The different faces of open education and my contributions

The Open Education movement has been considered inclusive by eliminating barriers that limit access to traditional education. Before the development of computers and the invention of the internet open education exists with the correspondence schools. Correspondence schools deliver courses to participants through mail. These participants have to read, study the courses and do the assignments that they have to send back to the schools for evaluation. Open Education in its informal aspect was and it is still delivered through live radio and television broadcasting. It was also delivered in a larger scale of openness through radio and television cassette recording. With the development of computers and the internet an electronic form of learning called elearning took place through computer discs (CD) and the web. Some european universities like the Open university in UK enrolled thousands of students by eliminating university admission.

Open education originates in the free culture movement. The free culture movement is a social movement that allows to distribute and modify freely Creative Works by using the internet and other forms of media. Creative Works are considered to be works in the Arts, Literature,  Music and Software. Open education learners are responsible for their own learning and take a personal and social approach to reach their learning objectives. They are also more interested in hands-on learning. In a formal learning setting facilitated by educators learners discuss and share their learning in communities. The instructor provides the learning materials through a Learning Management System (LMS) and is responsible to guide the students. Synchronous lectures are delivered through special platforms or through live videos on YouTube or other platforms. Other resources can be provided in the form of PDFs, links, etc. Learning facilitators communicate with learners synchronously (video-audio, audio only, instant messages) and asynchronously using email or other asynchronous forms.

Open education was developed through many concepts and resources such as open courseware, open educational resources (oer), open access, etc. Open courseware consists of course materials made available by some universities and other educational institutions freely on the internet. Open courseware started in the early 2000's with MIT that decided to put their courses freely online. Since then many other universities throughout the world followed suit. MIT and Harvard have decided to create an online platform, EdX, to teach open courses. Other professors from renowned universities started their own open courseware or teach in other ones. Coursera, Udacity, etc are well known new platforms delivering open university courses for free to anybody located throughout the world.

Open Educational Resources are educational resources that others can use, remix and distribute freely to others under certain types of licences. Creative Commons issue different types of licenses for open educational resources. Those licenses are necessary for others to copy, remix and distribute these resources thereby eliminating traditional copyright permission. The common licenses used are: CC BY, CC BY NC, CC BY SA, CC BY NC SA. An author creating Open Educational Resources uses CC BY so that others can use his work by attributing credit to him. The CC BY NC license is used so that other authors remixing the resource can use it for  for non-commercial purposes and don't have to license the derivative works using the same terms of the original license. In the CC BY SA license that can be used for commercial purposes other authors remixing the resource have to license the derivative work under the same terms as the previous license.Under the CC BY NC SA other authors use the previous work for non-commercial purposes and have to license the derivative work under the same term as the previous one. Acknowledgement of the previous author is required in all the licenses mentioned below.    The licenses allow others to copy. remix and distribute the work of the original author.

There are many open courseware and open educational resources sites in the web. An organization called OER university comprised of some universities has taken the initiative to evaluate and give credits for informal learning but learners have to continue their education at these institutions and it is unlikely that an amount of learning equal to a degree can be evaluated to confer a degree earned only through self-directed learning without matriculating at any educational institution. Instead of matriculating at an existing educational institution self-directed learners use a PLN (Professional learning network) and/or a learning plan to reach their educational and professional goals. Some self-directed learners like myself, Leigh Blackall. Peter Prawsthorn, etc use Wikiversity and Peer- to- Peer University to develop a plan and execute it using our blog and other social platforms to reach a level of graduate learning called Open and networked PhD (OnPhD) or simply Open PhD. I have already taken 21 credits towards a PhD and I intended to continue the journey by pursuing an Open PhD. This takes an enormous amount of time, self-discipline and cooperation to develop a common plan and figure out individually some personal approaches. Such an approach of an Open PhD is not completely different from the traditional approach. That's the reason why we have discussed about being guided by PhD professors and supervisors. The goals of my open PhD are to develop skills that enable me to develop online or not educational projects, online and traditional courses, online and traditional tutoring, educating online informally and developing individual and lifelong learning skills along the way. All these skills are also based on my previous formal, informal learning and teaching experiences. I have started developing Open Popular University and I am still inviting people willing to support this educational endevour in any way they can and participate actively by contributing to advance its mission. People interested can contact me. New Direction Education Services provide face-to-face and online tutoring in Math, French, ESL and Spanish. It provides also online courses and some other services.

