[Geo4All] Vision for an OSGeo education program

[Cameron Shorter]

Hi Kurt,

I suspect that the GeoAcademy's training material is the most advanced 
FOSS4G based material developed to date. As such, I agree that it would 
make an excellent starting point for anyone considering building future 
training material.

The opportunity I see is to work out a way for external contributors 
(such as these professors adapting your material) to become effective 
creators and maintainers, extending your current baseline, while 
maintaining existing quality standards. How can we do this?

If someone wanted to create a Spatial Database course, which met 
GeoAcademy's quality standards, and complemented rather than duplicated 
existing material, how would they do that?

What should they do to ensure they met requirements of the US Department 
of Labor’s Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM)?

What vetting process should be put in place to ensure quality?

What tools should they use to ensure that the module can be built the 
same way as existing GeoAcademy material?

If someone wanted to translated the course into Spanish, and use gvSig 
instead of qgis, what pipeline should be put in place to ensure the 
material is kept up to date?

If someone wants to tailor the course to target primary schools 
children, how should they do that?

I'm effectively asking for an "OSGeo Education Cookbook". A definition 
of the quality of material expected by the GeoAcademy, and description 
of the tools and process used to create educational material. Is this 
something that the GeoAcademy would consider documenting and leading?

The business case is: "If we invest in our process instead of just 
writing courses, we can expect a 10 fold increase in course authors and 
maintainers, and we will be recogised as the international coordinators 
of OSGeo education".

--

A slightly different question: Can we integrate OSGeo-Live (or a 
derivative of OSGeo-Live) into the GeoAcedemy?  Integration should 
benefit both projects. It would help OSGeo-Live (and the projects 
packaged on OSGeo-Live) to reach our target market of students. To help 
the GeoAcademy, workshops could be pre-installed on OSGeo-Live. It 
should make it easier for educators to provide a known, fully working 
environment (probably as a VM) to students. (Some educators might be 
locked to a Windows platform, which would be an issue). It would 
introduce students to Linux and the greater Open Source ecosystem.

Thoughts?

On 3/11/2016 2:55 AM, Kurt Menke wrote:
> I've been super busy with a lot of trips this fall, so I haven't had time to respond to this, but I've been following (as best I can). It's a great discussion.
>
> Also I apologize in advance if I've missed something along the way, and if this is off the mark or has already been discussed.
>
> Just as a reminder, the GeoAcademy was built for this. http://spatialquerylab.com/foss4g-academy-curriculum/  It is 32 labs worth of material!
>
> One of the biggest hurdles to people teaching with FOSS4G is a lack of material. Teachers just don't have time to learn FOSS4G and built lessons/labs/curriculum around it. So our model was, "build it and they will come."  This has worked to some degree, with the material having been adapted by numerous professors.
>
> Personally I've used this for: A) working professional needing to learn QGIS, B) college students learning GIS, and C) high school students learning GIS. It adapts really well.
>
> It is licensed under the  Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license and is out there ready to be used.  Even if it isn't exactly what some want  it is a great starting place and can be modified and added to as needed. There is even a workbook for it. It's far easier to modify something that exists than to start from scratch.
>
> Importantly it has also been heavily vetted and is based on a standard (US Department of Labor’s Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM)). It's updated to the current QGIS LTR and current version of GRASS. Another important aspect of it, is that it's about teaching GIS with FOSS4G, not just about learning how to use QGIS or GRASS.
>
> For example, includes everything in Randy's list, except the web portion.
>
> The trickier parts to me are things like:
> * how to work with different age/national groups
> * how to package it - it may need to be paired down
> * who does what?
> * how to present it on the web
> * is there an online workspace or learning platform or just a package of educational material?
>
> Boston does seem like an achievable test bed for something
>
> Kurt
>
>
> **************************
> Kurt Menke, GISP
> Bird’s Eye View
> www.BirdsEyeViewGIS.com
> Work: 505-265-0243
> Cell: 505-362-1776
>
>
>
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-- 
Cameron Shorter
M +61 419 142 254