Daniel Brookshier's Blog

October 2005 Archives

New Projects in the Education and Learning Comunity

Once again, a fine crop of great projects in the Global Education and Learning Community. This time we have some normal fare for our community in terms of math with Algebra and Path Planning plus study aids and teacher aids with a Study Buddy and an Open Gradebook. We also have a student working on a programming assignment, an educational web site, and an online exam.

But this time we also have a very cool project called Clicker that aims at creating an open source version of the "clicker" device we see in some classrooms today. As you may know, the clicker is used to get instant feedback to a teacher and can be used for classroom interaction. In essence, it is like an audience participation vote device. Clickers are not always cheap or even well made and many schools put the burdon of cost and care to the student. It is inevitable that a student would see that there might be a better way. I recently was watching a documentary (Scientific American Frontiers?) that used a clicker and was amazed at the contortions of students trying to hit the infrared detectors in the classroom - not a ringing endorsement. There has to be a better way and so open development to the rescue. Let's see if we can create a better system!

Here is the summary list. Click below to see the slightly summarized details from each of the project proposals.

clicker - Open source "clicker" implementation

Monos - Monos Algebra Software
papaf - Path Planning Framework
CLEW - Collegiate Educational Website (CLEW)
StudyBuddy - Mindmapping, essay organiser, revison scheduler
wordsearchpuzzle - A project for a programming class
OnlineExamination - A user friendly exam
Open-Gradebook - A easy to use, non-intrusive grading system for teachers.

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