Why do you have to use the OpenCourseWare?

Let's remind that the OpenCourseWare is made of courses, taught at the high school or at the university level, that are put on the internet for anyone to access freely. You can use the OpenCourseWare for several reasons including the following:

1. For your own interest. If you are interested in a particular subject or field you can use the OpenCourseWare to gain or update your knowledge in that field.
2. To update your skills or knowledge for work. If you are a professional you can use the OpenCourseWare to review or update your knowledge in a subject or field.
3. To understand concepts you are studying. The OpenCourseWare is used by many students to help them understand concepts they are studying. If you are studying mathematics you can find a lot of OpenCourseWare materials to help you to understand a lot of mathematical concepts.
4. To learn something for a particular subject or task. I heard about someone working on a solar energy project using the OpenCourseWare to help him realizing the project.
5. To supplement/create teaching materials. Educators use the OpenCourseWare to create courses, enrich the curriculum, etc.

These reasons are based on a study by the OpenCourseWare Consortium. According to this study the OpenCourseWare is used by Teachers, Students at the Secondary or high school level, Students at the undergraduate and graduate level, Self-learners, Working professionals, Employers, etc.

The results of the survey by OCW about respondents using OpenCourseWare are:
46%: to help understand concepts I am studying
31%: to learn something for a specific project or task
23%: supplement/create teaching materials
50%: to update my skills or knowledge for work
59%: for my own interest
7%: other.

A survey of users of OCW materials translated in traditional and simplified Chinese by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign revealed similar results.
68%: to extend my professional knowledge
62.8%: to increase knowledge of personal interests
31.4%: to answer questions related to my profession
25.9%: for academic studies

The percentages of these two surveys show that the OpenCourseWare is mostly used for personal interests, professional knowledge and academic studies.

My interest in different subjects of human and exact sciences led me to create the Open Popular University. I realize also that knowledge cannot be the prerogative of educational institutions meaning that in order to learn something you have to spend not only a fortune but a huge amount of time and physical energy. Knowledge should be to the disposal of the six billions of humans beings living on the earth and everybody should be able to access and learn that knowledge without any restrictions. The purpose of Open Popular University is to demystify knowledge and make it accessible to anybody provided that you have access to a computer and internet access.

My goal for Open Popular University is that it can become an open and free encyclopedia of courses and knowledge. A lot of resources are needed in order to realize this goal. I am launching a fundraising in order to optimize the site and to continue to add more courses. If you are a reader of this blog and believe in my philosophy of education I am asking for your support by doing the following:

1. Make a donation to www.indiegogo.com/Open-Popular-University and ask others to do the same by sharing the link of the fundraising.
2. Like the facebook page of Open Popular University at www.facebook.com/OpenPopularUniversity.
3. Visit the site of Open Popular University at www.openpu.wikidot.com and share the link to others. Feel free to reach me for any questions by writing on the comments section of this blog.

Who uses Opencourseware?

In a recent time to learn a subject you can matriculate at an university in order to attend a class. Depending on the level of the course one wants to attend one can take a class at a community college or an adult education center that offers various courses. For example the Boston Adult Education Center  has offered basic and short courses in different areas for a very long time. Today it is not necessary to spend some money to attend some courses thanks to the Opencourseware and various online organizations that offer free courses. One can find a subject in an opencourseware and find support in a social network like Open study. A few months ago I launched the project Open Popular University that has courses in Engineering, Sciences, Math, Human Sciences, etc. In the section "Resources" are found courses in French. I added a social network like Open Study to support a course. For certain disciplines like Civil Engineering I put the whole curriculum like the one offered by a renowned university with the free courses. In this way someone can learn an university degree program by oneself. I am presently launching a fundraising campaign to raise some funds to optimize the site and add more courses. I am appealing to my readers to support this project by clicking the link "fundraising campaign" or clicking the widget on the sidebar of this blog.

The use of OpenCourseWare is supported by studies of which one originates from Mary Lou Forward, director of Open Courseware Consortium. OpenCourseWare (OCW) and Open Educational Resources (OER) rest on the idea that free and open sharing in education can favor the   improvement of teaching and learning around the world. The OpenCourseWare movement was initiated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Other universities noticing the power of open sharing followed the MIT example. Initially OCW was conceived as a resource for faculty to exchange ideas and course materials. Today OCW supports formal and informal learning and millions of people worldwide are using high-quality educational materials for different reasons.

