Wiki.NetGeners.Net - New pages [en]

WP5 openSE learner support framework

OlivierRicou — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:27:46 GMT

Summary: /* Documents */

=== Aim ===
To provide a comprehensive learner support framework for formally enrolled students, fellow students and free
learners outside of formal education.

=== Documents ===

LearnerSupport.odt

WP2 openSE organizational framework

OlivierRicou — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:25:40 GMT

Summary: New page: === Aims === To develop the openSE organizational framework === Documents === * [http://www.netgeners.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=93&Itemid=29 A hybrid Orga...

=== Aims ===

To develop the openSE organizational framework

=== Documents ===

* [http://www.netgeners.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=93&Itemid=29 A hybrid Organizational Framework for Open Course Design] by [[User:Andreasmeiszner]]
** Read it online: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/26371615/A-hybrid-Organizational-Framework-for-Open-Course-Design-version-for-openSE-project]
** See slideshow: [http://www.slideshare.net/andreasmeiszner/a-hybrid-organizational-framework-for-open-course-design-version-for-opense-project]

WP3 openSE content framework

OlivierRicou — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:23:03 GMT

Summary:

=== Aim ===

To provide a comprehensive framework of instructional and learning materials for SE students, including
currently used content of the SE courses (usually in the partners respective languages), contents provided by
open source projects / enterprises in this field and the contents made available by FTA.

=== Documents ===

* [http://lists.libresoft.es/pipermail/opense-partners/attachments/20100122/da28daac/attachment-0001.odt Deliverable 3.1 Work Package 3] by [[User:Wtebbens]]

Oxford Agenda

OlivierRicou — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:26:22 GMT

Summary: New page: ===Wednesday 3rd of February=== * 19.00 Meeting at hotel lobby & informal dinner ===Thursday 4th of February – Day 1 of 2nd meeting=== * 9.00 – 9.15: Welcome to all Participants and P...

===Wednesday 3rd of February===
* 19.00 Meeting at hotel lobby & informal dinner

===Thursday 4th of February – Day 1 of 2nd meeting===
* 9.00 – 9.15: Welcome to all Participants and Project Overview (SPI)
** Agenda presentation for the 2 days
** Milestones & Deliverables
*9.15 – 10.30 openSE organizational framework (SPI)
** Presentation of framework by course view, openSE platform view, open source project view
*10.30 – 10.45: Break
*10.45 – 12.30: openSE environment I (URJC / all)
** Presentation
** Hands on session & evaluation
** Identification of needs for improvement and how to embed courses, content and support into it
*12.30 – 14.00: Lunch
*14.00 – 16.00: openSE content framework (FKI)
** Presentation of framework developed
** Discussion and consensus on objectives
*16.00 – 16.15: Break
*16.15 – 18.00: openSE environment II (all)
** Agreement on rollout plan & roadmap – who, when, with which resources & contents, targeted open source projects, certification options, etc.
*18.00 – 20.00: Leisure Time
*20.00: Dinner

===Friday 5th of February - Day 2 of 2nd meeting===
*9.00 – 9.15: Review of Day 1 and Agenda for the Day
*9.15 – 10.45 Support framework (Oxford)
**Presentation
**Overall discussion
*10.45 – 11.00: Break
*11.00 – 12.30 Piloting Phase(s) (AUTH/SPI)
**Agreement on pilots per partner & timing
*12.30 – 14.00: Lunch
*14.00 – 15.00: Dissemination Strategy (SPI)
*15.00 – 16.00: Quality Assurance framework (MERIT)
*16.00 – 16.15: Break
*16.15 – 16.45: Administrative aspects & Consortium Agreement (SPI)
*16.45 – 18.00: Next Steps and Closing Comments
*18.00 – 20.00: Leisure Time (optional)
*20.00: Dinner (optional)

Oxford meeting

OlivierRicou — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:23:30 GMT

Summary: New page: * [[Oxford Agenda]]

* [[Oxford Agenda]]

Members of OpenSE

OlivierRicou — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:20:37 GMT

Summary:

* [[User:OlivierRicou]], EPITA
* [[User:Andreasmeiszner]], SPI / The OU / UNU-MERIT
* [[User:Wtebbens]], [http://freeknowledge.eu/ FKI] / [http://ftacademy.org/ FTA]
* [[User:Akritko]], AUTH
* [[User:Econst]], AUTH
* [[User:PatrickMcAndrew]], The Open University (UK)
* [[User:Josecarvalho]], SPI

OpenSE Project

Andreasmeiszner — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:13:51 GMT

Summary: Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/OlivierRicou|OlivierRicou]] ([[User talk:OlivierRicou|Talk]]); changed back to last version by [[User:Andreasmeiszner|Andreasmeiszner]]

'''The openSE project: an open educational framework for computer science Software Engineering'''

* [[Members of OpenSE]]
* [http://lists.libresoft.es/pipermail/opense-partners Mailing list archive]
* [[Madrid meeting]]
* [[Oxford meeting]]

Documents:

* [http://www.netgeners.net/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=93&Itemid=29 A hybrid Organizational Framework for Open Course Design] by [[User:Andreasmeiszner]]

Read it online: http://www.scribd.com/doc/26371615/A-hybrid-Organizational-Framework-for-Open-Course-Design-version-for-openSE-project

See slideshow: http://www.slideshare.net/andreasmeiszner/a-hybrid-organizational-framework-for-open-course-design-version-for-opense-project

* [http://lists.libresoft.es/pipermail/opense-partners/attachments/20100122/da28daac/attachment-0001.odt Deliverable 3.1 Work Package 3] by [[User:Wtebbens]]

Web Services

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:00:52 GMT

Summary: New page: Relates to learning project: http://www.netgeners.net/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=31&Itemid=37 = Introduction = ''During my undergraduate thesis I study one issue t...

Relates to learning project: http://www.netgeners.net/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=31&Itemid=37

= Introduction =

''During my undergraduate thesis I study one issue that is highly appraised    nowadays, the web services and the java APIS that can implement them. The web services, are, like their name implies, services implemented using web technologies .Web services are for example simple currency transformation, weather forecast,retrieving a stock quote, finding the best price for a particular product on the net, saving a new meeting to a calendar, translating a passage of text to another language, or validating a credit card number.''

''The main purpose of this document is not only to serve as an introduction to web services by itself, but to also  share information and sources of information with all netgeeners participants, in order to build a comprehensive and well-digested introductory documentation concerning Web Services. Towards this goal, I would appreciate any remarks, comments, fixes and additions from the netgeners community, in order to improve and give others the opportunity to both learn and teach on principles, concepts, methods, usage  and implementation of Web Services.  ''

''So let me first begin by pointing out some basic things about web services..''

= What are Web services? =

A ''Web service'' is simply an application that exposes a function that is accessible using standard Web technology and that adheres to Web services standards, methods and protocols. There is nothing really revolutionary or exceptional about Web Services, other than the stunningly simple and concise realization of data interchange through Web standards and technologies. We will develop the issue of these standards and technologies in the next chapters.

== The basics ==
The principles behind web services are stunningly simple, and are nothing new in the world of distributed computing and the Internet:

* the web service provider defines a format for requests for its service and the response the service will generate
* a computer makes a request for the web services across the network
* the web service performs some action, and sends the response back
* The reason an application architect, designer and developer should be interested in the web services model is the incorporation of standard, open protocols both to the invocation of remote service methods as well to the transmission of application data.

= What about the technologies? =

 The fundamental technologies that comprise the foundation of Web services platforms are SOAP, WSDL and UDDI.

 Let us first begin with SOAP, the Simple Object Access Protocol.

 '''''SOAP'''''

 Like every other distributed computing platform, the web services platform has settled on a standard, well-known protocol for '''communication '''between '''distributed '''components of a system. For example for CORBA, the protocol was IIOP for RMI, first JRMP and later IIOP; in Microsoft environments, DCOM. SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol.

 '''''WSDL'''''

WSDL stands for Web Services Description Language and like the name implies it is used to facilitate the discovery of web services on a service provider, the declaration of the interface to these services, and the declarations of data types employed in the invocation of the service and the exchange of parameters and results. WSDL roughly answers these questions :

Once a service is discovered

·         How does a service consumer know what the service offers?

·         How does the service consumer know how to invoke the service?

·         How can the service consumer differentiate between similar services offered by different service providers?

'''''UDDI'''''

A UDDI registry contains information about businesses and the services they offer. UDDI also contains references to industry-specific specifications a service may support, such as taxonomies and identification systems. Consumers of services can search a registry for businesses, services, or service types, either programmatically or using a Web-based interface. A UDDI business registry uses standard industry taxonomies or classification schemes, such as D-U-N-S, SIC codes, and others, to categorize businesses and the services they offer. All APIs within the UDDI specification use XML, are wrapped in a SOAP envelope, and use HTTP as the transport.

 

= What About the java APIS? =

 

In this paragraph I only make a very short introduction of the JAVA APIS that are the foundation of web services within Java. These are the following

 

 

JAXP

 

As the name implies, the Java API for XML Processing (JAXP) is an API provided by Sun designed to help you write programs for processing XML documents.

 

''JAX-RPC''

JAX-RPC is aimed at making it easier for applications or Web services to call other applications or Web services.

''JAXM''

The Java API for XML Messaging enables applications to send and receive document-oriented XML messages

''JAXR''

 The Java API for XML Registries provides a uniform and standard Java API for accessing XML-based registries and repositories. An XML registry is an enabling infrastructure for building, deploying, and discovering Web services.

''JAXB''

The Java Architecture for XML Binding provides an API and tools that automate the mapping between XML documents and Java objects.

= Conclusion =

These were some elementary aspects of the basics of web services

In the next chapter we will  add  extra information concerning the Java APIS, description of the technologies that web service use, the service orientated architecture so  If you have any additional ideas any suggestions are welcoming. I am looking forward  to your remarks!

 

= Bibliography =

 

[http://www.alistapart.com/articles/webservices http://www.alistapart.com/articles/webservices]

Morgan Kaufmann - Java Web Services Architecture

 

Software Engineering Resource Wiki

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:51:37 GMT

Summary: New page: At this Software Engineering Resource Wiki you can add whatever materials you think would be of use for others! Just add your stuff below: 1. [[Web Services]] - by IOVI

At this Software Engineering Resource Wiki you can add whatever materials you think would be of use for others!

Just add your stuff below:

1. [[Web Services]] - by IOVI

BugTesting@Mozilla: BugTesting@Mozilla

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:44:35 GMT

Summary:

Sample project working space

'''Software Requirements Specification for <Project xxx>'''

Requirements for Version xxx

Prepared by <Your Name>

<Τεχνολογία Λογισμικού, ΑΠΘ>

<date created>

= Introduction =
== Purpose ==
''<nowiki><Identify the software product whose software requirements are specified in this document, including the revision or release number. Describe the scope of the software ></nowiki>''

== Document Conventions ==
''<nowiki><Describe any steps that were followed when writing the requirements. For example, state whether priorities for higher-level requirements are assumed to be inherited by detailed requirements, or whether every requirement statement is to have its own priority.></nowiki>''

== Intended Audience and Reading Suggestions ==
''<nowiki><Describe the different types of </nowiki>'''reader that the document is intended for''', such as developers, project managers, marketing staff, users, testers, and documentation writers. Describe what the rest of this requirement document contains and how it is organized. Suggest a sequence for reading the document, beginning with the overview sections and proceeding through the sections that are most pertinent to each reader type.>''

== Project Scope ==
''<nowiki><Provide a short description of the software/project being specified and its purpose, including relevant benefits, objectives, goals, and </nowiki>'''screenshots'''. ''

'''''NB: '''If a separate vision and scope document is available, refer to it rather than duplicating its contents here.>''

== References ==
''<nowiki><List any other documents or Web addresses, blogs, or discussions with the project’s participants to which this requirements refers. Provide enough information so that the reader could access a copy of each reference, including title, author, version number, date, and source or location.></nowiki>''

= Overall Description =
== Product Perspective ==
''<nowiki><Describe the context and origin of the product/software being specified in this document. For example, state whether this product/software is similar to other software in the same category. For example if you software is in the Games category, is there another project similar to the one whose requirements you are writing? </nowiki>If the software depends on other software to function or run, state them.''

''Provide a simple diagram or flowchart that shows the major components of the overall system, subsystem interconnections, and external interfaces can be helpful.>''

== Product Features ==
''<nowiki><Summarize the major features the product/software contains or the significant functions that it performs or lets the user perform. Details will be provided in Section 3, so only a high level summary is needed here. Organize the functions to make them understandable to any reader of the software. A picture of the major groups of related requirements and how they relate, such as a top level data flow diagram or a class diagram, is often effective.></nowiki>''

== User Classes and Characteristics ==
''<nowiki><Identify the various user classes that you anticipate will use this product. User classes may be differentiated based on frequency of use, subset of product functions used, technical expertise, security or privilege levels, educational level, or experience. </nowiki>'''You may find these classes grouped according to the mailing lists or forums in the project. '''Describe the pertinent characteristics of each user class. Certain requirements may pertain only to certain user classes. Distinguish the favored user classes from those who are less important to satisfy. For example, is this software more important for developers than ordinary users such as students?>''

== Operating Environment ==
''<nowiki><Describe the environment in which the software will operate, including the hardware platform, operating system and versions, and any other software components or applications with which it must peacefully coexist.</nowiki>''''' These are often listed in the sourceforge.net website'''''>''

== Design and Implementation Constraints ==
''<nowiki><Describe any items or issues that will limit the options available to the developers. These might include: corporate or regulatory policies; hardware limitations (timing requirements, memory requirements); interfaces to other applications; specific technologies, tools, and databases to be used; parallel operations; language requirements; communications protocols; security considerations; design conventions or programming standards (for example, if the customer’s organization will be responsible for maintaining the delivered software).></nowiki>''

== User Documentation ==
''<nowiki><List the user documentation components (such as user manuals, on-line help, and tutorials) that will be delivered along with the software. Identify any known user documentation delivery formats or standards.></nowiki>''

== Assumptions and Dependencies ==
''<nowiki><List any assumed factors (as opposed to known facts) that could affect the requirements stated in your requirement document. These could include third-party or commercial components that the software plan to use, issues around the development or operating environment, or constraints. The project could be affected if these assumptions are incorrect, are not shared, or change. </nowiki>''

= System Features =
''<nowiki><This template illustrates organizing the functional requirements for the product by system features, the major services provided by the product. You may prefer to organize this section by </nowiki>'''use case''', mode of operation''', user class''', '''object class''', '''functional hierarchy''', or combinations of these, whatever makes the most logical sense for your product.>''

