[cc-education] Creative Commons 101

Stephen Downes Stephen.Downes at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Wed Dec 10 12:33:38 EST 2003


Hiya,

I think that this is an interesting proposal with a lot of merit. However,
I do have a suggestion to make.

The proposal described below is what I would characterize as a
'centralized' proposal. By that, what I mean is that it suggests that
the content and services would be stored on a single, centralized,
web site.

My alternative would be to, instead of developing a single website,
to develop and encourage the use of a set of tools that would
perform the same functions for many websites. To create, for
example, tools that allow people to create their own version of
the CC-Edu resource base listed here.

This distributed network of CC-Edu sites would be linked
through a process of harvesting and aggregation. This would
allow individual users to select only those materials that are
most relevant to their needs.

A distributed network is significantly more scalable than
a centralized node, and it spreads the cost of hosting and
administration around. It also allows more flexibility for
individual providers, and lets them manage and control
their own materials.

-- Stephen

Heather Ford wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Back in Johannesburg after an epic journey involving 3 days stuck at JFK
> Airport due to snow storms. I have been awake since 2.30am - ah, the joys
> of travelling ;)
>
> I wanted to aggregate our discussions over the past 2 weeks and apply 
> them
> to a specific theme: Creative Commons 101. This would be an online tool
> that enables educators to share resources and ideas about how to teach
> students about the concepts and philosophy of open content. Pretty 
> much an
> extension of the discussions that we've been having about how to make it
> easier to actually make practical use of CC content - but starting on a
> small scale with a particular topic, rather than dealing with how to find
> open content throughout the web.
>
> I know that Lessig and Glenn Otis Brown have been teaching a Creative
> Commons course at Stanford this year - so it would be useful if one of
> them could provide input here - especially with regard to the mode of
> teaching i.e. were case studies used? where were these sourced from? what
> lessons were learned? did student assignments produce any new knowledge?
>
> I was thinking about CC South Africa and wondering how we could form a
> partnership with universities around the country that would make maximum
> use of students as volunteers. One of the major advantages of housing CC
> at a university is that one can leverage student support by teaching a
> course and perhaps using assignments as a way of generating new ideas and
> actions for CC in a particular country. There is also the opportunity to
> share case studies and ideas etc across geographical boundaries to 
> give CC
> the global context that it requires in order to be truly successful.
>
> So what I propose is a website and accompanying mailing lists that have
> the following facilities:
>
> 1. Users/curriculum developers sign up as authors and develop personal
> profiles detailing: country, institution, reasons for joining, personal
> interest, experience (subject/discipline), links to personal websites
> etc., rating according to number of times the author has a) downloaded b)
> uploaded material etc (lurker, weed, guru etc)
>
> - note: each entry would be linked to other individuals with the same
> entries eg if the author enters South Africa as her country of residence,
> then they could find all other authors from South Africa (Friendster 
> model)
>
> 2. Authors contribute case studies consisting of: legal reports, news
> stories/blog entries, images, cartoons, audio, video, multimedia licensed
> under open content (authors must upload these resources giving full
> license/author details as well as short descriptions/summaries of
> materials to enable extensive metadata with which to search) - case
> studies can be edited and updated by others when they re-use (wikis?) 
> ALSO
> fact sheets with information about a particular country's Internet
> penetration (perhaps classified as 'high', medium, low so that authors 
> can
> join collaborative groups according to access levels)
>
>  - note: is there a way that we can use the openoffice tool to produce,
> edit and update these docs?
>
> 3. Teaching tips - authors share stories of: 'what works and doesn't 
> work'
> in different learning environments (blog format?)
>
> 4. Assignments - authors share examples of assignments that maximise the
> student providing useful, practical insight/action for the open content
> movement (perhaps choosing from a consistently updated 'to do' list)
>
> - note: there is also the opportunity to get students to partner with one
> another for a truly multidisciplinary approach to student assignments -
> students could partner up (within a class or even in other
> countries/regions) to produce material e.g. a graphic design student 
> could
> partner with a law student to produce an animated video describing how 
> the
> licenses work to an audience of musicians - you could even make this a
> random assignment where you choose: theme, audience and product to get 
> the
> name of your assignment
>
> 5. Search by: keyword, country, internet penetration group, resource
> (image, multimedia, fact sheet, case study etc), discipline (law, social
> science, music, journalism etc)
>
> 4. Mailing list to alert authors to new resources, changes to their
> documents etc
>
> 5. Mailing list to discuss progress of the project and ideas for
> collaboration (eg volunteer sharing)
>
> 6. Opportunity for authors to host mailing lists according to new 
> subjects
> eg Teaching Creative Commons in an Anthropology class, or Teaching
> Creative Commons to music students etc
>
> 7. Links to cc education mailing list
>
> (Mailing lists would link to author IDs so that users could go 
> directly to
> the website to find out more about authors of posts and put their 
> ideas in
> a particular context - better than having to do your own ineffective
> investigations about authors when you join a list)
>
> The project would aim to build a *community* around the cc education
> license and to stimulate active engagement in the development of open
> content ideas on a global scale.
>
> Once a model has been developed, it could be applied to other subjects or
> multi-disciplinary learning areas.
>  
> So, what do you all think? This probably can't all be done at once but it
> would be useful to hear which - if any - are the better ideas.
>
> Best,
>
> Heather.
>
> Heather Ford
> ************************************************
> www.hblog.org
> Reuters Stanford Digital Visions Program
> http://reuters.stanford.edu
> Cordura Hall, 220 Panama Street
> Stanford, CA 94305-4115, USA
> Cell: 650 380 4227
>
> _______________________________________________
> cc-education mailing list
> cc-education at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-education
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-education/attachments/20031210/0e998a88/attachment-0001.htm


More information about the cc-education mailing list