[TOS] textbook outline

[Clif Kussmaul]

+1 for FOSS textbook. I would like to contribute.

+1 for making it easy to mix and match pieces,
since teachers use multiple approaches.
For example, my school has one software engineering course,
for sophomores, in which I try to cover general SE, FOSS, 
and entrepreneurship - it's also a writing intensive course :-)
That's very different from a course with a SE prereq,
or a course with no prereqs at all.

+1 for Tridge's comments on topic sequencing. 
I struggled with similar issues in my course, until I 
finally did a critical path analysis in OpenWorkbench :-)
Helping teachers navigate these dependencies
may be almost as useful as the actual content,
particularly given the variety of ways people will use it.
The book should have a diagram showing dependencies
between topics in the book, and topics NOT in the book.
It could also suggest different paths through the content.

+1 for collaborative authoring (using CNX or a wiki),
and for an easy feedback mechanism.
In a wiki it would be easy to tag assumed prerequisites for each topic,
which could be helpful in (dynamically?) creating dependency diagrams.
and in encouraging high cohesion and low coupling (for mix and match).

It's good to have some real examples,
but there are dramatic differences across projects.
Could/should we choose 3-5 projects to use 
as extended case studies for continuity?

Clif

Clif Kussmaul  clif at kussmaul.org  484-431-0722
 


-----Original Message-----
Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 14:18:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Greg Dekoenigsberg <gdk at redhat.com>
Subject: [TOS] Textbook outline
To: tos at teachingopensource.org
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0905121414180.4119 at localhost.localdomain>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed


So first, everyone agrees on a structure.

As I said before, I like the structure of Tridge's course, and I think 
that it would translate quite nicely to a textbook structure.  So I stole 
it.  I also stole some of the work that Chris Tyler and Dave Humphrey have 
been preparing for POSSE.

Here's the first cut of the first version of an outline of 
an outline of a textbook:

http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/User:Gregdek/Textbook

Let's hear it, profs.  Right idea?  Wrong idea?

Please advice, because at some point, I'm just gonna start writing and 
soliciting writers, and if we're wasting our time, that would be great to 
know up front.  :)

--g

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