== System Feature 1 ==
''<nowiki><State the feature name in just a few words.></nowiki>''

3.1.1Description and Priority

''<nowiki><Provide a short description of the feature and indicate whether it is of High, Medium, or Low priority. You could also include specific priority component ratings, such as benefit, penalty, cost, and risk (each rated on a relative scale from a low of 1 to a high of 9).></nowiki>''

3.1.2Stimulus/Response Sequences

''<nowiki><List the sequences of user actions and system responses that stimulate the behavior defined for this feature. These will correspond to the dialog elements associated with use cases.></nowiki>''

3.1.3Functional Requirements

''<nowiki><Itemize the detailed functional requirements associated with this feature. These are the software capabilities that must be present in order for the user to carry out the services provided by the feature, or to execute the use case. Include how the product should respond to anticipated error conditions or invalid inputs. Requirements should be concise, complete, unambiguous, verifiable, and necessary. Use “TBD” as a placeholder to indicate when necessary information is not yet available.></nowiki>''

''<nowiki><Each requirement should be uniquely identified with a sequence number or a meaningful tag of some kind.></nowiki>''

REQ-1:

REQ-2:

== System Feature 2 (and so on) ==
= External Interface Requirements =
== User Interfaces ==
''<nowiki><Describe the logical characteristics of each interface between the software product and the users. This may include sample screen images, any GUI standards or product family style guides that are to be followed, screen layout constraints, standard buttons and functions (e.g., help) that will appear on every screen, keyboard shortcuts, error message display standards, and so on. Define </nowiki>the software components for which a user interface is needed. Details of the user interface design should be documented in a separate user interface specification.>''

== Hardware Interfaces ==
''<nowiki><Describe the logical and physical characteristics of each interface between the software product and the hardware components of the system. This may include the supported device types, the nature of the data and control interactions between the software and the hardware, and communication protocols to be used.></nowiki>''

== Software Interfaces ==
''<nowiki><Describe the connections between this product and other specific software components (name and version), including databases, operating systems, tools, libraries, and integrated commercial components. Identify the data items or messages coming into the system and going out and describe the purpose of each. Describe the services needed and the nature of communications. Refer to documents that describe detailed application programming interface protocols. Identify data that will be shared across software components. If the data sharing mechanism must be implemented in a specific way (for example, use of a global data area in a multitasking operating system), specify this as an implementation constraint.></nowiki>''

== Communications Interfaces ==
''<nowiki><Describe the requirements associated with any communications functions required by this product, including e-mail, web browser, network server communications protocols, electronic forms, and so on. Define any pertinent message formatting. Identify any communication standards that will be used, such as FTP or HTTP. Specify any communication security or encryption issues, data transfer rates, and synchronization mechanisms.></nowiki>''

= Other Nonfunctional Requirements =
== Performance Requirements ==
''<nowiki><If there are performance requirements for the product under various circumstances, state them here and explain their rationale, to help the developers understand the intent and make suitable design choices. Specify the timing relationships for real time systems. Make such requirements as specific as possible. You may need to state performance requirements for individual functional requirements or features.></nowiki>''

== Safety Requirements ==
''<nowiki><Specify those requirements that are concerned with possible loss, damage, or harm that could result from the use of the product. Define any safeguards or actions that must be taken, as well as actions that must be prevented. Refer to any external policies or regulations that state safety issues that affect the product’s design or use. Define any safety certifications that must be satisfied.></nowiki>''

== Security Requirements ==
''<nowiki><Specify any requirements regarding security or privacy issues surrounding use of the product or protection of the data used or created by the product. Define any user identity authentication requirements. Refer to any external policies or regulations containing security issues that affect the product. Define any security or privacy certifications that must be satisfied.></nowiki>''

== Software Quality Attributes (May not be required) ==
''<nowiki><Specify any additional quality characteristics for the product that will be important to either the customers or the developers. Some to consider are: adaptability, availability, correctness, flexibility, interoperability, maintainability, portability, reliability, reusability, robustness, testability, and usability. Write these to be specific, quantitative, and verifiable when possible. At the least, clarify the relative preferences for various attributes, such as ease of use over ease of learning.></nowiki>''

== Other Requirements (May not be required) ==
''<nowiki><Define any other requirements not covered elsewhere in the SRS. This might include database requirements, internationalization requirements, legal requirements, reuse objectives for the project, and so on. Add any new sections that are pertinent to the project.></nowiki>''

'''Appendix A: Glossary (may not be required)'''

''<nowiki><Define all the terms necessary to properly interpret the SRS, including acronyms and abbreviations. You may wish to build a separate glossary that spans multiple projects or the entire organization, and just include terms specific to a single project in each SRS.></nowiki>''

'''Appendix B: Analysis Models (may not be required)'''

''<nowiki><Optionally, include any pertinent analysis models, such as data flow diagrams, class diagrams, state-transition diagrams, or entity-relationship diagrams</nowiki>''.>

'''Appendix C: Issues List (may not be required)'''

''<nowiki>< This is a dynamic list of the open requirements issues that remain to be resolved, including TBDs, pending decisions, information that is needed, conflicts awaiting resolution, and the like.></nowiki>''

Testing of F/OSS projects Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:35:35 GMT

Summary:

Managed by the team of Aristotle University - Please add your learning project here and create a new working page for it!

Please also be invited to check and contribute to the [[Software Engineering Resource Wiki]]

=== Project name ===
[[Our project: NAME]]

=== Project name ===
[[Our project: NAME]]

=== Project name ===
[[Our project: NAME]]

Requirements Analysis of F/OSS projects Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:35:21 GMT

Summary:

Managed by the team of Aristotle University - Please add your learning project here and create a new working page for it!

Please also be invited to check and contribute to the [[Software Engineering Resource Wiki]]

=== Project name ===
[[BugTesting@Mozilla: BugTesting@Mozilla]] - Sample project with template structure

=== Project name ===
[[Our project: NAME]]

=== Project name ===
[[Our project: NAME]]

Extending F/OSS projects Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:35:09 GMT

Summary:

Future of Education Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:28:55 GMT

Summary:

=== openSE proposal ===

[[openSE project outline]]

=== Lessons learnt from the first round of the NetGeners.Net pilot and general reflections ===

This section is aimed to presents some lessons learnt from the first round of the NetGeners.Net pilot and general reflections that might help us to approximate towards [[The future of Free / Open Education - Part 1]]

=== The Free / Open University of the South East Globe – vision or reality in 2018? ===

Decide yourself and help improving the initial outline of the [[Free / Open University of the South East Globe – vision or reality in 2018?]]

Legal Aspects Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:27:36 GMT

Summary: New page: === Copyleft vs. Copyright === This learning project will explore the origins of copyright, its benefits and its transformation towards copyleft as the result of a new Internet philosophy...

=== Copyleft vs. Copyright ===
This learning project will explore the origins of copyright, its benefits and its transformation towards copyleft as the result of a new Internet philosophy. Visit the wiki space for the [http://copyleftvscopyright.pbwiki.com Copyleft vs. Copyright learning project]

[[Our project: NAME]]

Soft Skills Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:24:34 GMT

Summary:

=== El impacto del FUD en la libre elección de l@s usuari@s ===
[[El impacto del FUD en la libre elección de l@s usuari@s]]

=== Ética, tecnología y libre elección: abordando debates en red ===
[[Ética, tecnología y libre elección: abordando debates en red]]

[[Our project: NAME]]

Tools Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:19:48 GMT

Summary:

=== Talking with Google - a 101 ===

At this learning project we will carry out some Google searches using different search techniques - more at: [[Talking with Google - a 101]]

[[Our project: NAME]

People and Communities Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:18:04 GMT

Summary:

=== Different ways to disseminate information ===
This project will try to explain the different ways that people use to disseminate information trough the web. Please see also the learning project's external workspace at: [http://dwtdi.wikidot.com Different ways to disseminate information]

[[Our project: NAME]]

[[Our project: NAME]]

Content Directory

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:15:33 GMT

Summary:

[[Forums – a bless to make (learning) processes visible!?!]]

[[Our project: NAME]]

NetGeners.Net Design

Andreasmeiszner — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:56:57 GMT

Summary: New page: <center>'''Using Meta-Design and Courses as Seeds (SER) for the development of an Open Participatory Learning Ecosystem within the field of ICT literacy: The NetGeners.Net experience'''</c...

<center>'''Using Meta-Design and Courses as Seeds (SER) for the development of an Open Participatory Learning Ecosystem within the field of ICT literacy: The NetGeners.Net experience'''</center>

= Introduction =

This pilot is inspired by the Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) move, and also success cases like Wikipedia, and tries to apply some of the underlying principles in the light of open education.

Brown and Adler describe at ‘Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0’ ([http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=Brown_and_Adler Brown and Adler], 2008) the importance of social learning and the emergence of Open Participatory Learning Ecosystems (OPLE) to support social learning styles. Following their description OPLE consist of lightweight, bottom-up, emergent socio-technical structures with a shifted focus from the content of a subject to the learning activities and human interactions around which that content is situated. Within the concept of social learning they further explain the effectiveness of learning groups, learners taking on different roles like e.g. teacher, the importance of not only ‘learning about’ the subject matter but also ‘learning to be’ a full participant in the field, and how to acquire those skills through practice, plus gaining soft skills on the fly as part of the learning activities.

As an example Brown and Adler point to FLOSS communities and also Wikipedia, which are showing how (learning) processes and products (e.g. content) which are both equally visible enable a new kind of critical reading that they describe as almost a new form of literacy, which invites the reader to join in the consideration of what information is reliable and/or important.

Equally inspired by the FLOSS move, Gerhard Fischer and his team at the [http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/index.html Center for LifeLong Learning Design] developed the [http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=Meta-Design_and_Courses_as_Seeds Meta-Design and Courses as Seeds] (SER) approaches for the design and growing of courses that follow some of the FLOSS principles and is based on the notion of the collaborative power of the internet (technical component) and a general increasing digital literacy of learners and their potential to act as co-designer in a collaborate manner together with their peers by engaging in personal meaningful tasks (social component).

Both approaches aim at providing practical solutions to the changing educational demands. They recognize the need of lifelong learning and the role and value that ICT and the internet can add to education. They further recognize that citizens in the information age need an enlarged set of skills beyond the ones traditionally taught at school, like writing, reading and mathematics. Those new skills include internet literacy, critical and analytical thinking, self-learning abilities, to cope with ill structured problems in complex (virtual) environments that involve heterogeneous teams (Fischer 2006). Additionally both, Meta-Design and SER, recognize the importance of active users, user involvement and user as contributor.

Therefore the Meta-Design and Courses as Seeds (SER) approaches are – theoretically –well suited for the design and nursing of an Open Participatory Learning Ecosystems as envisioned by Brown and Adler.

The NetGeners.Net pilot is an attempt to ‘Brew a perfect storm’ (Brown 2007) using Meta-Design and Courses as Seeds (SER) for the design and nursing to create an OPLE.

= Design =

The NetGeners.Net pilot (course) has been designed following the Meta-Design and Courses as Seeds (SER) approach, but taking into account further FLOSS particularities, namely Forges and Modularity

The NetGeners.Net main site was designed on the principle of [http://sourceforge.net/ Sourceforge], providing learners on the one hand with a basic “on-board” set of communication and collaboration tools (Blog, Chat, Forum and Wiki) and on the other hand providing a personal space and a space for personal learning projects, including rating and commenting systems as e.g. provided by [http://www.amazon.com/ Amazon].

Many popular FLOSS projects, such as [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox Firefox], [http://www.joomla.org/ Joomla] or [http://www.phpbb.com/ phpbb], consists of a “core product” that can be relatively easy enhanced by modules (also known as extensions or add-ons). Since developing a module is far less complex and demanding than developing entire FLOSS systems it enables participants with fewer skills, or fewer time, to participate at a lower entry burden.

Analogue to this the NetGeners.Net pilot established the concept of small learning projects. NetGeners.Net is supposed to be ONE course on ICT literacy, which consists of SEVERAL small learning projects that EACH addresses a particular field of ICT literacy. The concept of learning projects also followed the Courses as Seeds (SER) objective of:

* Creating a culture of collective inquiry where
* Learner take an active role in their own learning process that is
* Embedded in collaborative activities and
* Supported by innovative technologies
* With learners adapting a mindset that understands that initial plans must not correspond to final outcomes and that they are
* Prepared for interpreting unexpected results, and
* Where discussions and decisions are captured and therefore
* Become artifacts that help future students in their learning process and
* Create an environment of current improvement and building upon what others built

Using the concept of learning projects should allow learners to engage in areas of their personal interest together with other learners as a group work, to contribute to the overall course development by developing one part of the course (their learning project)

Applying the concept of learning projects within a forge environment – theoretically – bridges the gap between ‘static’ content on the one hand and a (learning) community on the other hand, approximating to an open participatory learning ecosystem as it can be found within FLOSS. This is not only a fundamental difference to traditional course design, but also the currently visible Open Educational Resource (OER) move, since this approach does not provide the learner with a finished set of expert developed ‘static’ content to be consumed, but instead demands the learner to ‘learn to be’ a full participant in the respective field, and to acquire those skills through practice, with gaining soft skills on the fly.

Another aspect taken into account for the concept of learning projects relates to the engagement with content. Though RSS allows personalized content delivery, the FLOSS case shows that content is often taken forward and backward, contextualized, adapted, translated, re-mixed, embedded into processes or feed into new products by individuals. Those individuals act as knowledge brokers allowing content to be dynamic and causing it to continuously change. The concept of learning projects exactly takes this into account assuming that for many ‘questions’ or ‘needs’ the answer, or an approximate to it, is already ‘somewhere out there at the web’ and therefore instead of ‘reinventing the wheel’ each time individually learners need to learn how to find, analyse, evaluate and use ‘it’.

