Week 2 - Activity 7: Exploring OER issues (Repost)

[Re-posting this as I cannot find it listed by the aggregator. Registered this blog, http://davidbrettell-h817.blogspot.com/,  again just in case ) [search term: David]

Activity 7: Exploring OER issues
What I perceive as the three key issues in OER, and how these are being addressed.

I identify my three key issues from the perspective of creating and using OER within an English language overseas international school context. From the short literature review I undertook my focus has always been on how I and my colleagues would make use of OER and under what circumstances would we be able to contribute to the OER movement (D’Antoni 2009).

Cost, in terms of time and ultimately money is the first main issue. On the one hand the literature states that creating and sharing the resources is a minimal expense, for example Caswell et all state “At little or no cost universities can make their content available to millions” (Caswell et al 2008, p.1). The job of creating OER can be integrated into a faculty workload, passed on to a media center employee (if a school has one) or most successfully accomplished by a dedicated employee (Caswell et al 2008). So then, on the other hand someone must be paid to do this work. In my international school experience, working at for profit and non-profit schools, the board does not employ staff unless they see a tangible benefit (bodies in front of kids) to the school. The time necessary to create the OER, learning and meeting the OER standard(s) used is a luxury unavailable to teaching staff in international schools. As Wilson et al reported, in their study of five institutions, one participant reported that she lacked the time to adapt OER (Wilson et al 2009, p.10) let alone, in my opinion, create new resources. An issue also mentioned by other participants of the study. Indeed the paper alludes to the delay in gaining replies from the five participants stating that they “were contacted at a busy time {mid way) in the academic year” (p.11). Given that international educators have perhaps four non-contact periods per week, one must question where they would find the time to embark on an OER endeavor without the support of their school.

Caswell et al. 2008 asserts that we have a “moral obligation” (p. 8) to create OER and Wiley (2006, cited by Caswell et al. p. 7) states that there is a “moral imperative” and how can we “in good conscience allow this poverty of education” to continue. The simple answer is that for international schools, the owner and accountant look at the bottom line figure and if any innovation does not increase the profit, or worse costs money, then altruism be dammed. It has been argued that the marketing gain from creating OER can offset the costs, which may be true at university level, but not so for a successful and full school.

Assuming OER use and creation take place. Maintaining the momentum and sustainability of the project are major issues. A key concern is the turnover of staff, on average every 2 to 4 years, on the international school circuit. Staff will not invest their own personal time and energy into an OER project when they know they will not see it through to fruition. Of course, “Open” implies geographical boundaries should not impede an OER development.  

There is scope and opportunity to use OER in Secondary Education. For example, recommending MOOCs and OER courses to secondary students as supplementary resources to be accessed outside of school (Wilson et al. 2009). Cherry picking content and including extra content when necessary, as three out of the five participants indicated (Wilson et al. 2009, Figure 4, p. 9) is an option. An example of this was when I introduced programming and Java to an IB Computer Science class by having them complete the first seven lectures and assignments from the Stanford CS106A Programming Methodology course (Stanford 2013). Due to the high level and fast pace of the introductory material, I created extra in-between assignments, and broke down the reading requirements in to secondary level manageable sections.

My International secondary school is beginning to make use of OER however I am unaware of, and doubt that, staff at my school and similar establishments will heed their moral imperative and begin creating OER, likewise the institutions will only  support this movement if it immediately profits them to do so.

Words: 694

References

CALVERLEY, G. AND SHEPHARD, K. 2003. ‘Assisting the uptake of on-line resources: why good learning resources are not enough’, Computers and Education, Vol. 41, pp.205–224.

CASWELL, T., HENSON, S., JENSEN, M., WILEY, D. 2008. Open educational resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1), 1–4. 

D’ANTONI, S.  2009. Open Educational Resources: reviewing initiatives and issues, Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 24:1, 3-1. Available fromhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680510802625443 [Accessed 30 March 2013]

STANFORD CS106A. Stanford University, USA. Stanford CS106A: Programming Methodology. Available from http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/index.html [Accessed 30 March 2013]

WILSON, T. AND MCANDREW, P. 2009. Evaluating how five higher education institutions worldwide plan to use and adapt open educational resources' Proceedings of INTED2009 Conference. 9-11 March 2009, Valencia, Spain. ISBN:978-84-612-7578-6.

(Badge: OER understanding applied for)

Week 2 - Activity 7: Exploring OER issues

Activity 7: Exploring OER issues
What I perceive as the three key issues in OER, and how these are being addressed.

I identify my three key issues from the perspective of creating and using OER within an English language overseas international school context. From the short literature review I undertook my focus has always been on how I and my colleagues would make use of OER and under what circumstances would we be able to contribute to the OER movement (D’Antoni 2009).

