collaborative writing

Still stuck on how the theme topic you pick relates to the final project prompt questions?

Aleida suggested these for the topic encourage cooperation among students

Example:
what will be the important global social and technology issues in the next 3-5 years? That would, encourage cooperation among students?

What role will computer and internet technology play? To encourages cooperation among students?

Yes, this is the idea. You can change the questions to suit your topic better, but this is a good start. The point being, there are plenty of global social issues and technology issues around each of the theme topics that you can explore, analyze and report.

There are examples of new technologies and how they are being included to benefit learners. There are many uses of technologies in education that have their critics too. There is an opportunity to provide a student perspective on the future of technology and teaching and learning.

The Final Project is a collaborative writing activity. This is pretty leading edge - project-based learning to deliver globally accessible open educational resources (OERs) in a recognized public educational forum - WikiEducator. So there is a good deal of freedom to explore some of these ideas in new and interesting ways. That also means that you and your team will have to figure this out, as you are some of the first students to ever do something like this.

Ask questions if you need to, but you may come up with better ideas within your group. If you are really frustrated, please ask. This is an interesting and important learning opportunity. Enjoy.
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Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education

Final Project Theme for Winter 2009 :

Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education

In 1987 Chickering & Gamson published the Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. These principles are based on the perspective that the goal of a proper undergraduate education should be active, cooperative, and challenging.

For the final project, each project group will address one of the Principles listed. In addition to the general global social and technology issues described in the Final Project guidelines, consider these theme-specific questions. How can computers and the internet be used for including the Principles in college education? Include examples of assignments, activities and technologies to support your recommendations.

1. encourage student-faculty contact
2. encourage cooperation among students
3. encourage active/engaged learning
4. give prompt feedback
5. emphasize time on task
6. communicate high expectations
7. respect diverse talents and ways of learning

Community Service learning projects

On behalf of all the community partner organizations, thanks to everyone for your community service learning work.

The range of service work reflects interests and community engagement in person - daycare assistance, special projects in kids' schools, coaching high school athletes, and online - books for young adult new readers, illustrations for a not-for-profit worldwide training program.

I put together a list of links to student work online. These are public sites and will benefit partner organizations and visitors everywhere. Your contribution also helps promote the important work of these partner organizations in their global communities.

http://www.wikieducator.org/DeAnza_College/CIS2/Students_work#MidTerm_projects

If I missed links to your work, please let me know as I would like to keep this as a record of all the work contributed to these online community partners.

Thanks to everyone. Great work that is really appreciated. I hope that it made you feel good too.

Bound by Law - comic book

This comic book explains the complexities of copyright law.

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/zoomcomic.html

“Bound by Law translates law into plain English and abstract ideas into ‘visual metaphors.’ So the comic's heroine, Akiko, brandishes a laser gun as she fends off a cyclopean 'Rights Monster' - all the while learning copyright law basics, including the line between fair use and copyright infringement.” -Brandt Goldstein, The Wall Street Journal online
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eTextbooks

A Gift of Fire, Baase http://www.coursesmart.com/9780136008859 - the text for CIS2 is available as a 180 day subscription to online version for $37.50

The bookstore regular purchase $75.00
Amazon - new $67.50

Would you consider subscribing to the eTextbook rather than buying the book?

books for new readers

Aleida has been hard at work creating books for new readers

• Visions of Space http://tarheelreader.org/2009/01/29/visions-of-space/"
• Curious are the Eyes http://tarheelreader.org/2009/02/01/curious-are-the-eyes/

Rajesh has also produced new books

• Indian Food http://tarheelreader.org/2009/02/04/indian-foods/
• Biography of Rachel McAdams http://tarheelreader.org/2009/02/04/biography-rachel-mcadams/

Open source - good for all

Some students are concerned that open source software and content - text, audio, video, images mean that the author / producer must work for free and are therefore losing money. However, just because the information is free, doesn't mean that the author / producer isn't paid.

There are many different ways to be paid. Some are paid by a company or a college to do the work as part of their job. For example, the college gets student fees, attracts students, get recognition. They get grants from government or foundations or even companies to produce the work and make it freely available. There are many organizations and individuals who believe it is in the best interests of society to make information available freely to anyone and everyone.

Even for this class, the cost of the textbook is much higher than the student fees. We are working to find a better, free or cheaper solution. Others share this concern and are actively doing something about it!

The College Open Textbooks project is working on this.
http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/profiles/blogs/models-for-open-textbooks
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Illustrations of Community Service Learning

Check out Roy's wonderful illustrations.
http://meshmantra.blogspot.com/

These graphics were created as his Community Service Learning project. The work was "commissioned" by the Community Empowerment Collective.

Other artists had created illustrations of scenes of communities working together. The settings were African. Roy offered to provide another set of illustrations depicting people from his Indian background. He has captured the dress and culture in his versions.

Community Empowerment Collective creates, develops, produces and distributes training material and guidance aimed at community mobilisers, their trainers and their coordinators (managers) to promote the self reliance, development and strengthening of low income communities, with a focus on least developed countries, and in other low income areas.

The Community Empowerment training materials are available on the web. They are being translated into many languages already - notably English, German, Spanish, French, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Italian. The training resource library is constantly expanding with translations being added. Current translation initiatives include African and Asian languages. Additional translation volunteers with proficiency and fluency in any language are always welcome to help expand access to the Community Empowerment through localization.

http://www.scn.org/cmp