Preparation

In the lead up to the life sciences weekend, much planning and preparation was undertaken by the Siyavula team, namely Mark Horner, Neels van der Westhuizen, Carine Grobbelaar, Bridget Nash, Natalia Kavalenia, Carl Scheffler, Heather Williams, Megan Beckett and Helene Smit our facilitator. Megan, who is a Masters student at UCT in molecular and cellular biology, joined our team and has played a huge role in preparing for the life sciences textbook undertaking. Megan gave a lot of time to preparing the curriculum framework from the latest life sciences CAPS document, where she pulled in rich-media to align the proposed textbook with Siyavula’s current maths and physical science WebBooks. She also produced a style-guideline which laid out how each chapter could be constructed and what should be considered as necessary content.

In addition to meetings with Helene who facilitated the weekend, we had numerous team discussions and planning meetings. This was to ensure that all bases were covered and as much preparation for the weekend was done beforehand, in order to make the weekend as successful and stress free and possible. We hosted three evening events at our office in Cape Town, which served as information sessions for interested people to attend, and find out more about Siyavula and how we were planning to produce a textbook in one weekend. We also produced a Q and A blog about the collaboration process, as well as a process diagram which we hoped would really reflect how the textbook would be produced, and answer any questions that people may have had about the weekend.

We also produced paper prototypes of the book. What this means is that we produced a paper version of the outline of the book, a framework if you will, of what each unit of each chapter would look like. Following the curriculum statement, our book would end up with four chapters made up of ten units in total. These units made up the basis of the book, and each of these units needed to be paper prototyped. We assigned one large piece of cardboard to each unit, and then following the curriculum we mapped out the sub-headings and the kind of content that was either compulsory for inclusion, was optional, and then what could be included (the range of options included pictures, diagrams, indigenous knowledge systems, worksheets, exercises, class discussions, rich-media and so on). These would be used once we had the whole group together, and the educators that were present would be able to indicate what content they had that could be used where.

Numerous emails about the life sciences weekend were sent out to the life sciences educators in our database from across the country, to draw as many educators as possible into the project. We made announcements on our social networking pages such as Facebook and Twitter, and encouraged everyone to spread the word on our behalf. We made a life sciences Dropbox account, and encouraged everyone that had content that they wanted to contribute to add it in so that we could sort it in advance, in order to have content available to be used for the weekend (this was also a way for those that couldn’t attend the weekend to still be involved in the project). We also made a Google Doc available for people to sign up to a particular unit in advance, so that if they wanted to come more prepared they could. However, we could not guaranteed each person their unit to work on, as we wanted to see how the group dynamics would play out before assigning people to their smaller groups.

We felt it was very important to have educators from outside of Cape Town present and involved in the textbook collaboration, and so we invited educators from across the country to join us in Cape Town for the weekend. After consultation with Mindset Learn who we are in collaboration with, they made funds available to sponsor the flights and accommodation of one Johannesburg life sciences educator. In addition to this, Mark was able to secure funding to sponsor two more educators to join us – one more from Johannesburg, and one from Durban. This was excellent for our collaboration, as it meant that the project was not restricted to involvement by those in the Western Cape, and which we hope will mean that educators from across the country will more readily accept this as a resource in their own classrooms, knowing that it was an effort of South African educators, and not just those from Cape Town.

Helene invited two guests to join us for the weekend – Dominique le Roux, a publisher who could provide layout guidance as well as knowledge on copyright; and Thapelo Mahlangu who is a management development consultant who helped with indigenous knowledge.

Friday

After much anticipation and planning, Friday afternoon finally arrived! Carine had a busy morning fetching our educators from the airport, and having them check in at their BnB. The rest of us were busy at the office involved in the final preparations – Helene, Mark and Megan had a final check in for the process for the afternoon, while the rest of the team moved furniture around, finished off name tags, set up the kitchen for tea and so on. Before we knew it the office door bell was ringing, and our volunteers were arriving!

We kicked off the afternoon with an introduction by Helene, where everyone was given a chance to introduce themselves to the group and why they volunteered to be involved in this project. Helene then went on to clarify the weekend activities and what would take place in order to produce the book. She briefly laid out how we would work together, how we would identify gaps in the content, how content would be found and collated; and how everything would be uploaded, reviewed and feedback given. It was also important to make everyone aware of what still needed to be decided on, such as use of language and general styling.

Helene then went on to discuss the psychology behind group work. This was very important and why we felt it necessary to have a facilitator on board: with a group of 23 people from different backgrounds with different levels and areas of expertise, there is bound to be conflict on some level during the weekend. It is necessary to address possible issues upfront, and make everyone aware and respectful of what each member of the group is bringing to the table, as well as issues of rank. By making the group aware of how they address each other – the tone that is used, not to be condescending towards each other as each person is an expert in their own right; that everyone has an “edge” – their own personal limit, the end of their comfort zone – one hopes that everyone will be more tolerant and patient towards each other, and be mindful of these points.

Following a tea break, where everyone had their first taste of our amazing caterer’s food, the style guidelines were discussed and agreed upon. Megan’s document was used here, with added suggestions from the group. These were points such as the importance of using simple language but using technical terminology where necessary; avoiding idiomatic expressions; writing in the second person; to points on structure – each chapter should have a brief introduction and summary; use point form and numbered lists for sequences; put keywords in bold; to points on content – include the learning objectives; find simple alternatives for experiments so that they relate to everyday things; caption pictures at the bottom, while graphs and tables are captioned at the top.
We then stuck our paper prototypes of the book on the wall, which gave a really great overview of the proposed book in its entirety. Everyone was asked to give input and ideas for content that could be included, as well as volunteer content of their own to the relevant sections. Everyone was then assigned to a unit, and each group found a space in the office to begin the task of defining the roles in their group and sourcing materials for their section.

After a very busy afternoon it was finally time for dinner. With some wine on offer, we all gathered together to serve dinner and relax around the table and enjoy the meal. There was much chatting amongst everyone – a sure sign of a successful first day!

Saturday

Breakfast was served at 09h00 at the OIS, followed by a regrouping by Helene. Mark then took to the floor to give an overview of copyright licences, and the kind of content that could be included in the book. Siyavula operates under a Creative Commons By Attribution licence (CC-BY), which is the most open of all the licences. But, despite this fact, it can still be challenging to find content that can we can pull directly into our books. This was one of the biggest challenges for our volunteers: knowing which content they legally could and could not use in their work. We directed them to websites where they would be able to find openly licensed content (either under CC-BY or a variation thereof), such as Connexions, OER Commons, and CK12 Flexbooks, but as is the case with so much content on the internet, it is made for the American curriculum so needs reworking before it can be applied to the South African context.

