I've been lurking here watching the development of the textbook with great interest, and wondering how I could help contribute. I'm an education major with only a few of the skills described in the text-book so helping write chapters seemed out of the question. I'm completing a senior project in Curriculum development right now and would really like to do something to help TOS as a part of that.
I've noticed something that has bothered me about the textbook. It is %100 practical, there are no review questions or self-assessment procedures except the exercises. These exercises are great and get students involved quickly, but relying entirely on practical exercises and reflection can make engaging the a learning resource difficult for a student who is unsure if they are "doing it right." This can be an issue in a classroom, where peer pressure and fear of being "wrong" may prevent a student from asking questions. For self paced learners, this problem can be even bigger, because the only people you can ask questions too are strangers on IRC or a list. This kind of intimidation/fear factor has been the biggest barrier in my attempts to teach myself how to be a participant in FOSS communities. What I'm thinking of doing, as a part of my project, is taking the Practical OSS Exploration textbook and building some review questions and other assessment tools to help student and teachers in evaluating their understanding of what is being taught. I feel this is important as these kinds of exercises and reviews can build confidence before you tackle an exercise. Some more details of what I'm thinking can be found on my project blog, http://hacking-education.blogspot.com/ My question to the community is, would this be a useful contribution to the project, or is there something that would be more immediately helpful? -- -Drew Hamblin That which does not kill me has made a serious tactical error.
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