Google Documents: An alternative to Writely

Documents (and spreadsheets) can be uploaded, edited and shared online. Nothing to download, easy interface, and free.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

Gender Issues in Open Software

The University of Cambridge folks researched the role of gender in the use of open source software. According to their report published in March 2006, there is a huge discrepancy between female and male use of free and open software. More specifically, only %1.5 of the community members is female!  “Women are actively excluded rather than passively disinterested” (p.5). I found one of the findings of this study really tragicomic “open source communities perpetuate a ‘hacker’ ethic, which situates itself outside the ‘mainstream’ sociality, but equates women with that mainstream” (p.5). And yet, some thinks that open source movement is about democracy, social equity, technological improvements, Web 2.0, etc, etc…

Here is the link to the full report:
http://www.flosspols.org/deliverables/FLOSSPOLS-D16-Gender_Integrated_Report_of_Findings.pdf

The new pedagogy of open content

Today I found a great article that discusses pedagogical perspectives of open content or open educational resources. It is called “The new pedagogy of open content: Bringing together production, knowledge development and learning” and is written by Graham Atwell. He argues that “open content requires a new relationship between producers and consumers” and that ideas such as “communities of practice, activity theory and narrative/story telling support such a new relationship”. I particularly like the way he emphasizes blurring boundaries between knowledge consumers and producers.

http://www.knownet.com/writing/weblogs/Graham_Attwell