The day was spent sourcing material for each unit, sifting through rich-media, and creating new content for various sections. Some groups were lucky in that educators had shared material for a particular section, which meant they already had a head start on content for their unit, while others had very little if nothing at all for their section, and had to source material from scratch. The whole process is time and energy consuming, but with the team always on hand and Dominique and Thapelo providing invaluable assistance, the day went relatively smoothly.

It was agreed that at 18h00 everyone would stop what they were doing and upload their content to Connexions. This caused anxiety for some, as they felt their work was not ready to be seen by anyone else, never mind put online! We assured everyone that their work would remain private to the group for now, but it that it was necessary to get it onto Connexions in order for us to pull it together into a collection, and show it as the first draft of the book. We stress-tested Carl’s new tool for importing Word documents into Connexions, which worked really well! We did run into a few issues with Connexions however, where the website fell over and nothing further could be imported! It was at this stage that we called it a day, and brought everyone together for a final check-in before dinner.

Overall, Saturday was very productive, with most teams either having completed their unit or being very close to completion. Despite many people feeling tired after a long and busy day of creating content (we worked out that each person in the room was effectively creating 6 hours of teaching content to cover the entire syllabus for the year!), the atmosphere at dinner time was jovial, with much laughter and conversation filling the room.

Sunday

Breakfast was served again at 09h00, with a brief opening by Helene. Everyone was given time to finish up their content and upload it to Connexions. Unfortunately we had technical issues with Connexions again, so everyone’s documents were sent to Megan, who compiled everything into one large document – the first draft of the book.

Following this we had a debriefing session with Helene, where we looked at the next steps in the process to finishing the book. Below is the process that was agreed upon:

Thursday 20 October

• Everyone can work on their documents, but then all documents must be added to Dropbox on or before Thursday noon

Monday 24 October

• We will compile everyone’s documents to form the most up to date version of the book
• This will be put on Annotate for our life sciences group to review and comment on
• It will stay up for two weeks

Monday 7 November

• The book will close for comments, but you will still be able to consult the comments and proposed changes
• There will be an opportunity for everyone that is willing to make the necessary changes to do so, and produce a new version of the book

Monday 21 November

• The new version of the book will go onto Annotate again and will be available to a wider pool of experts to comment on and review

Improved process

In our debriefing we discussed suggestions for how to improve the process for next time. The following points were raised:

1. The second day was too long – some felt it would have been better to end at 17h00 on Saturday, and go on later than 12h00 on Sunday.
2. The unit assignments should have been finalised before the weekend, in order for people to come better prepared (this was made possible but was not enforced).
3. We need to prepare documentation about copyright, so that everyone can consult a handbook on what is and is not allowed when taking content from the internet.
4. The paper prototyping exercise where suggestions of additional content were given, should rather come later, in order for everyone to get to work sooner, and have more solid content before adding in the extras.
5. The tagging issues (using red tags for Connexions uploading) need to be clarified / resolved.
6. The formatting of documents needed to be explained at the beginning.
7. Role defining needed to take place as soon as the groups were established. It was suggested that one person search online for photos, one search for rich-media / content, and one put it all together. What was happening was that each person worked on a section of a unit, and so covered all 3 roles, instead of each person having one role and going from there.
8. Having a volunteer present in each group who has technical knowledge (Connexions knowledge, understands copyright etc) would be very helpful.
9. It would be helpful to establish all the technology resources upfront – i.e. which browser is best to use, where to search for content.
10. Try and source more content from educators before the weekend, so that we have a wide base of resources to draw from for each chapter.

The way forward

1. There will always be an annotateable version of the book available online, and we will endeavour to have the book properly maintained and updated. On the 1 December we will start neatening up the book, and depending on the scope, size and detail of the comments, in the first week of January it should be ready to be made widely available!
2. We will sort out the authors’ list depending on everyone’s discussed specifications.
3. We will be sourcing the requested pictures, and will include these in the book.
4. We will create a mailing list to keep everyone in the loop.

The Siyavula team would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that was involved in any way in making this weekend a possibility! To everyone that gave up their weekend, to those that contributed content, to Helene for her expertise and patience – thank you!

Once again a large amount of preparation was done to ensure the day ran smoothly, including brainstorming any potential issues that may arise, and having solutions at the ready! Heather spent days splitting each chapter of Grade 11 Maths and Physical Science on Connexions into smaller modules, which meant that every volunteer would be given a more manageable amount to translate, and be able to ask for a second / third / fourth assignment, and finish at the end of the day with a great sense of achievement. Heather and I also derived copies of each assignment, and I emailed each volunteer their assignment before Saturday, so that on arrival at the computer lab they could find a seat and get going. By deriving copies of each module it saved the volunteers a lot of time (Connexions can be a bit slow sometimes), and it also meant that we could set the roles correctly and have all the correct privileges set in the modules, in order to be able to edit the modules later on as necessary.

By 08h45 most volunteers were present, and they were all seated and already engrossed in translating their modules. Due to each chapter being broken down into smaller modules, it meant that we had up to 4 volunteers translating a chapter at a time. We grouped people according to this assignment, so that they could talk to each other and give each other assistance.

It wasn’t long before volunteers were asking me for a second assignment, and I gladly emailed them the link to their next one. The front of the lab was quiet, aside from the ticking of fingers on keyboards, and the occasional question being asked. The back of the lab was however a different story! Running concurrently with our translation Hackathon was our FullMarks development sprint, which also took place in the FIRGA lab, but at the back of the room. The developers were a noisy bunch, and added some fun cheer to the room. Carine has written a blog about what they got up to, which can be read here.

Before long it was morning tea, and at that stage we had had 4 Maths chapters and 1 Chemistry chapter translated. By lunch time there was even further progress, some volunteers already having 3 translated chapters to their name.

Carine and Natalia carried out some interviews with willing volunteers, to find out why those that had returned for the second translation Hackathon had come back, what they would say to others to motivate them to come in future, and what they hoped to see come out of the day. A video of these interviews will be made available as soon as possible.

By 17h00 excellent progress had been made: in Grade 11 Maths we had 23 modules fully translated (with another 2 since having been completed), and we now have 6 sitting at about 60% complete. To see the collection on Connexions, please click here. We had fewer people translating Grade 11 Chemistry, but we had 7 modules fully translated, and another 7 of Physics translated, which is excellent progress. Heather will make a collection on Connexions for this book once further progress has been made.

