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

While the history of open source has been about a highly technical few making excellent software for the many, the future of open source is dependent on ordinary users contributing to make a difference, and the tremendous returns on investment available to the students and institutions who contribute.

Open source projects are real world efforts that involve collaboration, accountability, and follow-through. In this talk, the panel presents how educators can contribute to open source projects in their classrooms and the benefits that accrue.

This talk also focuses on why educators want to bring the teaching of open source in to the classroom. 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 multi-national collaboration experience and work within technology projects that are of a far larger scale than they'd otherwise have access.

Abstract

In our talk, Using the Open Source Two-way Street in the Classroom, the Fedora Ambassadors team presents a wider view of the open source universe. Using Fedora and other real world examples, the panel draws the audience attention on the whole world of free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) and how partnering with projects is a viable and useful method for teaching students of all types.

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

Using the Fedora Project as a primary example, 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 FLOSS projects. FLOSS 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.

For educators, FLOSS projects are partnerships with experienced mentors. Educators who partner with FLOSS projects gain a team who is interested in seeing their students learn, succeed, and make a difference. One example of the difference in working with FLOSS 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. FLOSS 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.