"Open source" problem-solving

Listen to this post!

David Warlick blogged a bit about this idea last June, but I thought it was interesting that one of the most popular articles in 2006 from Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge series was the one titled Open Source Science: A New Model for Innovation. The article discusses using open source software development ideas to address previously-unsolvable scientific problems. The article is definitely worth a read, as are several other of the top articles from last year.

It would be fascinating to use this model in a school system. For example, a school or district blog could throw out a question (e.g., How can we better engage parents? How can we improve the academic achievement of non-English-speaking students? How can we cut our heating and electricity costs?), and solicit solutions from educational experts, other experts, the general public, etc. Obviously you'd have to sort the wheat from the chaff and, in some instances, there might need to be some way of providing an incentive large enough for folks to participate. Nonetheless, I think the idea has some power if implemented thoughtfully.

Does anyone know of a school or district that is doing this right now and seeing positive effects?

Comments

[Stephanie Sandifer]

1.

I know in the past, my district and my school have tried to elicit teacher, student, community, and parent involvement (in decision-making/problem-solving) through town-hall forums, focus groups, and surveys -- but none of these options offer the potential transparency and publication of blogging. And the nature of these methods allowed the district or school to ignore some of the criticisms.

I like this idea of using an open-source model, but I think I'm left with some of the same questions that you have -- especially the incentive question. How do you encourage people to participate if they feel that their voices have been ignored in the past (they lack trust in the district or school)?

My other concern would be the nature of some districts, schools, administrators to ignore unconstructive criticism rather than try to dig deeper into the concerns of the community. Not all community members will be skilled in providing constructive answers to problems -- but they do know what isn't working and they will tell you (sometimes very loudly). We need to be open to listening to all voices if we are going to open problem-solving up to others who are outside of the system.

I would be very interested in learning about a school/community that has done something like this (publicly via a district or school blog or online forum) because I am interested in doing something like this now on my campus. I'd just like to hear some "lessons learned" from others before launching into it! :)

Stephanie

[Tom Hoffman]

2.

LICENSING. It is about LICENSING. That is what has made the free and open source software community/process successful.

The equivalent of what happens in free software right now would be the Big Picture Company, KIPP, Stanford Ed Dept., etc. start releasing all their training and teaching materials on the web under a Creative Commons by-sa license. That is what we need, and that's something that could change schools.

[Stephanie Sandifer]

3.

Tom -- Your comment spurred some additional thoughts on my part, but it was too much to comment here. I expanded on my thoughts in a post on my blog -- http://www.ed421.com/?p=186.
Stephanie

[Miguel Guhlin]

4.

Scott, the answer is "No." A few undiscussables...

There is a clear pecking order in any K-12 school district, a mindful respect of who is supervising whom, who to route new ideas/possible tough questions, as well as an understanding that people are ambitiously competing against each other.

One of the challenges of K-12 administration is that they sometimes have an agenda that gives lip-service to educational improvement in schools, but have an entire political system that works to establish them or their direct reports in power. The fight for limited funding available to the District departments provides the negative motivation..."money is the root of all evil," however necessary.

The kind of collaboration that a wiki provides...is only possible when the TOP person in the organization establishes the boundaries. Even then, there is competition among the members, a jockeying for position, to make the best impression rather than to do the best job.

I am not convinced that these conditions are necessarily evil, but simply, the way Americans work in K-12 education.
i would almost say that this might be a human thing...which puts it all in perspective. People are themselves in groups...exclusionary as groups can be, as holier-than-thou, etc.

So, I have to agree with Stephanie as to why not a wiki in a district. Too much lack of control at a location where control of every decision considered for proposal, proposed, discussed and decided on must be reviewed.

In the classroom, a wiki works...we are bound by one person's ideals--the teacher, a benevelolent dictator--and she decides how to be democratic. But the system where the teacher works, floats like an opaque, or at best transparent, bubble of education or innovation (yes, opposites) in the midst of toxic effluence, can never work this way.

Now, this seems horribly negative point of view. It is a recognition of what systems we work in. Not all K-12 systems work this way, I think. It is, like most things, a fine balance determined by the temper of the people who work there.

Let's not forget that our K-12 education system IS a reflection of our Society at large...a Society that has little interest in solving problems that it generates and for which its best interests are protected by NOT solving them.

Best wishes,

Miguel Guhlin
Around the Corner-MGuhlin.net
http://www.mguhlin.net

[Floyd Geasland]

5.

Talk about timing. Just the day before in a staff meeting the vice-principal, myself, and two other teachers were suggesting this very thing, coming up with the idea when we were discussing ways to improve or school based on our school connectiveness survey from the fall. We thought that while it might not be possible to get adults in our community to blog there, teachers could actually have the students go there as a part of the day they go to the computer lab. This would do two things; encourage the students to comment on the question, and then when they go home and talk about it, encourage their parents to look and see what their child and other students wrote about. Maybe that would get them to make comments also. We tried to write our first question in a way that would interest both parents and students, but that was not as easy exercize. Maybe it will work as a "Blog of Dreams" if we build it they will write. :>

[Miguel Guhlin]

6.

Floyd, with a wiki, you can have sections for both parents and students...you could even have a page that includes reflection from both parties where they include what would be of COMMON interest.

Instead of running the wiki yourselves, you yield content control, revision, and editing to the audience.

Just a suggestions....

[Susan Brooks-Young]

7.

Hi Scott,

Apparently great minds do think alike! I've been reading Wikinomics and the authors devote an entire chapter to something they call an Ideagora. Apparently corporations around the world are using Web sites to post questions/problems related to R&D and are invited experts to add their two cents worth. The companies are paying for the best responses.

Okay, I can't do that, but a colleague recently contacted me regarding initiating school site self-reviews, and I decided to create an Education Ideagora wiki (http://educationideagora.pbwiki.com). The password is idea.

Your readers are invited to respond to the questions currently there or pose their own (related to education, of course). Don't know what will happen, but it could be interesting...

Susan

[Bram Moreinis]

8.

Open source isn't just an attitude about intellectual property, it's also an organizational culture (culture including values, practices, the whole nine yards). I think it would be a much better model for schools to follow in many, many ways.

However, I'll paraphrase Miguel's "There is a clear pecking order in any K-12 school district" as "most public schools still run on the bureaucratic model". The bureaucratic model of organization and the open source model are not compatible.

The bureaucratic model is designed to maintain itself under all conditions (like the Terminator). It does not adapt to changing circumstances, as IBM found out once. Bureaucracy is the wrong model for schools.

So we have an irresistible force (the students in irrelevant public schools who will one day organize) and an immovable object (bureaucracy).

I think that pockets of open-sourcishness will form among professional learning communities within schools, and more students, teachers and administrators will ask questions like "how could we do this the open source way?"

I hope people use the tagline "open source education" or "open source schools" when they write about such efforts so I get Google-alerted!