We would like to say a very big thank you to all of our volunteers that gave up their Saturday to Siyavula, in our quest to change education in South Africa; as well as to Stellenbosch University for hosting us, and to Thinus Booysen for his enthusiasm and dedication to the project, who has played a huge role in organising these events.

Well done to everyone involved, it was a brilliant day!

Mark started off with a short presentation on the process they will follow in order to upload their content to Connexions. We then showed them a sample of what their content could look like once it was uploaded. With much laughter and high spirits, the teachers began preparing their documents for uploading to Connexions, which involves styling their documents with headings, and typesetting their equations. They quickly picked this up and learned a great deal about this process. After a short lunch break work resumed, breaking only for coffee mid afternoon.

The next morning we returned to St John’s bright and early, ready to start them on the next step to getting their content onto Connexions. Pretty soon we had one module up and published, and a few more close to completion. However, technical difficulties intervened and soon the team was working to resolve the issues. The teachers remained upbeat and positive despite these difficulties and carried on with the preparation steps of their documents. After a short lunch break, Mark showed the teachers some of the other features of Connexions, such as the collection editor and how to reuse other work that is already on the website.

Despite the technical difficulties experienced on Tuesday, the teachers felt that they had gained some useful knowledge about using word processors and the methods needed to style their documents. One teacher commented that she was planning to teach her students how to use document styling in word processors, as many people don’t know how to use them properly!

At the end of all the hard work over the course of the 2 days, the Siyavula team and St John’s teachers enjoyed a well deserved dinner at La Rustica, where they were able to relax together and chat in an informal environment.

Objectives

The objectives of our Hackathons has always been to improve FHSST. The focus of the Hackathons in the first semester was to upload maths and physical science exemplar papers for Grades 10 – 12 to FullMarks. The goal here was to uploaded 180 questions and solutions per Hackathon, which averages out to around 10 questions per volunteer with a laptop. Once volunteers had mastered FullMarks we would move them on to editing chapters on Connexions.

Approach

Through our Hackathons on UCT campus we are providing a space, process and structure for volunteers to make a meaningful contribution to an education initiative, which not only provides them with a worthwhile outreach outlet, but also helps us improve FHSST. Through our project we are channelling the efforts of many individuals that are willing and happy to volunteer their time to support education, and with our focus of getting the books onto the government approved list this year, we can really add value to their contributions by maximising the impact nationally. Making a difference to education is certainly easier to do in collaboration as a team, than attempts made in isolation by individuals.

Bottlenecks, challenges and refining our process

Over the course of nine Hackathons we have smoothed out the creases and reduced the bottlenecks we experienced in our first few Hackathons. Our process now is by no means perfect, but we have certainly learned a lot along the way, and after each Hackathon we have revised and revisited the previous night’s experiences, in order to improve and become more efficient for every coming week.

Bottlenecks and challenges

Our first hackathon served as an introduction to FHSST and Siyavula, and that ran smoothly as Neels gave a presentation. Following that everyone listened and asked questions about the books and what they would be doing at the Hackathons. The second Hackathon is where things got interesting. We had 33 volunteers arrive, which was fantastic for us – this was the biggest Hackathon turnout we had seen in any of our Hackathons from 2010. While we felt we had prepared adequately for the evening, we experienced a few technical difficulties. We had two flashsticks with us that had OpenOffice as well as the exemplar papers on them, but when faced with approximately 20 people with laptops (we weren’t expecting so many brand new people), all needing OpenOffice, this was not nearly enough. In addition to having the exemplar papers on the flashsticks we had also placed the content on UCT’s student portal Vula. But, as we were relatively new to Vula, we uploaded it to an area of the website that wasn’t ideal. One of our volunteers stepped up and reuploaded the content to a more user friendly area. We also had some issues with Macs that people had, as they wouldn’t read our flashsticks, plus the copy of OpenOffice we had was the wrong version for Macs. Once again a volunteer assisted and downloaded the right version and they were able to get going. As we encouraged volunteers to use Firefox at our Hackathons, many people didn’t know the settings for UCT to get online, and our team not being UCT based, didn’t either, so there were some problems there.

In addition to these teething problems, we didn’t anticipate so many people struggling with FullMarks. In retrospect we realised that the help sheets we provided everyone with were too text heavy, and so the volunteers weren’t reading them. Our team also could have done with a few practice sessions, as not all of us had used it recently. FullMarks on its own is giving us some issues – there seem to be some bugs that are becoming more apparent the more we use it. In addition to this, the online editor is difficult to use, but that is being upgraded and the various bugs investigated, so those problems should fall away in the not too distant future.

Although we had some issues initially, the volunteers were great at stepping up and helping each other, offering assistance to us with regards to using Vula, downloading OpenOffice on our behalf (we can’t access the UCT wireless network as we don’t have logins) and helping each other get online. Despite us feeling a bit frazzled at the end of the evening, we got some positive feedback from volunteers who felt the Hackathon went well! There was certainly a great vibe in the room, and people were chatting – I think the fact that the volunteers needed each other’s help meant that they had to interact and so got to know each other, which was a definite plus of the whole experience!

Brainstorming and streamlining

After this Hackathon we had a long debriefing and brainstorming session and started planning for our next Hackathon (Hackathon 3). Hackathon 3 turned out to be our best one up to that point (taking 2010′s Hackathons into account too). We revised our process sheet and combined it with the assignment sheet, and gave clearer and easy to read instructions, with specific reference to tagging (without proper tagging the questions will not be found by teachers using FullMarks). We burned multiple copies of dvds with all the open programmes, exemplar papers and help sheets. We also changed how we would set up the room – we had a check-in station at the entrance to the venue, where on arrival volunteers would check in with me, and then proceed on to Natalia, Carine or Heather for assignments depending on their choice of subject and whether or not they had a laptop. We also arranged the desks into 3 big work stations, encouraging people to sit together and not group around small tables.

Refining our process

Prior to Hackathon 3 we had a team training session on using FullMarks, to refresh our memories and ensure we could better cope with helping the volunteers. We also had a meeting shortly before we left for the Hackathon, so that each team member was up to speed and knew where to find all of the content. This advanced and thorough planning made for a less stressful evening for our team. The volunteers still needed a fair amount of help at the Hackathon, as the process of using the FullMarks template and uploading to FullMarks was brand new to them. We found that despite our revised process document, people still weren’t reading them properly, and so didn’t write their names or FullMarks user ID’s on their assignment sheets – information we needed when checking what content had been uploaded by each volunteer.

