Goals
I want to contribute to the movement of open education of which some valuable goals can be:
- Eliminate the the barriers of access to education: finances, bureaucracy, politics, social and racial discrimination,etc
- People are able to use technology and other means to educate themselves
-People are able to educate themselves without being at school
- People who want to have specialized knowledge in any field can study by themselves and be certified by an institution
- Give knowledge its true nature by stripping it of all the conditioning: degrees, certification, diploma, prestige,etc
Plan
I started a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction of which plan has courses in Curriculum, Leadership, Educational Administration, Research and some general education courses. I completed the Leadership, Educational Administration and Research courses. If some other previous courses were transferred I would only have to write a dissertation to obtain the PhD degree. I read some literature about E-learning, Instructional Design, open and alternative education, online teaching, social media, etc. I am interested in pursuing research in these topics to which I can add the following ones: social and networked learning. I experienced the latter ones in practice and I am interested in doing some related research.. I can write papers and articles, comment, disseminate articles on these topics on this blog . I can also report them on a wiki for collaboration and contribution
First track
1. Review former study on research design and statistical methods. I read some additional literature.about research at Wikiversity, Wikipedia which is somewhat different from what I learned but I will continue to read further to shed more light in this field.
2. Start writing a dissertation. I will start by myself and look for a mentor.
Second track
1. Report articles I have read on social media. Alternative Education, Open Education. E-learning, Instructional Design, Online Teaching, etc.
2. Write papers on some of these topics.
3. Report courses and seminars I attended. I can say for now that I attended 2 courses at Peer-to-Peer university: Open Educational Resources and Web design. I also attended seminars from COT. I am a member of Open Textbooks Collaborative. I read many articles on their blog and wish to be more active. I am a member of Curriki ,Connexions, Wikipedia, Wikiversity, WizIQ, Scribd, Udemy, Sophia, Bloomfire, use and relate to MIT opencourseware. I research several Open Educational Resources and university Opencourseware sites. I read several documents from different experts and institutions in the field of Open education. I disseminate and write educational articles on my 4 blogs. I have done extensive research in the open education field. I read several related articles and stored hundreds of documents. I am a member of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter on which I disseminate various articles on various topics including education, Open Education, Open Educational Resources, etc. I follow hundreds of blogs including those of Leigh Blackhall, Lisa Chamberlin, DIY education, etc. I did some research on various means of doing a PhD: traditional, research, publication.
4. Report further practical actions about education such as some educational projects.
5. Disseminate, comment, write articles on open education.
6. Be connected to other people doing an open Ph.D.
Research on the structure of a Ph.D program in Education
I am trying to follow the plan the plan of the school I attended where the dissertation preparation goes hand in hand with the courses study. I did some research of various ways of doing a Ph.D: traditional, research and publication. I will contact an open Ph.D student about the some creative Ph.D approaches. I am researching the Leadership or Curriculum programs of several universities in order to strengthen my plan. I found from the site of an university a simple plan for a PhD degree in education and I think this is a general plan with some variants depending on the university. I have worked in the field of education for a long time and now I am starting some educational projects online. I don't think it is necessary at this stage to research the credentials of an accredited traditional university to get a PhD degree knowledge or to undertake my projects. However the prospect of receiving a doctoral degree is attractive. I took many courses, was prepared to write a dissertation but I faced some difficulties independently of my will and my qualifications to undertake a program of study to get the degree. I can easily fall with 21 credit courses without further credit transfers from the previous doctoral program of courses I attended in the category of an ABD and with transfer of all master courses I fall well over an ABD. Many respected universities around the world accept masters courses transfer into their doctoral program. The problem is success in life and in the field of knowledge cannot be restricted to the award of a piece of hard paper called diploma which cannot be the only way to prove that one has the knowledge and skills to do something. I discovered that the plan for a Ph.D program is very simple: a major, a minor, the research preparation, the comprehensive exam and the the Dissertation project which comprises a Dissertation Proposal, a Dissertation Project and the defense of the Dissertation thesis. I will outline later the components of this university program while I will continue to research other university doctoral programs. I found also that a practical project can be done in lieu of a traditional dissertation project. I can write a book on how to do an open Ph.D, about my own Ph.D program, my educational projects, e-learning, DIY learning, social and networked learning, open education. This book can be titled: "my journey to a PhD degree knowledge and a stable professional life".
Guidelines for Major Projects in lieu of Thesis
