Are you interested in Open Data and Open Knowledge? Then come along to Open Data Ireland’s next meetup which takes place in UCC, Cork on Thursday January 23rd at 6pm.

You’ll learn more about our exciting projects that encourage communities to get involved in the worldwide Open Data Movement as well as participating in the civil society aspect of Open Government. Open Data Ireland, with the support of Open Knowledge Foundation, seeks to build projects and regional hubs, sustained by volunteers and, through our regular meetups, hackathons and community-led projects, work to create a sustainable infrastructure within Ireland to promote the values of openness, sector by sector.

Open Data Ireland’s January Meetup in Cork will provide the opportunity to discuss current global trends towards ‘Open Education’. On the day, we’ll have an opportunity to break into work groups and collaborate with others. If possible, please bring your laptop or tablet so you can gain practical experience building and encouraging online collaboration.

This meetup will lead to a hands-on ‘booksprint’ on Saturday, 22nd February (register now), where we aim to create a or, as the name suggests, print a book!

‘Booksprint’ is a rapid and dramatic innovation in getting resources developed by experts through an open and crowd-sourced process. The Open Knowledge Foundation has held two foundation Booksprint to create an Open Education Handbook to be distributed to educators interested in incorporating resources and influencing the way their education system sources learning materials. We look for teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium already in the public domain (‘open’) and work together (‘crowd-sourcing’) to collate the information into a usable format for the general public, or in this case, teachers and educators. Truly an important lesson in civics!

Recently, a group of Finnish mathematics researchers, teachers and students wrote a senior cycle secondary mathematics textbook in a booksprint. The event started on a Friday evening and the book was read out on Sunday evening. The result is published with an open CC-BY-license. As far as we are aware, this is the first time a course textbook was written in a three-day hackathon. The hackathon approach has been used before, mainly for coding open source software and writing manuals for open source software. To follow the progress, visit the repository at Github or the Facebook page (the conversation is mainly in Finnish, but you are welcome to comment and they will gladly answer in English).

This Booksprint is a great place to start contributing and networking with others who seek to accelerate technology in the classroom. Anyone can join!

If you’re new to Open Data Ireland, you’re welcome to just turn up and we’ll introduce you to everyone. With or without a laptop, we’ll introduce you to enough practical information to get you started straight away. Together, we build the community and resources needed to assist students, teachers, and national curricula. We’re hoping to create primary level maths books accessible by anyone, free of charge.

Meetup Details

GitHub: https://github.com/OKFirl/booksprint

Grab a ticket! — At this meet-up we are going to discuss and and begin practical work on collaborative open education projects for Ireland.

Topics include:

• Open Educational Resources, teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium already in the public domain.

• Booksprint: Guidebook for Computing (Primary) and Computer Science (Secondary) Handbook

• Continuing Booksprint on the Open Knowledge Foundation Open Education Handbook

• Overview of how a group of Finnish teachers wrote an open maths textbook in just one weekend.

• Updating opendata.ie and Ireland’s Open Data repository CKAN (Data.OpenData.ie)

• Junior Cert reform and opportunities for Booksprint deliverables to get NCCA approval and reform Ireland’s secondary education system.

Tickets: https://tito.io/open-data-ireland/meetup-12

Bring: Laptop

When: 23 / 01 / 2014 @ 18:00

Where: UCC Cork, Ireland

Who: A number of notable representatives will be joining the discussion including:

• OKF Ambassador for Ireland

• OKF OpenGLAM Ambassador for Ireland

“We are encouraging rigorous Computer Science courses. Although individual technologies change day by day, they are underpinned by foundational concepts and principles that have endured for decades. Long after today, pupils leave school and enter the workplace, long after the technologies they used at school are obsolete, the principles learnt in Computer Science will still hold true.”   -Michael Gove, gov.uk, Department for Education, 11 January 2012

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Written by Eugene Eichelberger