Throughout the Hackathons we stuck with our streamlined process of arranging the room before each Hackathon, and having our registration and assignment tables at the entrance, as we felt it worked well and it meant that there wasn’t a crowd around one table all needing Heather’s attention, which is what we had to deal with last year. Over the course of the next few Hackathons we revised our process / assignment sheet , trying to take out as much text as possible, and have a diagram that at a glance would show the entire upload process in as simple a way as possible. We also made a point of sitting with a volunteer that needed help, until they had uploaded one question in full. This made a difference as it meant volunteers learned the process in full, and were better able to help not only themselves, but others at their table too.

Over the course of the Hackathons we soon realised we needed a way to better manage brand new volunteers that were bringing laptops. We had reached the stage where the majority of the laptop users didn’t need as much help anymore, but at each Hackathon we had a couple of new volunteers, and it didn’t make sense to have each of us going through the same process with new people repeatedly. It was decided that new people would be sent to a separate table where Heather would talk them through the process in full, before they could go and join a large table. From the rest of the team’s point of view this made a huge difference to the help that was needed, but it did mean that Heather spent the night repeating herself as volunteers trickled in at different times, so she couldn’t give the demonstration once or twice, but had to multiple times. As a result of this she was also quite disconnected from what happened at that particular Hackathon.

Assignment sheets and checking uploaded questions

From the start, Heather had the task of creating our assignment sheets, which involved creating a database containing all the exemplar papers and question numbers, and then creating a form letter using form fields. This meant that we ended up with assignment sheets with the assignments automatically generated and assigned to each page. Our assignment sheet was double sided, with the front page covering the upload and tagging process, and the other side giving the assignment. We split exemplar papers up into multiple assignments, with each volunteer being given an assignment of around four to five questions long, which could be broken down into smaller questions depending on the type of question given. We thought this was a reasonable length, as we were hoping for up to ten questions being uploaded per person at each Hackathon. However, over the course of Hackathon 3 to 6, volunteers were still needing a lot of help from us and so the going was slow. We also ran a focus group (which can be read about here) at Hackathon 5, which involved some of our strongest uploaders, which affected our productivity for that week.

In preparation of Hackathon 7 we decided to try an alternate method for exemplar assignments: make them shorter! Each week of Hackathons we were averaging around 40 – 50 questions, which was a much slower rate of upload than we had anticipated. In an attempt to encourage people to speed up, we cut each assignment down to 2 questions long. This meant that volunteers could feel a sense of achievement on completion of an assignment, but we could also monitor who was coming up for their second assignment. We think that this potentially made a difference – some people did move onto a second assignment, but at the same time that we implemented this, we also moved our top uploaders onto Connexions, which meant our upload count to FullMarks was affected by this change. In future Hackathons we will most likely keep assignments shorter, as it does make for a less daunting assignment.

By Hackathon 6 we decided it was time to introduce a new activity: checking of questions uploaded to FullMarks. We randomly assigned FullMarks question ID’s to volunteers, along with a step by step process of what needed to be checked for in each question, i.e. what the perfect question should look like. They needed to give constructive criticism in the comments field under each question, so that the author of that question could then make the suggested changes (the author receives an email when a question of theirs is commented on). This was not too well received – people that were present felt that they were being criticised for their work by their peers, while those that were not present received emails with comments and they didn’t know why. This was an oversight on our part, and the following day I emailed all our FHSST members to explain the purpose of the activity, that its aim was to improve the quality of the questions on FullMarks, and not intended as a criticism of them and their work.

Paper people

The people we have working on paper are an ongoing challenge for us. Ideally we would like everyone working on a computer, but not everyone has a laptop and we are struggling to organise a computer lab on campus (we did a survey amongst our volunteers and found they would prefer Hackathons to stay in a venue on campus, so we can’t move to a nearby school’s computer lab). Paper people have been making good contributions to our textbooks, as they have been working on the model solutions for the exercises in the textbooks. The only problem however, is managing this process. Volunteers haven’t always numbered the assignments correctly, or put their names on them, so when it comes to sorting through the assignments each Wednesday after a Hackathon, it presents some challenges! It also means that at some stage someone is going to have to type up all the work, and check it as they go along.

Team at tables

From Hackathon 6 we decided that at each Hackathon we were to each sit at a table with the volunteers, and work along side them. The aim of this was to get to know them better, and vice versa. At this Hackathon it ended up only being Carine sharing a table, as the rest of our laptops were given out to volunteers to use, plus there were still people needing assistance. Carine felt that she got good insight into what it is like being a volunteer at our Hackathons, as she experienced the process of using the OpenOffice template and uploading to FullMarks, and asking the table for help when she got stuck with the Math type. She became part of the friendly banter, and saw how the volunteers helped each other and problem solved together. Carine has continued to sit at a table at Hackathons, and continues to ask questions and find out about the whole Hackathon experience.

Snack table, pizza and logistics

In all our Hackathons we have always done well on the catering and logistics side of things. We always come well equipped with many power cables and multiplugs, a projector should we wish to show the volunteers anything, and all the necessary signage. Before each Hackathon we go shopping at Checkers on Main Road Rondebosch (we almost own shares in it now), and stock up on fizzy drinks, juice, water, chips, sweets, plastic cups, paper plates and serviettes. We arrive at UCT’s RW James Room L by 5pm, and set up the room and put up posters in preparation of the arrival of our volunteers. I always prepare my pizza order form early in the day, based on the Eventbrite signups and which are the most popular Butler’s pizzas. I place my order with Butler’s at 17h30, for a 19h30 delivery. They give us a 33% discount which is fantastic, and the pizza always arrives on time and piping hot.

We have done a few pizza experiments over the weeks: last year everyone was allowed to choose their own medium sized pizza, but we felt that this didn’t encourage conversation and building community. This year we created a communal pizza table, in the hopes of bringing in a slightly more social aspect to the Hackathons. Unfortunately as sometimes happens, people started taking advantage of the free pizza and piled their plates high with food and stashing it to take home, while others were more restrained and only took two or three pieces to start with. Those that held back initially ended up missing out, as by the time they were ready for their second helping, the pizza was mostly finished. As a result of this we tried a new approach: we would allocate a certain number of pizzas to each table, which meant we could control how much pizza each table received, and anyone taking more than their due would have to deal with a table of disapproving looks. This approach received mixed responses. Some were happy with it and thought it worked well, while others didn’t like it as they said they didn’t have a choice over what pizza slices they could choose. We ended up setting up a poll on Vula with three pizza options: 1) choose your own medium pizza, 2) communal pizza, or 3) pizza at each table. We had a tie between choosing your own pizza and communal pizza, so for our last Hackathon we went with communal pizza. Should we decide to do individual pizzas again, we need to warn attendees in advance so that they know to get their orders in on time, otherwise people arrive late and then don’t get pizza.

