Can Open Source work for Jewish Education?

Quick, what dos Mozilla Firefox, Linux, Moodle, Openoffice.org. Audacity and Filezilla all have in common? Answer: They are all examples of great open source software available for free on the web. In general, open source products are developed by people around the globe who contribute their time and expertise to develop a product which is then made available for free to the public at large.

Recently there has been some discussion about exploring an open source model for Jewish education. It sounds idealistic, everybody chipping in their little part, the question is - how practical is such an idea?

As someone who has actually tried to organize an open source project or two for Jewish education, I would like to share what I learned from these experiences and what I see the challenges to be.

One particular project I tried to launch revolved around developing some Judaic Studies curricular materials. (I have blogged about it here in the past.) My thought was to start with something small that educators can collaborate on over the summer. I thought the free time in the summer and the limited materials that needed to be covered would make be a good first candidate for an open source project. However, sadly enough the project never got off the ground. I will be the first to admit that I was probably the source of the problem, however there are some lessons I took away from this. I view these as challenges which need to be overcome in the future.

Challenge #1 Are Jewish educators even online?

The first step in any open source project is finding like minded people willing to contribute their time and expertise. Where does one find such people? Techies use the internet to find each other. Where do you find other Jewish educators online? I posted invitations on Lookjed, I created a Facebook group...I even tried faxing an invitation to all schools in the Lookjed directory. However, at the end of the day, I question what percentage of Jewish educators were even aware of such a project. Many Jewish educators have ideological opposition to using the internet at home. If you can't find a big enough pool of contributors your project is almost dead in the water unless it is very small and specific. Although I thought my project was small and specific, obviously it wasn't small and specific enough.

Challenge # 2 Do educators have the time and technological expertise?

Even if we can find Jewish educators online, how many of them feel comfortable using technology collaborating tools? It is one thing for people who make their living as developers to use technology to connect and collaborate on the development of software, but can you ask them same of educators? Put another way, asking techies to use tech is somewhat different than asking non techies to use tech. Do we have any good examples of successful open source educational curricular projects out there on a national level? There is talk of open source textbooks, Wikipedia might be a close example but they are not exactly the same. I have seen some attempts for Jewish educators to get together on a wiki, but I am unaware of any great results in terms of team collaboration and project successes. With time the tools will presumably get easier to use, but the steep learning curve for contributors remains a challenge.

Another related thing to consider, is the time factor. While the average software developer probably makes a decent salary and most likely has a small family as the average American does, those involved in Jewish education are often making a minimal salary and work two jobs to support a larger than average family. That does not leave a lot of free time to dedicate to projects. Some of us are a little crazy, but the majority are not. Working on a project requires dedication and at a certain point one needs to ask themselves why am I doing all this work for free?

Challenge # 3 Who is leading and/or sponsoring the project?

Speaking of free, when you read about most of the successful open source projects you will notice two things they have in common. The first is, they are almost all led by a group at the top who are dedicated to the project on a nearly full time basis. Second, these people at the top are usually SPONSORED in some way. They are not working for free.

For example: Openoffice.org is supported by Sun Microsystems, presumably because they want to chip away at Microsoft. Moodle headquarters is supported by hosting services who use the Moodle trademark and contribute a portion of their profits to the head team. Linux developers make their money by offering support. Sourgeforge.net which hosts open source projects for free makes money by selling their platform software to businesses. Even Wikipedia has its own foundation and can easily make money by advertising. The point is, very few large projects are developed wholly by people with altruistic intentions. Filezilla was started as class project and released as open source because the developers didn't think anybody would pay money for it with so many commercial options available. Audacity is about the only project I know of that does not have a steady source of funding other than donations. It is a small project to be sure.

Thus, I think even if open source were to be used in Jewish education, at least the core team would need to be sponsored in some sort of manner and given organizational support. Sponsoring a core group would most likely get a project off the ground to the point where a greater mass of contributors can join at a later time and be guided to what their role can be.

