Monday, July 10, 2017

Meeting on the digital commons

It's worth expanding on my previous post and exploring a bit more the notion of Open Source and it's relation to this blog and to teaching.

OpenSource.com describes Open Source in a document called The Open Source Way. It organizes the Open Source Way around five different principles.

The first is Open Exchange. This is the idea that we all learn more when the exchange of information is open. The free exchange of current ideas is critical to the creation of new ideas.

The second is Participation. This is the idea that freedom to collaborate encourages creativity. Problems can be solved together that cannot be solved alone.

The third is Rapid Prototyping. This is the idea that rapid prototypes may lead to rapid failures but rapid failure lead more quickly to solutions that work. The Rapid Prototyping motto is "Fail early and fail often."

The fourth is Meritocracy. This is the idea that the best ideas win. When everyone has access to the same information, successful work determines which projects get input, effort, and further work from the Open Source community.

The fifth is Community. Communities form around a common purpose and bring together a broad range of ideas and share the work of the project. The community as a whole can create something greater than any one individual is capable of.

The principle that attracts me the most in the context of this blog is Open Exchange. On a face to face basis, most of the significant improvements in my classroom practice have been the result of the exchange of ideas with other teachers. A blog is a digital forum in which I can reflect on my own practice and kick around the ideas which interest me and if they merit the attention of others in my learning circle then we can learn from the exchange of ideas.

In the context of my actual teaching practice, I want to embrace Rapid Prototyping. One of the biggest challenges in improving my teaching practice and implementing new ideas is finding a path from my current practice to my desired goal. But if I embrace the ethos of Rapid Prototyping then a certain amount of failure is not only to be expected. It's to be embraced. I should just try a lot of different things and if they don't work, reflect on why, modify them and try again. I shouldn't need to be fully assured of success before proceeding.

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