In addition to some people taking too much pizza, it has become apparent that some come along just for the food. This number is definitely in the minority, but it is a pity as the majority of our volunteers arrive and work hard, giving up three hours of their Tuesday evening each week to improve FHSST, while others come and make a very poor effort, arrive just in time for the pizza delivery, and leave shortly after eating. We will address this problem before we start Hackathons again, as aside from being unfair to those that work hard, we are not there to sponsor people’s supper with no effort on their part.

Achievements

Overall we feel that a community is being built around FHSST and that people are taking ownership of the project. We have seen volunteers returning week after week, making friends within the group, offering assistance to their peers, putting in many hours and having a great attitude towards the project. People are also learning new skills – using OpenOffice and how styles work, as well as learning about open tools that exist online. We hope that they will share their acquired knowledge with other people, especially any teachers they may know.

Conclusion

As a team we have learned how to improve our Hackathons, and the planning that is required to ensure they run smoothly. We still have a long way to go as there are always improvements that can be made, but we have an online management tool in the pipeline that once built will be able to manage Hackathons for us, based on all that we have learned over the last nine weeks and last year. We have learned about our own strengths and weaknesses, what each team member brings to the table and the important role that each of us plays within Siyavula. We have learned how to function as a team, how to rely on each other, but also how to stand alone and be independent from each other.

We have also learned a lot about volunteers and how people react in different situations. We have been so impressed with how people have stepped up and offered assistance to their fellow volunteers and to us when help was needed. We really appreciate this, especially knowing that we could rely on volunteers each week.

Overall the last nine weeks have been very insightful and we have learned so much about running Hackathons and working with volunteers. Our process is by no means perfect, and we will continue to learn and experiment with new processes once we start our Hackathons again.

Our turnout at last night’s Hackathon was smaller than usual, but nevertheless we had 21 enthusiastic volunteers! Mark went from table to table and gave everyone a status update on the project and the progress being made.

To expand on this, we are very excited to announce that the new Grade 10 versions of FHSST with the rich-media and model solutions embedded are now available online! This is due to the hard work of our dedicated volunteers and our team at Siyavula – well done to all involved! Please have a look at the maths textbook here and the physical science textbook here.

Our website FullMarks is showing real progress and gaining national traction too, which is great as some of the areas the website is getting hits from are outside of cities in which we have done training. You can see on the image below where the hits are coming from. Cape Town is seeing high traffic outside of our Hackathon evenings, with other areas such as East London, Kimberley, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg also being areas we are receiving traffic from, which is fantastic.

The new editor for FullMarks is currently under development, which will make contributing questions and answers to FullMarks that much easier. In addition to this, the Word exporter is also imminent and will be the next improvement made to the site.

All our volunteers with laptops and internet access have been uploading exemplar papers to FullMarks, which has helped contribute to the maths and physical science content on the website. We are moving volunteers that have made good progress with this process on to a new exercise, so last night we introduced Umeshree, Alex and Leandra to the Connexions website! We asked them to assist in proofreading chapters, an exercise they enjoyed doing and they seemed to find the website easy enough to navigate.

We also introduced a new way of distributing pizza, which was an experiment on our part that was met with mixed reactions! This year we created a communal pizza table as we hoped it would get people socialising a bit more and assist in forming an FHSST community. We found that this didn’t seem to encourage any more conversation than last year, so last night we took a variety of Butler’s pizzas to each of the three tables, hoping this would encourage a more social aspect while people were eating. Some people were happy with the arrangement and thought it worked well as it meant they could carry on working without having to get up to fetch pizza, while others didn’t like the arrangement as it meant they had limited choice of what slices they could eat. We have thus created a poll on Vula where we are asking our volunteers to vote for their preferred method of pizza distribution. We will analyse the results and decide on the best way forward.

We are also very excited that our Hackathons have reached Stellenbosch University in the form of a big FHSST translation day! There has been demand for our books to be translated into Afrikaans, so with the help of Thinus Booysen at Stellenbosch we have organised for this to take place on Saturday 7 May, followed by a spitbraai for all involved. We are aiming for every volunteer to translate a full chapter on that day, so with 100 volunteers present, which is what we’re aiming for, we could have all six books translated! Have a look at the Facebook page here.

Next week will be our last Hackathon for a while, due to Siyavula work commitments and then UCT exams and holidays. We may continue with Hackathons at the OIS for those volunteers that have transport, but we will send out notification of this. We are sad to have to put them on hold for a few weeks, but for logistical reasons it is not possible to continue right now.

Thank you to everyone that has been attending and for all your contributions – see you next week!

Once everyone was seated Mark began his presentation. As everyone except for one person was new, Mark gave his overall introduction to the world of Open Educational Resources (OERs), and then spoke a bit about Siyavula and our other projects, namely FHSST and OpenPress. At Siyavula we believe in openness in education, true communities of teachers working together, and bringing technology into the classroom. By sharing resources and using the internet to do so, so many teachers and learners will benefit. When teachers share resources they lesson the workload for each other – by using OERs and sharing new activities and tests that you create, you provide the opportunity for other teachers to build upon your work and in turn share their own creations, making for more innovative resources and additional resources for everyone. For more information on our projects, you can read Mark’s blog here.

Many teachers complain that they don’t have enough time to sit online and browse the hundreds and thousands (millions really!) of websites that one finds when searching for teaching resources on Google. There really is so much out there, but it’s a matter of finding the worthwhile resources that is the problem! But that is why we have taken the time to sift through a number of sites and find some that could be really useful in the classroom and that will enable you to bring technology into your teaching, and use what has been shared online.

After the introduction, Mark spoke about various free and open textbooks that one can access online, download and use in the classroom. One such website is CK-12 Flexbooks. It has great life sciences textbooks that you can use as an alternative to your usual resources. Another great website is OER Commons, where your search brings up free and open educational resources that you can use in your classroom, for all grades.

Our own collection of OERs includes our Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) for grades 10 – 12 in maths and physical science. Mark spoke about these and how they are available for free on the Connexions website, and because they are housed on this platform for educational resources, you can adapt them to suit your own teaching needs. We are also inserting rich-media into each of the chapters in the relevant place, which will save teachers so much time as they wont have to search for video explanations as we have already inserted them, ready for you to watch! On Connexions we also have our content for Grade R – 9 learners, which covers all subjects and learning areas in both English and Afrikaans. Here you can also derive copies of the workbooks and edit them if you wish, and then download them as a PDF and print them. We have also recently launched our mobile front-end for Connexions which means you can access all the content on Connexions via your mobile phone! Point your phone’s browser to: http://m.siyavula.cnx.org/

Our free and open assessment bank called FullMarks, is an OER that we hope will be very useful to Life Sciences teachers in the not too distant future. This open assessment bank contains a selection of test and exam questions with solutions, openly shared by educators. It allows educators to search and browse the database by subject and grade and add relevant items to a test. The website automatically generates a test or exam paper with the corresponding memorandum for download. At this stage content is lacking somewhat for life sciences, but if teachers can upload some of their own teaching resources we can populate the database and help many teachers save time and energy, and then can then put this energy into other areas of their teaching.