Additionally two key aspects of Meta-Design were considered once designing the NetGeners.Net pilot:

* A system should be open to change during use time and involves all stakeholders in the design process during design time and use time. Though the initial core environment has been largely designed without stakeholders’ participation, it allowed for stakeholder modifications from day one of its use time
* A system should be underdesigned at design time to allow learners (‘owner of problems’) to create solutions at use time, including
** Making changes must be possible
** Changes must be technically feasible
** Benefits must be perceived
** Environments must support tasks that people engage in
** Low barriers must exist to share changes

Those points were taken into consideration by allowing learners to

* Make use of the communication and collaboration tools, or to use the on-board ones
* Decide on the objectives, tasks and activities, roadmap and outcomes
* Provide them with support and assistance through regular chats

= Initial learning resources (content) & Instructional materials =

An initial number of 25 sample learning projects were registered at the [http://www.netgeners.net/index.php?option=com_mtree&Itemid=37 course directory] divided over 5 areas that were seen to be relevant for ICT literacy:

* [http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=What_am_I_supposed_to_do_here%3F#Content. Content.]
* [http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=What_am_I_supposed_to_do_here%3F#People_and_Communities People and Communities]
* [http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=What_am_I_supposed_to_do_here%3F#Tools Tools]
* [http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=What_am_I_supposed_to_do_here%3F#Soft_Skills Soft Skills]
* [http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=What_am_I_supposed_to_do_here%3F#Legal_Aspects Legal Aspects]

Admittedly there could have been more than those 5 areas relevant to ICT literacy – but following the seeding ideas more areas might be identified and added as the course grows.

For each learning project a [http://www.netgeners.net/index.php?option=com_mtree&task=viewlink&link_id=25&Itemid=37 sample structure] has been suggested, but no learning resources that should be studied. The reasoning for this was that learners are expected to find their way through a learning project themselves with educators input being limited to participate at reflective discussions that would guide the learners throughout their learning projects. Learning resources than might be provided ad-hoc by the educator by pointing learners to freely available web based sources to discuss their appropriateness for the purpose of a specific learning project (Brown and Adler 2008, Fischer 2006).

= Expectations =

The expectation is that using Meta-Design and Courses as Seeds (SER) approaches in conjunction with the FLOSS particularities of Forges and Modularity would allow an approximation towards an Open Participatory Learning Ecosystem (Brown and Adler, 2008), including:

* A focus on the learning activities and human interactions around which the content is situated; where learning processes would become visible and build together with the created artifacts learning resources for other learner.
* Learners that not only acquire subject matter skills, but also to learn how to become a full participant in the respective field of knowledge, and how to acquire those skills through practice.
* A naturally growing ecosystem as a result of the ‘seeding’ process.

The course did not aim to impart students ICT literacy skills based upon a checklist of skills to be acquired, but by allowing them to act in a self-responsible manner and only providing the students with an introduction of what learning projects are supposed to be and from this point onwards providing them with guidance to establish the objectives, tasks and activities, roadmap and outcomes for their learning projects.

It was expected that students would acquire skills as a result of their activities, by creating at the same time resources that could be of (educational) use for others and consisting of freely available content at the web to be integrated into the students learning projects. One important aspect that has been pointed out at various stages was that the final outcome of the learning project should enable others (3rd parties) to understand and re-use or build on the final outcomes of the learning project.

= References =

A list of [http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=References references] can be found here, with even many further sources being available at: [http://www.flosscom.net/ www.flosscom.net]

NetGeners.Net Introduction

Andreasmeiszner — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:10:43 GMT

Summary: New page: The web provides you with myriads of learning sources in the form of freely available content spaces (e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://ocw.mit.edu/ MIT Open Course Ware] ...

The web provides you with myriads of learning sources in the form of freely available content spaces (e.g. [http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://ocw.mit.edu/ MIT Open Course Ware] or [http://www.slideshare.net/ Slideshare]), free learning communities (e.g. [http://www.jiskha.com/ Jiskha] or [http://www.physicsforums.com/ PhysicsForums]) and related collaborative development spaces (e.g. [http://en.wikiversity.org/ Wikiversity] or [http://docs.google.com/ Google Docs]) and communication options (e.g. [http://www.skype.com/ Skype], [http://www.google.com/talk Gtalk] or [http://www.jabber.org/ Jabber]).

The objective of Netgeners.Net is to allow you to get the skills and abilities that are required to make use of those sources in order for you to be able to update your skills and knowledge in the future self-dependently. As a result you should know how to take full advantage of the web to support your own learning, to collaborate with others, to use the tools required to do so and to be capable to find sources at the web and to critically evaluate and analyse them.

 

= The rationale of NetGeners.Net =
The rise of the web and information communication technologies (ICT) to their current stage is not only enabling us to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4CV05HyAbM do things different and more efficient] than in the past, but also causing us to change traditional behaviours and to acquire many [http://www.stevehargadon.com/2007/05/tim-oreilly-on-web-20-and-education.html new skills and mindsets]. Meanwhile the business sector adapted rapidly to those [http://www.opensaucelive.com/ new opportunities] the educational sector still hasn’t changed that fast.

If you are looking for the latest information, the most comprehensive explanations, a broad range of critical views on a subject matter, or just a good discussion with peers it is a safe bet that the web is THE place to provide you with this best.

There is a difference between the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnh9q_cQcUE education today and tomorrow] and many of today’s students have [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o a different vision of education and learning].

This is why [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7J_ereCiTo you need to know] how to take advantage of the web for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE your personal learning needs] to have a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8 competitive advantage] at today’s [http://www.jobjournal.com/article_full_text.asp?artid=1378 job market] and not just to wait until the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ1jFaXgTnw educational sector found itself again].

For further interesting clips and presentations see: [http://movingforward.wikispaces.com/videos http://movingforward.wikispaces.com/videos]

 

= The NetGeners.Net approach =
We are processing towards a knowledge society with the half-life period of knowledge becoming shorter and shorter and new technologies being developed almost on a daily base. This means that you are well advised to:

* Become a good self-learner
* To acquire a mental model of how the world works to let you figure out what's important.
* To know how to think about search and where the current hot information is being shared.
* The importance of "doing things," "tinkering,", and "exploratory learning".

So what does this has to do with NetGeners.Net? The answer to this is that by participating at NetGeners.Net you are likely to gain those abilities. You will be asked to engage within disperse environments and communities, using a broad range of tools that should allow you to acquire those abilities.

= The 5 NetGeners.Net Categories =

The 5 NetGeners.Net categories cover the main fields that are relevant to become a knowledgeable ne(x)t generation learner.

You will need to learn about the different types of '''content''' that is out there at the web. Content is manifold and goes beyond static web pages as has become clear today. Content includes e.g. also what others produced. If you are looking for the answer to a question, if you want to have explained how a problem is solved, or if you want some information on a particular subject than the likelihood is high that someone else already answered the question, solved the problem or provided that information – you just need to know where to look at. This brings us to '''people and communities''', those ones who provide the answers, explanations and information. Finding them is as valuable as finding just the right content, but for this you need to know the '''tools''' that bring you there and that allow you to engage with people and communities. Engagement with people, communities and content on the other hand demands you to have the required skills, including the so called '''soft skills. '''The fifth category on legal aspects is important to avoid any legal conflicts due to ignorance. Even if many resources are freely available at the web this still does not mean that they can be used in any manner, not to talk about the large amount of illegally available resources that should not be used.

 

= Content =
The web is rich of good quality content that can help one to learn, but how do we know which of those content sources are of a good quality, or where to find them? There are also very different types of content available that can provide you with the information and knowledge you are seeking, do you know about them all?

== [http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/OER Open Educational Resources (OER)] ==
OER are in general produced by educational institutions and made freely available through the web. A pro of OER is that they are likely of a good quality and come from [http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/ trusted sources]. A drawback of those OER might be that they are quite narrow and static. This is to say that you might need to surf through various OER to get the information you are looking for, or to learn what you want. Another drawback might be that you are still pretty much on your own and left alone in the case of questions. As a third drawback it might be stated that even if you feel like adding some further information to those sources (OER) it likely won’t be possible and thus OER can never be as up to date and as comprehensive like other content sources that are collaboratively developed by very different types of users.

== User Generated Content – intentionally ==
The likely most known source of this type is [http://en.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], though eventually you also hear about the sister project  [http://en.wikiversity.org/ Wikiversity]. Wikipedia is by today often a good point to start due to the large amount of information it contains. A crucial point once dealing with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-generated_content user generated content] is to assure that the type of information provided is accurate. Though recent research has shown that the [http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/12/69844 quality of Wikipdeia can compete with the Encyclopaedia Britannica] this won’t be true for each and every article. On the other side you also should be critical on trusting the [http://newsroom.accenture.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=4534 traditional and established media] since it is in their uttermost interest to keep the status quo as it was in the past and make you paying for content. Within this light it is also important for you to learn how identify [http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/fud_based_encyclopedia FUD campaigns] and make sure you won’t be trapped by them.

== User Generated Content – “on the fly” ==
Beside those more obvious types of content there is still another category that can be of immense value to support you in your learning: content that is produced within forums and blogs, often as a result of ongoing discussion, questions and answers or collaborative project work. Likely to be the best example for this are [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSS Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) communities] that exemplify how virtual collaborative production can work and how to provide [http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/lakhanivonhippelusersupport.pdf free and voluntary user support].

This now seems to be a good bridge to jump to the next category: People and Communities.

 

= People and Communities =
You might have heard already the expression ‘[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds The Wisdom of the Crowds]' and ‘[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus%27s_Law Given enough Eyeballs all Bugs are shallow]'. Those expressions refer to the opportunity the web provides to bring together the knowledge, skills and efforts of thousands of people throughout the globe and to share and collaborate on common areas of interest.

But do you know how to find the right online communities to support you in your learning? Do you know where to find the people that might provide you with the answer to a question that is triggering you, or how others have solved a problem you are still seeking to solve? Even for people that are living at the web it is hard at time to find the right community; and having found it it might still requires patience and time to get what you are looking for.

If you hear the word community and people you might first think about places like [http://www.myspace.com/ MySpace], [http://www.facebook.com/ Facebook] or [http://www.furl.net/ Furl]. Those places can be nice as a start, but there are also free learning communities like e.g. [http://www.jiskha.com/ Jiskha] or spaces that are dedicated to a narrower subject such as [http://www.physicsforums.com/ PhysicsForums]. Those spaces can be of an immense value to discuss with others about your thoughts, to get some hints, and to read what others did. If you are familiar with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSS Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) communities] than you certainly have an idea about the value that those communities. Let’s just take as an example the Linux operating system. If you want to use e.g. the Ubuntu Linux distribution you have around [http://ubuntuforums.org/ 500.000 peers] with whom you could talk on how to install, modify or work with it. This also means that there is a high likely hood that your questions were already asked and answered before, your problem has been already explained by someone, and what you wanted to compile has been already compiled by someone else. The great point is that all of that information is saved somewhere and available for you so you can build on it.

Having talked about “somewhere” will lead us to the next category the “Tools”

 

= Tools =
In general one might distinguish between two type of tools: those ones you have installed at you PC (e.g. word processing, drawing or calculation software, instant messaging programmes, or web browser) and those ones that are browser based out at the web (online editing tools like e.g. google docs, search engines, forums, wikis, or multimedia solutions such as youtube or community spaces like e.g. facebook and myspace). Those tools can help you to compile your own work, to share it with others or to communicate and collaborate with peers. But do you know which type of tools exist, how to use them to support your learning activities, and which of them are suitable for which purpose?

Since Google entered the field many things have changed and a large number of applications and services were launched. What also has changed is that users today usually can expect tools and services to be free. There a few applications for which one would not be able to find a free solution. If you need some office software you could use [http://www.openoffice.org/ OpenOffice] or [http://docs.google.com/ GoogleDocs], [http://www.mozilla.com/firefox browsers are free anyway], and having a look at [http://sourceforge.net/ Sourceforge] will show you more software applications than you ever could use.

But this large amount of tools also causes a serious problem: how to find just the tool you are looking for, how to learn using it and how to make it work just the way you want it?

The available content, people and communities certainly can help you with this. But it’s type of a circle, cause if you don’t know those tools and if you don’t know how to use them you won’t find those content, people or communities. And here we are, talking about skills, though only the very basic ones.

 

= Soft Skills =
So you might know how to find the right content you are looking for, the relevant communities and people that can support you in your learning; and the tools available for both – good, because this are the basic ICT skills required today!

But do you also know about the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills soft skills] needed to engage at the web, or throughout life? Do you know how to interact with other, how to solve disputes, how to present yourself, to manage a team, or to respect cultural differences? Those soft skills are not only crucial once you engage at the web, but also for your professional career?

The good thing is that you can gain many of those skills out there at the web. And hopefully some of them during your participation at NetGeners.Net.

 

= Legal Aspects =
It is important to understand some of the basic legal aspects, like e.g. respecting copyright, how to cite and reference instead of committing plagiarism and also about selecting your own copyright solution like for example a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons creative commons] licence. Further you should get an understanding on the possible meanings of [http://communities.libre.org/philosophy/saylibre libre and free] and what this means for you, for us, and for the society at large. The web allows, not to say encourages you to become active, to participate and to create things. Not everyone on the other hand might be comfortable with this idea of a fully democratic virtual world and the impacts that this might have on the real world. Not only countries with censorship are uncomfortable with those ideas, but also [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt traditional business players or conservative minds]. But keeping the status quo for the benefit of those few that gained from it in the past might not be what benefits you, so you are well advised to

 

= Resume =
This introduction was aimed to provide you with the rationale of NetGeners.Net and what to expect from it.

You might consider this introduction as being an early release and far away of being complete and for this reason any feedback or improvement would be more than welcome!

 

Brown and Adler

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:26:44 GMT

Summary: New page: The following text is extracted from Brown and Adler’s article “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0” (2008) and only shows the parts directly related to th...

The following text is extracted from Brown and Adler’s article “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0” (2008) and only shows the parts directly related to the NetGeners.Net pilot

'''From the introduction:'''

* …Nor is it likely that the current methods of teaching and learning will suffice to prepare students for the lives that they will lead in the twenty-first century.
* We are entering a world in which we all will have to acquire new knowledge and skills on an almost continuous basis.
* Much of this activity has been enabled and inspired by the growth and evolution of the Internet, which has created a global “platform” that has vastly expanded access to all sorts of resources, including formal and informal educational materials.
* The Internet has also fostered a new culture of sharing, one in which content is freely contributed and distributed with few restrictions or costs.
* The latest evolution of the Internet, the so-called Web 2.0, has blurred the line between producers and consumers of content and has shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people.
* New kinds of online resources— such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and virtual communities— have allowed people with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate in innovative ways.
* Indeed, the Web 2.0 is creating a new kind of participatory medium that is ideal for supporting multiple modes of learning.

