Jeff Elkner
Elkner, a 17-year veteran teacher in the Arlington Public School
System, will spend the next five to 10 years helping to build
Virginia's new Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)
Governor's Career and Technical Academy, in partnership with Northern
Virginia Community College. He hopes it will become a model of 21st
century interdisciplinary, project-based learning "that meets the broad
educational needs of our students." For Elkner, it's all about the
students, and it's all about giving. He's worked with the SchoolTool project to create a common global school administration infrastructure, and worked with students to set up Linux Terminal Server Project labs in low-income apartment complexes in the area. He promotes Free Software use with the One Laptop per Child project, and teaches Python to his beginning and advanced computer science students.
Elkner started college in New Jersey in 1979 "with the goal of
finding the meaning of life, the universe, and everything," he says.
His plans to triple major in mathematics, philosophy, and music fell
through when he dropped out, got married, and moved to Puerto Rico. He
couldn't find a job down there, so, in search of employment, found
himself back at the mainland in the DC metro area. After a varied
assortment of occupations, including time as a janitor, sales clerk,
security guard, bank teller, hotel night auditor, and taxi driver,
Elkner says he began to see life in a new way. "At first I needed to
hold down two or three of these jobs at the same time to be able to
afford to live. Coming from a relatively privileged Cherry Hill
suburban upbringing, the reality of what working people on the lower
end of the economic spectrum go through to survive had a deep impact on
my world view."
That paradigm shift, coupled with his eventual employment as a
substitute teacher, laid the path for Elkner to become a champion of
Free Software ideals not only with code, but with everything he'd
learned along the way. He wanted to share it all with the Arlington
Public School system students who had captured his heart.
Elkner went on to earn a degree in Math from the University of
Maryland and in 1991 became a math teacher at Forestville High School.
He was introduced to Free Software when he was working on his master's
degree from Bowie University. He says that as soon as he understood the
philosophy behind the GNU project, "I became an activist for Free
Software. I want to live in a world where people are good neighbors,
and I want to do everything I can to be a good neighbor myself."
Elkner's new philosophy melded well with his love for his students,
and it wasn't long until he was implementing new projects and ideas
based on the Free Software philosophy. Eventually Elkner would found an
effort called the Open Book Project, a cooperative effort between
several teachers and book authors to distribute texts, courses, and
other information online, so that anyone who wants to learn about
computer science and information technology can have access to the
information. The road that led to the Open Book Project as it exists
today was bumpy at first.
"I had the good fortune to have Dr. Martha A. Brown as the
supervisor of Mathematics when I worked in Prince George's County. Dr.
Brown exposed her teachers to constructivist ideas and student center
pedagogical practices. She brought us together in summer workshops to
learn and create. One concrete product of those workshops was a wealth
of learning materials that we developed ourselves in collaborative
teams. I've been in the habit of making my own educational materials
ever since."
Some of the potential of that work was never realized, Elkner says.
"While developing educational materials together was certainly an
invaluable experience for teachers, the materials we produced ended up
in large three-ring binders collecting dust somewhere in the central
office. I've seen the same thing happen since coming to teach in
Arlington."
Elkner realized what was missing and started looking for ways to
implement the distribution of educational materials. "To effectively
produce and share materials in a useful way, we lacked two things: a
way to distribute the materials quickly and cheaply, and an easy way
for users of the materials to modify and customize them for truly
student-centered use. Being a Free Software activist at the very time
the World Wide Web was making its way into our classrooms made it easy
for me to see how distributing free educational materials through the
Web could provide a solution. Educational materials and software both
benefit in similar ways from free development paradigms. If Allen Downey
hadn't been a pioneer in releasing his introductory computer science
textbook under the GNU/GPL, I would not have been able to turn it into
the book I needed for using Python in my introductory computer science
course. Around the time that SunSITE was becoming ibiblio.org, I wrote
them and asked for space to share educational materials on which I was
working, and the Open Book Project was born."
Elkner calls himself a "cheerleader" for Free Software. "I'm a bit
more flexible than RMS when it comes to tactics, but I fully share his
goals. Software is the expression of thought. I'm a teacher. Does
proprietary mathematics have a place? What would it do to the
development of mathematics if mathematicians could not share their
ideas? The idea seems ridiculous. I feel the same way about software. I
know from practice how free software breaks down boundaries and
contributes to human development. It enables my students to learn the
craft of software development by working side by side with professional
programmers developing applications that really matter."
As far as his contributions to the community, Elkner tries to be
flexible and available. "I try to do whatever needs to be done to
promote software freedom, so I end up being a facilitator, project
coordinator, advocate, mentor, or whatever else is required."
As Elkner has spent time trying to educate both his students and the
system about Free Sofware, his biggest challenge has been finding
acceptance in that system, moving from "being tolerated to being
embraced," he says. "Arlington Public Schools is a great place to work.
I've been a troublemaker since the beginning, but APS seems to always
reward me for causing trouble. At first, though, I was definitely an
outside dude doing my own backyard project with Free Software. They let
me do what I wanted but did not actively support my efforts.
"A decade later, with a pretty good track record to show for my
efforts, the situation has totally changed. For the last four years
several of my students have been working on a competency tracking
component for SchoolTool. We have
received tremendous support for this project from both APS and the
Virginia State Department of Ed., and we have succeeded to the point
where a statewide pilot is planned for the coming school year. The
original student developer is now working for a startup company in
California using what he learned from working on SchoolTool."
Elkner says Free Software has benefitted him personally as well as
professionally. "It has enabled me to be a more effective teacher,
making my job more rewarding and my life happier. I also have the deep
personal satisfaction that I am trying to be a good neighbor and am in
some small way making the world a little better than I found it."
Our Portraits series seeks to profile individuals who are doing
interesting things with free and open source software. If you know of
someone you'd like to read about, please let us know.
