be a force toward really free markets (as
opposed to the current Voodoo Economic theory of markets that are free
for corporations but not for people). This paper also points out
Ostrom's work on the positive impact of community-wide communications
in effective regulation of Public Goods. OLPC goes further, not only
providing the means for students to communicate, but inculcating the
habits and methods of effective collaboration in Sugar software.

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 01:27, john stampe  wrote:
> Hi, all
>
> With all the recent discussions on this list, I thought some of you may be
> interested in this month's SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN):
> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/11-02-09.htm. While some of it
> is specific to open access, its generally theme is "Knowledge as a Public
> Good" with some good comments and analogies.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> John
>
>
>
> http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS
> http://johnsearth.blogspot.com
>
> >
>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/

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