Lifelong Learning from Free or Inexpensive Resources David Moursund

Problem-solving team

More about problem-solving team

Summary of this presentation We have steadily improving: – Collection of data, information, knowledge – Access to this data, information, and knowledge – Aids to processing and using the data, information, and knowledge A lot of this collection is available free. However, lots of it is not readily available and lots of it is not available free.

In addition… We have a steadily growing collection of research and practitioner knowledge about more effective ways of teaching and learning. Think about a student learning 20% to 30% faster and quite a bit better. In some sense this decreases the cost of education from a student point of view.

Highly interactive intelligence computer-assisted learning High quality computer-assisted learning materials are expensive to develop. Once developed, they can be used by very large numbers of students. Once developed, they can be incrementally improved based on continuing input from users, teachers, and researchers.

Now, the less dense part of my presentation

The Oz books are now out of copyright; e-copies are inexpensive

Kindle 2 (6” diagonal Screen) 2Gig

Kindle DX (9.7” diagonal) 4Gig

L. Frank Baum Books

Arthur Conan Doyle

Quote from Glinda of Oz book by L. Frank Baum (1920) Glinda's Great Book of Records This book is one of the greatest treasures in Oz, and the Sorceress prizes it more highly than any of her magical possessions. This is the reason it is firmly attached to the big marble table by means of golden chains, and whenever Glinda leaves home she locks the Great Book together with five jeweled padlocks, and carries the keys safely hidden in her bosom. I do not suppose that there is any magical thing in any fairyland to compare with the Record Book, on the pages of which are constantly being printed a record of every event that happens in any part of the world, at exactly the moment it happens.

Chained Library: Middle Ages until about 1800

Glinda's Great Book of Records is somewhat like the Web Many of the Web contributors are “on the scene” and report relatively rapidly. However, Glinda’s book has greater and more rapid coverage, while the Web has greater depth of coverage. Many people have access to the Web. The Web is not a “chained” library.

As We May Think (Vannevar Bush 1945) Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory. It consists of a desk, and while it can presumably be operated from a distance, it is primarily the piece of furniture at which he works. On the top are slanting translucent screens, on which material can be projected for convenient reading. There is a keyboard, and sets of buttons and levers. Otherwise it looks like an ordinary desk.

Better than the Memex: computer “brain” with memory and processing

Auxiliary brain and memory

Cray super computer, 1976 The first Cray-1™ system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976 for $8.8 million. It boasted a world-record speed of 160 million floating-point operations per second (160 megaflops) and an 8 megabyte main memory.

United States Library of Congress The Library of Congress is the largest (non-virtual) library in the world, with nearly 142 million items on approximately 650 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 32 million books and other print materials, 3 million recordings, 12.5 million photographs, 5.3 million maps, 5.6 million pieces of sheet music and 62 million manuscripts. The Library receives some 22,000 items each working day and adds approximately 10,000 items to the collections daily.

Web versus U.S Library of Congress The Web is many times larger than the US Library of Congress and is growing at a considerably higher yearly percentage rate. However, physical libraries, such as the US Library of Congress, contain many documents that the Web does not yet contain.

Open access versus open source Open access: you can read it for free (for example, from the Web or a library). Open source: You can read it, use it, modify and adapt it for free, subject to various conditions. The various forms of Creative Commons licenses help to spell out details.

Free and/or Inexpensive: The question is: “Who pays?” The budget for the US Library of Congress is nearly $650 million a year. The budget for the UO Library is approximately $20 million a year. The budget of the Eugene Public Library system is over $10 million a year.

Conclusion: “Free” is in the eye of the beholder. However, Information and Communication Technology can cut costs and redistribute who pays the costs. Example: I write a book and have it “deposited” in the UO Scholar’s Bank, making if available to anyone who can access the Web. – The “cost” is distributed over my time and effort, the UO computer services, the UO library, people paying for the Web, and people paying for access to the Web.

What I have been doing over the past decade Developing materials I make available free on the Web. – Books – Articles – Newsletter – Collections of links – Ideas of possible use to teaches and students. For example, electronic digital filing cabinet.

Free books written by Moursund For a number of years, I wrote a book for each course I taught and made it available free. I also wrote on other topic, and make the books available free. About 25 of my books are available free. See

Free articles written by Moursund I started the Information Age Education wiki about two years ago. It currently has about 200 entries, mostly open source. See Example: Good Math Lesson Plans (for preservice and inservice K-12 teachers) was posted a year ago and has had more than 12,000 page views.

Collections of links in Moursund’s wiki at Math education free videos Free math software Math education quotations Free educational videos Open content libraries Open source textbooks Open source databases Predictions of the future

Idea: Digital Filing Cabinet "The strongest memory is not as strong as the weakest ink." (Confucius, B.C.)

Key ideas: ownership Departments and faculty locate and/or provide some resources. Students locate and/or provide some resources for each other. Students locate and/or provide some resources for themselves. (Example: class notes.) Students gain ownership by creating and organizing their filing cabinet, and by reading and annotating its contents.

Personal examples My Information Age Education wiki and other Websites. My math education digital filing cabinet collection within my wiki: pedia.org/Math_Education_Digital_Filing_Cab inet

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