2.2 Entrepreneurial leadership for technology: an opposable mind  (Page 9/11)

The idea for the Connexions Project was born when Richard Baraniuk approached fellow professor Sidney Burrus to vent frustration over the distinct separation of mathematical ideas, design methods, applications, legal and ethical implications, and business possibilities related to mechanical engineering (Burrus, 2007). Baraniuk expressed frustration about the disconnect resulting from these different courses taught by different professors, and originally proposed writing a new book that would connect all of these engineering ideas. In his response, Burrus challenged Baraniuk to “design a completely new teaching tool using modern computer and informational technology” (p. 20). The result of this discussion yielded the basic ideas needed to create what is now called “Connexions.”

The Connexions philosophy involves the creation of a collaborative, educational environment by developing, sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Internet. Furthermore, Connexions is a place to view, collect, and disseminate educational material in the format of small, knowledge chunks called “modules”, making learning a dynamic process (Creighton, 2008). These educational materials (modules and courses) are housed on the servers at Rice University and funded by the Hewlett Foundation, Rice University, and private donors. The Connexions project is an open source and available at: (External Link)

Baraniuk reasoned that content should be modular and non-linear and posits that most textbooks are a mass of information in linear format: one topic follows after another. However, our brains are not linear - we learn by making connections between new concepts and things we already know. Connexions mimics this by breaking down content into smaller chunks, called modules, that can be linked together and arranged in different ways. This lets students see the relationships both within and between topics and helps demonstrate that knowledge is naturally interconnected, not isolated into separate classes or books.

Baranuik and Burros use their opposable minds and integrative thinking to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas, and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the of the opposing ideas but is superior to both.

Today, Connexions is one of the most-used open-education resources on the web, employed in traditional college and K-12 settings, in distance learning, and by lifelong learners around the globe. Demand is surging; currently the Connexions servers handle over 16 million hits per month representing over 600,000 visitors from 196 countries. Volunteers are translating modules and courses into a variety of different languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai; many of these are our most popular. Connexions content development is grass-roots organized and inter-institutional. Our most active content development areas at present include education leadership, music, engineering, physics, chemistry, bioinformatics, and history.