Some resources that we have mentioned in some of the other evening events too, are the Khan Academy and PhET Simulations. The Khan Academy videos are a fantastic online resource of short educational videos, which can be downloaded and saved to your computer. They cover a wide range of subjects and include Biology – check them out! The videos are usually fairly short so they can be inserted into most lessons without taking over the whole period. You can also point your learners to the website as they can use it for revision purposes as well as to browse and use for their other subjects. We have all the videos downloaded in our office, so send me an email at this domain if you would like to arrange to come and copy them for your school.

PhET Simulations are another fun resource you can use. They are fun and interactive simulations which are manipulated by the user with instant animated responses. Learners can really take the simulations to extremes, without the fear of blowing up the lab or causing themselves any injury! There are 19 simulations for Biology, including DNA stretching, membrane channels and pH scale.

In addition to this you can also browse YouTube for educational videos as well as TeacherTube, where you will find many teacher resources by searching a particular phrase or words. You can also search on NeoK12 for resources as they have the “best collection” of free online educational resources.

MIT has made all of their courseware available for free online. You can access all of their video lectures, course notes and much more. They have a new section now, aimed specifically at high school learners and their teachers, with material that will be most useful to them.

Mark then spoke about “citizen cyber science”, which are genuine science projects that rely on everyday people to assist the scientists and computers to solve an area they are investigating. One such project is Fold It, where people participate in games where you fold proteins, and Project Budburst, where people send in information on what is happening to plants in their area – this one is in America only, but nice to expose learners to these kinds of real science projects that are out there). A really great website is Bugscope, where any school can login and see objects viewed under an electron microscope. In America, learners can send in dead insects and the team at Bugscope mount them for viewing under the electron microscope. The learners take control of the electron microscope via the internet and get to see photos of their insect and ask the scientists questions via online chat about what they are seeing. Schools outside of the USA can also participate in this, by following along as a guest whenever a school is involved in a session (simply login as a guest – no password is required). The game Spore was also mentioned, which is a basic introduction to biology for younger learners. Although the game is not strictly accurate with its portrayal of evolution, it is a fun way for kids to be introduced to some basic biology concepts.

And that brought the evening to a close! We hope that everyone found the evening to be worthwhile, but judging by the responses in the room we are very pleased with the session. Thank you to the Experilab for offering their venue to us for all these weeks, they have been super.

English was the subject, Experilab was the venue! Last night was our second last evening event for teachers in the Northern Suburbs, and with a gathering of nine English teachers present, there was some good conversation as everyone enjoyed some snacks and refreshments.
We decided to do things a little differently at this event, with Carine and I presenting part of the content for the first time! It was an exciting experience for us to take to the “stage”, and be the ones talking about the world of Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Siyavula. We had two guest presenters scheduled to speak, but unfortunately both had to cancel, so Neels stepped in and presented on some resources that English teachers may find useful.

Our presentation covered the concept of “openness”, and as Siyavula means “we are opening”, it is central to what our organisation stands for. If something is open it means that it is free i.e. you don’t have to pay for it to use it. But if it is under an open copyright licence (such as a Creative Commons License), it means that you are granted the freedom to share the resource, to adapt, enhance, print and distribute the resources. It is even better if the resource is stored in an open standard (such as on the Connexions website), as you can then take advantage of the freedoms granted to you by the open copyright licence, and actually access the content in a format where you can edit it to better suit your needs.

The OER movement is an education revolution that is gaining momentum, both internationally and locally. This is demonstrated through the world renowned educational institute MIT, who has released all their course material under a Creative Commons open copyright license and made it freely available online. It includes video lectures, course notes and much more, allowing anyone from anywhere in the world to have access to it. Other examples of organisations involved in this movement are CK-12 Flexbooks, OER Commons, Connexions, Khan Academy, to name but a few. But it’s not just large organisations that can contribute OERs, individuals are a huge part of this movement too, in particular teachers that are seeing the value in sharing the resources that they have created. One such individual is Dan Meyer, a maths teacher in America, who constantly creates resources for his maths classroom which he posts on his blog. He uses his cellphone or camera to create exercises, with the subject being everyday experiences and everyday things.

He has found that when he shares an activity on his blog, before he knows it another teacher has accessed it and built upon his idea, and then shared with him how they changed and improved it. This is truly the benefit of OERs – sharing and building on each other’s work, to create educational resources of a high standard, and avoiding duplication in the creation of resources for the same learning area.

Teachers locally are sharing too – Keith Warne, the HoD of Physical Science at Bishops has shared his teaching slides on SlideShare, thus enabling any teacher to use his locally produced material in their own classroom too. And how great that teaching resources in a top private school can be accessed online and used by teachers in under-resourced schools, all because they have been shared on the internet. That is the power of OERs and technology.

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration was signed here in Cape Town, and it is a statement of principle that encourages dialogue and inspires action to push for the open education movement to grow. It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customise, improve and redistribute educational materials without constraint. It has been signed by 2211 individuals and 233 organisations, so far.

We encourage teachers to share their teaching resources as it means that individuals’ expertise is opened up to the world, where additional people can contribute to the work and adapt it to their own country, school or learner need, and thus create a powerful resource which can be further shared. The internet provides a modern take on this notion of sharing: in the past, teachers would get together and form communities where they would share test papers and mix them up, literally cutting and pasting question papers shared by other teachers to create a new test or exercise, which would then be photocopied for the next year’s class. The internet and free online tools makes this process of customisation easier, but essentially it is the same thing – just a modern take on it.

Enter our website – FullMarks. Siyavula offers a free and open online assessment bank for the sharing and accessing of curriculum-aligned test and exam questions with answers. This site enables educators to quickly set tests and exam papers by selecting items from the library and adding them to their test. Educators can then download their separate test and memo which is ready for printing. FullMarks further offers educators the option of capturing their learner’s marks in order to view a selection of diagnostic reports on their performance. Our goal is to have every grade and every subject populated with questions and answers. Right now we are short of English content and would love it if any English teachers would like to upload some of their teaching materials to FullMarks, and join the open education movement.

