Following the success of our first Life Sciences authoring workshop, we now have a 300+ page document that needs to be tweaked and edited, so that we can present it to the Department of Basic Education for approval.
This draft was the result of a collaboration with interested educators and post-grad university students volunteering their time and expertise. Over the course of a weekend we created a CAPS aligned free and open Grade 10 Life Sciences textbook, by combining educators' existing teaching notes, sourcing open content online, and creating our own new content.
We created a website for the textbook which can be viewed here: http://projects.siyavula.com/lifesciences10/ and you can watch the video of the weekend here.
THE TIMES AND DATES WILL BE AS FOLLOWS:
- Tuesday 3 July: 09h00 - 20h00 (includes teas, lunch, supper and drinks)
- Wednesday 4 July: 09h00 - 20h00 (includes teas, lunch, supper and drinks)
- Thursday 5 July: 09h00 - 16h00 (includes teas and lunch)
Please note that when you commit to this you are committing yourself to all three days!
PLACE: Pinelands High School, Cape Town.
COST: Free!
To participate in this Life Sciences textbook workshop please register your attendance above!
WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU:
Your own teaching notes that you have created and are prepared to make available online for others to use, share and adapt, under a Creative Commons licence, applicable to Grade 10.
Your own laptop, with your notes in MS Word or the equivalent editable format (no PDF's please!). If you do not have your own laptop we may be able to accommodate you.
WHAT WE WILL PROVIDE:
- The draft version of our existing Life Sciences textbook;
- A style guide for the authoring process;
- A curriculum framework from which to work;
- Rich-media resources for inclusion in the material, such as videos and simulations, citizen cyberscience projects and fun educational websites for learners to visit;
- Full access to the final textbook;
- Full catering (tea, coffee, snacks, lunch, supper, drinks); and
- Tech support.
WHAT YOU CAN RELY ON FROM US:
- To polish the final product - cover, editing, layout etc, so that everyone has a print-ready textbook
- To ensure you are appropriately acknowledged in the Life Sciences textbook;
- To make the textbook available online for all Life Sciences educators to access and use;
- To make the product available via mobile front-end
- To provide an annotation platform for the textbook, to ensure its constant evolution and adaptation to everyone's needs.
WHO IS SIYAVULA?
You may recognise our name from the Grade 10-12 Maths and Physical Science textbooks that were delivered to many schools by the Department of Basic Education (DBE). Every single learner in a government school that is taking maths and / or physical science in Grades 10-12 will receive a copy of our textbooks, paid for by DBE. This is hugely exciting for us as an organisation, but also for the world of open educational resources - as far as we know, this is a world first. The books have their own websites and can be viewed at http://everythingmaths.co.za/ and http://everythingscience.co.za/. Siyavula believes in sharing, community, collaboration and openness, and through the use of technology we strive to produce the best quality free educational resources out there.
Register here.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For queries: bridget@siyavula.com or call Telephone 021 469 4771
Website: http://projects.siyavula.com
READ NEXT:
