It has been quite a year so far for Siyavula. My rate of blogging is inversely correlated with real work (queue DDoS attack by blogging world) so the lack of activity should have told you that something was afoot. The focus this Fellowship year is to make Siyavula sustainable by taking Open Educational Resources (OERs) [...]
We recently did a little travelling around South Africa (Durban/Pietermaritzburg and Johannesburg) running events where we raise awareness of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, the shared resources that are available, the tools that can be used and the communities that develop and support them. We are often asked why people should share. My intention [...]
My blog has been very quiet for the last couple of months. It is not that I’ve not had anything to blog about but rather the contrary, I’ve just been too busy. I have spent some time creating two summaries of what I’ve been up to in 2010 so you can get a sense of the bigger picture. It also shows you what has happened in the last 2 months that I just haven’t had time to blog about.
It came to pass recently that we (and by we I mean just short of 100 volunteers from all over the world!) edited the FHSST textbooks in the space of 9 days. In writing this blog post reviewing what happened and what comes next, I have realised that it was an incredibly stupid thing to even attempt (impossible actually) and I’m still amazed that we were able to successfully complete the task, all due to the generosity of volunteers.
- Access books on a.nnotate.com (links available on http://www.markhorner.net):
- Mathematics Grade 10: http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2010-10-08&c=SHkkygd2
Mathematics Grade 11: http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2010-10-08&c=dHbcYbbw
Mathematics Grade 12: http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2010-10-08&c=M4p01euS
Physical Science Grade 10: http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2010-10-08&c=3sCc82qY
Physical Science Grade 11: http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2010-10-08&c=hW2hgnQP
Physical Science Grade 12: http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2010-10-08&c=enzaEmdn
- Select an exercise in any book that has no solution and no annotation about a solution on FullMarks
- Highlight the question and an annotation window pops up – annotate the question saying that you are working on a solution
- Create a question on FullMarks with the full step-by-step model solution and finalise it (see details a bit later for some guidance on this)
- View your finalised question and answer on FullMarks – copy the url
- Return to a.nnotate.com and add the url you copied to the annotation in the book that you created in step 3
- Log in to www.fhsst.org (this is at the very bottom of the FHSST page)
- Create a short url by going to www.fhsst.org/shorten selecting “Shorten url” option from the menu and pasting the full question url into the box and submitting
- Copy the resulting code from the short url (i.e. just copy XYZ when the short url is www.fhsst.org/answers/XYZ) and add this to the annotation in the book as well
- Return to step 1. and repeat for another question
This will ensure that we have a short code to redirect learners to a full model solution for every question in the book. They will also then be able to see similar questions on FullMarks as well. We have adapted this slightly for the hackathons but always ensuring that the files on a.nnotate.com have the latest information regarding what has been and is being worked on.
| Hackathon Process | ||
| Get a paper chapter assignment from the relevant Siyavula team member so they can manage what is being worked on – do this to help them even if you can follow ideal process. | ||
| Buddy up with someone to discuss any issues which might arise. Some questions may not be clear or the text may have an error or you may just want some input on the simplest way to approach the solution. | ||
| Access to the internet | Computer but no access to the internet | No computer |
|
|
|
This will ensure that we have a short code to redirect learners to a full model solution for every question in the book. They will also then be able to see similar questions on FullMarks as well.
I’m very passionate about the problem of affordable textbooks (and academic publishing more generally), especially in maths. I came from an underprivileged background and I know there are many brilliant people out there who have no opportunity to flourish due to lack of materials. I also have a friend in a third-world country (PNG) who is a teacher, and I could imagine the benefit he would derive from a textbook scheme as you have organised in South Africa.
Once this is complete we will turn to suggestions and improvements related to the conceptual explanations incorporation, where appropriate, links to the Khan Academy videos and the PHET Simulations. From there we can develop the teachers’ guides and submit the books to the formal review process at the DBE for inclusion on the approved books list. Should they be included schools will be able to purchase FHSST textbooks as part of the official procurement process but at approximately 1/5 of the cost of publishers alternatives.
--> 5 Comments » Our schools are struggling due to the nation wide strike. Learning needs to continue at the schools, many of whom are running on skeleton crews. A group of volunteers have authored a set of open source textbooks and resources that can to support learners and educators in this time. The open copyright license allows the [...]
A long time ago we set out to get two sets of textbook covers designed, one for Physical Science Gr 10-12 and one for Mathematics Gr 10-12. We used the opportunity to test crowdsourcing against traditional design. Here are the results of the two processes for you to compare.
On Wednesday and Thursday last week (9th and 10th June) we met with representatives of the North West Province to discuss what the next steps would be in our collaboration this year.
We have just finished helping the HOD Science at Bishops Diocesan College, Keith Warne, put all of his 200+ powerpoint presentations for the teaching of Grade 8-12 Science online. They are all freely available to view, use, download and modify!
We’re back in the groove with OpenPress right now, working on the information website and printing some sample books. Read about the site and aggregation process in this post.
I forecast a much more responsive authoring experience on Connexions in the near future, the results of a detailed performance analysis are in and some massive potential improvements have been identified. Now to turn my attention to getting them implemented!
I have a Fellowship from the Shuttleworth Foundation to work in the area of Open and Collaborative Resources. My Fellowship enables me to work on a number of projects in this area. I believe in the liberation of information and supporting education in South Africa.
I manage the Siyavula project, where I co-ordinate the development of a comprehensive set of Open Educational Resources (OER) supporting the South African National Curriculum.
Along with Sam Halliday, I co-founded the Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) project which launched in 2002 and has collaboratively produced a set of openly licenced science and mathematics textbooks
In collaboration with Steve Song, Interconnectedness Fellow, I founded OpenPress, a project to deploy a print aggregation service to support teachers.
I also run FullMarks, an open assessment bank, to help teachers rapidly generate tests, capture results and access reports based on those results.
I have a PhD in physics from the University of Cape Town and conducted my research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California on the results from the STAR experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.
My blog highlights the progress on my various projects and contains thoughts on the OER space as well as life in general.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
When re-using this content please provide a clear and prominent link to this blog.