[IAEP] OERs and collaboration

[Valerie Taylor]

How to generate the best collaborative environment to provide
educators with effective access and adaption of resources across a
broad spectrum of curriculum areas and age-appropriate activities? Oh,
yes - it must allow for casual contributions without the need for
labor intensive moderation and editing and dispute resolution.

"Everyone" talks about OERs - collaboration, adoption. adaption but
there isn't really as much activity as there "ought" to be given the
interest, time and money that have gone into discussion these
education revolutionizing ideas.

This is something that has been needed for many years and still hasn't
materialized. Perhaps the Replacing Textbooks program can address some
of the functionality. A wiki-based solution could work. Although
people are willing to contribute and collaborate, there is a
reluctance to change the work of others without some explicit
"authority" to do so. This has been a frustration with WikiEducator -
even with notations that collaboration is invited, there are no
contributions. There is a frustration with Wikipedia contributions
that are promptly removed by the "editor".

Perhaps there is some middle ground. The idea of comments on a blog
post works out pretty well. The commenter augments the information in
the post, without modifying the original text. In the Sugar Labs wiki,
there are entries for all the Activities which could serve as the
basis for the collaborative framework. How about a forms/template
based contribution function that will add sections to a wiki entry?
For example, I came up with a sixth grade math activity based on
Turtle Art and I would like to share it. It would be nice to add this
to an inventory of middle school math activities connected to Turtle
Art. Others could then find my activity and others based on a search
for "middle school," "math" and/or "Activity:Turtle Art."

Just thinking... Would something like this overcome potential
contributors' resistance and get the ball rolling? ;o) Other ideas?