Cost, in terms of time and ultimately money is the first main issue. On the one hand the literature states that creating and sharing the resources is a minimal expense, for example Caswell et all state “At little or no cost universities can make their content available to millions” (Caswell et al 2008, p.1). The job of creating OER can be integrated into a faculty workload, passed on to a media center employee (if a school has one) or most successfully accomplished by a dedicated employee (Caswell et al 2008). So then, on the other hand someone must be paid to do this work. In my international school experience, working at for profit and non-profit schools, the board does not employ staff unless they see a tangible benefit (bodies in front of kids) to the school. The time necessary to create the OER, learning and meeting the OER standard(s) used is a luxury unavailable to teaching staff in international schools. As Wilson et al reported, in their study of five institutions, one participant reported that she lacked the time to adapt OER (Wilson et al 2009, p.10) let alone, in my opinion, create new resources. An issue also mentioned by other participants of the study. Indeed the paper alludes to the delay in gaining replies from the five participants stating that they “were contacted at a busy time {mid way) in the academic year” (p.11). Given that international educators have perhaps four non-contact periods per week, one must question where they would find the time to embark on an OER endeavor without the support of their school.

Caswell et al. 2008 asserts that we have a “moral obligation” (p. 8) to create OER and Wiley (2006, cited by Caswell et al. p. 7) states that there is a “moral imperative” and how can we “in good conscience allow this poverty of education” to continue. The simple answer is that for international schools, the owner and accountant look at the bottom line figure and if any innovation does not increase the profit, or worse costs money, then altruism be dammed. It has been argued that the marketing gain from creating OER can offset the costs, which may be true at university level, but not so for a successful and full school.

Assuming OER use and creation take place. Maintaining the momentum and sustainability of the project are major issues. A key concern is the turnover of staff, on average every 2 to 4 years, on the international school circuit. Staff will not invest their own personal time and energy into an OER project when they know they will not see it through to fruition. Of course, “Open” implies geographical boundaries should not impede an OER development.  

There is scope and opportunity to use OER in Secondary Education. For example, recommending MOOCs and OER courses to secondary students as supplementary resources to be accessed outside of school (Wilson et al. 2009). Cherry picking content and including extra content when necessary, as three out of the five participants indicated (Wilson et al. 2009, Figure 4, p. 9) is an option. An example of this was when I introduced programming and Java to an IB Computer Science class by having them complete the first seven lectures and assignments from the Stanford CS106A Programming Methodology course (Stanford 2013). Due to the high level and fast pace of the introductory material, I created extra in-between assignments, and broke down the reading requirements in to secondary level manageable sections.

My International secondary school is beginning to make use of OER however I am unaware of, and doubt that, staff at my school and similar establishments will heed their moral imperative and begin creating OER, likewise the institutions will only  support this movement if it immediately profits them to do so.

Words: 694

References

CALVERLEY, G. AND SHEPHARD, K. 2003. ‘Assisting the uptake of on-line resources: why good learning resources are not enough’, Computers and Education, Vol. 41, pp.205–224.

CASWELL, T., HENSON, S., JENSEN, M., WILEY, D. 2008. Open educational resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1), 1–4. 

D’ANTONI, S.  2009. Open Educational Resources: reviewing initiatives and issues, Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 24:1, 3-1. Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680510802625443 [Accessed 30 March 2013]

STANFORD CS106A. Stanford University, USA. Stanford CS106A: Programming Methodology. Available from http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs106a/index.html [Accessed 30 March 2013]

WILSON, T. AND MCANDREW, P. 2009. Evaluating how five higher education institutions worldwide plan to use and adapt open educational resources' Proceedings of INTED2009 Conference. 9-11 March 2009, Valencia, Spain. ISBN:978-84-612-7578-6.

(Badge: OER understanding applied for)

2.7 Week 2 Activity 7 : Exploring OER issues Notes

Activity 7: Exploring OER issues Notes 

Read three articles of your choice from a suggested OER reading list  on Cloudworks.