Neels gave an overview of Yoza – a former Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow’s mobile literacy project. People can access m-novels (a story published on a mobile phone) and read stories via their cellphones on MXit. It costs about 5c to read a chapter, and the response has been phenomenal. The stories cover issues that teenagers can relate to – romance, adventure, teen issues, and include poetry and Shakespeare classics. Through the project, Steve has made the problem of teens being on their cellphones part of the solution. There has been up to 121 000 reads of Yoza m-novels, a huge number when you consider that it can be soo hard to get young people reading. South Africa is book poor but cellphone rich – we need to embrace this, and as Steve says “go fishing where the fish are!”.

While we understand that many schools have banned cellphone use at school, perhaps a cellphone reading assignment could be set as homework. A teacher could instruct learners to do a book report on a Yoza story, to review the comments that people leave at the end of each chapter as an analysis of the whole experience. Alternatively, a teacher could upload content to Connexions, which learners could then access via their cellphone after hours, and complete an assignment in that way (be it just using Connexions to read content, or actually interact with it on the website).

Neels touched briefly on Good Reads, a website that has a huge database of books (over 120 000 000 books added!). On the site you can create your own group specific to your English class and the books you are reading. There’s a discussion board for discussions within the groups, where as a teacher you could post a question and your learners could comment on it. On Good Reads you can also do book reviews of set works for instance, and once the review has been shared, it can be viewed and commented on. There is a large selection of groups that can be joined that cover a wide range of reading groups from a variety of group categories e.g. books and literature; entertainment and arts; student groups (although student groups are specific to learners from a particular school and English class, that you only join if you are in that class – more of a private group that you have to be invited to join). For more information you can see our review of the website here.

Neels then showed a video from IDEO on what they see as the future of the book. You can view it here. It is amazing what can be done with technology and how the book as we know it can be totally transformed into a whole new reading experience.

Technology exists to make your life easier, but as there is so much out there, and so many different platforms you can use, you need to incorporate it into your teaching in whichever format you feel most comfortable. Be it getting your learners to create and maintain a blog for their English assignments, filming a book review and using an online tool to edit it, or even giving them reading assignments on Yoza or Connexions that they access via their mobile phones after hours – bringing technology into your teaching in this way will provide a more stimulating lesson for learners, but also help keep you as a teacher in the technology loop.

Next week is our final evening event in the Northern Suburbs – Life Sciences on Thursday 17 March. We hope to see you there!

The Experilab (a great shop full of science paraphernalia that was next door to the former MTN Sciencentre at Canal Walk and that has since relocated to Bellville) was offered to us as a venue by the owners who attended these events last year, and felt that Northern Suburbs teachers would benefit from them too. When teachers arrive they can chat amongst themselves and to our team, but also browse the shop and get some inspiration for fun in the classroom or for their own children at home.

We had a good turnout of fourteen teachers who came from surrounding schools, and with some background music and drinks and snacks served, the atmosphere in the Experilab was sociable. At 18h45 Neels called for everyone to take a seat in the presentation room, and with the team introduced he was ready to begin.

Neels began by explaining what “open” means, with reference to its origins in the open source software community, where software was released freely and then tweaked and built upon by other programmers to suit their own needs and make improvements. This concept has now spread across to other spheres of content, and open copyright licenses have been created to cater for this need. Neels made specific mention of Creative Commons Licenses – Siyavula’s content is released under CC-BY, which is the Creative Commons By Attribution License which allows others to legally distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon our work, even commercially, as long as they credit us for the original creation. It gives educators the freedom to download, copy, share, edit, adapt, translate and contextualise our work, to suit their needs. Neels compared this to a traditional copyright license which grants you no freedoms whatsoever – content may not be reproduced, photocopied, stored in a data retrieval system, transmitted in any way, unless you have the express permission of the publisher. That is what makes OERs different: we want you to use our work, to share it, to adapt it and change it, to photocopy it and print it! All that we ask is that you acknowledge us as the original creator.

Neels went on to explore some examples of open content that can be found online. This is content that does not have to be paid for, and that is openly shared and available for use and download. Some of these include CK-12, OER Commons, Connexions, MIT Courseware, and Khan Academy videos. It’s a great feeling to share these resources with other people, and show them what is out there and can be used in the classroom, or as a resource to point learners to for additional subject information, or for anyone that would like to refresh their memory or learn more about a particular subject.

Searching the internet for educational content can be difficult, as a lot of educational content that you find has to be paid for, or is under a restrictive copyright license which makes using it difficult. But that is where we come in to play: we are finding open content for you, and through these evening events we would like to show you that you can incorporate it into your teaching. It can be an overwhelming process too, as there is just too much information and too many websites out there. But we are taking the time to sift through all of that for you, and point you at websites that you may find useful.

Neels showed an amazing animated video of a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson at the RSA last year – the link to it on YouTube can be found here. The drawings that are created really drive the message home: our education system was designed for a world that has long since changed; we are trying to prepare our learners for a future that is uncertain and unpredictable; children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth, and yet we expect them to focus on one thing in the classroom and not be distracted. We are medicating our learners with drugs, instead of allowing them to flourish and learn in a way that is better suited to them. We cannot deny the fact that the world has changed, that our current learners were born into a world in which cellphones, computers and the internet are (mostly) the norm for them. Teaching methods need to become as innovative and interesting as the technology the youth use, and presented in a way that they can relate to, keeping up with the world that they live in, and not the world that we remember from years gone by.

An interesting comment made by one of the teachers is that with the release of the latest CAPS documents, our education system seems to be regressing, going back to the methods of teaching that have long since passed. We cannot change what the government has decreed as the way forward, but we can encourage you to work with what you have – to bring technology into the classroom in the best way you can; to speak your learners’ language, and to bring the world they know into your own subject, so that they can identify with it and find it inspiring and applicable to their own lives.

We look forward to the next five weeks of evening events. We encourage you to attend those evenings applicable to your subject (as well as others you may be interested in), by following the links for IT and CAT, Maths, Physical Science, English and Life Sciences, and registering online. These events are free, but spaces are limited to the first 25 educators that sign up. We hope to see you there!

We ensured that we were stocked up on the all important coffee and tea, as well as a few bags of chips to keep spirits high. We had two faces that were brand new to the concept of a Hackathon, but as the activities for the afternoon needed to be explained to everyone, we made sure that we did not lose them along the way and that they understood the aim of the afternoon and evening. We decided it was best if everyone paired up, so that any issues within each chapter could be discussed and corrected, but also so that no one got left behind. We had a seven step process that needed to be followed, and so working in pairs ensured that maximum productivity and critical discussions could take place.

