Digital Open Winners Announced

Jane Park, October 14th, 2009

CC BY by the Digital Open

I blogged about the Digital Open in April, a new online community and competition that was accepting free and open technology projects from anyone 17 or younger through August. The competition was aimed at fostering an online and open community of youth by encouraging them to see the benefits of open source and open licensing.

Since then the jury has come in to announce eight grand prize winners. The first video profile is the Centralized Student Website from Fremont, California, by Raymond Zhong and Aatash Parikh. They’ve gone ahead and built a student portal for their high school, where virtually any school activity, especially student clubs, are accessed. Other winners include a Casa Ecologica in Spain and a Hybrid Airship. Be sure to check back for more videos.

Except where otherwise noted, all content on the Digital Open is available via CC BY. The Digital Open is the result of a joint partnership between the Institute for the Future, BoingBoing, and Sun Microsystems.

Community, Innovation, and Rights on the Web Essay Contest

Jane Park, July 20th, 2009

CIENTEC, the Foundation for the National Center for Science and Technology based in Costa Rica, has announced its XI (eleventh) annual National Science Essay contest (the second to come out in both English and Spanish). The contest is open to all high school students around the country, inviting them to write on this year’s theme, “Community, Innovation, and Rights on the Web.” Essays from abroad are also accepted, but into a separate “guest” category. From the site,

“The Internet has transformed the lives of people, interconnecting them and giving them access to information, videos, and more. It fosters creativity and collaborative work in the development of new products, but often creates a conflict between easy access and the rights of authors. Some groups, like Creative Commons, have initiated a global movement to address this problem.”

The deadline for entries is September 15, 2009.

The same announcement in Spanish:

COMUNIDAD, INNOVACIÓN Y DERECHOS EN LA RED

La Internet ha transformado la vida de las personas, interconectándolas y dando acceso a información, música, videos y demás. Esta red potencia la creatividad y el trabajo colaborativo en el desarrollo de nuevos productos, pero frecuentemente genera conflictos entre el fácil acceso y los derechos de autor. Algunos grupos, como Creative Commons, han iniciado un movimiento global para facilitar el proceso.

Check out the full announcement, and last year’s winners here.

ccLearn at the Whipple Hill User Conference 09

Jane Park, July 2nd, 2009

ccLearn presented on CC and Open Educational Resources at the WhippleHill User Conference yesterday in Boston. WhippleHill Communications is a company that started off more or less building websites for schools. As the Internet evolved, so did WhippleHill’s business model into a service one meeting schools’ online communication needs. WhippleHill targets independent high schools and is a for-profit. However, like a lot of companies who offer services around next generation web technologies, they promote open content and tools for their clients. They also host an annual user conference where they invite cutting edge initiatives to lead sessions on new media and technologies pertinent to the changing world. ccLearn had the opportunity to lead one of these sessions entitled, “Creative Commons and Open Educational Resources: How the world is changing and what you need to know to keep up” targeted mainly at education around CC and copyright for high school students.

The slide show is up under CC BY (except otherwise noted). We would like to acknowledge Jessica Coates’ slide show “Creative Commons in the Classroom” from which we co-opted some great slides!

Thanks again to WhippleHill and its President, Travis Warren, for the strong support!