'''Social Learning'''

* The most profound impact of the Internet, an impact that has yet to be fully realized, is its ability to support and expand the various aspects of social learning.
* Social learning is based on the premise that our ''understanding'' of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions.
* The focus is not so much on ''what ''we are learning but on ''how ''we are learning.(5)
* Compelling evidence for the importance of social interaction to learning comes from the landmark study by Richard J. Light, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, of students’ college/ university experience. Light discovered that one of the strongest determinants of students’ success in higher education— more important than the details of their instructors’ teaching styles—was their ability to form or participate in small study groups.
* Students who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own.(6)
* The emphasis on social learning stands in sharp contrast to the traditional Cartesian view of knowledge and learning—a view that has largely dominated the way education has been structured for over one hundred years. The Cartesian perspective assumes that knowledge is a kind of substance and that pedagogy concerns the best way to transfer this substance from teachers to students.
* By contrast, instead of starting from the Cartesian premise of ''“I'' ''think, therefore I am,” ''and from the assumption that knowledge is something that is transferred to the student via various pedagogical strategies, the social view of learning says, ''“We participate, therefore we are.”''
* This perspective shifts the focus of our attention from the content of a subject to the learning activities and human interactions around which that content is situated.
* This perspective also helps to explain the effectiveness of study groups. Students in these groups can ask questions to clarify areas of uncertainty or confusion, can improve their grasp of the material by hearing the answers to questions from fellow students, and perhaps most powerfully, can take on the role of teacher to help other group members benefit from their understanding (one of the best ways to learn something is, after all, to teach it to others).

'''Learning to Be'''

* There is a second, perhaps even more significant, aspect of social learning. Mastering a field of knowledge involves not only “learning about” the subject matter but also “learning to be” a full participant in the field. This involves acquiring the practices and the norms of established practitioners in that field or acculturating into a community of practice.
* Historically, apprenticeship programs and supervised graduate research have provided students with opportunities to observe and then to emulate how experts function. Apprentices traditionally begin learning by taking on simple tasks, under the watchful eye of a master, through a process that has been described as “legitimate peripheral participation”;(7) they then progress to more demanding tasks as their skills improve.
* The studio system in architecture represents another example of social learning under the guidance of an established practitioner. In this system, students work together in a common space and peripherally participate in each other’s design process; hence they can benefit from their instructors’ comments on and critiques of other students’ projects and not just from comments on their own work.
* A contemporary model that exemplifies the power of this type of social learning is provided by the distributed virtual communities of practice in which people work together voluntarily to develop and maintain open source software.
* The open source movement has produced software such as the Linux operating system and the Apache web server, which have offered surprisingly robust alternatives to commercial products. These resources are typically made available at no cost to potential users, who are also invited to change or improve the resources as long as they agree to freely share their contributions with others.
* Open source communities have developed a well-established path by which newcomers can “learn the ropes” and become trusted members of the community through a process of legitimate peripheral participation. New members typically begin participating in an open source community by working on relatively simple, noncritical development projects such as building or improving software drivers (e.g., print drivers). As they demonstrate their ability to make useful contributions and to work in the distinctive style and sensibilities/taste of that community, they are invited to take on more central projects. Those who become the most proficient may be asked to join the inner circle of people working on the critical kernel code of the system.
* Today, there are about one million people engaged in developing and refining open source products, and nearly all are improving their skills by participating in and contributing to these networked communities of practice. Since the open source movement is based on the development of computer software, participation is effectively limited to people with programming skills.
* But its principles have been adopted by communities dedicated to the creation of other, more widely accessible types of resources. Perhaps the best known example is Wikipedia, the online “open source” encyclopedia that has challenged the supremacy of commercial encyclopedias.
* Becoming a trusted contributor to Wikipedia involves a process of legitimate peripheral participation that is similar to the process in open source software communities.
* Any reader can modify the text of an entry or contribute new entries. But only more experienced and more trusted individuals are invited to become “administrators” who have access to higher-level editing tools.(8)
* The openness of Wikipedia is instructive in another way: by clicking on tabs that appear on every page, a user can easily review the history of any article as well as contributors’ ongoing discussion of and sometimes fierce debates around its content, which offer useful insights into the practices and standards of the community that is responsible for creating that entry in Wikipedia. (In some cases, Wikipedia articles start with initial contributions by passionate amateurs, followed by contributions from professional scholars/researchers who weigh in on the “final” versions. Here is where the contested part of the material becomes most usefully evident.)
* In this open environment, both the content and the process by which it is created are equally visible, thereby enabling a new kind of critical reading—almost a new form of literacy—that invites the reader to join in the consideration of what information is reliable and/or important.
* In a traditional Cartesian educational system, students may spend years learning about a subject; only after amassing sufficient (explicit) knowledge are they expected to start acquiring the (tacit) knowledge or practice of how to be an active practitioner / professional in a field. (9)
* But viewing learning as the process of joining a community of practice reverses this pattern and allows new students to engage in “learning to be” even as they are mastering the content of a field. This encourages the practice of what John Dewey called “productive inquiry”—that is, the process of seeking the knowledge when it is needed in order to carry out a particular situated task.

'''Closing the Loop'''

* There are thousands of colleges and universities worldwide, as well as many other institutions of learning, including training centers and technical schools.
* In addition, there are tens of thousands of institutions that support “informal” learning: libraries, museums, science centers, archives. All of these institutions are practicums—places where knowledge is created and stored and transmitted.
* But are they reflective practicums? Are they evaluating what they do and engaging in anything resembling cycles of continuous improvement? Are their reflections being systematically captured and shared?
* We need to construct shared, distributed, reflective practicums in which experiences are collected, vetted, clustered, commented on, and tried out in new contexts.
* One might call this “learning about learning,” a bootstrapping operation in which educators, along with students, are learning among and between themselves.
* This can become a living or dynamic infrastructure— itself a reflective practicum.

'''From the Web 2.0 to Learning 2.0'''

* The original World Wide Web—the “Web 1.0” that emerged in the mid-1990s—vastly expanded access to information.
* The Open Educational Resources movement is an example of the impact that the Web 1.0 has had on education.
* But the Web 2.0, which has emerged in just the past few years, is sparking an even more farreaching revolution.
* Tools such as blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging systems, mashups, and content-sharing sites are examples of a new user-centric information infrastructure that emphasizes participation (e.g., creating, re-mixing) over presentation, that encourages focused conversation and short briefs (often written in a less technical, public vernacular) rather than traditional publication, and that facilitates innovative explorations, experimentations, and purposeful tinkerings that often form the basis of a situated understanding emerging from action, not passivity.
* In the twentieth century, the dominant approach to education focused on helping students to build stocks of knowledge and cognitive skills that could be deployed later in appropriate situations.
* This approach to education worked well in a relatively stable, slowly changing world in which careers typically lasted a lifetime. But the twenty-first century is quite different. The world is evolving at an increasing pace. When jobs change, as they are likely to do, we can no longer expect to send someone back to school to be retrained. By the time that happens, the domain of inquiry is likely to have morphed yet again. (21)
* We now need a new approach to learning—one characterized by a ''demandpull'' rather than the traditional ''supply-push'' mode of building up an inventory of knowledge in students’ heads. Demandpull learning shifts the focus to enabling participation in flows of action, where the focus is both on “learning to be” through enculturation into a practice as well as on collateral learning.
* The demand-pull approach is based on providing students with access to rich (sometimes virtual) learning communities built around a practice. It is passion-based learning, motivated by the student either wanting to become a member of a particular community of practice or just wanting to learn about, make, or perform something. Often the learning that transpires is informal rather than formally conducted in a structured setting. Learning occurs in part through a form of reflective practicum, but in this case the reflection comes from being embedded in a community of practice that may be supported by both a physical and a virtual presence and by collaboration between newcomers and professional practitioners/scholars. The demand-pull approach to learning might appear to be extremely resourceintensive.
* But the Internet is becoming a vast resource for supporting this style of learning. Its resources include the rapidly growing amount of open courseware, access to powerful instruments and simulation models, and scholarly websites, which already number in the hundreds, as well as thousands of niche communities based around specific areas of interest in virtually every field of endeavor. (22)
* The building blocks provided by the OER movement, along with e-Science and e-Humanities and the resources of the Web 2.0, are creating the conditions for the emergence of new kinds of open participatory learning ecosystems (23) that will support active, passion-based learning: Learning 2.0. This new form of learning begins with the knowledge and practices acquired in school but is equally suited for continuous, lifelong learning that extends beyond formal schooling.
* Indeed, such an environment might encourage students to readily and happily pick up new knowledge and skills as the world shifts beneath them. If they do, we could be taking a major step toward creating a twenty-first-century, global culture of learning to meet Sir John Daniel’s challenge and the demands of our constantly changing world.

'''Notes'''

* 5. We are interpreting “social” as meaning participating with others and the world. This is a bit nonstandard, since (following Donald Schön) being situated and trying to design or do something, skilled practitioners learn to listen to and interpret the back-talk of the situation. In a sense, one is having a conversation with the material (materiality), and it is “talking back to you.” Schön generalizes this to include his key notion of becoming a “reflective practitioner.” For a more thorough discussion of this concept, see John Seely Brown, Allan Collins, and Paul Duguid, “Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning,” ''Educational'' ''Researcher, ''<nowiki>vol. 18, no. 1 (January-February 1989), pp. 32–42, <http://www.exploratorium.edu/ifi/resources/museumeducation/situated.html>.</nowiki>
* 6. Richard J. Light, ''Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds ''(Cambridge: Harvard University'' ''Press, 2001). For a summary of Light’s research, see'' ''Richard Light, “The College Experience: A Blueprint'' ''<nowiki>for Success,” <http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/light/index.html>. An earlier, though</nowiki>'' ''more focused, contribution to our appreciation of'' ''the power of group study was provided by Uri Treisman'' ''more than twenty years ago. As a graduate'' ''student at UC-Berkeley in the late 1970s, Treisman'' ''worked on the poor performance of African-Americans and Latinos in undergraduate calculus'' ''classes. He discovered the problem was not these'' ''students’ lack of motivation or inadequate preparation'' ''but rather their approach to studying. In'' ''contrast to Asian students, who, Treisman found,'' ''naturally formed “academic communities” in'' ''which they studied and learned together, African-Americans tended to separate their academic and social lives and studied completely on their own. Treisman developed a program that engaged these students in workshop-style study groups in which they collaborated on solving particularly challenging calculus problems. The program was so successful that it was adopted by many other colleges.'' ''See Uri Treisman, “Studying Students Studying Calculus: A Look at the Lives of Minority Mathematics Students in College,” ''College Mathematics'' ''Journal''<nowiki>, vol. 23, no. 5 (November 1992), pp. 362–72, <http://math.sfsu.edu/hsu/workshops/treisman.html>.</nowiki>
* 7. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, ''Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation ''(Cambridge: Cambridge'' ''University Press, 1991).
* 8. Katie Hafner, “Growing Wikipedia Refines Its ‘Anyone Can Edit’ Policy,” ''New York Times''<nowiki>, June 17, 2006, <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?pagewanted=print>.</nowiki>
* 9. Michael Polanyi, ''The Tacit Dimension ''(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966).
* 21. R. Natarajan, the former director of the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, recently noted that the “half life of knowledge” in many technical areas is now less than four years. If this is true, then 50 percent of what students learn as undergraduates will be obsolete by the time they graduate and begin seeking employment. See Richard P. Adler, ''Minds on Fire: Enhancing India's'' ''Knowledge Workforce ''<nowiki>(Gurgaon, India: Aspen Institute India, 2007), <http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/%7BDEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5%7D/ICT07IndiaMindsonFirefinal.pdf>.</nowiki>
* 22. Although not discussed here, an additional set of resources consists of the thousands of technical online forums that are emerging around nearly any product or product category, such as digital cameras and computer games, as well as forums emerging around topics related to personal interests such as health or travel.
* 23. Atkins, Brown, and Hammond, ''A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement, ''use'' ''the phrase “open participatory learning infrastructure”'' ''(OPLI) instead of “open participatory'' ''learning ecosystem,” which we use here. We have'' ''chosen to use “ecosystem” instead of “infrastructure”'' ''to emphasize the emergent interconnections'' ''of these resources. To some, the term “infrastructure”'' ''suggests a heavyweight, top-down, totally'' ''designed artifact. That was not what we had in'' ''mind. We envision instead a lightweight, bottomup,'' ''emergent socio-technical structure.

'''The full paper is available at: '''[http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/MindsonFireOpenEducationt/45823 http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/MindsonFireOpenEducationt/45823]

References

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:24:21 GMT

Summary:

'''References'''

Below is a short list of references, with even many further sources being available at: [http://www.flosscom.net/ www.flosscom.net]

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Wiley, D., (2006). ‘Higher Education - Dangerously Close to Becoming Irrelevant’, Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education Panel on Innovative Teaching and Learning Strategies February 2 - 3, 2006. Available from: http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/3rd-meeting/wiley.pdf (Accessed 25.01.2009)

Xu, J., Gao, Y., Christley, S. and Madey, S., (2005). ‘A topological Analysis of the Open Source Software Development Community’. IEEE Proceedings of the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, (IEEE, HICSS '05-Track 7)

Meta-Design and Courses as Seeds

Andreasmeiszner — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:22:29 GMT

Summary: New page: = Introduction = Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) approaches can be looked at and reflected on from different viewpoints and consequently can be associated to different theoretic...

= Introduction =

Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) approaches can be looked at and reflected on from different viewpoints and consequently can be associated to different theoretical models or conceptual frameworks. Seeing FLOSS from a community of practice / community of learner perspective (Wenger 1998; Pór 2004), from the software development perspective, (Scacchi 2002), from the knowledge building perspective (Hemetsberger & Reinhardt 2004; Hemetsberger & Reinhardt 2006; Hemetsberger 2006), as an technological environment (Pór 2004; Meiszner 2007), of from an educational perspective (dePaula 2001; Fischer 2002; Scharff 2002; Staring 2005; Bacon & Dillon 2006; Fischer 2006; Fischer 2007; Fischer 2007) likely leads to the selection of different theoretical models or conceptual frameworks to describe, analyze or compare them.

The conceptual framework and model that were identified to be suitable for this work are the meta-design framework and courses as seeds (SER) model. This is because firstly both are aimed at providing practical solutions to the changing educational demands. They recognize the need of lifelong learning and the role and value that ICT and the internet can add to education. They recognize that citizens in the information age need an enlarged set of skills beyond the ones traditionally taught at school, like writing, reading and mathematics. Those new skills include internet literacy, critical and analytical thinking, self-learning abilities, to cope with ill structured problems in complex (virtual) environments that involve heterogeneous teams (Fischer 2006). Additionally both, meta-design and SER, recognize the importance of active users, user involvement and user as contributor.

