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GNU Edu, an educational resources catalog

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NB : This is GNU Edu project Home Page. Do you want to access OFSET GNU Edu service and browse or add educational resources? Please move here

new 07/03/2008 GNU Edu Workshop at the Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre, Mont de Marsan (France)

new 06/28/2008 GNU Edu Version 1.4

new 05/12/2008 GNU Edu has is now localized in Traditional Chinese

03/01/2008 GNU Edu Workshop at Chemnitz Linux Tag

10/14/2007 GNU Edu Presentation at Eindhoven T-DOSE

04/03/2007 GNU Edu Presentation at Chemnitz Linux Tag (Germany)

2007-03-01 GNU Edu Version 1.3

2006-09-13 GNU Edu is localized in 8 languages : French, English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Vietnamese, German and Swedish

2006-06-11 GNU Edu Version 1.2.1

2006-01-14 GNU Edu interface is localized in 5 languages: French, English, Spanish, Russian and Swedish

2005-11-10 GNU Edu Version 1.1

2005-11-09 GNU Edu is referenced in the Free Software Directory

2005-11-08 GNU Edu / GCompris Resource Server now open!

2005-10-10 New : GNU Edu reviewed in Linux Magazine Spain!!


I - What is it?

Just imagine. You're a math teacher in middle school. You're looking for a document for your lesson tomorrow morning. You plan to get them to understand the converse of the Pythagorean theorem  [1] and you don't know how, yet. You would welcome some new ideas about how.

Of course you can type "pythagorean" or even "converse pythagorean theorem" in a web search engine. No doubt you will get thousands of documents about the subject, some of them with of educational interest. But you will have to dig in all the linked web sites, you will encounter all kinds of resources, all kinds of file formats, you will lose your nerve before you can find what you were looking for.

Now type "pythagorean" in GNU Edu. You get a list of resources, all meant for educational use. In front of each link, you can see important information like file format and whether it is a course, an open activity, an assessment…

GNU Edu - Pythagore 1

This list might still be a little too long. In this case you will refine your search using GNU Edu's "educational items"  [2] Click on link "Back to items", top link, uncheck those you don't want that much (see picture), keep only the most important, and finally press "View Ressources" button. This time you have want you wanted and it took only a few minutes, including a glance at some of the documents.

GNU Edu - Pythagore 2

And there is more: GNU Edu allows you to browse documents written in another language, or in your own language but from another country.

You have no idea how diverse educational systems can be around the world. Some subjects are tought at different ages depending on the country - for example the probability theory. Some educational systems have a common-core syllabus for all students, others can have dozens of different syllabus for the same age.

GNU Edu's educational items act as a pivot between countries and cultures. You may ask GNU Edu a list of educational documents having similar pedagogical purposes, from other countries or educational systems.

II - Educational metadata

GNU Edu stores metadata for educational resources. These metadata are of two kinds: GNU Edu metadat conform to international standards: Here is a list of most important metadata used in GNU Edu: More metadata will be added to better address composite resources.

Apart from this list, GNU Edu adds a finer grained classification, based on "educational items". Each resource is matched to one or more educational items.

Consider for example an open activity paper, where the pupils are asked to draw a frieze with perpendicular lines, using a square ruler. This activity will match 3 educational items:

Educational items are relevant to a specific country and a specific student level. On http://gnuedu.ofset.org, you will find mostly educational items for nursery education and for middle school mathematics in France. The former result directly from the syllabus. The latter from the Institut de Recherche sur l'Enseignement des Mathématiques de Picardie. A matching between items from different countries or educational systems rely on a systematic translation of the associated keywords.

III - Technical features

GNU Edu is backed with a highly structured and highly efficient relational database, so that complicated searches on large volumes can be performed quickly.

Each GNU Edu server can communicate with others and is able to serve also their content. This way, the educational items database allows access every user to resources from every country.

GNU Edu web interface is user friendly to help finding easily what you want. The forms for resource authors are simple, with only few mandatory fields.

GNU Edu is free software and uses only free and open technology that conform to the standards.

Reference: http://www.ofset.org/gnuedu

[1] If you forgot... Pythagorean theorem states a numerical relationship between the 3 sides of a square triangle (The sum of the areas of the squares...), and the converse states that if you have a triangle and the relationship is true, then it is a square triangle.

[2] copyright notice: most of the educational items presently on GNU Edu system come from pedagogical works of IREM (Institut de Recherche sur l'Enseignement des Mathématiques) of Picardie, France.