Suggested OER Reading List (for Academics New to OER)

23 references

Discussion section recommends:

• Atkins et al. (2007) A review of the open educational resources (OER) movement

Atkins, D.E., Brown-Seely, J. & Hammond, A.L., (2007). A review of the open educational resources (OER) movement: Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. Report to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation [book]

• Hylén & Schuller/OECD (2007) Giving knowledge for free [got it]

Hylén, J. & Schuller, T., 2007. Giving knowledge for free. OECD Observer, 263. http://www.oecd.org/document41/0,3343,en_2649_35845581_38659497_1_1_1_1,00.html    

• Gaser (ed)( 2007 Open Educational Practices and Resources [got it]

Might be interesting:

Calverley, G. and Shephard, K (2003) ‘Assisting the uptake of on-line resources: why good learning resources are not enough’, Computers and Education, Vol. 41, pp.205–224. [got it] 
added by Giota Alevizou

Caswell, T. et al., (2008) Open educational resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1), 1–4.  [got it]   
added by Giota Alevizou

Wilson, T. and McAndrew, P. (2009) Evaluating how five higher education instituions worldwide plan to use and adapt open educational resources' Proceedings of INTED2009 Conference. 9-11 March 2009, Valencia, Spain. ISBN:978-84-612-7578-6     [got it]
added by Giota Alevizou

An article sent to me which I think is good: Education Technology Success Stories, Darrell M. West and Joshua Bleiberg, Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings, March 2013. http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/03/20-education-technology-success-west-bleiberg?rssid=LatestFromBrookings

"MOOCs recently took a big step forward when the American Council on Education (ACE) recommended 5 Coursera classes for accreditation. ACE membership consists of more than 1,800 

universities. The recommendation means that accredited universities may soon accept Coursera credits towards completion of a degree. One possible scenario is that Coursera would charge a fee to verify the identity of a student and proctor a final exam using a web camera." (p.6)

MOOC Growth

Source: http://www.deltainitiative.com/bloggers/is-higher-education-ready-for-rapid-evolution-of-xmoocs/attachment/fig-3-evolutioncombine20120927

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse developed a math MOOC. Using a $50,000 grant from 

the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UW La Crosse developed the open math course. 

UW La Crosse wanted the course to serve high school students, those within the University system that wanted remediation, individuals preparing to re-enter a university, and those preparing to take a major gateway exam. The class roughly follows the same curriculum as the on-campus class MTH 

Intermediate Algebra. (p. 7)

Okay, I have downloaded my reading material - will print it and try to magic up some time to read it!


 

2.6 - Activity 6: Criticisms of learning objects

Start with the easy one first as it's late.

1. In this 2009 video  [Transcript] Brian Lamb describes his experience with learning objects, which addresses many of the reasons why they didn’t realise the aims that Downes and others envisaged for them. Brian Lamb also explains some of the problems he encountered.
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/open-education/content-section-2.3

http://barrydahl.com/2009/10/26/who-the-hell-is-brian-lamb/
Brian Lamb at WCET

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7YgvG4QlAY

OER Standards (IMS and SCORM) too complex and time consuming for resource developers to follow "75 forms to fill out".

2. The Reusability Paradox
http://cnx.org/content/m11898/1.18/

To an instructional designer, learning object "reuse" means placing a
   learning object in a context other than that for which it was designed.
   The fit of learning objects into these new contexts depends on the extent
   to which the learning object's internals contain explicit statements of
   context. For example, statements within a learning object like "as you will
   recall from the last module..." make it very difficult to reuse the learning
   object in a context other than that for which it was designed. To
   make learning objects maximally reusable, learning objects should contain
   as little context as possible.

It turns out that reusability and pedagogical effectiveness are completely orthogonal to each other.
   Therefore, pedagogical effectiveness and potential for reuse are
   completely at odds with one another.

Based on what evidence?
The "Supplemental links - Strongly related linkA more formal explication of the reusability paradox" is dead.

Where is the rest? Downloading the PDF just gave the same thing. Is this all there is?

3. Norman Friesen raises three objections to learning objects in this paper: Three objections to learning objects and e-learning standards .

A draft paper in the book:
 Title: Online education using learning objects
Author: Rory McGreal 1950- ; MyiLibrary.
Subjects: Internet in higher education ; Education, Higher -- Electronic information resources ; Education, Higher -- Computer-assisted instruction ; Electronic books
Relation: Series: Open and flexible learning series.
Publisher: London ; New York : RoutledgeFalmer
Creation Date: 2004
Identifier: ISBN 9786610239665
Format: xxv, 361 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Source Record Number: a1857076
a1816492
Language: English
Source: 44BAT LMS DS
44BAT LMS DS

Loads of money thrown at creating Learning Objects (LO).
Confusion over the definition
LO from OOP
This paper is all over the place
Conclusion - objects are not flexible.

You might reflect here on whether you have, or would, share teaching resources using the learning object approach. What do you think would be the main issues for educators and teachers?
No, I don't have the time or inclination to structure my resource to a standard that may mean having to remove context. I might find it too restrictive. I am not given the time to learn and train to do this.


 

2.5 - Activity 5: The case for learning objects

Read Downes (2001), Learning objects: resources for distance education worldwide .