The OpenCourseWare is used by faculty (Professors, Teachers) and students at the university and high school level, self-learners, employers, working professionals and different others. The study of Mary Lou Forward shows that a high percentage of users are not currently involved in formal education as faculty or students. The study uses statistics to show the different reasons people use the opencourseware. University professors and school teachers use the opencourseware to develop their courses. The opencouseware is used for professional development. Some California teachers use the opencourseware of the university of California-Irvine to help them to prepare for teaching credentials. The African Virtual University provides professional development through the use of the opencourseware. Its developed curricula for bachelor of education programs in 5 subjects to prepare teachers. The curriculum is presented in French, Portuguese and English at the African Virtual University (AVU) portal. Opencourseware is also supported by different platforms such as Open study, Peer-to-Peer university, etc. Many universities and companies put their opencourseware for free and open access. Their opencourseware is organized in different ways. Opencourseware presents different gaps and there ia a need to fill in these gaps. This is what I am trying to do at Open Popular University and I need the support of different interested people.    

Tips for professional development planning in teaching with OERS

Open Educational Resources are not a bunch of educational resources placed on like Wikipedia, Curriki, Connexions, Merlot, etc for whoever wants to learn and use them for teaching. They are finding their ways in the k-12 educational system. In this article are laid out tips to help teachers use open educational resources

If there's one thing that the information age has taught us, it's that throwing new technology tools and resources at people and expecting them to adapt them successfully is unreasonable and unrealistic. The rule definitely applies in the K-12 educational environment, where preliminary and ongoing professional development is key to ensuring that new innovations "stick" both in and out of the classroom.

Take open educational resources (OER)--copyright-free teaching, research, and learning materials that are in the public domain--for example. A novelty for many K-12 educators who are accustomed to having textbooks, assessments, and other materials prepared for them, OERs can create significant challenges when introduced to today's teachers.

Here are five broad tips for professional development planning that will help smooth the way to adoption of these open resources.

1. Help teachers sift through the piles of OER resources. Colleen Worrell, manager of professional development at Virtual High School in Maynard, MA, said she sees the sheer volume of OER resources available today as a huge challenge for K-12 teachers.

The fact that most of those instructors are accustomed to working from a single textbook and a few ancillary resources places the hurdle even higher. To ease some of that burden and help teachers integrate OER into their lesson plans, Worrell culls through the OERs to find the best resources. She shares these with the teachers and talks to them about the best ways to adopt and integrate that content.

"Someone has to do the vetting for the teachers," said Worrell, "even if it's just creating a social bookmarking list of the top 10 OER social studies sites. Everything helps."

2. Acknowledge the fact that not all teachers are comfortable with technology. Not all teachers are tech-savvy and willing to integrate state-of-the-art resources into their classrooms. Some just like the "old ways" of instructing and prefer to stick to those methods.

"If you want teachers to take advantage of OER you really have to assess their comfort levels with it," advised Neeru Khosla, co-founder at open content provider CK-12 in Palo Alto, CA. "You can't expect the mid-range of teachers--that large percentage of them who are on the bell curve--to just accept the new technology if they don't know how to use it."

To overcome this hurdle, Khosla said, OER champions must create value propositions for the open content and help teachers understand the advantages it provides. Getting teachers "hands on" with the content and showing them how to use it (via one-on-one demonstrations and webinars, for example) will also "go a long way in helping teachers get more comfortable with the technology," said Khosla.

3. Create a "culture" of professional development. Rather than offering professional development on a sporadic or ad hoc basis, create a culture around it.

Get teachers, administrators and even students involved in the process. Encourage sharing, said Khosla, and use community collaboration as a way to not only keep everyone up to date and informed, but also to save money.

"Everyone should make it their job to contribute to this type of ongoing professional development," said Khosla. "That way you won't miss out on important little OER nuggets just because they're not associated with a $300 professional development class."

4. Encourage an environment of "reinvention." OER isn't only about using non-copyrighted, digital materials in the classroom; it's also about adapting and adjusting that content to make it even more relevant for today's learners.

