[Osdc-edu-authors] Simple contributions: beats

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

The schedule is looking pretty empty right now.

This is probably going to be typical: folks will have ideas for Big Pieces 
that simmer in the background, and continue to get pushed to the back 
burner as higher priority projects push to the front.  That's exactly the 
boat I'm in this week.

I'd like to propose an idea that I think has worked pretty well for me in 
other projects in the past: the idea of beats.

We don't have to tell every story, but we *should*, at the very least, be 
effective in pointing people to good stories -- and I believe that there 
are a handful of resources that will help us do that.

Here's what I'd like to propose, and I'd like to hear people's thoughts.

* * *

The Beat.

Beat writers should follow a handful of blogs or news sources, and be 
prepared to write three paragraphs about their beat, once every two weeks. 
Beat writers should follow Google alerts, interesting Twitter posts, and 
so on.

Some possible beats:

* Moodle/Sakai.
* OLPC.
* OER.
* opencontent.org (David Wiley is worth following all by himself.)
* Open textbooks.
* ed.gov.
* The various policy shops on education -- *fascinting*, with lots of 
implications:
   + http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/category/education-child-policy/
   + http://www.brookings.edu/topics/education.aspx
* Your idea here?

* * *

A sample of a simple beat article.  (Which is going up later today.)  One 
of those kinds of articles that would be great at 5000 words, but is also 
useful at 200-500, and can rely heavily upon quoting and light commentary:

* * *

Openness and The National Educational Technology Plan

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced the National 
Education Technology Plan.  For the first time, the Obama strategy for 
education is spelled out in great detail -- and at its heart is a deep 
reliance upon open infrastructure and open educational resources.  For 
those who believe in the power of open source to transform education, the 
plan is essential reading.

The Executive Summary 
(http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010/executive-summary) gives a great 
overview of the goals of the plan.  Here's a phrase that does a pretty 
good job of summing up the entire philosophy of the plan: "a model of 21st 
century learning powered by technology."

Have a read through it, and as you do, take careful note of the language 
that clearly favors open approaches.  There's plenty of that language 
scattered all through the plan.  In particular, there's a whole section 
devoted to open educational resources 
(http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010/open-educational-resources), in 
which this gem stands out:

"The Department of Education has a role in stimulating the development and 
use of OER in ways that address pressing education issues. The federal 
government has proposed to invest $50 million per year for the next 10 
years in creating an Online Skills Lab to develop exemplary 
next-generation instructional tools and resources for community colleges 
and workforce development programs. These materials will be available for 
use or adaptation with the least restrictive Creative Commons license. 
This work is expected to give further impetus to calls for open standards, 
system utilities, and competency-based assessments."

That's $500 million dollars, folks.  All dedicated to OER, all made 
available under Creative Commons licenses.

The plan is open for comments (http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010). 
If you support this initiative, be sure to make your voice heard.

* * *

Comments welcome.  I myself am likely to start using this beat approach 
for my own pieces.  I'd rather have a continuous stream of people writing 
a 200-500 word article every two weeks, than a small trickle of people 
writing a 5000 word article every three months.  (Although I'd prefer 
both, heh.)

--g

--
Educational materials should be high-quality, collaborative, and free.
Visit http://opensource.com/education and join the conversation.