Now that you're involved in PM (doing whatever it is you do), presumably you like it. What steps are you taking or might you take to get other people involved too?
Just as an example, I recently suggested to one of my math friends that he post a math question on PM. I think that the experience turned out well for him, so I was glad about that. PM really does seem to help people around the world connect over math!
I'd be curious to know what other people are doing by way of "outreach" - please post some info on your thoughts or reports on your outreach activities. --jcorneli
The grant proposal has been submitted! Thanks to all who helped brainstorm ideas for the proposal or critique and help draft the actual document.
The proposal will focus on educational evaluation and development of Noosphere. Assuming we get awarded (a big "if"), Aaron will be supervising one CS grad student on the development side of things for two years at Emory. PIs at Virginia Tech will supervise a grad student on evaluation, and work with consultants from schools. There is exciting potential here to study and improve the pedagogy of Noosphere (and PlanetMath).
Details, including work items are at
http://planetx.cc.vt.edu/AsteroidMeta/NSF_Advanced_Learning_Technologies_Grant_Planning_Page.
An important thing to note from the list of work items is that people's suggestions did make it into the grant proposal. This proves that your feedback is important and invaluable, so please keep it coming!
Discussion has continued. The theme is using free software ideas to revolutionize trade and even democracy. Take a look if you like thinking about political, revolutionary stuff!
The link again is
http://planetx.cc.vt.edu/AsteroidMeta//social%2c_political%2c_and_economic_scholium_systems
One of my former collaborators was talking to me about how useful she finds example latex and figure source code to be – and she said that's one of the main reasons that PM is cool. Matte's suggestion, that we should try to make a centralized database of all of the figures on PM (with source code) seems like it would help make PM's figures more educational - and of course it would make it easier for PMers to produce new figures based on the old ones.
Any other suggestions about educational/usability enhancements? :)
These are DIY bulletins that people just love to read. Don't forget to sum up your wiki activities here! --jcorneli