Secondly both, meta-design and SER, provide a generic framework that was inspired and partly derived from FLOSS as an educational environment, but also other successful cases like e.g. Wikipedia, and are therefore seen to provide the best support in identifying and piloting the applicability of FLOSS-like approaches in educational settings, in this case the NetGeners.Net pilot course.

= Meta-design =

The Meta-design conceptual framework aims at “defining and creating socio-technical environments as living entities. It extends existing design methodologies focused on the development of a system at design time by allowing users to become co-designers at use time.” (Fischer 2007). Meta-design is aimed to support self-directed learners within virtual learning communities by creating socio-technical environments that support new forms of collaborative design. The framework pays tribute to the fact that future uses and problems of socio-technical systems can not be totally anticipated by the design time and must be flexible to changes during use time and allow an evolution through changed or identified user needs. The meta-design framework pays also attribution to the fact that users are active participants within a socio-technical environment that bring in their ideas and help shaping and forming the environment and contribute to it. The meta-design framework is thus describing relatively precisely what can be observed in practice within web based communities (e.g. myspace, furl, wikipedia, etc.), or within the FLOSS sphere. The meta-design framework was developed by Gerhard Fischer and his team at the Center for LifeLong Learning and Design ([http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/index.html l3d]) at the University of Colorado, US. Following early pilots in 2001 where the team of l3d aimed at applying some FLOSS principles to collaborative learning environments (Scharff, 2002) it was recognized that “emerging success models, such as open source software and Wikipedia, have provided evidence of the great potential of socio-technical environments in which users can be active contributors.(Fischer, 2007).

“By allowing users to be designers, sociotechnical environments offer the possibility to achieve the best fit between systems and their ever-changing context of use, problems, domains, users, and communities of users. They empower users, as owners of a problem, to engage actively and collaboratively in the continual development of systems capable of sustaining personally meaningful activities and coping with their emergent needs. Sociotechnical environments evolve as a result of a flexible and collaborative development process, which in turn modifies the terms of participation itself in the production of software.” (Fischer 2007).

[[Image:Rationale2.jpg]]

'''Image 2: Design time and use time '''

Meta-design is based on the notion of the collaborative power of the internet (technical component) and a general increasing digital literacy of users and their potential to act as co-designer in a collaborate manner together with their peers by engaging in personal meaningful tasks (social component). Some of the key aspects of meta-design are:

* Systems should be open to change during use time and involve all stakeholders in the design process during design time and use time
* Systems need to be underdesigned at design time to allow users (“owner of problems”) to create solutions at use time.

Some of the fundamental challenges associated with this are:
* How can we support skilled domain workers to achieve their goals
* How can we create co-adaptive environments where users change because they learn and systems change due to the users role as a co-developer and contributor
* How can we provide users with opportunities, tools and social reward mechanisms to extend systems to fit their needs
* The seeding, evolutionary growth and reseeding (SER) model to support the appliance of meta-design

Meta-design does not assume that each user would or should become an active meta-designer, but that users would reside somewhere between those both ends and that some users would with time gradually advance from the passive consumer to an active designer as shown at image 3.

[[Image:Rationale3.jpg]]

'''Image 3: '''The consumer / designer spectrum (Fischer & Giaccardi, E 2006)

This consumer / designer spectrum follows closely the groupings that can also be found in FLOSS projects where typically the largest group resides at the passive axis, with vast decreasing numbers of group participants as higher as the level of activity and skill becomes (see image 4).

[[Image:Rationale4.jpg]]

'''Image 4: Organizational structure of a typical FLOSS community (Crowston 2004, Aberdour 2007) '''

In general there are several lessons to be learnt from FLOSS (Fischer & Giaccardi 2006), like:

* Making changes must be possible
* Changes must be technically feasible
* Benefits must be perceived
* Environments must support tasks that people engage in
* Low barriers must exist to share changes

The main differences between traditional course design and meta-design are shown at table 1.

[[Image:RationaleT1.jpg]]

'''Table 1: '''Traditional design vs. meta design (Fischer & Giaccardi, E 2006)

Finding from pilots (Fischer 2007) have shown that even if users do have the opportunity to become active co-designer and contributors they might opt of not making use of this opportunity if this opportunity does not relate to their personally meaningful problems. Those pilots also indicated that the meta-design approach seem not to work out if users are brought into the design process at a late stage as users might feel misused of fixing someone’s else problems instead of modelling the system in order to help it fixing their own problems. General challenges in applying meta-design in practice (Fischer & Giaccardi 2006) were seen to be:

* Standardization and improvisation; meanwhile from the industry point of view the number of user modifications should be as small as possible, meta-design encourages a large variety of small user contributions. The reseeding phase of the SER model addresses this problem and has analogies to the FLOSS system where patches and small releases are integrated into the next major software release. (Though it should be noted that FLOSS also follows other approaches, like keeping contributions out of the core. The software thus maintains a modular structure in order for modules to be easily added. Good examples for this approach are the firefox, joomla or oscommerce projects.)
* Consumers and designers; a great amount of new media is designed to see users only as consumers but not as designers. (Though the recent trend in the so called “web 2.0” world sees users as co-designers and contributors)
* Enabling co-creation; environments must allow users to become co-designers.
* Ease of use revisited; “’Ease-of-use’ along with the ‘burden of learning something’ are often used as arguments for why people will not engage in design. Building systems that support users to act as designers and not just as consumers is often less successful than the meta-designers have hoped for” (Fischer & Giaccardi 2006).
* Motivation and rewards; users must be motivated and receive some reward. This need to be addressed together with a change in culture (as the point above) as has been the case in FLOSS.
* New design space of meta-design; “meta-design encompasses three levels of design, meant as a new ‘design space’. These three levels of design can be summarized as: (1) designing design; (2) designing together; and (3) designing the ‘in-between’. <nowiki>Such levels of design refer to the field of meanings that the term meta-design has developed in the course of its various uses. They correspond, quite evidently, to the anticipatory, participatory, and socio-technical issues raised by meta-design, and highlighted in this chapter. We can think of the design space of meta-design as a three-fold design space [Giaccardi, 2003] aimed at integrating the design of (1) a technical infrastructure that is evolvable, (2) a learning environment and work organization that allows users to become active contributors, and (3) a socio-technical system in which users can relate and find motivations and rewards” (Fischer & Giaccardi 2006). The different levels of the design space for meta design are illustrated at table 2.</nowiki>

[[Image:RationaleT2.jpg]]

'''Table 2: '''D'''ifferent levels of the design space (Fischer & Giaccardi 2006) '''

As initially stated, meta-design is seen to be a suitable generic conceptual framework on modelling and describing FLOSS and FLOSS-like learning environments. The meta-design concept further seems to match with observations and results of studies on collaboration in FLOSS (Hemetsberger & Reinhardt 2004; Hemetsberger & Reinhardt 2006; Hemetsberger 2006), the structures, processes and tools of and within FLOSS communities(Scacchi 2001; Scacchi 2002; Crowston 2004; Giuri 2004; Scacchi 2005; Demaziere 2006; Meiszner 2007), or the different involved roles and motivational aspects (Krishnamurthy 2002; Lakhani & von Hippel 2002; Giuri 2004; Gosh 2005; Demaziere 2006). It (meta-design) on the other hand does not explicitly consider FLOSS particularities like the support system (Lakhani & von Hippel 2002), including the required critical mass. The meta-design framework further does not answer the question on how to establish the type of win / win situations between information provider and information seeker that can be observed at the FLOSS support system. The framework also does not provide examples on motivation mechanisms to stimulate users to become active, though it acknowledges the importance of finding motivations and rewards. As a final point it might be mentioned that, although the framework has been applied at various pilots, it seems that those pilots have not taken off to become sustainable environments as one can find within FLOSS or at the web.

= Courses as Seeds (SER) =

The courses as seeds (SER) model aims to support collaborative learning that makes use of “community based learning theories with innovative collaborative technologies” (dePaula 2001). The model was inspired by the process models that can be found at the evolutionary and decentralized development of open systems, as e.g. FLOSS. The SER model sees courses as seeds and not as finished products, which is in sharp contrast to the traditional view where courses are finished products.

<nowiki>“The seeding, evolutionary growth, and reseeding (SER) model [Fischer & Ostwald, 2002] is an emerging descriptive and prescriptive model for creating software systems that best fit an emerging and evolving context. In the past, large and complex software systems were built as complete artifacts through the large efforts of a small number of people. Instead of attempting to build complete systems, the SER model advocates building seeds that can evolve over time through the small contributions of a large number of people. It postulates that systems that evolve over a sustained time span must continually alternate between periods of planned activity and unplanned evolution, and periods of deliberate (re)structuring and enhancement. A seed is something that has the potential to change and grow. In socio-technical environments, seeds need to be designed and created for the technical as well as the social component of the environment.” (Fischer 2007) </nowiki>

The SER model assumes that “the traditional paradigm of education is not appropriate for understanding and learning to resolve the types of open-ended and multidisciplinary problems that are most pressing to our society. These problems, which typically involve a combination of social and technological issues, require a different paradigm of education and learning skills, including self-directed learning, active collaboration, and consideration of multiple perspectives. Problems of this nature do not have “right” answers, and the knowledge to understand and resolve them is changing rapidly, thus requiring an ongoing and evolutionary approach to learning” (dePAula 2001). The model therefore pays contribution to the fact that educational demands are consequently changing and that students need to be prepared to become self-responsible learners that are capable to tackle the various problems they have to face throughout their professional career.

A particular challenge of applying this model lies within the structure of current educational systems and the cultural attitudes towards education as a consumable good. Current educational systems are based on pre-designed courses with given and fixed content and are usually limited to a semester with students (and society) expectations of students being imparted this pre-defined knowledge, including just the right answers.

The SER model has the objective of:

* Creating a culture of collective inquiry where
* Students take an active role in their own learning process that is
* Embedded in collaborative activities and
* Supported by innovative technologies
* With students adapting a mindset that understands that initial plans must not correspond to final outcomes and that they are
* Prepared for interpreting unexpected results, and
* Where discussions and decisions are captured and therefore
* Become artifacts that help future students in their learning process and
* Create an environment of current improvement and building upon what others built

By its design the SER model does not aim at structuring classes by a syllabus, but instead by a framework for “planning and situated action within evolutionary learning process”. (dePaula 2001) The SER model therefore is close to the way FLOSS communities function (Hemetsberger & Reinhardt 2004; Hemetsberger & Reinhardt 2006; Hemetsberger 2006).

Another analogy to FLOSS is that the SER model is based on a variety of small (user) contributions that would become part of the course, instead of few and large (designer) contributions. This is indeed one of the characteristics that can be found in FLOSS (Stürmer 2005) that many participants are engaged in smaller sub-project that can be either integrated into the product (like contributions, modules, plug-ins, extensions), or are of a supportive nature (like manuals, live demos, how-to guides, translations).The three components of the SER model are:

* Seeding – means to lay out the initial structure of the system that is supposed to evolve later. The system should be designed by designers and instructors to be as complete as possible, but still remaining open-ended to allow future evolution. The meta-design model (Fischer 2007) also considers it to be important to involve users at this initial phase.
* Evolutionary Growth – this phase consists of a rather unplanned evolution as a result of user perceptions, demands and contributions with the seed.
* Reseeding – once the system has evolved there would be the need to organize, formalize and generalize the created knowledge, including structures and processes. This phase might be illustrated with the major release of a new software version that integrates all of the patches of the prior version, some of the contributions and newly developed features.

As future users are likely more interested in contextualized content, instead of individual assignments, the reseeding phase should impose a more general structure on the content that makes sense to those that did not participate in its creation (Fischer & Oswald 1997).

As mentioned above the current cultural attitudes and mindsets within educational systems proof to be – at the minimum – a challenge for the SER model to be applied. The main differences between the courses as seeds model and the courses as finished products model are shown at table 3.

[[Image:RationaleT3.jpg]]

'''Table 3:''' '''Courses as finished products vs. courses as seeds (dePAula 2001) '''

In terms of technology the SER model aims at applying new technologies not to ‘re-create education as it is’, but to support activities like:

* Learning discourse and social capital – where courses should not be passive repositories, but living information and community based learning spaces
* Building, referring, extending – as opposed to delivering pre-fabricated information. Users should advance the state of knowledge, collaboratively construct new knowledge and not only consume current knowledge
* Formalizing, restructuring, re-using – The contributions to each course become part of the future course allowing future learners “to go beyond where they could have gone if they started from scratch” (dePaula 2001)

To reach those objectives courses as seed should be build by the following characteristics:

* “A growing and evolving information space, driven by course activities
* Student-initiated contributions indicating personal interests and reflections
* Rich interaction among all participants, as opposed to strictly between student and instructor
* Knowledge building, including extensions to the original seed as well as to new ideas contributed by participants
* Discussions and artifacts that can be incorporated into the seed for the next course in a reseeding process” (dePaula 2001)

Like the meta-design framework the SER model has to face not only the challenge of not matching to current educational systems and cultural attitudes, but also in finding the right motivational factors that would stimulate learners to become active contributors. Unlike in the FLOSS case there are no evidences, or good practice cases, that could illustrate how to provide those, but only the general notion that “it” (courses, activities, contributions) must be meaningful for the learner in order for him/her to be motivated to participate and that contributions could be further stimulated by reward mechanisms. Another analogy that the SER model has with the meta-design framework is that it does not explicitly addresses the need of a critical mass of participants and a continuous evolutionary community growth, to keep in some of the ‘old foxes’ / ‘power users’ and the people in between those and the beginners. Without the foregoing mentioned factors it also would be problematic to create a community based support system as to be found e.g. within FLOSS.

= Further Literature & References =

A list of [[references]] can be found here, with even many further sources being available at: [http://www.flosscom.net/ www.flosscom.net]

Judith spanish answers

Andreasmeiszner — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:53:17 GMT

Summary: New page: Judith's answers in Spanish: = Have you learned something new during your learning project?= Lo que he aprendido durante la elaboración del proyecto de aprendizaje está relacionado, b...

Judith's answers in Spanish:

= Have you learned something new during your learning project?=

Lo que he aprendido durante la elaboración del proyecto de aprendizaje está relacionado, básicamente, con los contenidos del propio proyecto. Si se lee el proyecto, se podrá saber qué es lo que he aprendido y estoy aprendiendo... (ah! y creo que con las discusiones en el chat he mejorado algo mi inglés...) Por otro lado, creo que no he terminado de entender los objetivos generales de NetGeners.net. Quiero decir, por momentos no he sabido si tenía que enseñar o aprender. Esto no es necesariamente negativo, pero ha afectado a la definición de los temas a desarrollar, al rol que asumí cuando al principio discutimos el tema que íbamos a desarrollar.