Read this 15 page paper without too much trouble as most of it was about using objects as a way to store OE resources. It talked about using XML and a few other ways. Got me thinking about the standardized mc programs out there. None of it really took hold though. Why? Maybe from what Pam said in blog entry, which I can't find now because of the lack of a search facility on the blog. However, she basically said UK teachers must protect and not share their resources.

Week 1 - Activity 4 (Post sharing examination)

Activity 4: Identifying priorities for research (continued)

After sharing your list of priorities and examining (and hopefully commenting upon) those of two or three others, consider the following questions, which will give you some ideas as we move into the second week of the course:

1. Was there consensus about what were the key priorities?
1. Who pays? - Sustainability of the course and the participants going the distance
2. Support - training and development
3. Pedagogy - how to incorporate it into the class
4. Accessibility to the course content
5. Quality
2.  Do you feel some issues would be more easily solved than others?
1. Yes, but all require time spent training, practicing and experimenting with. The people who experience problems with this OU MOOC are a testament to that.
3. What would be effective ways to address some of the priorities listed?
1. Rob a bank! Demonstrate use of OL to others as a role model in order to promote it. Show that it saves time. If it doesn't save time, improve learning and motivate then it will fail.
2. Only when those with the money see the marketing gain will they invest.

1. (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/open-education/content-section-1.5)

See here for forum: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=2

And here for blog: http://h817open.net/
Good questions from Tobias Boyd 19 Mar 2013 (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=9)
Research into students taking MOOCs. How do they find and choose their MOOCs? What experience do they have of more formal education? Why do people choose to complete/not to complete MOOCs, and does non-completion have negative consequences in terms of their self-esteem (in the way that dropout appears to for students leaving formal education)?

Alastair Creelman 19 Mar 2013 (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/forumng/discuss.php?d=9)
Online learning in general attracts non-traditional students, most of whom are 25+, have families and full-time employment and take a course out of pure interest or for professional development. They do not take student loans and are not dependent on the course for grants and other financing. They drop out if other commitments prevent them from continuing the course. We're comparing apples and pears when we compare online students with campus students.

Here's a little summary of our report. We're writing an article in English for future publication. Please note that we studied completion rates in regular online courses for credit and not MOOCs. We haven't even considered MOOCs yet.

Our study of online education at Linnaeus University questioned the validity of judging a course’s success on completion rates since it was unclear what was actually being measured. Results suggest that crucial factors behind student retention are the presence of meaningful interaction (via face-to-face or virtual meeting spaces), clear, timely information about course requirements, methodology and expectations and a clear link between technology and pedagogics. The study made the following proposals:

• A quality assurance system adapted to the demands of online learning should be implemented across the whole university. Firstly based on self-assessment with the option of certification later
• Create a university strategy for integrating technology in all educational activities
• Clearly define the target group for online courses and adapt administration and marketing to that group.
• Competence development and support for all teachers in IT and learning.
• Clear routines for the unregistration of inactive students after 3 weeks of a course.
• Better information and study guides for all online students.

 (https://medarbetare.lnu.se/polopoly_fs/1.64406!Genomlysning_distans_120127.pdf)

Week 1 - Activity 4

Activity 4: Identifying priorities for research

"Imagine you are advising a funding organisation that wishes to promote activity and research in the area of open education.

• Set out the three main priorities they should address, explaining each one and providing a justification for your list. Share this in the Week 1 forum  and compare with priorities of others.

In this activity you are just expected to start thinking about these issues, and to use your own experience and intuition; you are not expected to research them in depth. You will build on this work during next week, and also for the assignment. " (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/open-education/content-section-1.5)

To help answer this I want to define a scenario and to work with that.

Imagined scenario
The PTG at my school has loads of money and want to promote Open Education in KS3, specifically the teaching of programming.

Main Priorities
These will relate to the key questions provided, which I summerised/grouped as "Learn - Resources - Support". So, I will use these. Although I have more questions on their behalf than I have any answers for.

1. The "Learn" Priority
They will need to know what the pedagogy is for making use of open education (OE) and whether it fits into the school mission plan and school ethos. They will be concerned about assessment, if standards will be maintained or improved with respect to examination results as well as any changes to student social well-being. They will want to know if the Open Pedagogy will support learners of all types and abilities.

To answer these questions I would advise them of case studies in the area of open KS3 education (there must be some out there). In fact, I saw something in The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (Anderson is the editor) - http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl or on the http://www.hewlett.org/newsroom/search?program_id=88 site. I would need to locate empirical data that hopefully shows that gains are made in some form or another. The OE "manifesto" (is there one or at least a succinct definition, probably from OLDaily by Stephen Downes. http://www.downes.ca/ and one of his free books) would need to be mapped to the schools mission statement and stated aims. Case studies of pilot KS3 OE groups and their value-added would need to be compared to those with no OE. How do you find an OE free school/student? Schools with no technology use, that do exist. OE supporting all learner types would need to be addressed by case studies and empirical data.

