Converge1. Open Source in e-learning from the student's perspective
If the social needs of the age in which such technologies are developed can be met only through their mediation, if the administration of this society and all contact between people has become totally dependent on these means of instantaneous communication, it is because this “communication” is essentially unilateral. (Debord 1994: 13)
In this chapter I look into Open Source Technology in E-learning – exploring social tools from the student perspective. I identify and explore the emergence of online publishing and print on demand in learning technology and technology-mediated communication with the use of Free and Open Source technology. I present conceptions of e-learning technology with my experiences with teaching the introduction into documentary film to the MA Screen Documentary students using Free and Open Source software for online video publishing, mailinglists and modular teaching methods (with the case study project Flossmanuals.net1 and Deptford.TV2). I also draw up on my experiences I gathered through writing for the “Alternative Media Handbook” , Routledge (Hadzi 2008), the converge students online video manual (Hadzi 2007) and the discussions on the web-platform “the next layer” around collaborative research (as well as teaching and learning environments). As I'm teaching the introduction into documentary film I decided to use Deptford.TV as a case study and to interview students of the seminars to get an idea of Open Source methology within the e-learning context (chapter 4).
“Podcasting is one of several technological applications resulting from the recent progression in portable digital devices. Western societies in general—and the ‘Generation Y’ cohort (defined by Neuborne and Kerwin (1999) as those born between 1979 and 1994) in particular—are rapidly integrating such technologies into various aspects of their lives— work, entertainment, socialisation and education. This has led to the creation of an ‘always on’ culture of connectivity amongst the users of mobile phones, personal digital assistants, laptop/palmtop/handheld computers, etc, with such individuals variously described as ‘electronic nomads’ (Russell and Holmes, 1996) and ‘digital natives’ (Prensky 2001). Those members of society for whom the devices involved— and the networks to which they provide access—are not universal or ubiquitous, must assume the guise of ‘digital immigrants’ (Prensky 2001). The implication of such terminology is that we are now, very much, living within a digital society.” (Atkinson 2007)
One of the most inspiring aspects of the Free Software movement has been its educational ethos: users teach each other and themselves, and share their experiences doing so. There is a rich history of peer education, which is now being re-examined and adapted by forward thinking organisations in light of new technologies and possibilities for self-directed learning, knowledge sharing, distributed learning and teaching.
This paper looks into the basics of how students can actually make their own media (see chapter 3 and 4). With the proliferation of cheap digital cameras, audio recording equipment and availability of editing programmes for desktop and laptop computers, multi-media production has never been more accessible. With DVD and CD burning, the number of online radio stations and the potential of video streaming over the net, distribution of teachings is coming within reach of previously excluded groups of students. I look into how to acquire skills and how to share them is an essential part of collaboratively learning and teaching.
Over the last few years “Free Libre and Open Source Software” (FLOSS), a form of collaborative software development, has grown rapidly over the digital networks. "Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer". The students as well as the teachers have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.
The idea of free software still needs more acceptance from students and teachers who are not programmers. This shows a demand for technical literacy, but also the fact that FLOSS needs to be developed further for it to become “user friendly”. Linux is one of the most famous FLOSS developments. Linux is a computer operating system which can be installed for free on any computer without having to pay for it, unlike the commercial mainstream operating systems like Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS. All its source code is available to the public and anyone can freely use, modify, and redistribute it.
“usufruct should be contrasted with property. Where the latter implies the permanent ownership of resources, usufruct is “a temporary property relationship based on utility need which meets the demands of communality “…” The continuing history of Linux is a significant working model of usufruct.” (Atton 2004: 101-102)
Today social networking sites and blogs have increased but the idea of a learning commons, let along sharing of teaching experiences is still to be contested. Most of todays teaching relies on proprietary software, forcing the students who wants to engage within the learning process to buy this software. One of the best negative examples within academic research is JSTOR. “It operates on the presumption that intellectual thought is exclusive, should be paid for with a fairly hefty price, and should be difficult if not impossible to access by the general non-affiliated public. Academia is more and more exclusionary in this regard, I think. “ (Sondheim 2009) It is in it's very early stage that universities make their own materials open source – MIT and now in the UK some have funding in place for open repositories. One very good example is the MIT cours by Walter Lewin on beginning physics - three courses, on mechanics, electro- magnetism, and waves3. Here students can clearly get thought through an entertaining approach over podcasts, Lewin is a showman but also tough with math and formulas, a course by critical researchers/theorists free for everybody with internet access to study. All of these are videos, which makes the formula much easier to follow.
The most popular recording delivery format “...” was ‘Download’, with over half the number of respondents indicating that this was their preferred format (52.9%), with 26.5% choosing ‘Streaming’ and 20.6% noting that they had ‘No preference’. These results were echoed in the campus-wide survey that was conducted later in 2006, where 53% of students recorded a preference for ‘Download’. (Williams 2007)
In my teaching on the introduction into Documentary film for my MA Screen Documentary students the activity is at the center of the learning process. Knights model on 'designing of learning' from the publication effective practice with e-learning (see Fig. 1 bellow) illustrates this method good. The learners at the top engage within the activity of producing collaborative short documentaries (intended outcome) for the Deptford.TV database. While doing that they use Free and Open Source Technology as tools within either the Media Production Centre or the Deckspace Medialab (learning environment).
http://www.converge.org.uk/img/pgcert/fig1.jpg
(Fig. 1 from Knight 2004 'designing for learning') What is important to the successful adoption of e-learning is understanding how practice involving learning technologies can enhance the development of learning activities and how e-learning can be effectively integrated into and alongside established practice, to ensure that, whatever the approach and the intended learning outcomes, the learning potential of all learners is maximised. Furthermore, learning takes place in a social and curricular as well as physical context. The individual’s relationship with the group or groups that surround the learning activities will also partly define the learning outcomes. The curricular context may also influence the process by suggesting a particular pedagogical approach which in turn must be matched to learners, the resources available in the learning environment and the intended outcomes. “...” this complex process on which the art of the practitioner depends has been termed ‘designing for learning’. (Knight 2004) In the third chapter on methology I will outline how I designed the learning/teaching process on p(v)odcasting for my MA Screen Documentary students (with the help of flossmanuals.net).