I don't want to sound pessimistic or be the naysayer who says it can't be done, but until I see a successful open source Jewish educational project I remain unconvinced about the viability of using open source to solve Jewish educational needs. I know for example, the Jim Joseph Foundation made a grant to 14 fellows to build online communities of practice, I am curious where that will lead to after two years of training.

To be determined.

Tzvi Daum
http://www.torahskills.org/
http://www.twitter.com/torahskills

PS I don't consider the various lesson planning sites such as chinuch.org or SJED as examples of successful open source models. For the most part these are sites where users just contribute lesson plans they created. There is no collaboration between contributers and the result is a jumble of lessons with hardly any rhyme, reason or methodology to it.

Care to Join a Discussion on Curriculum Development?

Dear Friends,

Wow, I can't believe it is almost a year since my last postings...however writing is a serious commitment and time is short.

In any event, the question for today is, would you like to take part in an online discussion on the subject of curriculum development?

Some Background

My feelings on the lack of curricular materials available for Jewish day school are known. Just read my postings from a year ago. In brief, curriculum development is an area that seems to have received little attention in Jewish day school education. With schools struggling to stay afloat and support staff, very little resources remain for curriculum development. While there have been some notable gains in this area over the years, for the most part Judaic Studies students have been suffering due to a lack of professionally developed resources.

For example, there has been much discussion about the "Illiteracy Epidemic" - the phenomenon that many day school students cannot independently read a posuk of Chumash after twelve years of day school education. Some have suggested that a lack of educational standards and organized curriculum is at least partially to blame. After all, there is no objective way of measuring student achievement nor are there resources that can effectively develop our students understanding of Judaic Studies text in a methodological manner. Contrast this to what students have in secular studies where textbooks are developed by teams of professionals and based on the latest educational research. Our students simply lose out from walking around with photocopied sheets developed by an overworked educator not specifically trained in the field of curriculum development.

Recent innovations in digital technology are giving us access to more tools than ever (e.g. Smartboards or other forms of computer based instruction), however this too is essentially an exercise in curriculum development. Educational opportunities are simply being missed due to a lack of methodologically developed resources. (Could you imagine a Judaic Studies curriculum supported by an innovative textbook, an accompanying professionally designed Smartboard lesson and opportunities for individual online review?)

To be sure, the obstacles are many. Costs. Who would pay for upfront development costs? Is the market too small and fragmented? Are there organizations that can help in this area? What opportunities are there for combining resources? Are there other models that can be used to develop effective curriculum? Are there resources not widely known about? These are some questions that deserve consideration.

Recent Developments

The immediate reason for this posting is due to a recent development. The latest edition of Jewish Action magazine was devoted to the subject of "chinuch". One of the recurring themes in the articles was the need for new efforts in the field of curriculum development. To be brief, I posted my thoughts about this subject on LookJed and suggested it was time for educators to get together and brainstorm ways of improving this situation. The moderators of LookJed were kind enough to offer their assistance in hosting a web conference (after Pesach) and joining in the discussion - if there is enough interest.

Thus, if curriculum development is a subject that interests you, it is important that you let me know and I would be happy to keep you updated. Even better would be if you would post your thoughts about curriculum development on LookJed as well. Personally, I would like to see a conference that can be archived and discussion continued in an online forum so that everyone's thoughts can be heard. The thoughts expressed can be organized in a final document which can be used as a blueprint for future planning. If we garner enough interest we are hopefully bound to get someone's attention. Thus, no matter where you stand on the subject your thoughts are important and will be heard.

Thank you for interest and please forward this information to someone who would be interested in such a session as well. Feel free to distribute it at work as well.

Sincerely,

Tzvi Daum
tdaum@torahskills.org

http://www.TorahSkills.org
http://twitter.com/TorahSkills
http://opensourcecurriculum.blogspot.com/
http://joscp.org/ (webplatform can be used for collaborating on curriculum)