I haven’t had time to blog all the sessions I’ve been to. Here’s one from the School Libraries track.
Internet @ Schools East
Tuesday – Track S201 -Open Educational Resources: Join the Global Education Community
Curriki – Free, collaborative, open content, creative commons licensed curriculum sharing wiki http://www.curriki.org/
Why? Traditional textbooks are hard to update, out of date, hard to distribute and just
plain expensive.
Advantages of collaborative curricula:
- potential for interactivity
- uses can now create and improve, not jsut consume content
- Content can be developed colalboratively by the community, botgh local and global
- Teachers are more engaged in the process
Who is Curriki?
- First internet destination for Open Source Curricula (OSC)
- Founded by Sun Microsystemss in 2004
- spun off as a fully independent non profit in 2006
What is Curriki
- Repository for curricula validated by experts
- free online curricula created by community
- material has defined learning objectives
- lesson plans
- textbooks & other instructional materials
- can host many file formats including video
- includes good tools for content creation.
- members can create groups within curriki to work together.
- Takes advantage of a Web 2.0 content development cycle eg: create –> publish –> edit, comment, revise –> publish revised content (rinse and repeat)
- users no longer need to buy a single expensive textbook or workbook or instructional activites from publisher
- Can create customized book or learning resources
- Teachers are empowered to be content creators
- 63,000 members
- 25,000 assets
- statewide spanish curriculum from Wyoming
- extensive content from several NY BOCES
Contents shared by
- for profit publishers
- non-profitpublishers/organizations
- school districts/regional organizations
- ministries of education
- schools of education
- Global community of educators
- Content from Nortel – technology education for educators
- Organizations can customize the platform to share with their communities
- Some countries are moving towards putting all their education materials on curriki (Indonesia?)
What about Quality control?
- quick check by a real person to see if the content is really educational material
- review by subject matter expersts – about 20% of the repostory has been reviewed. Users can nominate material to be reviewed –
- reviewers are on staff – master teachers – with at least 20 years experience,
- member comments –
- 2009 – adding a system for star ratings by members
Curriki’s Strategy going forward
- Build two sides of repository 1: core material that has been created by professional publishers and 2: the open side created by contributors – make it easier for school
- districts to find published and to feel more comfortable with this whole idea which is
- really the reverse of the publishing process that most districts are familiar with
- Build a suite of easy to collaboration tools and publishing templates
- establish community of educators
- engage partners to participate in local global projects
- will have curriki platforms for different communities/regions – eg: Curriki UK – site controlled by UK team. UK content has greater visibility
What educators can do now
- Share existing content
- build and share curriculum
- create groups to collaborate
Summer of content
- teachers paid to create curriculum over the summer –
- do you have something you’ve created that you’d like to share?
- deadline coming up soon
- go to web site for info
Follow them on Twitter http://twitter.com/Curriki
Questions from audience – How can it really be free? Really, really non profit. Lots of grants and other big donors and supporters.
