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Laura Hilliger is a writer, educator and technologist. She’s a multimedia designer and developer, a technical liaison, a project manager, an open web advocate who is happiest in collaborative environments. She’s a co-founder of We Are Open Co-op, an Ambassador for Opensource.com, is working to help open up Greenpeace, and a Mozilla alum. Find her on Twitter and Mastodon as @epilepticrabbit
Authored Comments
This is an excellent article. Obviously, your friends were incorrect (because I believe that anyone who contributes to the open movement is a leader, but we can talk about that some other time ;) I too think these three things are essential. A long time ago I wrote an article* called "Friendly Tips for Keeping Your Contributors", and it centered on what you call Being Appreciative. #1 is so essential, and yet it's so easy for people to forget.
* http://www.laurahilliger.com/leadership/friendly-tips-for-keeping-your-…
I'm always happy to see people pushing Open Source in the classroom. Contributing to open source is a great tool for learning *in any discipline*. The computer science students can practice code, the marketing students can practice copy, designers can design. Open source is in need of contribution to a multitude of areas.
One thing I've seen as successful is the partnership between a faculty and an organization. As you describe your collaboration with Redhat, other FOSS orgs may have similar programs. I know that the Mozilla Foundation and Seneca College has had a very, very mutually valuable relationship (see this article: http://www.senecacollege.ca/media/2015/2015-02-18.html ) I know that many educators form activities for their students that result in contributions to Wikipedia. But these are all the "big" open source communities. Hopefully, we'll find ways to engage students around smaller communities as well :)
In any case, thanks for sharing your wiki – I <3 finding new open learning activities!