A free and open source global K-12 curriculum project
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OpenCurriculum is a web-based platform project to help create the world's first free and open source K-12 global curriculum using crowdsourcing. It aims to harness existing Open Educational Resources (OERs), best education and learning practices, and the power of the combined knowledge & commitment of individuals like YOU to create a readily-adoptable, high-quality curriculum.
Goals
| Is completely free of cost and open source | ||
 | School teachers and learners do not need any license to use OpenCurriculum; they can freely adopt and adapt the high-quality eTextbooks and digital resources. Localized, printed OpenCurriculum books and downloaded/shared digital resources may become especially beneficial to schools with limited resources in developing countries like India. | |
| Incorporates 21st century skills | ||
 | In addition to traditional subjects such as math, science, history, and languages, the curriculum emphasizes skills such as financial literacy, global citizenship, civic sense, leadership, environmental literacy, creativity, innovation, critical thinking, and social skills. | |
| Supports the creation of high-quality teacher training resources | ||
 | Educators can contribute open resources specifically for teacher training, thus supporting their learning and development. | |
| Complies with open education standards and frameworks | ||
 | The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation acknowledges the lack of standardization as the single largest challenge among OERs today. OpenCurriculum addresses this challenge by offering common, standards-compliant interfaces for accessing existing and creating new OER. OpenCurriculum also complies with the math and science standards of Common Core. | |
| Adopts learning sciences, best educational practices and information design principles as core components of all curriculum produced | ||
 | This ensures exceptional learning experiences rather than rote learning experiences. | |
| Serves to integrate curriculum with several educational technology initiatives | ||
 | OpenCurriculum aims to become the major content provider for learning applications for projects like One Laptop per Child and Aakash, by providing open application programming interfaces for free access to all the content and resources. | |
| Is developed and improved by the community | ||
 | Openness and inclusion in decision making and contribution to the curriculum makes the community responsible for their role in improving learning experiences. This also allows for transparency and quality control in the process. | |
| To get updates on the project, subscribe to our no-spam community mailing list with your email below: |
 | Varun Arora, Founder + Developer Varun is a keen web and pervasive learning technologies enthusiast, a tech consultant, a life-long learner, a blogger and an entrepreneur, or to simply summarize it all: a glorified hacker. He is currently enrolled in MSc in Information Systems Management; which, in his free time, he studies for. |
 | Zaid Haque, Lead Evangelist & UX Designer A meticulous interaction designer with newly-found interest in simulation design and education, Zaid is the lead "perfectionist" on the team (yes, he uses a Mac). A former TEDx curator, he believes in engaging with individuals and building lasting relationships in order to sustain partnerships. |
 | Shoshana Grossman-Crist, Crowdsourcing Lead Shoshana is a Latin America development professional with a background in community and social development, and on the ground experience in Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Kenya and Argentina. She is currently earning her Masters in Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University.
|
 | Amin Ali, Engineering Lead |
 | Jayesh Nachnani, Project Manager Jayesh is from Pune, India. He holds a bachelors degree in engineering in Information technology, and is pursuing the MISM one year program at Carnegie Mellon. He has worked for Cognizant technology solutions for close to 5 years out of London and Pune. His other interests include economics, philosophy, psychology and literature and he likes reading non-fiction. |
 | Preethi Raju, UX Consultant Preethi is a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's Masters in Human-Computer Interaction program with a BS in Information Systems. She has a deep understanding of the application of technology in education from her experiences of leading a chapter of FORGE, a final year project, and on helping 3M understand the future of classrooms. |
| Piyush Kumar, Research and evangelism |
 | Siddharth Arora, Financial Consultant Siddharth currently focuses on fundraising efforts for OpenCurriculum as well as general website development. He works for BBH Capital Partners, the private equity investment arm of Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH). Siddharth graduated from the Tepper Business School, Carnegie Mellon University, in 2010 with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration (Finance). |
| Tamar Ben-Shacher, Engineering Champion |
Careers
OpenCurriculum is currently a non-funded non-profit organization, and thus all our team members work on it purely voluntarily. You are invited to apply for the roles below:Software Engineering Intern - Fall '12 - Pittsburgh, PA
Role:
The platform's focus of crowdsourcing requires heavy utilization of tools that do document revision comparison (Diff), revision control, and optimization of storage in databases. Apart from building/adopting these core services, the intern will be expected to work on optimization of site resources, work-flow implementation, Wiki filters, sorting based on rankings, etc. The intern will also be expected to work on the core functionality of the website, and extend is as need be. Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid Requirements:
The platform's focus of crowdsourcing requires heavy utilization of tools that do document revision comparison (Diff), revision control, and optimization of storage in databases. Apart from building/adopting these core services, the intern will be expected to work on optimization of site resources, work-flow implementation, Wiki filters, sorting based on rankings, etc. The intern will also be expected to work on the core functionality of the website, and extend is as need be. Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid Requirements:
- Currently pursuing BS or MS in Computer Science, ECE or related major
- GPA should be 2.0+
- Passion for programming and learning new technologies and tools
- Previous experience of programming in PHP is preferred; while Java, Python, C++ programmers are eligible to apply
- Knowledge of UNIX and/or Linux preferred
- Knowledge of web applications or CMSs and MySQL databases is preferred
- Needs to be enrolled at a full-time or part-time program
Software Engineering Intern - Fall '12 - Worldwide
Role:The platform's focus of crowdsourcing requires heavy utilization of tools that do document revision comparison (Diff), revision control, and optimization of storage in databases. Apart from building/adopting these core services, the intern will be expected to work on optimization of site resources, work-flow implementation, Wiki filters, sorting based on rankings, etc. The intern will also be expected to work on the core functionality of the website, and extend is as need be.
Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid · Telecommuting
Requirements:
- Currently pursuing BS or MS in Computer Science, ECE or related major
- GPA should be 2.0+
- Passion for programming and learning new technologies and tools
- Previous experience of programming in PHP is preferred; while Java, Python, C++ programmers are eligible to apply
- Knowledge of UNIX and/or Linux preferred
- Knowledge of web applications or CMSs and MySQL databases is preferred
Design Lead Intern - Fall '12 - Pittsburgh, PA
Role:
We not only believe in good engineering of our platform, but also put special emphasis on the design and visual experience of the user. The Design lead intern will be responsible of the visual aesthetics of the features of platform - majorly contributing to, but not limited to, isotypes, typography, document design, marketing graphics, vectors graphics, branding, etc. for the entire website, published documents and video graphics. This is a huge opportunity to create a really high impact on the look and feel of the entire project. Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid Requirements:
We not only believe in good engineering of our platform, but also put special emphasis on the design and visual experience of the user. The Design lead intern will be responsible of the visual aesthetics of the features of platform - majorly contributing to, but not limited to, isotypes, typography, document design, marketing graphics, vectors graphics, branding, etc. for the entire website, published documents and video graphics. This is a huge opportunity to create a really high impact on the look and feel of the entire project. Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid Requirements:
- Currently pursuing BS or MS in Communication/Graphic Design, Information Systems or equivalent
- Mastery over Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign
- Previous coursework or experience on vector graphic design and publishing
- Knowledge on usability and user experience is preferred
- Knowledge and experience with stop-motion animation or any video post-production is preferred
- Needs to be enrolled at a full-time or part-time program
Educational research Intern - Fall '12 - Pittsburgh, PA
Role:OpenCurriculum always aims to be theoretically sound and in accordance with real needs of K-12 education globally. In trying to come up with a platform that adopts the mental model of teachers and learners, an Educational research intern will spend his/her time doing academic and popular literature review on best practices, failures and field study in K-12 education. This understand will serve as the basis for all crucial decisions made in user experience, feature planning and outreach for the organization.
Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid
Requirements:
- Currently pursuing BS or MS in any program, preferably policy, IR, writing or another liberal art
- Excellent report and article writing skills and experience
- Previous coursework or experience in education or education policy
- Willingness to use social media on a frequent basis
- Strong interest and passion to change education at any level in your community is preferred
- Needs to be enrolled at a full-time or part-time program
Project & UX Manager Intern - Fall '12 - Pittsburgh, PA
Role:
The role requires individuals who have a very strong fundamentals of project and product management, for managing the product development of the platform. The Project & UX Manager intern will be required to maintain constant communication with all members of the team, ensure meeting of all milestones, constant scheduling, task allotment, weekly meeting management, requirements analysis, user experience reporting, user testing, time accounting, etc. This mission critical role requires enormous agility and flexibility, along with strong communication skills and deep technical knowledge. Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid Requirements:
The role requires individuals who have a very strong fundamentals of project and product management, for managing the product development of the platform. The Project & UX Manager intern will be required to maintain constant communication with all members of the team, ensure meeting of all milestones, constant scheduling, task allotment, weekly meeting management, requirements analysis, user experience reporting, user testing, time accounting, etc. This mission critical role requires enormous agility and flexibility, along with strong communication skills and deep technical knowledge. Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid Requirements:
- Currently pursuing BS in CS, IS, ECE or equivalent major and a preferred management MS degree
- Previous product management experience for a technology company is preferred
- Previous experience of programming in PHP is preferred; while Java, Python, C++ programmers are eligible to apply
- Knowledge of agile development methodologies like SCRUM
- Strong email ethic and ability to meet deadlines
- Passion to change make an impact in education at any level is preferred
- Needs to be enrolled at a full-time or part-time program
Content ninja Intern - Fall '12 - Worldwide
Role:
In trying to experiment with all the cool features built for the platform, we spend a lot of time finding and preparing open educational resources to feed as content to the etextbooks across the curriculum. The content ninja will be responsible for aggregating, summarizing, moderating and writing new content for these textbooks - and this supporting the crowdsourcing process by being closest to the community contributors. Additionally, he/she will manage the repositories of knowledge and advise on overall architecture of content in the curriculum and on the platform. Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid Requirements:
In trying to experiment with all the cool features built for the platform, we spend a lot of time finding and preparing open educational resources to feed as content to the etextbooks across the curriculum. The content ninja will be responsible for aggregating, summarizing, moderating and writing new content for these textbooks - and this supporting the crowdsourcing process by being closest to the community contributors. Additionally, he/she will manage the repositories of knowledge and advise on overall architecture of content in the curriculum and on the platform. Time period: 6-10 weeks (flexible; August '12 - December '12) · Unpaid Requirements:
- Currently pursuing BS or MS in education, writing, media, business, journalism or equivalent
- Proofreading and information sciences work experience is preferred
- Willingness to use social media on a frequent basis
- Strong email ethic and ability to meet deadlines
- Blogging experience is preferred
- Needs to be enrolled at a full-time or part-time program
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