

Ask HN: Do other industries pool resources like the software industry? - joncalhoun

I realize there are still some issues (eg patents), but in general many companies have embraced giving back to the software ecosystem. To name a few projects - React, Go, Bootstrap, and Rails. There are also countless blog posts and educational resources out there.<p>Are there other industries where knowledge and tools are shared in a similar manner? Are there industries that are held back because they don&#x27;t give back?
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japhyr
The education profession could benefit greatly from a stronger implementation
of the open source model. The software industry has been using vim and emacs
for 40 years now. But the education profession has no dedicated lesson
planning tool in widespread use - the most commonly used planning tool is
Word. This situation is as if the software industry had everyone writing
programs in notepad (the original notepad, not notepad++).

People have attempted to make open source lesson planning tools, but the ones
I've seen have been low quality. People have attempted to make proprietary
tools, but teachers don't have the funds to pay for proprietary planning
tools.

I think the education world is ripe for a revolution in open infrastructure.
The ed-tech world is seeing a flurry of startup efforts, but many will die out
because their goal is to make money. We need high-quality open tools and
resources in the profession.

I wrote a longer post about this a while back:
[https://peak5390.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/why-do-
programmers...](https://peak5390.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/why-do-programmers-
have-better-tools-than-educators/)

~~~
rahimnathwani
Teachers don't need open source lesson planning tools. It is the lesson plans
themselves which should be shared and improved.

Sure, not all teachers are the same, and not every class of students is the
same. However, there is no reason why 1000 teachers need 1000 different lesson
plans.

Your proposal for teachers sounds to me like you're saying that all web
developers need text editors so they can build their own web frameworks. No,
they can pick a framework or two invented by DHH or whoever, and then use
those in their projects.

~~~
joncalhoun
I completely agree that more shared lesson plans would be valuable, but as
someone who has little experience teaching - isn't this generally what
textbooks are meant to do?

I realize teachers don't just go over what is in the textbook verbatim, but I
would imagine they are intended to set a pretty reasonable guideline for what
material should be taught and in what order, so I guess my real question is,
what are lesson plans plans to you, and how to they work alongside textbooks?

~~~
rahimnathwani
> what are lesson plans plans to you, and how to they work alongside
> textbooks?

Target audience: Textbook: student / Lesson plan: teacher

Type of activity it guides: Textbook: Solitary / Lesson plan: Group

Scope: Textbook: Subject / Lesson plan: Single lesson

Objective: Textbook: Comprehensive set of explanations for a broad subject /
Lesson plan: Tactics for a teacher to facilitate learning

I'm not a teacher, and it has been many years since I was at school, but I see
little commonality between a textbook and a lesson plan.

~~~
joncalhoun
I'm not asking this to be snark, but because I am still not seeing a major
difference.

For example, take a math textbook. Generally they are broken into subjects (eg
circles) and then that topic is broken into lessons (eg circumference or
area). Each lesson provides tactics & formulas for solving problems, examples
of applying them, and a problem set to practice with.

In my experience this is basically what a teacher would present in the
classroom, with the exception of their samples being more interactive, and
teachers having the ability answer questions.

Were you thinking of another type of textbook? I can see how this may be
different for history or literature textbooks, but to me that just means that
said textbooks are doing a poorer job of covering everything they should. I
think a textbook shouldn't just cover content, it should facilitate learning
the content.

~~~
rahimnathwani
Perhaps an example would make it clearer: [http://www.wikihow.com/Sample/High-
School-Lesson-Plan](http://www.wikihow.com/Sample/High-School-Lesson-Plan)

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phantom_oracle
You have to see it from both sides.

Building awesome "X" service is part of this markets culture/behaviour and
being the "it-concept" of the day/week/year is a good way of entrenching the
market participant and creating a channel for finding good assets (in the form
of labour).

If I recall, an "okayish" industry that gives back is the mining industry.

Although some of them are there to solely plunder and flee, a lot of
responsible miners build small economies around their activities.

They help finance local housing, schooling, etc.

If you need more info on this about virtually every industry, look for the
HR/marketing buzzword of "Corporate Social Responsibility" otherwise well
known as CSR.

