The document discusses the Connexions open educational resource platform and its goals of creating educational content that can be accessed globally and customized locally based on learner needs. It provides statistics on the growth of Connexions, including the number of educational modules created and countries accessing the content. Features of Connexions are described like its open licensing model, translation into multiple languages, and accessibility features for visually impaired learners.
19. Impact and Visibility Outstanding “Google karma” and over 1 million visits each month …
20. Over 750 different collections (textbooks, courses, reports, manuals) in Connexions + Chemistry, Electronics, Ethics, Physics, LabVIEW, Art History, Galileo, World History... Existing Content
38. Lenses social software for peer review scalable and distributed California Community Colleges Washington Community Colleges Ohio Community Colleges
74. Connexions www.cnx.org Joel Thierstein [email_address] Kathi Fletcher [email_address] Supported by the Hewlett Foundation Maxfield Foundation
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Editor's Notes
Content Organization Modular, Reusable Basic unit of content is a module -- small “chunks” of knowledge, addressing one topic or a single aspect of a complex topic Sounds, movies, animations, images, equations, and more can be included in modules Multiple modules can be organized into a course or textbook Combine modules from different authors to build a course or collection to fit your needs
Imagine you could do this. Then engineering professors from around the world could create a community to write a massive “supertextbook” for their field and is completely up to date and can be shared across their various institutions
MARTHA
[GET HITS] Kitty Jones, a private music teacher and mom in IL who wanted to share her lessons with others and now receives over xxx. Large percentage of the hits are from US K-12 school divisions since MUSIC is the first thing that’s cut back in any budget tightening Each of you received a copy of one of her “books” in your Gift Bag – more on that later.
Kitty Jones, a private music teacher and mom in IL – ONE OF THE “SHUT OUTS” - WANTED to share her lessons with others. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS ARE USING HER MATERIALS IN FACT, A Large percentage of the hits are from US K-12 school divisions since MUSIC is the first thing that’s eliminated WHEN SCHOOL DIVISIONS CUT THEIR BUDGETS Each of you received a copy of one of her “books” in your Gift Bag – more on that later.
An open textbook collaboration between CCCOER and Connexions (http://cnx.org), Collaborative Statistics , is now freely available online on the Connexions website (http://cnx.org/content/col10522/latest/). Collaborative Statistics is also available at low cost in a print (bound) version, shipped from print-on-demand vendor (and Connexions partner) QOOP Inc. (http://www.sqoop.com/corp_libraries/CNX/collaborativeStatistics.php). De Anza College professor, Illowsky and recently retired De Anza College mathematics professor, Dean were motivated to make their Collaborative Statistics textbook available via an open license in Connexions in order to lower textbook costs for students, and provide more instructional options for teachers. Already, nearly a dozen instructors at community college campuses in California have selected the Collaborative Statistics textbook for their statistics courses this fall. The anticipated enrollment in these courses is more than 700 students. Additional university faculty in New Mexico and New York plan to customize and/or adopt the textbook for Spring 2009 courses. Also, several faculty have already volunteered to contribute additional content for the Collaborative Statistics textbook (e.g., Minitab instructions and homework problem sets); the latter will be edited for inclusion by the Collaborative Statistics textbook authors, Illowsky and Dean. An open statistics course developed by Illowsky and Dean, freely available from Sofia (http://sofia.fhda.edu/gallery/statistics/index.html) is closely aligned with the Collaborative Statistics textbook. The open statistics course at Sofia includes lesson plans, videotaped lectures, suggested homework, quizzes, and exams.