2. The "Resources" Priority
The PTG will question what they will get for their money if everything is free and open anyway. Buggered if I know the answer. Well, you need the technology infrastructure to support the OE learning, this may mean more processing power (servers), plenty of storage and high Internet bandwidth. It may mean buying licenses for software tool use and online storage for all stakeholders (students, teachers and admin). Of course, the biggest expense is the cost to make the time available to implement the innovation in terms of training and support.

3. The "Support" Priority
This means getting everyone onboard and up to speed with the proposed OE activity. Which means giving ownership to all (students, teachers, parents and admin). It means teachers requiring training and time to investigate, to reflect on the changes, to discuss and question an proposed activity (i.e. KS3 OE Programming). Then to plan, implement and review. In a school this would take at least 2 years to get going, a year to do it and a year to review it. A minimum of 4 years, will the PTG keep funding this as teachers leave and new ones arrive (I think not). The funding organization (aka PTG) would need to know that it is a long term venture and not a one off donation/funding.

Conclusion
The funding organization need to understand that promoting activity and research, in the context of a secondary school, is a large endeavor and perhaps it is best to start in a very small way, with a small manageable change that might hopefully be scalable if seen to be successful.

Week 1.5 (Priorities of openness)

1.5 Priorities of openness

OER

Hewlett Foundation - http://www.hewlett.org/

The Hewlett Foundation At A Glance
(as of December 31, 2011)

Total assets: $7.29 billion
Total dollar amount of grants awarded in 2011: $202,844,000
Total estimated dollar amount of grants disbursed in 2011: $353,600,000
Total number of grants awarded in 2011: 591
Average grant amount in 2011: $344,939
Median grant amount in 2011: $125,000
Number of employees: 104

Why no figures for 2012-13?

Well the site isn't being updated but grants still being awarded: http://www.hewlett.org/newsroom/search?program_id=88

 

 

Pedagogy – are different ways of teaching required to make effective use of open education?

 

Question: What is the pedagogy for teaching KS3 programming by making effective use of open education?

 

Learner support – how can learners best be supported in these open models?

How can KS3 programming students best be supported in these open models?

And what are the "Open Models"?

 

Barriers to uptake – what prevents individuals or institutions from either using or engaging with open education - especially for the school I work at?

 

Technology – what technologies are best suited to open approaches?

Quality – how can we assure the quality of open educational content?

w.r.t KS3 programming

Rights – how do we protect the intellectual property of individuals while encouraging wide distribution?

 

Summary 

Learning - Resources - Support

 

 

 

 

Week 1 - Activity 2

Activity 2: Open education reading

Summary
My notes, thoughts and questions as I read the two items. For the Anderson (2009), Alt-C Keynote I found it easier to download the slides file and open it in PowerPoint (some slides also contain notes) and also I found his keynote address on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fZ89q3eKPU 
Again, it worked better to download the video to make it smoother for pausing as I took notes. There was so much in Anderson's keynote that I took a few days getting through it all, checking out his links and information. I've copied the links below and commented on what resources I thought looked good. The attached image comes from an introduction video from one of his links

In the image I questioned if Open Education means the end to plagiarism. Anderson answers this question at the end of his keynote, in the youtube video.

As well as an overload of sources (websites, Open journals, eBooks, textbooks etc.) for me the key idea was what defines an "Open Scholar". I began listing the attributes below.

Details
These are my notes on the two resources examined. Probably not that useful unless you want some quick links to some of the things mentioned in the Anderson slides.
 

The openness-creativity cycle in education -A Perspective, Martin Weller, 2012

 

Who is the "open scholar"? - Attributes?

+ve feedback creativity <-> open education resource, one +vely influences and increases the other. An explosion of open resources and creativity until overload? Where is the limit?

 

"The current financial crisis has seen a drop in admissions for the first time in
over a decade, so open access may become an increasingly significant factor
again." (p.)

 

Open...

1. Source - s/w
2. Educational Resources (OER) - free resources
3. Courses - this one
4. Research - crowd-sourcing
5. Data - RealClimate.Org
6. APIs - Application Program Interfaces
7. Publishing
8. Test Centers - ICDL

The open scholar

Open resources - multimedia and shared globally

 

open scholar == digital scholar

 

"The Open Scholar, as I'm defining this person, is not simply someone who agrees to allow free access and reuse of his or her traditional scholarly articles and books; no, the Open Scholar is someone who makes their intellectual projects and processes digitally visible and who invites and encourages ongoing criticism of their work and secondary uses of any or all parts of it--at any stage of its development." (http://www.academicevolution.com/2009/08/the-open-scholar.html) Same source as quote in Weller paper.