= In which way was/is the NetGeners experience different from your learning experiences in FLOSS?=

En realidad no tenía demasiadas experiencias en FLOSS, más allá de la realización de cursos de formación en plataformas tipo moodle. No creo, en todo caso que se pueda decir que NetGeners es parecido o distinto de FLOSS sino más bien que NetGeners se basa en propuestas formuladas en FLOSS...

= In which way was the NetGeners experience different from your learning experiences in Higher Education?=

Muchas cosas! las magnitudes son completamente distintas así como la definición de los itinerarios, contenidos y coherencia interna de los 'grados'. La formación del profesorado es también distinta, el tipo de organización... Entonces no creo que sean, en este momento, cosas comparables...

= What could be motivational factors to participate within open education, like e.g. the NetGeners.Net course – Especially if there is no degree awarded? Which incentives might be provided? Overall you take away a learning experience with you, but is this enough in a world that asks for official degrees?=

Hay muchos factores motivacionales: reconocimiento (de la comunidad), satisfacción personal, deseo de ayudar/colaborar con otros, deseo de aprender, de enseñar, pasión en el trabajo que hacemos (en el sentido hacker)... Pero es cierto, los títulos son importantes en nuestro trabajo pero quizá podemos encontrar formas de reconocimiento formal de la participación de la gente en los cursos. El método podría ser similar al que usan los programadores de software libre: por currículum ellos tienen los programas o las partes de programas en los que ellos han trabajado/han desarrollado. En este caso podría ser similar: los participantes pueden mostrar a la comunidad qué han hecho (entiendo que si alguien sigue alguno de los cursos 'virtuales y sin título' también aporta contenidos, crea discusiones y críticas que podrían ser la 'prueba' de su participación activa).

De la web 1.0 la web 2.0

Xab — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:54:42 GMT

Summary: /* Internet, la www y la Web social o web 2.0. */

== Internet, la www y la Web social o web 2.0. ==

Internet es un conjunto de redes interconectadas que se comunican físicamente formando una unidad lógica de alcance mundial. Su origen está en ARPANET, una red interuniversitaria que empezó a ser operativa en 1969.

Uno de los servicios que más exito ha tenido en internet ha sido la World Wide Web conocida por sus siglas WWW o por “la web”. Tal ha sido el éxito de la WWW que es habitual tomar la parte por el todo, dónde la web es internet.

La WWW es un conjunto de protocolos que nos permite la consulta remota de archivos de hipertexto de forma sencilla. El desarrollo y expansión de la WWW hay que situarlo a inicios de la década de 1990, en paralelo a la difusión del consumo de ordenadores personales -en inglés PC o Personal Computers.

En la imagen vemos la proliferación Servidores de Webs. Un Servidor es una computadora que ofrece servicios. Cuando consultamos una web lo hacemos desde un Cliente. La arquitectura Servidor-Cliente es muy común en las redes Distribuidas como la WWW.

[[Image:NumberWebSitesjj.jpg]]

En Internet hay diferentes servicios disponibles que responden a la misma arquitectura que la WWW y aunque no tengan el mismo grado de uso o popularidad, son también importantes y complementarios. Algunos de ellos son el acceso remoto a otras máquinas (SSH y telnet), la transferencia de archivos (FTP), el correo electrónico (SMTP y POP), los boletines electrónicos (news o grupos de noticias), las conversaciones en línea (IRC y chats), la mensajería instantánea, compartir archivos (P2P, P2M, Descarga Directa), la radio a la carta (Podcast), el visionado de video a la carta (P2PTV, Miro, Joost, Videocast) o los juegos en línea, por ejemplo.

La primera generación de webs o lo que posteriormente se ha denominado web 1.0 entaban basadas exclusivamente en lenguaje HTML siglas de Hyper Text Markup Language. Una de la principales características del HTML son las marcas de código. Hay un conjunto de etiquetas que realizan acciones concretas: <nowiki>hacen el texto negrita , hacen el texto cursivo o generan tablas <table>; dentro de las tablas podemos agregar filas <td> o columnas <tr>. Estas son sólo algunas de las marcas más simples. A medida que se popularizó el uso de la WWW se fue mejorando el código a la par que ése código prestaba más y mejores funciones, por ejemplo insertar imágenes, o contenidos remotos.</nowiki>

La primera generación de webs necesitaba de programadores de HTML, y a medida que el código se hacía complejo, esos programadores tenían que reciclar sus conocimientos de programación de un lenguaje no estandarizado. Para lograr una homogenización se creó el World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) promovido por Tim Berners-Lee, creador de la base de los protocolos necesarios para el funcionamiento de la WWW las especificaciones de HTTP, URL y HTML.

== Estándares en la web y en el correo electrónico ==

Para regular la World Wide Web existe el 3wConsortium. Su tarea consiste en establecer los criterios bajo los cuales deben programarse las webs para hacerlas accesibles y homogéneas ante los programas que acceden a ellas: los navegadores. El código que hay en las páginas web es leído por los navegadores que lo interpretan y nos lo muestran en la pantalla. Por ejemplo, cuando vemos una imagen en una web, el código que nos la muestra se parece a ésto: <img src="ruta/a/la/imagen.png" alt="texto alternativo">

Los navegadores interpretan el código, y lo muestran en pantalla. Éste código debe responder a criterios estandarizados en formato y sintaxis. Para ello el 3wConsortium se rodea de asesores, desarrolladores y productores de software para estandarizar la web. Entre estos asesores también está la empresa Microsoft, aunque luego no adopte los estándares acordados.

En la siguiente dirección puede comprobarse el ajuste al estándar de cualquier dirección web. http://validator.w3.org/

Entre los servicios web más usados del mundo encontramos el correo de la empresa Microsoft. Si hacemos un test de validación con la dirección de hotmail.com encontraremos bastantes errores. El buscador más usado hoy en día, Google, tampoco se queda atrás en errores de estandarización.

A parte del código generado para las webs, existe código de tipo HTML generado por aplicaciones de oficina que son enviados por correo electrónico. Las personas que emiten este código corrupto no se percatan de que están generando problemas de interoperatibilidad ya que desde programas libres, o de otras plataformas que sí se ajustan a estándares reales no se tiene la capacidad de descifrar el código corrupto, y como Microsoft parte del monopolio ''de facto'' se culmina el proceso de exterminio del estándar.

Estos ejemplos de la política de la empresa Microsoft son extensibles a otras empresas, y no sólo sobre el lenguaje HTML. Otros ejemplos los podemos encontrar en la tecnología Java, en los lenguajes java-script y C++, y en algunos protocolos de red.

== Las punto com y el salto a la web 2.0 ==

El éxito de la web fue tal que más allá de su valor de uso, albergó un valor especulativo. Sólo así se puede explicar la proliferación de portales que sólo aspiraban a tener una buena cotización en el NASDAQ (índice de empresas tecnológicas de la Bolsa de USA) esperando a ser vendidas.

Como se puede observar en la imagen, llegó un momento que tras subir desmesuradamente (por encima del valor real de algunas compañías) se volvió a una revalorización a la baja. Tras la tormenta vino la calma, y muchas empresas.com desaparecieron o se fusionaron con otras.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/NASDAQ_IXIC_-_dot-com_bubble_small.png [http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasdaq_Composite Indice NASDAQ Composite 1994-2004]

Encontramos en la wikipedia que el término Web 2.0 fue acuñado por Tim O'Reilly en 2004 para referirse a una segunda generación de Web basada en comunidades de usuarios y una gama especial de servicios, como las redes sociales, los blogs, los wikis o las folcsonomías, que fomentan la colaboración y el intercambio ágil de información entre los usuarios.

Debemos matizar que el objetivo de O'Reilly era introducir optimismo tras la crisis de las punto-com. Para una aproximación a esta crisis http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burbuja_.com

El último año ha visto la luz un proyecto que parte de la crítica de la que os pegamos la introducción (fuente) http://es.blogxpopuli.org/index.php/De_la_Web_2.0_a_la_Web_Libre_y_punto

Mucho se ha hablado desde que en el año 2004 O'Reilly presentara un artículo hablando de las novedades que por aquel entonces estaban surgiendo en el mundo de internet en torno al intercambio constante de contenido basado en relaciones sociales. La llamada Web social o con el nombre mucho más comercial Web 2.0 fue la forma de comenzar a llamar a todos esos servicios principalmente que ponían a la web como principal interfaz y que estaban basados en páginas participativas y/o dinámicas.

El título del artículo de O'Reilly fue en la dirección comercial: ''Qué es web 2.0. Patrones del diseño y modelos del negocio para la siguiente generación del software'', y presentaba la Web 2.0 para referirse a una segunda generación de Web basada en comunidades de personas usuarias y una gama especial de servicios, como las redes sociales, los blogs, los wikis o las folcsonomías. Según O'Reilly la Web 2.0 fomenta la colaboración y el intercambio ágil de información entre las personas que la utilizan.
Por otro lado, voces reacias a la nueva denominación argumentaban que se trataba simplemente de una estrategia comercial para dar publicidad a unas determinadas compañías y no de un estudio en profundidad de la realidad en internet y que no se había dado un salto cualitativo en el espacio web.

Lo cierto es que el cambio fue gradual y que por fechas del 2004 la mayoría de servicios se basaban en una estructura de la ahora llamada Web 1.0: páginas estáticas que no se actualizaban frecuentemente y que no permitían interacción con las usuarias.
Ya sea como reflejo de una realidad o ya sea impulsado por el artículo y conferencias de O'Reilly y los millones de personas que acuñaron este término (una búsqueda en Internet por Web 2.0 resuelve millones de resultados) que usemos las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación para llevar a cabo nuestras relaciones sociales es una realidad en el llamado primer mundo. Llámelo Web 2.0, llámelo Web Social, no se lo llame. Ahora leemos en la web informaciones escritas por usuarias como nosotras, a las cuales podemos colaborar, rectificar o subscribirnos. Al texto e imagen fija de la Web 1.0 se le ha sumado audio y vídeo, páginas que se actualizan sin recargarse, mapas que se mueven,... y es una plataforma cultural y artística para millones de fotógrafos, videoartistas, músicos y artistas en general en todo el mundo que han visto en la Web 2.0 una plataforma para darse a conocer y poder interactuar con lo que hasta ahora era llamado público y ahora se convierte en feedback constante.

Quien abrió la puerta de la comunicación social en internet fue el correo electrónico allá por 1971, y al correo le siguieron chats y foros en un primer momento, y luego un aluvión de servicios de mensajería instantánea, telefonía sobre IP y, con la llamada Web 2.0: blogs, video a la carta, wikis, emisoras de radio. Algunos de esos servicios son libres, como la popular Wikipedia o el popular Menéame o algunos otros no tan populares. Pero muchos de éxito popular son basados en software privativo (ver tabla de Web 2.0).

Si nos fijamos en el título del artículo de O'Reilly hablaba de la siguiente generación del software y no hablaba simplemente de los servicios de internet vía web. Es reconocido, pues, que el modelo de negocio está basado en ofrecer un servicio directo sobre el software y no ofrecer el software en sí, ni siquiera una licencia del software en sí, pero que el software existe y es la base de la Web 2.0. Por el otro lado en el artículo de O'Reilly trata el carácter eminentemente social de los servicios vinculados al software. Tratemos ambos puntos por separado.

En un principio la comunicación social mediada por redes cibernéticas era multiprotocolo es decir se podía acceder de múltiples formas, por ejemplo el correo electrónico tiene sus varios protocolos de comunicación (SMTP, POP, IMAP) siendo la comunicación vía web (webmail) tan sólo una opción más que surgió algún tiempo después.

Ahora el hecho de que la mayoría de servicios proponga su única interfaz de comunicación a través de la web propone la ventaja de que son accesibles desde cualquier ordenador que tenga un cliente web, pero en un subfondo hace que el usuario no tenga control sobre el software que es ejecutado en una máquina remota y del cual sólo le llega el html procesado, perdiéndose ya no sólo el código fuente del programa con el que está interactuando, si no también no pudiendo acceder al binario.

Proyectos como la Wikipedia han puesto de manifiesto que la mejor forma de construir conocimiento es cuando se lleva a cabo de forma colaborativa.

== Paradigma de web social: la Wikipedia ==

Sólo hay que ir a la Wikipedia.org para comprobar que el conocimiento colectivo, colaborativo y libre tiene a) buena salud, b) buena calidad y c) acceptación social.

a) Tiene buena salud porqué el número de artículos que alberga crece sin parar;
b) Tiene buena calidad porqué sus contenidos son constantemente ampliados, y citados a la par que su software es utilizado por infinidad de sitios (este mismo) ;
c) Tiene aceptación social porqué el número de usuari@s que agregan información crece al ritmo que se consolida su buena salud.

Así las cosas, partiendo del proyecto de la Wikipedia, y de su plataforma de software el MediaWiki, podemos afirmar que la web social existe, está aquí y tiene buena calidad.

Entendemos que la Wikipedia es un buen paradigma de web social: las personas que la utilizamos podemos acceder a ella y libremente podemos mejorarla. De la misma manera podemos utilizar sus contenidos libremente, ya que los contenidos de la Wikipedia.org estan sujetos a la licencia de documentación libre de la Free Software Fundation, la GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL o simplemente GFDL) http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Texto_de_la_Licencia_de_documentaci%C3%B3n_libre_de_GNU

== Críticas a la web 2.0 ==

A grandes rasgos

Recientemente en La Vanguardia el escritor Màrius Serra hacía una crítica a algunas redes sociales.

¿Millón de Amigos? por Màrius Serra en la sección de opinión de La Vanguardia.

[...]''No. Yo no quiero tener un millón de amigos, aunque llevo semanas padeciendo el síndrome Roberto Carlos en mi buzón del correo electrónico. Porque más allá de las variedades conocidas de spam (viagra, hipotecas, títulos universitarios, alargamientos de pene, fármacos de todo tipo...), de un tiempo a esta parte me llegan cantidades industriales de mensajes firmados por gente que dice querer ser amiga mía. A algunos les conozco, e incluso les trato. Otros me son completamente desconocidos. Desde que, en mayo, incorporó el español, la mayoría de los correos así proceden de Hi5 Networks, asociados a un apartado postal de San Francisco. El titular es digno de un celestino de pacotilla: "X quiere que seas su amigo (a) en hi5". Más abajo, la tercera persona ya muta en primera: "He creado un perfil de hi5 y quisiera añadirte como un amigo, para que podamos compartir fotos y empezar a construir nuestra red.''