Lenses are owned by organizations like TED, professional societies, publishers, even individuals. Each lens focuses on the part of the KC deemed “high quality”. Let’s EVERYONE become an editor and reviewer. WILL SEE INCREASING USE OF SOCIAL SOFTWARE, EVEN IN ACADEMICS, BECAUSE… Traditional peer review process is broken – will be replaced by “reputation” systems like this, social software, post-publication peer review
MODULAR CONTENT Our key tech challenge is how to make content not just USABLE by people but also REUSABLE – remember the DJ. There’s all kind of software we’ve had to develop, and others, all open source. But the most important decision we ever made was to go from day 1 with XML. XML is the heart of the “semantic web”, and is the future of the WWW. You can think of it as the bumps on the lego blocks that let’s them connect together in myriad different ways It let’s you…
MODULAR CONTENT Our key tech challenge is how to make content not just USABLE by people but also REUSABLE – remember the DJ. There’s all kind of software we’ve had to develop, and others, all open source. But the most important decision we ever made was to go from day 1 with XML. XML is the heart of the “semantic web”, and is the future of the WWW. You can think of it as the bumps on the lego blocks that let’s them connect together in myriad different ways It let’s you…
Chemistry markup that understands chemical formulai and structures Music XML that understands music notation and can be XXXXX
Chemistry markup that understands chemical formulai and structures Music XML that understands music notation and can be XXXXX
That can be translated into spanish by a team of volunteer graduate students from El Paso and used the next week by thouands throughout latin america
That can be translated by both companies and by volunteers into chinese, japanese, and thai to enable true world wide use of the materials
But this is NOT JUST ABOUT DIGITIZING CONTENT. We must not forget the PEOPLE aspects – have to allow people everywhere to CREATE, CUSTOMIZE content. PEOPLE HAVE TO FEEL OWNERSHIP OVER THE MATERIAL. We FLATENING THE PLAYING FIELD connect people in a grassroots-organized communities Inclusive; anyone can contribute… no “shutouts”
Thanks – it’s great to be here – this has been a great conference. Let me start with a couple questions: Has anyone here learned anything new? Met someone new? Been inspired? How many of you would recommend this to a friend? How about 6 billion friends? What I’d like to talk about today is a big deam – a dream of scaling up this extraordinary TED experience from the 800 of us to the entire world. (There are 800 of you here today; what if we could scale this up to 800M or a few billion and make this incredible TED experience accessible to EVERYONE?)
This book might LOOK like a regular book, but it’s much more powerful: it started as a primordial soup of 100 lego blocks and was assembled… assembled from legos that could be contributed by folks around the world, … Concept of an “edition” is going to go away; it you printed this tomorrow it would be updated And cost? $22 not $122. Boon to community college students who spend more on BOOKS per semester than TUITION. In fact, we’ve already developing a print system that can generate from web materials a professional print book and push that out to Amazon to sell to the public HOLD UP ENGINEERING BOOK – this engineering book was automatically generated from a sequence of XML modules and sells for $22. that includes profit for the publisher, QOOP in this case. This is not $122. JK: Say that we are working with QOOP -- I would call them a press, not a publisher. We are finalizing the contract, which we anticipate signing within the next 90 days. Talking about their profit is fine, especially if you make the press distinction. Does that answer your question? Thus, impending “cutting out of the middleman” that’s coming for the publishing industry
BURN IS THE PROCESS OF CREATING A PHYSICAL PRODUCT from Connexions, like a paper textbook. We can EVEN PUSH IT OUT ONTO AMAZON TO MAKE MORE AVAILABLE. BUT WHILE THESE LOOK LIKE A BOOK, THEY’RE SO MUCH MORE, BECAUSE THEY are modular, can be continuously updated, and are not published until they are ordered (publish on demand). There is a crisis now in textbooks worldwide, with them becoming increasingly expensive. Connexions in constrast can provide books for considerablly less FOR EXAMPLE – a 300 PAGE ENGINEERING BOOK WAS PULLED TOGETHER AUTOMATICALLY, PRINTED BY QOOP PRESS, AND COSTS ABOUT $25, NOT $125.
And since we don’t truly UNDERSTAND until we DO, … And interactivity thanks to XML xxx like MathML so that every mathematics formula becomes an interactive experience students can tinker with
That can feature interactivity not possible with a static paper textbook (Get companies involved to contribute their best materials?)
Thanks – it’s great to be here – this has been a great conference. Let me start with a couple questions: Has anyone here learned anything new? Met someone new? Been inspired? How many of you would recommend this to a friend? How about 6 billion friends? What I’d like to talk about today is a big deam – a dream of scaling up this extraordinary TED experience from the 800 of us to the entire world. (There are 800 of you here today; what if we could scale this up to 800M or a few billion and make this incredible TED experience accessible to EVERYONE?)