FLOSSIFY 1 : Digital Foundations For a long time educational courses have been cheap marketing for proprietary software companies. Can a student really afford all those expensive softwares required by the courses? No. Ever hear of a software company kicking up a fuss because students are using 'unofficial' versions? Well, it does happen but not often. And why not? Because proprietary software companies know, as the universities know, that once the students leave their training they will be indoctrinated with those tools and simply slipstream into being paid up proprietary software citizens. Simply put, unlicensed software used in education is tolerated because it is cheap marketing. This is how tools become 'industry standards'. FLOSS Manuals is fighting this flow by converting textbooks that use proprietary software to using free software in their examples. We call this process "FLOSSify". We convert the book from closed software to Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) hence we 'FLOSSify' the book. (Hyde 2009)
ACCESS TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (EDUCATION & CULTURE)
The e-learning tools are one side of the coin of the learning process of the students. The other side is the content which they learn. Often this content is not freely available, because of being heavily copyrighted. The students group “Free Culture Movement” focuses on Fair Use and the Public Domain as a commons, rather than copyright as private property. Copyright is a barrier to creativity, culture and the distribution of knowledge. If copyrights were less restrictive, students would be less consumers than participants in a common teaching culture, more able to remix and reinterpret the courses, seminars and lectures taught.
The Free Culture Network4 is promoting the use of open licenses as an alternative to the copyright for cultural productions. You can find an overview of existing open content licenses in “Guide to open content Licenses”. (Liang 2004)
Since April 2004 the Free Culture movement has been rapidly spreading to college campuses across the United States (and from July 2005 in Europe). Nelson, on of the founders of the Free Culture Movement, argues that it is false to say that there shouldn’t be incentives for artists and innovators to create, but copyright today threatens to reach the point where it inhibits more creativity than it encourages.
Free Culture is inspired by the non-profit Creative Commons5 institution and the Electronic Frontier Foundation6; other student groups like Downhill Battle and Participatory Culture in the US or Open Knowledge Foundation in the UK have joined the movement. It has lent a voice to those concerned with the current development of intellectual property within teaching and researching. Creative Commons was set up in 2001 inspired by the free software movement promoting an alternative copyright replacing the “all rights reserved” with “some rights reserved”.
As Lawrence Lessig, who defined the term "free culture” (Lessig 2004) states:
Creativity always builds on the past The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past Ours is less and less a free society
I want to close this chapter with an email interview I did with Nelson Pavlovski co-founder of FreeCulture.org on students engagement with such networks:
1. The need for freeculture.org: Why did it happen or how did it develop? What is the mission of freeculture.org?
We started our group because there weren't enough students my age involved in the free culture movement, which I found odd since we grew up with the internet, and we probably understand the democratizing potential of digital technology better than earlier generations. There was a need for a student movement, and we founded FreeCulture.org to fill that gap.
2. Over what period did freeculture.org develop and what are the significant moments?
FreeCulture.org was launched in April 2004, when Professor Lawrence Lessig came to speak at our school, attracting a large crowd for our launch. Important moments that led to our founding include the Diebold case, where we found ourselves involved in a lawsuit against a multi-billion dollar corporation. 3. Resources, technology, participants and funding: how did it happen practically?
We've just started picking up grants... we've been focused on our local campus groups, so most of our members come from our campuses, and most of our funding comes from our schools, for our local groups.
4. Organisational structure: how is freeculture.org run? What relationships exist between projects, workers and participants / volunteers?
FreeCulture.org attempts to be decentralized... we have a core group of volunteers (mostly the people who have founded or are trying to found chapters) who help out on the national level, but mostly our activities take place on the local level. We do internet-based campaigns on occasion, like Barbieinablender.org and UndeadArt.org, and we intend to do more of those in the future, perhaps with more of a local component.
5. Content & audience: what are the outcomes of freeculture.org and how are you distributing and exhibiting?
Outcomes? Lots of people on college campuses who are getting involved? And the aforementioned web-based campaigns, of course. We have a blog, <http://blog.freeculture.org>, I suppose that's an outcome... “…”
6. Sustainability: what are your main projects long term? Do you have any one-off projects?
We haven't figured out what our long term projects are yet, although I suppose a couple include promoting open source software and Creative Commons licenses, and helping and encouraging people to publish their stuff online using sites like the Internet Archive or projects like Broadcast Machine, which enables you to embed a Bittorrent tracker in your blog.
7. How would students get involved in freeculture.org?
The best way to get involved is to start or join a group on your college campus, but we need help with graphic design, web design, programming, blogging and writing papers, and all sorts of other things on the national level. Just e-mail us at newgroup@freeculture.org if you want to start a chapter, or freedom@freeculture.org for anything else 
Peace, ~Nelson Pavlosky~ Co-founder, FreeCulture.org
footnotes:
1) Http://www.flossmanuals.net
2) Http://www.deptford.tv
3) http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFall1999/VideoLectures/
4) Http://www.freeculture.org
5) Http://www.creativecommons.org
6) Http://www.eff.org