Open Source Bridge

Excerpt

Description

A while back, a distinguished mathematics lecturer at Oxford tried a little experiment in teaching mathematics and logic to younger students. He published a series of puzzle problems in the form of a whimsical story titled A Tangled Tale. He invited readers to pick a pseudonym and post their proposed solutions and comments as he went along.

The year was 1880. The forum was the magazine The Monthly Packet. The lecturer was the Rev. Charles Dodgson, better know by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

We will discuss Carroll’s approach to learning, comparing it to those used on modern electronic fora such as IRC channels, discussion lists, wikis and web forums. I will propose several lessons the open tech community can learn from Carroll’s example: the promise of the storytelling style, the power of pseudonymity, and the right way of handling wrong answers. I will also suggest several potential limitations to this approach.

Tags

education, forum, ancient history

Speaking experience

Speaker

• 

  Bart Massey

  Portland State University
  • Website: http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~bart
  • Blog: http://fob.po8.org/
  • Twitter: PO8
  • Favorites: View Bart's favorites

  Biography

  Bart Massey has been geeking around with community computing for 35 years, and has been involved in Free Software and Open Source since its inception. For the past 12 years, he has been a CS Prof at Portland State University, where he works in open tech, software engineering, artificial intelligence and low-level software development.

  Bart’s titles include Member and past Secretary of the X.Org
  Foundation Board, Technologist in Residence at the Oregon
  Technology Business Center, and Member of the PSU MCECS Innovation Program Board. His current open tech interests include Inform 7, Haskell, GUI toolkits, open hardware and building bridges between pieces of the open tech community. He was one of the original participants in the Open Source Bridge conversation.

  Say “hi” when you see him—-he’s a friendly guy.

  Sessions

  • * A Tangled Tale
    • Title: A Tangled Tale
    • Track: Culture
    • Room: B304
    • Time: 3:45 – 4:30pm
    • Excerpt:

      Forum-based interactive learning is an important open tech community activity. We will look at a storytelling-based example from the past.

    • Speakers: Bart Massey
  • * Seven Habits Of Highly Obnoxious Trolls
    • Title: Seven Habits Of Highly Obnoxious Trolls
    • Track: Culture
    • Room: B202/03
    • Time: 9:00 – 9:45am
    • Excerpt:

      Developing more effective habits isn’t just for the good guys. We’ll discuss seven methodologies that make trolls more effective—-and tell you what you can do about it.

    • Speakers: Bart Massey, Selena Deckelmann, Duke Leto