Conversation with:
He is a Ph.D. student in the Digital Signal Processing group of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Rice University . He is currently pursuing a course of research in distributed signal processing for sensor networks, advised by Prof. Richard Baraniuk . Prior to my Ph.D. research, I completed a B.S.E.E. at Rice University in 2001 and an M.S. at Rice in 2004, co-advised by Prof. Baraniuk and Prof. Robert Nowak (now of the University of Wisconsin-Madison).
Connexions is
a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
authors create and collaborate
instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
learners find and explore content
The Connexions approach
Connexions is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Our Content Commons contains educational materials for everyone — from children to college students to professionals — organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger collections or courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license.
Content should be modular and non-linear
Most textbooks are a mass of information in linear format: one topic follows after another. However, our brains are not linear - we learn by making connections between new concepts and things we already know. Connexions mimics this by breaking down content into smaller chunks, called modules, that can be linked together and arranged in different ways. This lets students see the relationships both within and between topics and helps demonstrate that knowledge is naturally interconnected, not isolated into separate classes or books.
Sharing is good
Why re-invent the wheel? When people share their knowledge, they can select from the best ideas to create the most effective learning materials. The knowledge in Connexions can be shared and built upon by all because it is reusable:
technologically: we store content in XML, which ensures that it works on multiple computer platforms now and in the future.
legally: the Creative Commons open-content licenses make it easy for authors to share their work - allowing others to use and reuse it legally - while still getting recognition and attribution for their efforts.
educationally: we encourage authors to write each module to stand on its own so that others can easily use it in different courses and contexts. Connexions also allows instructors to customize content by overlaying their own set of links and annotations. Please take the Connexions Tour and see the many features in Connexions.
Collaboration is encouraged
Just as knowledge is interconnected, people don't live in a vacuum. Connexions promotes communication between content creators and provides various means of collaboration. Collaboration helps knowledge grow more quickly, advancing the possibilities for new ideas from which we all benefit.
Conversation
Connexions is an initiative to share educational materials. The materials of Spine can easily be stored in this environment. However there is not macro to convert the HTML language of the Spine website to the XML language of connexions. They have chosen for XML because it has more content oriented possibilities.
An interesting possibility is that the in XML written modules can easily be converted to pdf file that can be printed. They have a printing house where the course books can be printed automaticly one by one for a very cheap price and a creative commons licence.$
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