Connexions: Opening the Doors of Learning

Connexions:
Opening the Doors of Learning

Composer Anthony K. Brandt is no computer guru, but thanks to Rice University’s Connexions Project, he’s using the Internet to fulfill a longtime dream of interweaving music and text to form a truly interactive music appreciation course.

Brandt, assistant professor of composition in Rice’s Shepherd School of Music, is one of a growing number of educators who have begun exploring how to use Connexions to custom-build courses and offer them to the world.

Four years in development, Connexions officially launched its portal, http://cnx.rice.edu, in February. Unlike MIT’s OpenCourseWare or similar initiatives by other universities to make course materials freely available online, Connexions offers a revolutionary approach: a single place online where any educator in the world can both post and use knowledge for free.

“Connexions grew from the idea that the Web offers a perfect means of making scholarly knowledge freely available to anyone,” says Connexions director Richard Baraniuk, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Rice, who started the project in order to reach out to students in his digital signal processing class.

The project adapts the open-source software concept to scholarly content. People publish course curricula in the Connexions “Content Commons” using an open-content license developed by Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.org) that allows unlimited modification and distribution, provided authors receive attribution for their work. University professors, community college instructors, grade school teachers, professional development leaders, home educators, and others can then use, modify, and combine all the available materials to suit their specific needs.

“Connexions is a natural fit for the K–12 classroom because kids love to use computers,” Brandt says. “I’ve already spoken with a high school teacher here in Houston who’s interested in using my course, and I’ve corresponded with a K–12 music teacher and homeschooler in Illinois who has created a few of her own Connexions courses for elementary-age students.”

At the university level, Connexions courses are already used to teach engineering, computer science, physics, and mathematics classes at Rice, the University of Illinois, Ohio State University, Cambridge University, and other schools. “One of the significant advantages of Connexions is that, by its very design, it encourages people to collaborate in building a base of knowledge within a particular domain that can be constantly updated and revised,” says Jeff Wright, dean of the School of Engineering at the University of California at Merced, the 10th campus of the UC system, scheduled to open in the fall of 2005.
Supported by Rice and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Connexions already contains more than 1,600 educational modules, each equivalent to a two- to three-page lesson from a textbook. Developed using prototype software over the past five years, most of these modules deal with highly technical subjects related to the mathematics and physics of signal processing. Modules are used by instructors to supplement or replace textbooks. But in addition to displaying typical textbook content, modules also can include interactive simulations and multimedia elements that enhance learning.

With the availability of new, do-it-yourself publishing tools, Connexions is attracting new users like Brandt, who are pioneering content beyond engineering and into disciplines like music and biology. Brandt’s course, Sound Reasoning (http://cnx.rice.edu/featuredcontent), is aimed especially at learners without formal music training. He hopes the course will bridge the divide between modern and classical music by teaching people to fully appreciate the form and structure of all music.

The prototype of Brandt’s course consists of an introduction followed by lessons that are accompanied by corresponding listening galleries. Each module contains links to several music files that load and play within the page. “At first, I thought a CD-ROM might be the best medium,” Brandt says. “However, when I learned about Connexions, I realized that its flexibility, potential to grow, and universal reach made it ideal.”

Brandt says Connexions offers the only technology he’s yet found that allows musical examples to be interpolated into the text, where readers can click on them and immediately hear the concepts in action. “That immediacy is very powerful,” he says. “Sound Reasoning is all about developing the listener’s confidence and self-reliance. Being able to describe a concept and then have listeners test it with their own ears is the strongest way to teach music appreciation.”

To explore the Content Commons and find out how to post lessons, create courses, and teach students using Connexions, visit http://cnx.rice.edu.

—Jade Boyd

It’s Official: Rice Is a Member of the Texas Medical Center

Houston landmarks Rice University and the Texas Medical Center have a lot more in common than sharing the same neighborhood. Collaborations in research and teaching between Rice and the Texas Medical Center were first established in 1964 when researchers from Rice worked with Michael E. DeBakey of Baylor College of Medicine to develop an implantable artificial heart. Today, these efforts have blossomed into more than 90 productive partnerships in education, research, and outreach with about 20 of the member institutions of the Texas Medical Center.

Until now, though, there never has been any official document indicating the joint interests. That changed in December when the Rice Board of Trustees accepted an invitation for the university to become a member of the TMC.

“The pace of research will intensify in the now-unfolding revolution at the intersections of nano-, bio-, and information technology,” said Rice president Malcolm Gillis. “Rice’s becoming an official member of the Texas Medical Center is a logical step in helping to make South Main Street one of the most vital and productive centers of that revolution.”

Other institutions of higher learning that have become TMC member institutions include Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Houston, Texas Woman’s University, Texas A&M University System, Prairie View A&M University, Texas Southern University, and the Houston Community College System.