Under Construction: New features, new help area on the way

For those of you who have been following the blog for while, you've probably noticed that we haven't been posting quite as much of late. There are two big reasons for this.

First, we recently said goodbye to Kyle, who has been a major contributor to the blog from its inception both as an author and designer. Alas, despite our best efforts, we could not convince him that the slave wages and table scraps we were offering as payment were better than finishing his degree, so he's now back at Rice as a full-time student. Maybe in a few years when he's off working as a NASA engineer he will look back and realize just exactly how much he misses us, but until that day comes, we'll have to find a way to soldier on without him. Good luck, Kyle!

The second major blog speed bump is related to some of the work we've been doing to enhance the site, which has kept us all pretty busy. In the coming weeks Connexions will be upgrading its collection structures - the "blueprints" that define textbooks, courses, etc. - to use a new XML format called CollXML. While we won't be offering the ability to edit CollXML documents directly just yet, this work is setting the stage for a slew of new collection-related features that we hope to introduce over the coming months that will give collection authors even greater control over their work. For now, the new CollXML export function will provide opportunities for outside developers to take full advantage of the content in the Connexions repository.

You may soon find yourself updating your content to the newest version of CNXML, version 0.7. For those of you who remember the CNXML 0.6 upgrade earlier this year, don't worry - this is NOT a major change from the previous language, but is primarily an administrative update to support the CollXML rollout. The one difference for authors is that we are making it easier to include alternate images for online and pdf formats, allowing you greater control of what is (and is not!) displayed to the reader based on how they are viewing the content. Additional details and documentation will be available when the update rolls out later this month.

We've also been working hard to restructure the Connexions "Help" pages (http://cnx.org/help/). Several of these resources are being merged, moved, and/or expanded in order to help visitors and authors better find the most relevant guides and tutorials. As a part of this effort we've also identified and "retired" several outdated or duplicate tutorials, so if you have bookmarked some of those pages you may need to update your links. These changes will make life a lot easier for those looking for help, but as always you can email techsupport@cnx.org if you have any questions or comments.

And the fun doesn't stop there ... next month we're planning to release a major update for organizations interested in promoting their brand along with the content they provide. Stay tuned, these updates are scheduled to be released sometime around Halloween ...

Revisionist History

So I was sitting on my couch, reading another article about Robert Bobb's fight to save Detroit's public schools, this time with a little bit of help of one William Cosby Jr., Ed.D. And I'm struck again by how much potential there is for open education to do a world of good here, for a district so desperate that it's closing 40 schools and laying off 1,000 teachers. As I read this, I began thinking more about Dr. Cosby's activism and tough-love approach to race, crime, socio-economic struggles, and so on, how he is not content to allow those around him to bemoan their circumstances but rather calls them to action to right the wrongs in their world ...

And that's when it struck me. We often talk about Connexions being a platform for so-called "shut outs" - authors who for one reason or another don't have access to traditional publishing media to spread their work and ideas - and I began to realize that there's an angle to this, an important question at the center of our educational philosophy, that we haven't fully considered in this discussion: what is the real story behind the world we live in?

Consider for a moment the subject of US History (those of you reading from outside the US will likely have your own variation on this same theme). There are often complaints that our history textbooks are too centered on the actions of white men, and neglect the contributions of Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, women, etc. Normally the conversation ends there - after all, what can you do but complain and hope that somebody, somewhere, is motivated to write a better textbook?

But now we have Connexions. Now we have an opportunity to - literally - rewrite history as it is taught to our students. Educators no longer have to choose between history books that restrict certain views, but can instead provide any combination of historical and cultural perspectives by including modules with different points of view that otherwise may never make it into the traditional texts. When our teachers, parents, or community leaders get frustrated that their kids aren't hearing the full story, they can feel empowered to so something about it: to write and share those stories, and give the educators the ammunition they need to effect change.

Coming back to the story in Detroit ... I think about the districts who are hurting the most right now by budget issues. Detroit. Houston. New Orleans. Washington. The State of California. All hurting financially, and all serving populations traditionally shortchanged by revisionist history. And you have to ask yourself: How awesome would it be for these districts to, at the same time, realize the monetary saving provided by free textbooks AND the add ability to provide a pluralistic view of the content they teach?

The K-12 arena is the Holy Grail of open education - a opportunity to ease the burden of education on society while ensuring that each and every student has access to high-quality educational content. Ironically, one of our biggest hurdles in this fight is that the books are, well, free. The problem is that too often, people assume that if you are giving something away, it must not be worth anything. But if we can show district leaders a tangible advantage that has nothing to do with price - show them how a site like Connexions can help present a more complete view of our society and the topics our educators teach - I think a lot of those same players will begin to understand the true value of OERs, and will find the political cover necessary to begin adopting such materials.

We need to stop promoting open resources primarily as a way to save money, and show them off for what they are: powerful pedagogical tools for a pluralistic society. If we can do this - if we can show our educators and administrators and legislators that we can provide better materials (for a lower price to boot) - we might just find ourselves making greater headway within the public school system. How great would it be for Connexions to be the platform of choice for promoting an inclusive curriculum, a way for educators to provide their students with a complete and accurate view of the world in which they live rather than blindly accepting the version places in front of them by strangers?

And hey, if someone can figure out a way to get Bill Cosby to shill for us, all the better. :)