 

"Because the Open Scholar reveals his or her processes, data, and procedures, this can bridge the great divide between research and teaching. Not only does the whole model invite collaboration (including drawing upon students and uncredentialed participants), but it allows the modeling of best practices that can help newcomers understand the whole field in question, not just the specifics of a given study."

 

"The Open Scholar is also open in the sense that he or she is reachable and responsive--open to input from those outside of the project, the institution, or even academia. He or she is not impatient with amateurs. And I think this sort of openness does require some facility with the new tools of social media--a blog, a wiki, etc."

 

The Open Scholar is:

1. An independent learner
2. Time manger
3. Organised
4. Self-motivated
5. Adept at using technology
6. Confident with using technology
7. Undaunted by the immense weight of information and media available
8. Always tired due to lack of sleep as she downloads one new resource after the other in the hope that time will one day allow her to investigate and experience the Gigabytes of data
9. Capable of discerning the quality open product from the chaff
10. Self Archive (Terry Anderson's closing keynote at ALT-C 2009, slide 54)
11. Apply their research (Terry Anderson's closing keynote at ALT-C 2009, slide 55)
12. A Blogger
13. Someone who comments on other's work (Terry Anderson's closing keynote at ALT-C 2009, slide 61)
14. Promotes being an open scholar to others
15. a Change Agent  (Terry Anderson's closing keynote at ALT-C 2009, slide 69)
16. 
    

What are the mechanisms by which new technologies have facilitated openness?

My opinions:

1. Sharing - content to all (Weller agrees p.4)
1. Protocols & standards (HTML - Tim Berners-Lee)
2. Servers
3. Free storage
2. Global access
3. Speed of creation and speed to "market" (agree p.5)
4. Possibility of feedback and collaboration for improvements
5. Software controlled assessment and feedback
6. A.I.
7. Dynamic tests
8. 24/7 access
9. No time and distance barriers
10. Cheap
11. Niche communication and social group of same interest/pursuit
12.  

Why is openness seen as a desirable and effective mode of operation in the digital networked
environment?

1. Less formal constraints
2. Not paying the "corporation" for their packaged educational product
3. Wild west of access, less rules, more freedom
4. Privacy of educational topic choice
5. Mobility - study anyway (on the loo, waiting in the queue, at the zoo <smile>)
6. Ease of resource access - Dropbox, Google Drive, phone
7. Sticking two fingers up at the red bricks and their debt inducing fees

Digital Scholar

• Spends a lot of time on the Internet (how much is a waste?)
• Does not necessary grasp every new change
• Are monotonous blog posts and tweets signs of creativity or intellectual malaise?

Weller assumes then that digital scholar is the same as an Open Scholar (p.4) as he sets out  list of digital scholar attributes and then assumes that these apply to an open scholar.

 

Is a digital scholar necessarily an "open" scholar? Take a private fee paying student at a for profit school, where everyone makes use of digital technology but products created are kept closed and in-house.

 

Hajjem, Harnad & Gingras (2005) compared 1,307,038 articles a cross a range of disciplines and
found that open access articles have a higher citation impact of between 36%-172%. (p.6)

Obviously, because more people can access them.

 

In this interpretation creativity is driven by openness, because people are learning from each other's shared efforts, and openness is enhanced by creativity, as the performers seek to compete with each other and share with a global audience. (p.9)

Or the driving force is ego and a need to gain status from unknown "friends".

 

Anderson (2009), Alt-C Keynote
  •Education for elites is not sufficient for planetary survival. (Slide 6) - Rather bold statement, "chip on the old shoulder?"

Slide 7: Why are the technologies disruptive? In what way? How can you align something that is new and emerging. As soon as it has been aligned it is no longer an emerging technology but an established one. It takes disruption, meaning? Chaos, argument, upset, confusion?

Watch the Anderson lecture here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fZ89q3eKPU
 

Slide12 :  http://www.go2web20.net   - hours (nay months of fun to be had here)

Slide 15: Critical Tools for Group Learning Environments

 

Slide 16: http://wiggio.com/ - looks good.

Slide 17: Is the Open Scholar hampered by teacher lead/control of the systems "Often overly confined by teacher expectation and institutional curriculum control"

Slide 18 : Groups of a feather flock together....

Slide 23: Networks - of sports groups, friends, hobbies, interests ...

