Ten minutes a day over one week

One of the biggest challenges instructors face when they want to adopt “open resources” is knowing where to start. Here we’ve outlined 10 minute steps spread over 7 days that can help you get started.

Day 1. Read the rest of this blog post. Optional: It may be helpful to identify when you will have time on each of the next 6 days. For example, commit the 10 minutes right after you get back to your desk from lunch on each day.

Day 2. Download one free textbook, and identify 2 sections from the book’s table of contents that overlap with your class. Here are links to a few of the many available free textbooks: OpenIntro Statistics (more info), Collaborative Statistics (more info), and many others.

Day 3. Briefly skim each of the two sections you identified on Day 2, spending just 5 minutes on each.

Day 4. Pleased with the sections you reviewed? Email your current students a link to the free textbook, or tell them about it in class. Not keen on the book’s explanations, style, or other characteristics? Send David an email and briefly explain why. Your comments are useful for helping these resources improve.

Day 5. Watch the video about free OpenIntro course software (see the gray banner on openintro.org). The video is 13 minutes, so feel free to cut it short to stay under your 10 minute quota.

Day 6. Register as a teacher on openintro.org (formal verification optional) and create a course with your new account. This process should take no more than 10 minutes. We send emails every 1-2 months to keep instructors up-to-date on OpenIntro and other open resources, but you can opt out anytime.

Day 7. Browse other resources that are available on this Links page. We think you’ll like what you see, and we hope you continue exploring and using these resources. You can always contact us if you want more information. We are also happy to set up phone calls with teachers who interested in learning more about OpenIntro and other open resource projects.

Congratulations, you already completed Day 1!

New Software and Outreach

Happy New Year from OpenIntro,

We’re pleased to share recent news about exciting software developments and broad outreach programs to kick off 2012!

A new version of our free online course management software was released earlier this month. The software now supports four subjects (statistics, algebra, calculus, and physics), and has dozens of other new features. Instructors can manage multiple course simultaneously with class announcements, customizable homepages, and a clean new Question Bank interface. For those who like their mathematics extra fancy, the Question Bank now supports LaTeX notation for equations. Check out our YouTube video for a tour of the latest developments at openintro.org:

This semester also marks our first major outreach effort for OpenIntro Statistics, which we extend to you and your colleagues. If you are already using OpenIntro Statistics in your class, thanks! If you or your colleagues are using an alternative statistics book, we hope you will participate. (1) Request your students to read one section of our textbook during the semester along with the corresponding reading in the course’s regular textbook. (2) Then ask them to fill out an online survey comparing the OpenIntro textbook to their current textbook. (Send us an email and we’ll get back to you with the a link to the appropriate survey.) We hope this will enhance the students’ learning and help us continue to improve OI resources for you and folks around the world.

Thanks for all your support, and best wishes for 2012!

Cheers,
The Openintro Team