I have a surprise for you. I can’t share all the details yet, but it’s going to be fun. And Blursdays will be a part of it.
Argos, my new start-up with co-founder Curtiss Barnes and a killer little team, is receiving a major two-year grant working with a university partner to invest in open-source software that will, among other things, help improve OER. And we’re going to crowd-source some of the design and improvement work. I can’t provide all the details yet because we’re still working with the grantor and the partner on finalizing the details for the official announcement. But the basic idea is that we’ll be developing software in the first year that will help us test improvements in OER (among other things) in the second year.
And we want you all to be involved.
So here’s the plan for the three-week reveal:
- This week, we’ll review a demo of the Argos vision which some Blursday regulars may have seen, but with an emphasis on the aspects that are important for the project and the bigger picture.
- Next week, we’ll show the software as it exists in 1.0 form today—in production for several thousand students!—so you can get an idea of the base we’re working from.
- The week after that, we’ll have our big reveal of the grant and talk about how we want to enlist your help. (Fingers crossed that the final bits of paperwork will be signed and press releases approved by then.)
From there, we’ll use some Blursdays as barn raising sessions to get your help in designing the open-source software and organizing OER improvement hackathons. I’ve always intended to bring Blursdays together with the Empirical Educator Project (EEP) and we now finally have the perfect (funded!) project for it.
We will still have Blursday Social events with the familiar format, and the Barn Raising sessions will have a social component too. (Hence, the name.) Fun and impact! Plus, some surprises and special friends are coming.
Please RSVP for our first Blursday Barn Raising this Thursday, March 3rd, from 4 PM to 5:30 PM ET.