Sharing that mindset with teachers is an important professional development strategy, according to Jason Neiffer, curriculum director at Montana Digital Academy in Missoula, MT.

"You really need to build an encouraging environment for reinvention and reconsideration of the OER materials," said Neiffer. "Traditional textbook reinvention took place every five to 15 years, but with OER it happens every year--or every time the resources are distributed to students."

Helping teachers adapt to and embrace that rapid pace is a key component of any OER professional development program. "There has to be an ongoing support mechanism in place that encourages teachers to be reflective," said Neiffer, "and that helps them constantly evaluate both existing and potential OERs."

5. Put the power in the hands of the educators. Professional development isn't solely about training teachers, said Neiffer, it's about empowering them to make the best decisions for themselves and for their students.

"In the end it's the teachers who make the decisions about OERs and how they're going to use them in their classrooms--not the administrators or districts," said Neiffer. "The most effective professional development is the kind that recognizes this important point and that truly empowers teachers to make the best possible decisions surrounding OER."

http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/05/23/teaching-with-oer-5-tips-for-professional-development-planning.aspx

Open Education and challenges in higher education

 The growing interest in Khan Academy, MOOCs and Stanford University’s online courses has made many in higher education realize that clear divides don’t exist any longer. The boundaries are blurring between real and virtual spaces, formal and informal learning, teachers and learners
Learning is changing, but what of education? A couple of blog posts this  week questioning the value of going to university at all are probably just the first of many.
A number of educators have been discussing these issues, as practitioners:  the opportunities and challenges of open online education, the role of the university, and our role as educators. Following is an edited draft of some of these discussions.

The growth of open online learning over the past decade has been steady. Open content, often discussed in terms of OERs (Open Educational Resources), is defined as “materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone”. The key to OERs is that they are openly licensed and thus available for use by all. The argument for using OERs is clear: if every university teaches introduction to programming, for example, then why should we all develop materials to teach this? Why not use openly available, openly licensed, excellent material, and spend more of our time on activities such as engaging with students, developing improved assessment strategies, etc.
There are many excellent sources of OERs (Open Educational Resources), including the NDLR; MERLOT; MIT OCW; OU Learning Space; OER Commons; Khan Academy; Stanford University’s online courses and more.
In terms of open online learning, MIT OpenCourseWare, Khan Academy and other video-based resources can be characterized as 1st generation, while the recent initiative by Stanford University, among others, can be considered 2nd generation, in that it includes not only learning materials, but instructional design, a learning structure and assessment – providing an experience closer to that provided within formal education. Stephen Downes recently suggested that the next generation will be widespread use of OERs along with automated, analytics-based, competency-based testing mechanisms, or open assessment. Indeed, this is precisely what OER university (OERu), among others, is setting out to do. Other open initiatives such as MOOCs and Open Badges have further potential to disrupt traditional higher education. Over 2000 people are currently participating in the #change11 MOOC “Change: Education, Learning and Technology”. Mozilla’s Open Badges project, particularly the DML competition on Badges for Lifelong Learning, is currently gaining a huge amount of attention as well.
Our challenges as educators in the further and higher education sectors? Here are just a few:
Open resources – Most students are aware of open educational resources, and these are shared widely, e.g. Khan Academy, YouTube, MIT OCW, and the recent Stanford University online courses. As educators, what are we doing to create or link to relevant online resources for students? Creating screencasts, video lectures, audio or video podcasts (and making these openly available) or linking to OERs (and OER repositories) can supplement lectures and provide students with valuable material for study and revision. Just as we refer students to the best textbooks, journals and databases, we should link to excellent, relevant, online open educational resources. Our challenge here is to create and share material in new ways, learn to use different tools, and stay abreast of online learning developments.
Open, participatory and social media – Students use social media and social networks in many ways, not least to support their studies, e.g. DropBox, Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter. Once again, as academic staff, we must look to our own practice. Are we making use of tools such as social bookmarking, social networking, web-based applications, and online curation tools to model good academic practice and to share resources with students, and with one another? Not all student work must be submitted directly and privately to the lecturer – opportunities for openness, sharing and collaboration should be considered.  We are challenged to consider using open, social tools (at least sometimes) – instead of closed, 1:1 tools – in order to open up the learning process and make it more authentic.
Emerging technologies – In the 2011 Horizon Report, mobile devices and e-books are the most current of the emerging technologies identified. How are we addressing these trends? The Horizon Report lists examples of education institutions innovating in these areas for teaching, learning and research. Even if we are not at the front of the innovation curve, we must address these emerging technologies in our programmes in a coordinated way, and communicate to our students and others how we are doing that. For example, how are we making use of mobile apps, or making our own learning content available on mobile devices? How are we facilitating students in using open access or e-textbooks?
Openness – In most undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, students are encouraged to examine their digital footprint and digital identity, and to consider the value of building a deliberate, positive, digital identity. This is a core element of digital literacies. Our students are visible to us online, and we are visible to them. As academic staff, are we open and positively visible online, as professionals? Are we modelling academic values in virtual spaces? The best way to share and publicise open educational resources is through the use of social media and social networks, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, blogs. In order to communicate and share our work and our values, our challenge is to consider our approach to openness – as individuals, as departments, and as universities.
http://catherinecronin.wordpress.com/