Slide 24: “People who live in the intersection of social worlds are at higher risk of having good ideas” Burt, 2005, p. 90"
Slide 27: Google Wave - died a death I believe in 2010

Slide 28: "Contribute for social capital, altruism and a sense of improving the world/practice  through contribution" Could this be the driving force behind MOOC volunteer tutors?

Slide 33: "–Learning at the edge of chaos" being comfortable in this learning environment. So, next time your lesson observation ends in chaos, say that it was planned and reference Anderson. Lot's to quote from what he says here in the youtube video about this chaos being an excellent learning opportunity.

Slide 43: Collectives. Data mining the crowd traces left behind by individuals. Book :
Click: What We Do Online and Why It Matters [Paperback]In Click, Bill Tancer takes us behind the scenes into the massive database of online intelligence to reveal the naked truth about how we use the web, navigate to sites and search for information; he describes in unmatched detail explanations about our lives, our interests, our thoughts, our fears and our dreams. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Click-What-Online-Why-Matters/dp/0007277830/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363615764&sr=1-1)
Get's poor reviews.

Youtube video dies at 40:36mins.

Slide 50: Open Scholar. The Gideon Burton quote again, as listed above.

Slide 51: Use OER to save time. Use it. http://www.oercommons.org/

Slide 52: His university pays someone full time to go through their curriculum and locate free open resources for them to use. I wish we had that at school.

Open Scholar - sharee everything, totally transparent (like the notes on this blog), hopes to get feedback and reviews of the work, must be willing to allow it to be copied and modified?

Slide 58: What is the P2P university...? https://p2pu.org/en/
"What We’re All About
Peer 2 Peer University (we mostly just say P2PU) is a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and gives learners recognition for their achievements. P2PU creates a model for lifelong learning alongside traditional formal higher education. Leveraging the internet and educational materials openly available online, P2PU enables high-quality low-cost education opportunities.

Learning for the people, by the people. About almost anything."

"The School of Open will provide online educational resources and professional development courses on the meaning and impact of “openness” in the digital age and its benefit to creative endeavors, education, research, and beyond."

Slide 60: Award Winning Open Access Books: E.g. 'The Theory and Practice of Online Learning" By the author of the slides (T. Anderson). $39.95 for paperback copy or download PDF for free???(http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120146).

Youtube video comes back to life again...

Slide 57: OLDaily by Stephen Downes. http://www.downes.ca/  ** Well worth a look **

Links to the article: Learners Are People, Not Isolated Test-Taking Brains: Why MOOCs Both Work and Fail (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-d-blum/learners-are-people-not-i_b_2891097.html)

11pm. Stopped video at 44:02 (slide 57) - using keepvid to download the video and reading Huffington Post MOOC article.

 

Slide 59: http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm - Publish or Perish tool. Gives detailed stats on your cited work.

What Publish or Perish is for

Publish or Perish is designed to empower individual academics to present their case for research impact to its best advantage. We would be concerned if it would be used for academic staff evaluation purposes in a mechanistic way.

"When using Publish or Perish for citation analyses, we would like to suggest the following general rule of thumb:  

• If an academic shows good citation metrics, it is very likely that he or she has made a significant impact on the field."

Open access journals cited more than closed commercial journals.

Slide 64: "Flat world" for textbooks - http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/

Slide 66: http://www.openstudents.org/ - defunct!

Slide 68: Eduforge - defunct, but there is The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (Anderson is the editor) - http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl - This looks impressive and there must be tons of good papers in archived editions.

From the video:
Q/A - Do we need to cite if we use other peoples ideas, quotes etc. "To build social capital". Yes, need to do it.

Can institutions afford Open Scholars? - Free courses increases subscription/sign-up

 

Week 1 - Activity 1 (Opennes in Education)

Week 1 - Activity 1

Blackboard collaborate
So... This Blackboard collaborate Java installed and audio set up okay. Opps, did the V11 and not the V12 by mistake, so doing it all again. That seemed to work. So, how do I know when a live session will take place? Having a go with the link gave:

Session Name OPEN EDUCATION DISCUSSION
Session Type NONE
Hosted By Ou-Events
Session Starts Mar 25, 2013, [Mon] 06:00 PM Western European (WET, Europe/Ireland/Dublin)
Session Ends Mar 25, 2013, [Mon] 11:00 PM Western European (WET, Europe/Ireland/Dublin) May
Join Session Mar 25, 2013, [Mon] 05:00 PM Western European (WET, Europe/Ireland/Dublin)
Version 12 Session Access RESTRICTED
Recording Mode MANUAL
Recording Access RESTRICTED

So in Thailand that's (using the Time Zone Converter) Mar 26, 2013, [Tue] 12:00 AM Thailand (ICT, Indochina/Thailand) Can join 1 hour before.
Ah.. During my full teaching day although might be able to do 30 mins during lunch break. Will set it up at school and see if I can join for 40 mins on the day.

