Month: February 2007

Must Read – Open Educational Practices and Resources

 - by Cathy Casserly

The Open eLearning Content Observatory Services (OLCOS) has just released its final version of its report on Open Educational Practices and Resouces - Roadmap 2012. The report was funded by the European Commission under the eLearning Programme and involved six project partners. The OLCOS engages in activities that foster the creation, sharing and re-use of OER in Europe and across the globe.

 The report includes a thorough examination of OER challenges in the years ahead to encourage further uptake. A clear distinction is made regarding the the production of OER vis-a-vis the their application in educational practices. The report argues for a intentional focus on innovative OER practices in the teaching and learning process if we are to transform teaching and learning. While the transformative nature of OER is what the movement is all about – we now need to move proactively to this stage. This report is a must read for anyone in the OER community.

Community portal

 - by Phoenix

Educators in over 23 developing countries are using the WikiEducator to create and share open educational resources. Apparently the content created on the site flows directly into any learning management system to encourage localization. According to Paul West at the Commonwealth of Learning, we should leave the monumental task of indexing open educational resources to search engines like Google and nurture community portals like this one that focus on offering tools for collaboration. What do you think?

Open Educational Resources in the Wall Street Journal

 - by Cathy Casserly

Today’s Wall Street Journal published a terrific article on OpenCourseWare institutions and the movement by universities to open content to all. As we think about the growth of the number of universities freely sharing content over the past five years – it is truly amazing – institutions of higher education have made a significant cultural shift, whereas previously they hoarded knowledge they now support a culture of sharing. So how do we ratchet our collective work to the next level? How does OCW become so cost efficient and integrated into the fabric of a university that it doesn’t make sense not to participate?

Open Source – Open Access at the University of Toronto

 - by Marshall

Project Open Source|Open Access is a two and a half year University of Toronto cross-divisional, tri-campus initiative to develop a networked community of scholars, students and members of the broader community interested in the phenomenon of open source and open access.  http://open.utoronto.ca/

Relearning Learning-Applying the Long Tail to Learning

 - by Marshall

Take a look at this powerful video lecture on the changing world of education.  http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/419/ .In a digitally connected, rapidly evolving world, we must transcend the traditional Cartesian models of learning that prescribe “pouring knowledge into somebody’s head,” says John Seely Brown. We learn through our interactions with others and the world, he says, and there’s no more perfect medium for enabling this than an increasingly open and organized World Wide Web.”
 

Vietnam

 - by Marshall

Today we met with some folks from Intel and talked about school reform in Vietnam.  Intel is building a plant just outside of Saigon and is very involved with Viet Nam’s Ministry of Education. They are interested in exploring the possibilities of open education resources.