CUE Conf 2009 proposal

CUE is a grassroots organization that strives to offer conferences that celebrate the classroom and learning with technology.

Relevant details

http://www.cue.org/conference/present

Proposal target, to quote:

"Concurrent Sessions

Concurrent sessions are one-hour, lecture-style presentations that address all areas of the curriculum and appeal to a variety of teachers. Sessions may be given by a single speaker, team or panel who can address the needs of the novice user of educational technology as well as the more experienced professional."

Proposing steps

According to the CUE Conference Speakers Selection Process:

"This is the predominant session of the conference. Sessions are one hour in length. Once the CUE office receives applications, the originals are kept and the strand, title, and abstract are copied to a file and sent to the Speaker Selection Committee. Proposals are evaluated on the abstract content. (They are read blind, the reader does not know the submitter's name.) Three reviewers read each abstract. The volunteer Speaker Coordinator reviews any proposals with discrepant scores. Reviewers use the following rubric to rate proposals."

1. One person get an account to submit the proposal and receive the dead-tree acceptance/rejection letter (quaid)
2. Make sure proposal includes:
   • submission form
   • title
   • description
   • abstract.
   • Write a good abstract. Focus on a solid presentation
3. Get in by 1900 UTC 2008-09-12

Draft proposal

Title

Using the Open Source Two-way Street in the Classroom

Description

Contributing to open source projects in the classroom provides educators and students access to experience on projects at a large scale and with global collaboration that yields unparalleled rewards.

Abstract

In our talk, "Using the Open Source Two-way Street in the Classroom", the Fedora Ambassador team presents a wider view of the open source universe. Using Fedora and other real world examples, the panel draws the audience's attention to the whole world of open source software and how partnering with projects is a viable and useful method for teaching students of all types.

This is much more than using open source, this is about finding ways to contribute to open source so that students gain valuable experience similar to an internship without the overhead and hassles. Educators gain access or become involved in communities where they can force-multiply their contributions into a large return. At the same time, they provide their students with multinational collaboration experience and work within technology projects that are of a large scale while having a low barrier to access.

Whether students of marketing, writing, design, business, computer science, and so forth, there is an opportunity for many disciplines to get valuable exposure and experience. Open source projects expose all the aspects of an operational organization: open marketing, open content, and so forth. Online tools bring global teams together to collaborate on all of these aspects.

Using primary examples of existing partnerships with educational institutions and the Fedora Project, the panel first shows why it is valuable for students to gain first-hand exposure at working on projects inside of open communities. Students work with the primary project and other upstream and downstream projects, the watershed analogy describing the interconnectedness of open source projects. Open source projects are entrepreneurial by nature, with project members able to work on what interests them the most, from marketing materials to presentations to documentation to code writing and maintenance. What can start as a student project or a hobby can easily turn in to a career or lifelong passion.

For educators, open source projects are partnerships with experienced mentoring organizations. Educators who partner with open source projects gain a team who are interested in seeing the students learn, succeed, and make a difference. One example of the difference in working with open source projects is in the nature of free and open licensing. Historically, student projects below the post-graduate level are one-off efforts that are shelved after the session is over. Open source presents an opportunity for student work to live on beyond the classroom, as part of something the student continues to work on, as something worked on by future classes, or in the wild where anyone can build on work done.

The talk also briefly covers the method for educators to get involved, as well as what materials already exist that can be adopted directly for the classroom.

The presentation follows this general outline:

1. Introductions and brief explanation of open source
2. Why should educators use contributing to open source in the classroom?
   1. Benefits to the student
   2. Benefits to the educator
   3. Benefits to the educational institution
   4. Benefits to the community
3. How are educators contributing to open source in the classroom today?
   1. What materials are out there already?
   2. What successes has the Fedora Project had?
4. How do you get started using open source as an educational tool?

Fedora Ambassadors are a world-wide organization experienced at presenting the Fedora Project to varied audiences. For CUE, Fedora Ambassadors is drawing from a pool of members to be on the talk panel. For example: Karsten Wade is a leader of the Fedora Documentation Project and member of the Fedora Board; Jack Aboutboul is an experienced Fedora Ambassador who helps lead Fedora's education focused initiatives; Chris Tyler, another Fedora Board member, is an instructor at Toronto's Seneca College who work's with Seneca's Centre for Development of Open Technology.