Having got to this point in the set-up I wonder what problems people may have experienced with tech issues. Also, I wonder if using Linux or Mac is easier or more tricky. I didn't see Linux mentioned for the BB although it runs on Java so should work.

Twitter
Okay, I need to dust off my Twitter account and see if I can search on #h817open
Found my old twitter account (Dabr_BKK) and password (the usual with a number on the end) Hmm. Twitter is being a twit and not recognizing my password nor letting me reset it, with the error: "Sorry! We couldn't verify that this user requested a password reset. Please try resetting again." after following a link in an email to reset the password. Will try for 3rd time, if that fails will make new account. The key is to user the twitter username and not the email address for the password reset request. So, now for a quick search on #h817open.

Badges
Just figured out I was in HTML editing more on the blog, thought it looked a bit odd. Why did it go there by default. Badges look like worth signing up for. Even if I don't actually earn any!
Anther username... err, I'll use my twitter one again. What do I put for institution? The one I work at or the one these badges are awarded from? Go for my work one. Use same password as twitter.
Lost my Open Education page in a cloud of badges. Here's a tip, copy and paste current URL to blog before I fall asleep and leave:
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/open-education/content-section-1.3

OER understanding: to get this badge you need to complete Activity 7: Exploring OER issues in Week 2 of the Open Education course. Okay, I see that badge on the cloudworks site.

Participants must complete Activity 7 (Exploring OER issues) of the open course H817open. They need to submit the URL of their blog post as evidence, and this will be checked by a member of the course team. If the evidence provides a satisfactory response to the activity, the badge is issued.

What happens if I Apply for the badge. Okay, it want's a blog URL, so I'll come back to that later.

Other badges:
MOOC understanding: to get this badge you need to complete Activity 14: Comparing MOOCs in Week 4 of the Open Education course. You will need to blog your solution to this activity,

Open Education course completed: to get this badge you need to have acquired both the previous badges and completed Activity 25: Reflecting on openness in Week 7 of the Open Education course.

They, at first site, seem worth doing as part of the course. What on earth they are useful for I don't know, not sure I will stick 'em on my CV. Still you never know. "they do not carry any formal credit in terms of The Open University, nor are they proof you have studied the Open University Masters-level course H817 Openness and innovation in elearning and the badges are not subject to the same rigour as formal assessment, but they can be a useful means of demonstrating participation." (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/open-education/content-section-1.3)


SOB, blue screen of death just now. Open everything up again. 1:00am, might call it quits for tonight. At least all the browsers (I have IE 10 and FireFox open) restore. Saves a bit of time.

1.4 Flavours of openness
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/open-education/content-section-1.4

I think I will post notes for each Activity otherwise the posts will become too long. So this concludes the Week 1 - Activity 1 post. I got a fair bit done, set up a few accounts, got the BB audio setup, although will need to do that at work also. Will take a quick look / download at Activity 2 reading.

Welcome (Introductory Post)

Introduction
Just signed up for this Open Uni Open Education course. Haven't much idea how I am supposed to "tag" this blog but will give it a go. This first section says 4 hours, well, 11:15pm now, so I hope I can return from where I will have left off. Let's see if I can register this baby. #h817open

Well, in theory, setting #h817open as a blogger label should do the trick for the blogger aggregator.

>You explain why you’re studying this course
Signed up on a whim really. I'm trying to decide on a topic for my Bath MA in Education dissertation. MOOCs in secondary education interests me. Having just read that 11% of secondary students have signed up for a MOOC course (Take a free seat in the lecture hall, News | Published in TESS on 8 March, 2013 | By: Michael Shaw) I am intrigued by the potential, current uptake and future uptake of this learning platform by secondary students. In particular overseas/international students. I need to know more about MOOCs and open systems, and by lucky chance stumbled upon this course this evening. There is no way I an commit 16 hours per week to the course, what with full time work and a family, so I will have to streamline it a bit. See how it goes.

>What your background is
I am a Computing/ICT HOF and so the technology of this shouldn't be too daunting (I hope). I've worked through some parts of MOOCs before, had a G&T student complete a Udacity programming course which I never had the time to finish. Currently Computing HOF at Bangkok Patana School, for the last 5 years. Started out working life in electronics design and programming in the UK, System Analysts in France, re-trained as teacher (PGCSE) and went straight overseas. Teaching in Venezuela (2 years), Sri Lanka (4 years), Thailand - Phuket (8 years), Philippines (1 year), Thailand - Bangkok (5 years).