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DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #9] Mon, 26 March 2007 09:46 Go to next message
mdeimann  is currently offline mdeimann
Messages: 9
Registered: March 2007
Junior Member
Dear all,

As you all know Open Educational Resources (OER) (such as open software and development tools or open content) are conceived of as being of enormous benefit for virtually all levels of education. However, there remains a lack of knowledge or strategies how to unfold the power of OER.

Regarding from your personal standpoint what do you think needs to be done in order to bring about the benefits of learning with OER?
Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #10 is a reply to message #9 ] Mon, 26 March 2007 10:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
blanka  is currently offline blanka
Messages: 1
Registered: March 2007
Location: Poland
Junior Member
mdeimann wrote on Mon, 26 March 2007 09:46

Dear all,

As you all know Open Educational Resources (OER) (such as open software and development tools or open content) are conceived of as being of enormous benefit for virtually all levels of education. However, there remains a lack of knowledge or strategies how to unfold the power of OER.

Regarding from your personal standpoint what do you think needs to be done in order to bring about the benefits of learning with OER?




In Poland open software (e.g. moodle) is more and more popular and widely used (schools, universities, private sector).The most difficult is to solve the problem with open content. Not very many good examples could be find in this matter. In my opinion the major obstacle is "copyrights".

I think that European Social Founds should bring alot of possibilities for building open content.
In Polish case good examples are located at: http://wazniak.mimuw.edu.pl/index.php?title=Strona_g%C5%82%C 3%B3wna
http://parp.eduportal.pl/


Anna Grabowska
Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #11 is a reply to message #9 ] Tue, 27 March 2007 00:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
dreina  is currently offline dreina
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Registered: March 2007
Junior Member
I think there are several (theoretical) approaches to this subject. There is an easy door to bring OER to the people interested: through matters related with the learning of free software in the universities (it's the case of UOC). You can hardly keep close such information. This step is not very significant at the moment (in volume), but it is important as an opening.

Another way can be the use of wikis and blogs inside the academic structure of any university working with a web. These are tools created for open communication, once you start working with them may be difficult, at some moment, to keep it closed inside any particular academic circle.

There is a good point in the OLCOS r.m.w: “important change occurs in two phases: first you do the old job better, then you redefine the job”.
Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #12 is a reply to message #9 ] Tue, 27 March 2007 14:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Cordula  is currently offline Cordula
Messages: 2
Registered: March 2007
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Dear all,

as the very essence of teaching is the sharing of knowledge it is somewhat sad to see how few teachers in Germany are prepared to openly share their educational materials.

In the context of the development of the multimedia-based learning environment „Interactive Whiteboards – authentic learning“, from the Department of Instructional Technology and Media, FernUniversität Hagen, research has been conducted into the usage of interactive whiteboards. As this new medium can only be as good as the teachers that integrate it into their lessons and the materials that are prepared for it, the efficiency of developing high-quality content has come under the spotlight once again.

Great Britain leads the world in the introduction of interactive whiteboards into schools and is experiencing the need of teachers to share lesson materials in order to maximise the use of common resources. Teachers have spoken about the need of filing systems that enable easy recall and the classification of materials for example by topic to make the exchange feasible. In a response to this need file sharing system such as the Scottish Teacher Resource Exchange , a moderated database of resources and activities has been created by teachers. Contributions can vary in those systems from simple ideas and questions, to complete lesson plans, which enable other teachers to use these resources within their own lessons.

Although ICT in schools might have been the first trigger for German teachers to share their ideas online, it is still a minority of teachers who have overcome old habits. School networks, for example file sharing systems in each individual school might help to take another hurdle as some teacher would prefer to share resources only in a somewhat limited and sheltered environment.

Open Content initiatives such as this one might help teachers to wake up and smell the coffee as materials they are paid to develop are not their private property but a valuable common resource and should be reused and distributed for colleagues and students alike. In my opinion, the participation should not be compulsory, but it should be made clear that the sharing of educational resources would make the teachers’ lives easier and the preparation of lessons more efficient.

