[TOS] Textbook Audience

Peter Ruwoldt ruwoldtp at gmail.com
Sat Mar 27 21:28:46 UTC 2010


Thanks Matthew and Mel.  Another email led me to
http://quaid.fedorapeople.org/TOS/Practical_Open_Source_Software_Exploration/html/index.html
which
gives me a bit of an idea about each of the authors and collaborators.  I
work in the senior secondary area in Australia.  Each of the states of Aus
are, population wise, quite small and each has their own department of
education meaning that there is not really the population to invest in much
resource development which means that it is tough to find collaborators for
such a small niche curriculum.  The country is currently moving toward a
national curriculum but what that will mean for IT is still a bit unknown.
 This may help with the resource development aspect. I am keen that students
are aware of and have some understanding of the FOSS model when they leave
school, irrespective of whether they continue with IT.

Being a secondary teacher, without a degree in Computer Science, the
development of a book (not a program) like this where you are using FOSS
methods to produce it seemed like a smart place for me to look to find out
more about how this FOSS development works and how the collaboration ticks.
 I've been lurking on this list for some months to try and find out more
about how you people work, the tools and the nature of the discussions so
that I am in a better position to perhaps do this. I am really not much
better off with understanding what tools and how you use them.  I have
learnt a lot about how you challenge and support each other and I can see
the consequence of that in your book.  I was also interested in the way that
you reacted to my simple audience question and how you turned that into
a improvement opportunity.

I am wondering how I might adapt your work to the senior secondary scene.
 I'm wondering when would be the best time to start and I'm wondering how to
gather other collaborators.

Are you looking at including diagrams, pictures and other media objects?

Thanks

Peter

On 27 March 2010 23:23, Matthew Jadud <mjadud at allegheny.edu> wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 08:33, Mel Chua <mel at redhat.com> wrote:
> > Actually, this reminds me of an idea Matt Jadud brought up the other day
> > - personas[0][1] for the book. I added that thought here:
> >
> http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Instructor_Guide#Notes_for_the_0.9_Release
>
> To provide a bit more background (but less than a webpage):
>
> Before we started developing a library and documentation (book) to
> support parallel programming on the Arduino, we spent a lot of time
> defining who we were developing and writing for. This way, as we
> developed the library (an interface) and the book (an interface), we
> could always relate our discussion back to the personas. Having clear
> personas helped us focus both w.r.t. the library design and has
> provided a focus for the writing.
>
> I think it would be a good idea for the 0.9 revision. While editing, I
> often found myself wondering---who am I editing for? What do they
> know? What needs to be expanded and explained and made step-wise, and
> what should we expect them to know? It was too late to ask those
> questions for 0.8, but some more framing might help the 0.9 revision
> process.
>
> Cheers,
> Matt
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-- 
Free and Open education for all

Peter Ruwoldt
Grant High School
Hosking Avenue
MOUNT GAMBIER  SA  5290

P. 08 87263128
F. 08 87250173

ruwoldtp at granths.sa.edu.au
http://www.watiwara.com
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