It wasn’t long before every pair had been allocated a maths chapter, and everyone was going systematically through the work and checking that previous notes on A.nnotate were addressed, and any errors or omissions were corrected in the book. At these Hackathons we are also going through the curriculum documents to ensure that we cover everything that is included in them, and more where possible! We are checking to ensure conventions are adhered to, that everything is factually correct but simply written, where every new concept has at least one worked example (ideally more than one would be best, that start simply and increase in complexity), and that every set of exercises have model solutions. We are also inserting relevant Khan Academy videos and PhET Simulations into the chapters in the relevant places, as well as applicable slide shows off Slideshare. Natalia and I are then going through the chapters to check for any grammatical errors. Once all this has been done, a chapter is marked as complete and published to Connexions in its latest format.

Before we knew it it was supper time, and an order to Simply Asia was phoned in and collected. We all had a very civilized dinner in the OIS lounge, where I proceeded to camera-stalk the volunteers (we have some very shy ones who try to avoid being photographed, but I managed to get them in the end). By this time we were pretty hungry from all the brain power used, but once the food hit the right spot we were back to work for the last push to 9pm. Which turned into sometime after 9:30pm after we all got engrossed in our chapters again! In total we finished 8 chapters, which includes embedding rich media, and they look really great! They just need a quick once over and then they will be published to Connexions.

We had a very enjoyable evening at the OIS, and there was interest in coming again. To quote some volunteers, “it was actually quite fun!”, which is what we like to hear! Thank you so much to Kosma, Pierre, Terence, Dawie and Steve for coming, as well as to our Siyavula team – you guys rock! Hopefully see you next week for round two.

One of the important aims of our evening functions that we hold at the Open Innovation Studio (OIS) is to inspire teachers and open their eyes to new resources and ideas that can be brought into the classroom. This was no different at last night’s function, which had a strong turnout and good representation from a number of Cape Town schools. Maths is somewhat different to other subjects, as there are many opinions about how and why maths must be taught in a certain way, the importance of not missing out any steps when practising maths, and the fact that maths as a subject worldwide could do with a major revamp.

There were some familiar faces last night, as well as a number of new teachers that arrived. Mark did a recap of who he is and the projects that we run, which served as a reminder for those that had heard part of it before, and an introduction for those that were new (have a look at his blog for more information). Mark mentioned some great tools that can be used in or outside the classroom, which have been touched on before for other subjects – Khan Academy videos and PhET Simulations. The Khan Academy has a great feature on their website – a knowledge map – which enables you to assess through completing exercises in each module, where your knowledge gaps in maths are. We think this is a pretty neat feature and encourage you to check it out.

Mark briefly introduced a blog by Dan Meyer and then showed the video of him speaking at TED Talks, followed by a video of Conrad Wolfram who also spoke at TED. As a note, we do not take TED Talks as gospel, but merely show them as a point of discussion and to offer different opinions on subjects. Both of these videos received different reactions from our audience of teachers, but both also had different messages about maths teaching (similar in that they believe how maths is taught needs to change, but different ideas as to how one should go about this).

Dan Meyer is an innovative teacher who uses everyday examples and concepts in his maths classroom. His slogan is “be less helpful”. He likes to present his class with maths problems that have all the steps removed and have as little information as possible, so that through engaging with his learners and allowing the whole class irrespective of their maths aptitude to get involved in the discussion, he reduces the problem to a level of every day intuition so that everyone can participate. He teaches maths in a completely different way to traditional maths teachers, and believes in creating conversation and engaging with his learners and the subject matter as much as possible. He says that too often maths questions are constructed around a formula, so once learners know how to find the formula (and sometimes the word problems refer them to previous example exercises which literally spell out the formula), they don’t actually have to think. Dan is trying to change this and is an inspiration to many teachers.

Conrad Wolfram of Wolfram Research has a strong belief that doing calculations by hand is a waste of brain power, and that we should be letting computers do that part of maths for us. He says there are four steps to solving real world problems: 1. We have to pose the right question; 2. turn a real world problem into a maths problem; 3. computation – turn a maths question into a maths answer; 4. turn the maths formulation back into real world application and decide if it answered your question. Wolfram believes that computers can solve step 3 better than people can, and that we should be having our learners do steps 1, 2 and 4, which are all about conceptualising and applying the maths. We have to look at how relevant it is for learners to do step 3, how much real purpose is there in that step? He does believe that sometimes it is necessary to know each step and be able to do it by hand, but not to the extent that curricula generally advocate.

Problems in the real world are much harder and more complicated than the problems given in maths class. It is a huge problem to teach “dumbed down” maths with too many helpful steps, especially when problems in the real world are not presented like this. Wolfram and Meyer’s point of view merge in that they agree we need to think more about how to map the real world into maths problems formulations. They both agree formulation is important, that real world problems are not easy. Dan proposes changes that you can make to your teaching today, whilst Wolfram proposes a more revolutionary change to the curriculum, a more radical proposal.

This proposal of Wolfram’s has been met with criticism from some teachers, as they believe that when we remove basics from teaching (what they believe is step 3), and don’t enforce that learners must know and understand the step by step process of problem solving, they encounter issues later on as they don’t have the basics. Some believe that if these steps had real world application, such as what Dan Meyer teaches, learners would be more engaged in maths and find it all less tedious. But Wolfram does believe that in some instances it is important to know why and how something works in maths, before bringing technology in and using a calculator or computer. What do you think?

Mark also talked everyone through our free resources, including our FHSST books. We are very excited to announce that we now have the complete Grade 10 maths textbook uploaded to Connexions – well done Heather! The great thing about this is that it means you can adapt, change, and edit the book, be it by adding in new chapters of your own, removing chapters, changing wording or content – whatever you like! At the click of a button you can have the chapters converted to a pdf, ready for download and or printing. How cool is that? Have a look at the chapters here, and read Heather’s blog post on her experience here.

Steve Cohen from Living Maths presented a great version of an interactive whiteboard, simply using a Wii remote, a laptop with Bluetooth and a special “pen” which makes it look like you’re writing on the wall, but really it’s the computer picking up on the movement. TED Talks first demoed this, you can watch the video which explains this awesome concept here. Teachers were very impressed with this tool, and asked many questions about the programmes needed to run it, and how it all worked.

Next week is the closing evening for these weekly functions that we have been running. If you are interested in attending, please rsvp on our web invite page here. If you have attended our functions and have any comments, suggestions or feedback, please email me (Bridget) at this domain. Also, we we welcome any discussion over our blog posts in the comment section below. If you have any thoughts on the TED Talks by Dan Meyer and Conrad Wolfram, please do comment.