''¡Pero primero es necesario que te unas a hi5! Una vez que participes en el sitio, tendrás la oportunidad de crear un perfil, compartir imágenes, y encontrar muchos más amigos. Gracias. X". En la parte inferior, bajo el nombre de mi remitente, figura su número de amigos. Hay variantes más profesionales - "Y te ha pedido ser parte de su libreta de direcciones Unyk para tener siempre acceso a tus datos, y que tú siempre tengas acceso a los suyos. Para aceptar su solicitud, pulsa aquí"-, pero en general la retórica de las nueves redes sociales en internet es pegajosa.''

''Y eso que yo me considero un curioso perdido. En principio, me suele interesar lo que me escriben mis amigos, conocidos, saludados e incluso desconocidos. Hasta la publicidad. Por eso firmo mis artículos con el correo electrónico. Pero a estas solicitudes de presuntos amigos para que me apunte a una red social no les veo la gracia. ¿Para qué querrá Y tener acceso a mis datos? ¿Por qué X, a quien no veo desde el pleistoceno y con quien no me llevo nada bien, me dice ahora que quiere ser mi amigo mediante un burdo formulario? Cantaba Roberto Carlos, con un lirismo que ni Martí i Pol, venga conmigo a ver los campos, cante conmigo también mi canto, pero no quiero cantar solito, yo quiero un coro de pajaritos.Pues yo no. Ni campos, ni coro, ni pajaritos, a menos que sean fritos. Las llamadas redes sociales de internet exacerban mi vena asocial. Si quieren decirme algo en concreto que me escriban y que lo digan, pero ¿por qué voy a apuntarme yo a su club si cuando alguien pretende enseñarme sus fotos huyo como un conejo feliz? Lo más lógico es que, en plena era del Facebook, surja un nuevo modelo de anacoreta digital que, en vez de escuchar al panoli de Roberto Carlos, tararee temazos como Colegio religioso o Viajar en primera de Ramón Muñoz, el cantautor de derechas que la noche del lunes presentó Empar Moliner en el prometedor nuevo espacio de TV3 Herois quotidians.''

La intuición y el enojo de Màrius Serra han sido formalizados en relación, básicamente, a

- La dificultad de controlar los datos alojados en aplicaciones remotas

- Las licencias que adoptan estas aplicaciones web

Además de la ya citada web en bloxpopuli [http://es.blogxpopuli.org/index.php/De_la_Web_2.0_a_la_Web_Libre_y_punto] es sumamente recomendable la lectura de un artículo titulado ''Free Software vs Software Service''[http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/free_software_vs_software_service]. Sólo unas inquietudes ilustrativas: ''What does it mean to have control of software if it’s not running on my machine? What does it mean to have control of my data if it’s stored on someone else’s computer? These are the questions raised by the rise of Web applications.''

The future of Free / Open Education - Part 1

Andreasmeiszner — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:39:27 GMT

Summary:

The answers below are provided by the participants from our first NetGeners.Net pilot round that was following the structure of a "course", running from March to September 2008. The participants are partially experienced in Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and by the same time are students or recent graduates from Higher Education.

Having participated at the NetGeners pilot we asked them about their experiences, general thoughts, ideas, comments, lessons learnt, etc. etc. from FLOSS, Higher Education and the NetGeners pilot. We wanted to learn from them about the strength and weaknesses of the one compared to the other regarding learning, types of content (learning materials) and learning support.

= General experiences from the Netgeners course =

'''Notes from Barcelona group discussion: '''

* Netgeners.Net participant expressed that the course gives them flexibility regarding their choice of learning, what projects to choose, when to learn and how to learn.

* Roles are dynamic: There is no difference between teachers and students. They all felt equal and thus, comfortable in discussing with participant as peers rather than looking up to an authority.

* There are no limits like semesters as in formal education. They could learn forever. Some found new material but did not find time to integrate it in their learning projects before coming to Barcelona

* At the beginning it started really small, but as time went on the NetGeners.Net website and courses grew in size. More and more material was added and discussions intensified. At the beginning participants didn’t know each other, but with time, their confidence and trust grew and they were able to talk more freely. Frequent scheduled talks/chats helped them know each other – though those talks/chats should not only be limited to the group of a learning project.

* There are no expectations: They did not know what was expected of them. So they could integrate anything they found on the internet into their project. “I can integrate any material I find but don't know if this material is good or relevant to my project”, commented one student.

* However, some recommended that the presence of an expert was necessary to guide the course.

= Have you learned something new during your learning project? =

'''Judith: '''What I've learned in the learning project is related basically with the contents of the project. So, if you read the project, you'll know the thinks I've learned and what I'm learning now... (ah! and I think writing in the chat improved my English...). On the other hand, I think I didn't really understand the general objectives of NetGeners.Net. I mean, for moments I don't know if I had to teach or to learn. This is not necessary bad, but it affects the definition of the themes, the role I assumed when I first discussed the theme we were going to develop.

'''Giorgos: '''I learned a lot of things regarding my part of research in our project ( learning platforms and alternatives. And I also learned to work in a group of people without any physical contact, but totally through the use of the internet and its means of communication.

'''Eleni K. & Katerina: '''During the learning project there were tasks that needed to be accomplished in a specific timetable. There are two dimensions of learning:

* The first one concerns the subject under examination, that is in order to complete the text you will deliver you have to search, find several resources and choose the most valid to include in your text.
* Interact with other people in order to accomplish your task and get help. The majority of interactions where synchronous (chat).

Yes, during my learning project (copyright vs copleft) I have the 2 bullets above.

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos:''' We participated in a learning project named "Different Ways To Disseminate Information" or "DWTDI". As it is obvious from the title our goal was to present different ways to disseminate information using descriptions and examples. During our research we have learned how to collaborate from distance using web technologies, as two of us were in Sweden, one in England and one in Greece. Furthermore, we have learned how to merge our separate work using open source technologies like wikis in order to introduce a common result. We strongly believe that this project helped all of us to improve our ability in English and our knowledge about the tasks that are included in the project.

'''Nikos:''' As a participant of the copyright vs. copyleft project I've learned a lot of things. To be honest I didn't even know what exactly copyleft was when the project started; but I learned about it along the way and figured out some details about copyright. I also learned to work in a group solely by online means (well had one or two meetings in person too, but most of the work was done online).

= In which way was/is the NetGeners experience different from your learning experiences in FLOSS? =

'''Judith: '''I don't really had experience in FLOSS, no more than the realization of formation courses in platforms like Moodle. However, I don't think one can say NetGeners is similar or different to FLOSS, but NetGeners is based in FLOSS initiatives...

'''Giorgos: '''As I mentioned above my experience in FLOSS was only communication therefore NetGeners had nothing missing in that field (in fact I used even more ways of communication in NetGeners than in FLOSS.

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''Both of us had not a previous experience in FLOSS although we have used open source software and we are members of some FLOSS communities. We liked the NetGeners experience because it was different from formal education and because we had the freedom to choose our tasks and project methods. In the same time, we had a leader and a supervisor to give us some ideas and directions for our work, something that was very helpful. This way of working, is not very different from the way that is used in some FLOSS communities, but it is very different from formal education projects where, even if we work in small groups, our tasks and working tools are very specific.

'''Nikos:''' I think it's pretty much the same. It was all about "finding our way around" alone (by searching for resources online and cross-referencing them) with some basic guidance just like in FLOSS communities.

= What do you experienced as strength in FLOSS, but that was missing at NetGeners? =

'''Judith: '''The same than in the previous question... I don't think both are comparable... maybe I didn't understand what one is and what is the other...

'''Giorgos: '''So far my experiences on FLOSS were restricted to only communicating with developers of open source programs. Therefore the work I did in NetGeners was completely different for me.

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''As we had not previous experience with FLOSS Communities, NetGeners was our first learning project. We liked very much the experience, as it was something different from common projects. What we would like to propose for the future, is some meetings with all groups together (so we can exchange ideas and see other people's working techniques) and a wish list for the NetGeners participants.

'''Nikos:''' As mentioned above, I didn't notice something missing at NetGeners compared to FLOSS.

'''Notes from Barcelona group discussion: '''

* At NetGeners.Net content is more pre-structured and focussed, in FLOSS everything is made public in a more unstructured way and earlier; this would be useful for NetGeners.Net too.

= What do you experienced as strength in Higher Education, but that was missing at NetGeners? =

'''Eleni K. & Katerina: '''The strength of Higher Education that was missing at NetGeners is the social exchange that happens during the learning experience. The way that people interact when they meet with each other face to face in order to discuss an issue, share their opinions and accomplish a team task. Furthermore, during a lecture one learner might raise an issue that someone else hasn't considered and gain a new perspective out of it. Of course this question and answer session could also happen at NetGeners, but there is not personal contact between the learners.

= In which way was the NetGeners experience different from your learning experiences in Higher Education? =

'''Judith: '''Lots of thinks! The scale is completely different, and it's different the itinerary and the contents definition, and the intern coherence of the 'degrees'. The teacher formation is different too, and the forms of organization. So, I don't think there are comparable things for the moment...

'''Eleni K. & Katerina: '''In NetGeners the learner can contribute in each stage of the learning procedure, which is different from higher education in which the learning objectives and the way that the lesson is conducted are given. Furthermore, the learner has the ability to choose the learning material and there is greater flexibility as far as the space and time of the learning procedure is concerned. Also, the personal interactions even though this doesn't include interpersonal meetings, are adequate in resolving problems. Furthermore, in the NetGeners learning environment, the learning material is dynamic, changing all the time. It resulted from the experience and participation of many and diverse individuals who never met or knew each other. In higher education, on the other hand, the learning materials in the form of text-books are static and often lack behind contemporary issues of great importance to the learner and society.

'''Giorgos:''' Maybe a little more organization (although it would have limited the freedom which was NetGeners advantage) and of course the physical contact with the professor

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos''' In a FLOSS learning project we have much more freedom to select our tasks and tools, we have not the fear of "degrees" and we can improve our ability to communicate with people from different countries. The difficulties we faced during the project were basically two: first, that we were obliged to use a foreign language and second, that we had not so much time to spend in the project as the time we had for the "normal" courses during our higher education studies.

'''Nikos:''' It's completely different in my opinion. The "find out yourself" aspect NetGeners provides stimulates the participants to search and actually learn about something, while in higher education students are mostly supposed to read books and just learn them by heart, rendering the knowledge useless since most things are forgotten along the way.

'''Notes from Barcelona group discussion:'''

* Pro: The NetGeners.Net experience was very different: learning is done - not received; more flexible, more possibilities to choose the theme and the way how to develop it; dynamics of the roles with no clear separation of teacher/learner.

* Con: There was no (subject matter) expert available if needed; too much stuff, not structured enough (“didn't know where to stop and where to go on”).

= What could be motivational factors to participate within open education, like e.g. the NetGeners.Net course? =

* Especially if there is no degree awarded?
* Which incentives might be provided?
* Overall you take away a learning experience with you, but is this enough in a world that asks for official degrees?

'''Judith: '''There are lots of motivational factors: recognition, satisfaction, hope to help and to learn, passion in the work we do... But it's true, the degrees are important in our world but we might find a way to formal recognize the participation of the people. The method might be similar to the one used by programmers in free software: for curriculum they have the software (or the part of the software) they have worked in. In this case (the NetGeners) it might be similar, one can show to the community what have one done (I understand that if one follow one of this 'virtual and without degree' courses, he or she creates contents too, improves the course, creates discussion and critics which may be the 'prove' of his or her active participation).

'''Giorgos: '''Personally I believe that there are a lot of advantages for someone to participate into open education. I think that Open education will, at some point in the future, gain more supporters and that will gradually lead to a change of the whole world's attitude. Surely degrees and certification will not disappear, but once the world sees that great ideas can grow also in the open education a lot of things will change... ( Much like everything else regarding FLOSS: it is obvious that Open source solutions in every aspect grow in popularity every year). So I believe that to motivate people into participating at open education the advantages of it must be highlighted along with mentioning the feeling of contribution and help that somebody gains. If people realise that Open education will become more known into the world they will want to participate at it.

'''Eleni K. & Katerina: '''An important incentive is the creation of content by the learners that is accessible by everyone that might be interested in a specific topic. I feel that I am the teacher and the student at the same time. This is self-assuring and boosts ones self-esteem. It is a great opportunity to learn in a different way without having always in mind the grade and the evaluation procedure, without seeing “learning” of a course as a short term activity that it will give you the grade you need to pass the lesson. Furthermore, it is important to find other people that are interested in a specific topic, create a “community of common interest” and exchange ideas and perspectives about it.

It is not an easy task to provide incentives for this learning procedure without implementing an “objective” way of evaluation. This is due to time limitations that the learners might have, the need to prove that they know how to do something etc. However, these learning experiences are new (in the way that learning takes place because teams of self-education are not new phenomena). However, individuals still participate, even though they have a fore-knowledge that their is no degree awarded in the end of this learning experience.

The main incentive provided by the procedure itself is the ability to raise an issue of your interest and create a critical mass of participants that would expound it. Furthermore, for “excluded teams” or individuals who do not have access to the established educational system, this gives them the chance to learn, and other participants can offer their help and learn with them. From the educational perspective, the sense of belonging to a team is an important reason to participate.

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''From our experience of formal higher education, we strongly dislike the "fight" for good grades and we prefer learning different things with different ways. Our participation in open-educational NetGeners learning project helped us to get in contact with open source activities and tools and gave us the opportunity to improve our skills and our ability of collaboration through the Internet. The results of our work are much more obvious than the knowledge that people with good higher education grades have gained: our project is posted online and is available for everyone who wants to use it or contribute to it. Besides, we can show our participation here, in our curriculum vitae. Another important advantage of our open-learning experience is that through it we have the opportunity to meet people with common interests and exchange ideas about different tasks. Especially in NetGeners we gained the scholarship for the Barcelona's conference for which we are very thankful.

'''Nikos:''' I think the most important incentive is the actual subject the participants learn about. If someone is interested in it, then he will participate, otherwise he won't. It's just like an online tutorial (and there are thousands of them over the internet): if you want to learn about the subject it covers, you read it. The fact that no degree is awarded is important, but it doesn't mean that someone can't prove he learned something. The learning experience is just something you can't prove at "first contact" with someone, but it will definitely be obvious along the way. Also the fact that learning can be asynchronous is an important incentive too, since some people with unstable schedules can join the "classroom" as well.

