[Okfn-dk] open course for teachers in open data

Sun Feb 2 14:04:31 UTC 2014

Hello everyone,

Sorry, I'm writing in English as there's an aspect of international re-use
in this, and to save my fingers from all too much typing :)

I thought I'd mention an effort from the Open Knowledge Foundation's
aspiring chapter in Finland ( I'm not sure whether Finland is an official
chapter just quite yet ), and ask whether anyone might know some teachers
who might be relevant ( or if anyone has any insights they'd like to share,
that would be entirely welcome ).

Even though I have a close affinity with Denmark, I'm afraid I'm in Finland
most the time. So knowledge of the Danish scene is entirely welcome ( also
if there happens to be similar initiatives happening in Denmark… which
there surely must ;) .

Basically, we're - OKFN finland and surrounds - putting together a package
of open educational material about open data, helping teachers get into it,
so their students can get into it.    It would be great to get the final
version - finished somewhere in april - out to many different people - or
at least to get relevant peoples' reflections on the matter.

So, please take a look at the explanation of the material below, and feel
free to let us/me know if you might be interested in seeing, taking part
of, or knowing someone who might, in this.

Also, if you've got comments on any of this, we'd be very happy to hear
them.

The Finnish ministry of education has given a small bit of funding to
OKF-finland for helping make materials for university teachers to help them
incorporate open data into their teaching.

So, me and an ex-Apps4Finland organiser has been tasked to spearhead an
effort, which hopefully also involves contributions and reflections from
others, to this end.

The general idea is that we could provide them with a framework of
knowledge - it's a low budget production alas, so there's a limit to how
extensive the material we can produce is - that would help them understand
how open data/knowledge relates to and could be part of their fields and
teachings. Also, there should be enough material to help them run own
'solving problems with open data' course in their own field(s), to get the
students on board.

So, the materials will cover the concept, history and potential future of
open data, a quick bit of media history, re/use and sharing, practical
examples from several fields (incl. the fields of the teacher), how to get
and publish data,  how to think critically about the data one sees ( eg.
data literacy ), and how to go about doing practical exercises in class
with open data, etc…

Ideally course participants include people from different backgrounds,
where some of the participants would be from fields including a programming
background, to make the 'teachnical hurdle' a bit less of a nuisance.

I suppose, being a bit of a new effort at least in Finland, there'll be
lots of learning about how to improve this, once it has reached teachers
and maybe even the students. But, well, it would be good to start the
process somehow at least.  New media takes a bit of experimentation to get
going :)

So, feel very welcome to make yourself heard whether you might be
interested either in the material, or of someone who might be, or whether
you might like to provide some feedback on what will be made.

Thanks and all the best,

miska

-- 
miska michael knapek - your local illusionist (designer)
mob. +358-50-320-2616
web: http://knapek.org
http://twitter.com/miskaknapek
animations: http://vimeo.com/miska
images: http://flickr.com/miska_too/sets
code/github: https://github.com/miskaknapek
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-dk/attachments/20140202/07ee3deb/attachment-0002.html>