Cordula Orth
Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #15 is a reply to message #9 ] Wed, 28 March 2007 12:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
tpfeffer  is currently offline tpfeffer
Messages: 3
Registered: March 2007
Location: Austria
Junior Member

Dear colleagues,

How to foster learning with OER? I would have one argument, how to promote the idea, and one recommendation, how to promote action:

1) publishing OER as empowerment and eLiteracy
To publish OER should be regarded as a form of empowerment for the producer, as a way to allow for contribution to web-based communication. Virtual media constitute an entirely new form of communication, comparable to script (reading/writing). It is a question of literacy, if actors are able not only to passively consume, but also are empowered to contribute.


2) publishing OER has to become much easier

Current practices in publishing OER often require 2nd storage of educational resources, their transfer from a learning management system to a content management system. This is inefficient and cumbersome. It would be better to open learning management systems for publication, e.g. to distinguish between public and private elements of a course.
Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #19 is a reply to message #15 ] Tue, 03 April 2007 17:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
patrick_mcandrew  is currently offline patrick_mcandrew
Messages: 4
Registered: April 2007
Junior Member
Hi All,
Thank you to Marcus for the invitation to join your discussion. As a bit of background I am Research and Evaluation Director for the openlearn project at the Open university UK. See http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn for a bit more about this project which is providing open educational resources. We launched the site in October 2006.

Our experience in many ways has been very good – nice comments from people, a rapidly growing site and many visitors. It has also been quite revealing to experience at first hand the impact of operating an open site. Two things stand out for me:
1. That visitors do not behave like students. We need to offer a good experience to people who have less clear motivation for using the site.
2. That free content will leak out in ways that we do not initially expect. This has been helped by having content in XML that other people can transform and put in new environments. It then becomes hard to track the use but it is definitely interesting.

So I think that it is not necessarily the case that only publishing has to become easier but also use, possibly through a variety of environments. At the moment I think the OER movement is rather supplier led, particularly with the focus on transferring content to other educators.

Patrick.
Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #22 is a reply to message #9 ] Wed, 04 April 2007 08:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
theobastiaens  is currently offline theobastiaens
Messages: 2
Registered: March 2007
Junior Member
Hi All,

I think that when it comes to OER especially for educational purposes (so not especially for sharing research findings between researchers) we should focus on quality of materials and quality of the didactical design. The value of OER has to prove itself. I think that by a good structure of for example an educational text ( summing up learning goals , summary, highlights etc., giving a comparison) it must be possible. Putting just information online will not do the job..

Theo
Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #23 is a reply to message #19 ] Wed, 04 April 2007 11:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mdeimann  is currently offline mdeimann
Messages: 9
Registered: March 2007
Junior Member
patrick_mcandrew wrote on Tue, 03 April 2007

So I think that it is not necessarily the case that only [b

publishing[/b] has to become easier but also use, possibly through a variety of environments. At the moment I think the OER movement is rather supplier led, particularly with the focus on transferring content to other educators.

Patrick.




Thank you Patrick for your thoughts.

I agree with you that OER should definitely focus on the usage of the materials rather than on publishing. By doing so, peer assessment of the used materials could contribute to a constant improvement (assuming that only "good", i.e. valuable materials would be used).

Patrick,
how do you think the usage of OER could be fostered within higher education?

Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #24 is a reply to message #23 ] Wed, 04 April 2007 12:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
patrick_mcandrew  is currently offline patrick_mcandrew
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Registered: April 2007
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mdeimann wrote on Wed, 04 April 2007 11:17


how do you think the usage of OER could be fostered within higher education?




Something that could make a difference would be if institutions started to adopt OERs as they do texts - they might then wrap them around with additional support and assessment but assume that the learner can work through the resource themselves. This would bring OERs closer to the formal world of education. At the same time I can see opportunities in the other direction: making the benefits of using open resources clearer and more obvious.
Re: DISCUSSION INPUT: How to foster learning with OER? [message #28 is a reply to message #23 ] Thu, 14 June 2007 14:20 Go to previous message
bennovolk  is currently offline bennovolk
Messages: 2
Registered: June 2007
Location: Zürich
Junior Member
Dear all

For me it would be very interesting to know more about the users of the OERs who are a (special?) group of „informal learners“:

- What is the social background of the user (graduation, pre-university education, etc.)?

- What is their motivation to learn with these resources?

- What is the practical use of the resources (transfer of knowledge in learning process)?

- etc.


I find the questions about the user really fascinating.

Has anybody had any experience with this topic? Or does anybody know of any research projects?

Your help is very much appreciated Smile

Cheers,
Benno Volk, Univ. of Zurich
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