'''Notes from Barcelona group discussion: '''

* There are many motivators not related to degrees like helping others to learn, show what you know, recognition by community members, participating in social networks, aspect of language (English) is also important.

* The NetGeners.Net pilot would work better if communities of common interests could be developed by yourself – it's hard to find the people who share your interests (as an example it was referred to “how do you develop tutorials?”).

* For the NetGeners.Net volunteers the scholarship to attend the FKFT conference was certainly a main motivation to participate, but in general to be interested in the subject is also important. With this it was asked if e.g. Linux local user group meet-ups can compare to the FKFT scholarship with regard to motivation. Answer: Yes, those meet-ups could provide similar motivations than attending FKFT

= What would you say are the two or three things you have learnt in Netgeners that you would never have learnt in FLOSS and in traditional learning environments? =

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''Although we had no previous experience with FLOSS communities, we believe that the NetGeners project had some unique features. First of all, the group participants could totally take the responsibility of their project content and organisation and could make decisions about the future tasks or chats on their own. We were not obliged to use the NetGeners official places (e.g. the NetGeners' web pages and Wiki) to upload our stuff and we could make decisions all together instead of following a leader's instructions. In formal education decisions are usually taken by the responsible teachers and professors, whereas in FOSS projects the participants must usually follow some "lines" set by the leader, use specific tools, continue some previous works and use specific repositories for their source-code or documentation versions. NetGeners was quite different (to formal education & FLOSS).

'''Nikos:''' It's not about what I learned, but about how I learned it. The same knowledge might be obtained through FLOSS communities or traditional learning environments (actually the whole learning process is identical with FLOSS in my opinion), but in traditional learning environments it is not as interesting.

= What would you say about the speed of learning in Netgeners as compared to FLOSS and traditional learning environments? =
* Is it faster, slower, or equally fast?

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''We can compare the speed of learning in NetGeners only with the traditional learning environments because our NetGeners participation was our first FLOSS participation. The speed of learning was a bit slower at NetGeners, because we always found a lot of new information and we had to "filter" and compare it in order to get a good result. But, at the end, we had a better understanding of each subject and we could explain it to others through our wiki. In formal education the information is much more limited and we can learn it faster. But the knowledge we gain through this kind of learning is not so rich and deep than that we can gain from personal research in open educational activities.

'''Nikos:''' Mostly equally fast with FLOSS, but can be much slower than traditional learning environments because of its asynchronous aspect. There is a timetable in both cases, but I think it's stricter in traditional learning environments.

'''Notes from Barcelona group discussion: '''

* Scope is very different; in formal education stuff and structure appear more reliable because you know what to learn at what time. At NetGeners.Net the scope would be wider

* In formal classes you're bombed with information which you have to cope with, in NetGeners.Net it was easier to do so and I think we have learnt better than in formal education

* The information offered by NetGeners.Net is very broad and you have to choose the small amount you're interested at; in formal education we learn as individuals – in NetGeners.Net in a collaborative way, including re-usage of existing information.

* In formal education we have to learn 'fixed things' but in NetGeners.Net we learned more than we expected depending on the interaction with others (“wider scope and higher speed”).

* In formal education you go to cope with the learning/material.

* “...in formal education you must fit...”

* In formal education you learn as individuals from the lecturer. There is little sharing, reflection, discussion, reuse. There is no “cumulative knowledge”, commented one student.

= What would you say about the scope of learning in NetGeners as compared to FLOSS and traditional learning environments: Is it larger, smaller, or equally broad? =

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''Actually, it depends on the project and the course. We believe that it is surely broader than the scope of traditional learning, as it has no limits for the people who want to participate. We can not compare it to FLOSS as we have not experienced any FLOSS activities except NetGeners.

'''Nikos:''' NetGeners and FLOSS have equally broad scope of learning, but compared to traditional learning environments it is much wider. Since online resources are used, it is practically endless!

= What would you say about the interestingness of learning in NetGeners as compared to FLOSS and traditional learning environments: Is it more, less, or equally interesting? =

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''Learning in NetGeners is more interesting than learning in a traditional environment because of the way it is organised. Although, the interest of a course does not depend only on its structure and its organisation, but it also depends on its content. There are some traditional courses that are very interesting to learn even if their learning environment is not perfect. We cannot say things about other FLOSS because we have not previous experience.

'''Nikos:''' Equally interesting with FLOSS, but much much more interesting than traditional learning experience for sure. The fact that we had to find out about everything ourselves was pretty intriguing, compared to the "boring" book reading traditional learning environments involve.

= What would you say about the appropriateness of learning in NetGeners with regard to your personal interests as compared to FLOSS and traditional learning environments? =

* Is it more, less, or equally appropriate to your personal interests?

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''As we like to learn things on our own, surfing on the Internet and look for information and as we dislike fighting for grades and have a strict program, we find the NetGeners way more appropriate. But sometimes also traditional learning (environments) can be attractive – if a traditional course has an interesting content.

'''Nikos:''' It is just great! I really liked the fact that we had to search all over the internet for information and the rather flexible schedule. Combine that with a very interesting project subject and there comes a great way to learn!

= How did you perceive your role(s) in NetGeners, and how did this differ from the role(s) you play in FLOSS and traditional learning environments? =

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''We think that our role in the traditional learning environments is more pathetic. In the NetGeners course we were learning in a more creative way and we could make our knowledge available to others. Besides, we had more responsibilities: we had to organise our course, collaborate with others, “filter" our information, set some time lines and schedule our internet meetings.

= How did you communicate with your “course mates” in NetGeners, and how did this differ from communications in the FLOSS community and in traditional learning environments? =

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''During the project we had to work with people we didn't know, had different skills, lived in different places and used different languages. We didn't face any collaboration problem although it was really difficult for us to think and write in English. After some time we are more friends than "course mates"!

'''Notes from Barcelona group discussion:'''

* Communication took usually place over mailing lists, IRC chats, plus email, with group 1 and 3 also having f2f meeting (group 1 at least once, group 3 regularly as they lived together).

* It worked much better than in formal education (much more effective).

* On the negative side: there was apparently no communication between projects (projects were not connected)

= How did you perceive the collaboration with others as compared to FLOSS and traditional learning environments? =

* In which moments did you prefer to be alone,
* In which moments did you wish to have a traditional course with direct (face-to-face) interaction with your course mates and teachers?

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''Sometimes, we were looking for information and we found different scopes of the same subject, opposite opinions etc. In formal education the teacher could help us with advises as he is a "specialist" of the subject. In open education we have to find the solution and choose the appropriate source in our own. We would like to have a face-to-face interaction with our class-mates when we are trying to explain things in English and nobody understands... we could explain it much better... even using our hands...

= How do you assess the usefulness of the things you have learnt in NetGeners, as compared to things you have learnt in FLOSS and things you have learnt in traditional higher education? =

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''Maybe these things are not comparable. In NetGeners we can choose the project subject, so it can be either a subject with a lot of things to learn or a simpler one. Probably, the real gain of our NetGeners learning was that we have learned how to work better in a team with people with different personalities and cultures and how to organize the stuff, the meetings etc.

= Would you say that the NetGeners way of learning is helpful with regard to your career plans? =

* Please explain your answer with some details and examples.

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos: '''During the NetGeners project we had to collaborate by distance with people that have different language, personality and skills. We worked together in order to finish some tasks in a specific time line. This is similar to the work in an enterprise or another working place. From that point of view it was very useful for people who are thinking to work like that. Besides it offered us the opportunity to participate in an international conference, meet people with similar interests and watch other projects and discussions. And finally, we can add it in our CV.

= General suggestions for improvements =

'''Notes from Barcelona group discussion:'''

* The website must be structured like FLOSS websites, e.g. more separated into different topics and the “course” approach is not appropriate for this setting – should rather like a project, or something similar.

* One has to encourage people to join in, it wasn't clear enough at NetGeners.Net that you can join; the “look and feel” was too formal.

* People in floss communities know each other, there's a strong exchange of information – this must be transferred to NetGeners.Net

* People want to gain something (e.g. certificates or degrees), educational networks must be made more effective and reliable with regard to visibility of performance, it evaluation, and the crediting of performance. Peer reviews could be a measure, also crediting good contributions to a certain topic by including the name of the contributor in references.

* Raise public awareness and establish further external links to NetGeners.Net so that other online communities can recognize them.

* Certificates might also be useful incentives to participate as they help improving the CV and employability

= How to take advantage of FLOSS principles, without loosing the advantages of formal Higher Education? =

'''Eleni S. & Pavlos:''' We can merge FLOSS activities with formal education methods. Students can take small projects in groups and be responsible for a good team work. On the other hand, the teacher can have the role of the supervisor in order to set some limits to the groups, answer students' questions and help them to "filter" the stuff. Instead of giving grades, we can set a measure of contribution (e.g. karma) that can be obvious by anyone and will push students to work harder.

= Which are the FLOSS principles that you consider being of an advantage for Higher Education in general and how could they be applied? =

'''Eleni K. & Katerina:''' The constant participation of the learner and its transformation to an active learner rather than a passive listener is the main principle that can transform higher education. The idea of participating in a course in order to get a grade and qualifications for the future marketplace has changed the way young people choose to learn today. A procedure that would allow them to participate with the professor and the other students (peers) in determining the course would create a dynamic that misses from the traditional model of education in which the course takes place in a determined way.

= What could happen when we try and transfer FLOSS principles to the formal education setting? =

'''Eleni K. & Katerina:''' This would cause a major change in the educational system and in the perception of the participants related to the learning and educational procedure. It depends in which stage of the educational procedure this change would start. For example if the change would start from the elementary school then for the learners this would be the only way that they would be used to learn, if this change would start in another stage of the educational procedure this might cause confusion to the students because it would change their established way of learning. The final results can be speculated only.

= What are the barriers to apply FLOSS principles in formal education settings? =

'''Eleni K. & Katerina:''' First there is institutional and administrative resistance to change. Second, there is the phobia on the parts of some teachers and students to embrace new models of teaching and learning, and embrace new technologies. Furthermore, because of the novelty of FLOSS, there are still some elements of scepticism from schools and departments to embrace FLOSS principles. The debates; “does it work?” and “how will it work”, still looms in the minds and corridors of many educational institutions. FLOSS principles are new and the way in which they might be used in formal education has not been adequately examined up to now. Despite many reported studies, trials, experiments, there is still no educational framework based on FLOSS principles that educational institutions can rely on. Furthermore, there is no established evaluation method for a FLOSS course in an educational setting! If there is to be one, how will this evaluation method work?, what form will it take?, how will it be different from classic evaluation methodologies in formal education?

Furthermore, as far as learning is concern, it is useful to create some form acceptable or negotiated standards to ensure reliability of the educational material or content.

= How would formal education need to change in order to take advantage of some of the learning activities that occur in FLOSS?' (for example, assessment). =

'''Eleni K. & Katerina:''' Formal education would need to be restructured in order to take advantage of the FLOSS principles. First of all the formal education it is still based in the lecture paradigm with predefined textbooks that the students can use and the final assessment is conducted based. They are based on:

* students' participation in the class
* the assingment (if it is part of the course)
* final exam

In a FLOSS course (e.g. NetGeners) the student has several roles that he/she has to complete in order to participate and develop the course; so the assessment procedure should be revised. Some issues that need to be considered are:

* students' work for the educational material
* the interactions among the participants in problem solving
* students' work in the update of the material

The assessment concerns not only the deliverables provided from each student but also their interaction with other members of the “learning community”. It is necessary though to set some criteria that need to be accomplished in order to be able to assess the contribution of each student.

But assessment is only one aspect of the changes that are needed in formal education. The change of the educational material is another one, the change of the role of the professor that will be transformed from the central speaker into the person that offers to the learners the necessary guidance.

= Spanish answers =

Judith provided here answers also in Spanish, which can be found here: [[Judith_spanish_answers]]

= Not answered questions =

== What is your vision on the future of education? ==

Let us try to be a bit creative at this point and let’s have a look at the imaginary interview with the [http://wiki.netgeners.net/index.php?title=Free_/_Open_University_of_the_South_East_Globe_–_vision_or_reality_in_2018%3F Free / Open University of the South East Globe]

Now, let us take the above points a bit further, and being creative:

* Could this be an approximate to a future university? Provide some critical feedback on the outlined case.

= Forum discussion space =
For associated debates you might also use [http://www.netgeners.net/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=28&topic=29.0 the forum]

= Brief overview on Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) characteristics from an educational perspective =

Desirable Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) community characteristics

# Openness and inclusiveness; everybody can join and contribute. This may not apply to source code repositories, where access can be restricted to core developers (though others may contribute through these core developers). However, access to mailing lists, forums, other project resources etc. is usually not restricted.
# Up to date and dynamic content; everyone can add, edit and update the content
# Materials are usually the product of many authors with many contributions from people other than authors
# Frequent releases and updates based on a continuous re-negotiation/reflection process within a continuous development cycle
# Prior learning outcomes and processes are systematically available through mailing lists, forums, commented code and further instructional materials (re-use)
# A large support network; provided voluntarily by the community member in a collaborative manner nearly 24/7
# Lurkers welcome paradox – the more the better
# New ICT solutions are adopted early

It might also be argued that within a FLOSS-like approach the less able students benefit through the content richness, the fact that they can easily follow the process that others used to solve a problem / fulfil a task, and through asking unanswered questions. If one looks at the largest FLOSS user group, ie. lurkers, these can be compared with less able students that consume resources, but don’t give back.

In FLOSS however, resources are not consumed (browsing a forum does not consume, demanding teacher’s time does), or if consumed (by asking for individual help) the output (answer) is again ‘in the commons’ and here the cycle starts again.

FLOSS communities provide thus a good example for open participatory learning ecosystems in which users become active ‘resource’ creators, learning processes are made visible for other learners, and user support systems are established and maintained in a sustainable manner.

One way of thinking about the adoption of FLOSS principles is to consider them as FLOSS-inside, ie bringing FLOSS principles in to a traditional higher education establishment, or FLOSS-outside, ie exposing students to a real FLOSS-like community, or ultimately by blending them into a mixed inside-outside approach as shown below.

<center>[[Image:floss-like.jpg]]</center>

<center>'''Figure‑1: Mixed inside-outside approach of FLOSS-like education'''</center>

Further information is available at: [http://www.flosscom.net/ www.flosscom.net]