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Published: Mon, 09/16/13

Open source
http://blog.architexa.com/2012/05/pleasures-of-open-source/

Open source curriculum

The platform that drives my web page (WordPress) is built by a world-wide consortium of volunteers—coders who like to write code in their spare time. The same is true of UNIX, which hosts the majority of web servers. The same is true of Wikipedia, which put long-established giants like Encyclopedia Britannica out of business, after 244 years of operation. Wikipedia is the largest depository of information ever assembled and it is all done by volunteers. It has been documented to be more accurate than similar offerings produced by professionals. This is the age of collaboration. This is the age of open source.

If you would like to read a great book on this, check out Starfish and the Spider. The authors use the metaphors of a starfish and a spider to illustrate two very different kinds of organizations. The spider is centralized. All orders come from the center. If you cut off a leg, it is hurt but just adapts and adjusts. If you cut off the head, it dies.

Starfish organization are very different. If you cut a starfish in two, it just grows into two starfish. If you cut off a leg, it grows another leg. And, in some cases, the leg grows another starfish.

The army is like the spider. Command and control. Centralized. Wikipedia and UNIX and WordPress are more like the starfish. Some organizations are a bit of both.

We are in the early stages of seeing open source Bible Study Curriculum.

Here are some examples:

  • Check out Lifeway’s Ning site. http://lifewayextra.ning.com/ On this site you can add your notes to the mix and read the notes that others have posted.
  • Ken Hemphill’s Non-disposable curriculum. www.auxanopress.com Ken and his team of writers are writing the core pieces of this series, but if you want to add your PowerPoint or other notes to the system you can. Just email what ya got to me or Ken Hemphill. The older the book, the more resources available. (See below for an example of resources available for SPLASH).
  • My own Good Questions are another example. If you use Lifeway’s material, you get to take advantage of not only their material, but a number of other third party resources as well. www.sundayschooluniversity.com is another valuable resource.

It is a new day in literature. A day where we not only use literature, we contribute to it.

Example resources available for SPLASH