How GELC Projects Can Help K-12 Teachers

The focus of the June 7 call was how GELC projects can help K-12 teachers. If your project is relevant to any aspect of primary or secondary education, we particularly wanted to hear from you.

Participants:

  • Larry Nelson, larry.nelson at sun.com, Sun
  • Patrick McKercher, patmck at dev dot java dot net, UCSC and K-Web project leader
  • Gary Thompson, gthomps at dev dot java dot net, GELC Community Manager and DistributedCollaboration project leader
  • David Epstein, davidepstein at dev dot java dot net, project leader of JJPod, GirlsJavaCafe, APCSTeacherJavaResourceCD, JavaStickUSB
  • Joshua Marks, joshuamarks at sbcglobal dot net, newly appointed GELC CTO
  • Chris Cullum, christopher_cullum at dev dot java dot net, Gradebook project leader
  • Bobbi Kurshan, bkurshan at dev dot java dot net, GELC Executive Director
  • Rob Stephenson, rstephe at dev dot java dot net, GELC Community Manager

Project Profiles

APCSTeacherJavaResourceCD

https://apcsteacherjavaresourcecd.dev.java.net/ A Resource CD for all Java CS Teachers - especially those teaching the high school advanded placement curriculum (for which Java is now the official programming language in the US). The CD includes nearly all the necessary resources: the JDK, a choice of IDEs, problems, examples, documentation and several complete textbooks.

DistributedCollaboration

https://distributedcollaboration.dev.java.net/ A (yes!) distributed collaboration involving Computer Science students at San Francisco State University and the Fulda University of Applies Sciences (Fachhochschule Fulda) in Germany. Students work in teams (some in San Francisco, some in Fulda and some mixed) on projects like building a NetFlix-like online video store.

GirlsJavaCafe

https://girlsjavacafe.dev.java.net/ The goal of the Girls' Java Cafe as an online community is to encourage more female students to take CS in high school and to increase the number of female students who take the AP CS exams (only 10% of AP candidates are currently girls).

High school girls who are studying Java programming are recommended by their teachers to join Girls Java Cafe. There they can meet their peers and interact online with a group of teachers and teaching assistants in a non-intimidating environment that encourages learning. To inspire students to explore solutions on their own, the teachers and TAs do not directly answer questions on homework assignments. Instead, they ask well thought-out questions geared toward helping students reach answers by themselves and lend support, advice, and guidance.

Gradebook

This an online gradebook, with interfaces for teachers, students and parents. It is a sophisticated J2EE project which Chris Cullum and his wife started as a labor of love a couple of years ago and is now quite complete (and running at http://myteachersgradebook.com/). Recently they decided to open source the software and created the gradebook project on java.net (https://gradebook.dev.java.net/). Plans include adding a quiz module.

JavaStickUSB

https://javastickusb.dev.java.net/ "With the JavaStick USB, your Java programs travel with you, in your pocket. Just plug it in and start learning today from Java education experts." (see also http://www.javastick.com/, JavaStick is a commercial project).

JJPod

https://jjpod.dev.java.net/ "The jjPod Project connects Java students, teachers and programmers with users of iPods, mp3 players and cell phones. The jjPod APIs allow Java code to interact with folders found on portable storage devices, such as the Notes folder on the iPod. Unlike most Java APIs, the jjPod APIs are designed to be simple enough for novice Java programmers. Specifically, in the first few weeks of an introductory computer science course, a student could easily read and write powerful Java programs using jjPod APIs." (see also http://jjpod.org)

K-Web

https://knowledgeweb.dev.java.net/ "James Burke's Knowledge Web (K-Web) is the digital incarnation of Burke's award-winning books and television series on the nature and the history of innovation. His work, which anticipated both hyperlinks and even hypermedia, is perfect for the WWW. The K-Web is a powerful, interactive and intuitive exploratory open source omnipedia--a learning and teaching tool fostering multiple intelligences and complex thinking in more systemic ways; it allows understanding knowledge in context, generating new ideas, and exploring a universe of data to discover how seemingly unrelated people, events and ideas are connected across time and space."

K-Web is an immersive 3D knowledge navigation system for students and lifelong learners that may also be useful for knowledge manangement. Current implementations are based on TouchGraph (in beta) or Looking Glass (in alpha). As the core information is from Burke's Connection television series, Burke is intimately involved in the project. Follow this link for a video tour of the K-Web narrated by Burke himself. For more info, see http://k-web.org/

Professor Derek Keats (Univ. of the Western Cape, SA) article on collaborative development of open content published in First Monday.