Towards OER university: Free learning for all students worldwide

08-02-2011 (Apia)

The OER Foundation will host an open planning meeting on 23 February 2011 in Dunedin, New Zealand, for the project, Open Educational Resources (OER) for Assessment and Credit for Students. UNESCO will provide support for streaming the meeting on the Internet to enable virtual participation by education leaders and interested persons.

OER encapsulates a simple but powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good. The Internet provides unique opportunities for everyone to share, use, and reuse this knowledge.

The OER Foundation, Otago Polytechnic (New Zealand), the University of Southern Queensland (Australia) and Athabasca University (Canada) are collaborating in this project as founding anchor partners to provide flexible pathways for OER learners to earn formal academic credit and pay reduced fees for assessment and credit.

“We extend an open invitation to all post-secondary institutions that care about sharing knowledge as a core value of education to join us in planning these sustainable learning futures,” said Dr Robin Day, Chair of the Board of Directors of the OER Foundation.

Phil Ker, Chief Executive of Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand, highlights that “OER is the means by which education at all levels can be more accessible, more affordable and more efficient”.

WikiEducator, a flagship initiative of the OER Foundation, administers the Learning4Content project – the world's largest training project to provide free wiki-skills' courses for the collaborative development of OER to thousands of educators from 140 different countries. “The Learning4Content model demonstrates that OER is cost effective and infinitely scalable,” said Dr Wayne Mackintosh, Director of the OER Foundation and founder of WikiEducator.

The challenge is to find robust mechanisms for academic credit for these OER learners. “Students seek flexible study opportunities, but they also want their achievements recognised in credible credentials,” said Sir John Daniel, President of the Commonwealth of Learning. “This important meeting will tackle the challenges of combining flexibility with rigour, which requires clarity in conception and quality in execution.”

“The concept of free learning for all students is well aligned with UNESCO's global mission to provide education for all, which now seems imminently more doable with the mainstream adoption of OER in our formal education institutions,” said Dr Visesio Pongi, Director of the UNESCO Office in Apia.

 Related link
Meet Athabasca U Canada's first OER University

How Open Educational Resources are changing the face of Higher Education

With all the talk about the cost of higher education, there is an underlying current bringing about a radical change in education. This quiet, yet revolutionary force, is both directly and indirectly changing the bottom line in the price of attaining education. Behind the curtains in higher education are Open Educational Resources.

"Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others."

Recently, well-known author Anya Kamenetz covered Open Educational Resources and various pioneer learning start-ups in her free book The Edupunks Guide to a DIY Education. It is over 100 pages long full of online free or highly affordable knowledge resources. The OER movement is not only growing: it is exploding.

What perhaps is overlooked in daily conversations is that the most important aspect about OER is that it enables the best quality knowledge material to travel free of charge to the most remote and underserved places in the world. Education is no longer only for the elite privileged few; or for those saddled with a lifelong debt burden to achieve it. Education is now for everyone and anyone driven, motivated, inspired and ready to seek it out online. Money is no longer a prerequisite to a quality education -- only a computer and an internet connection remain.

We are part of a new era. From free learning sources such as MIT OpenCourseWare, to fully formed tuition-free degree programs such as those offered by University of the People, the phrase "burdensome tuition" is becoming a phrase of the past. Worldwide disparities in educational access based on economic situation or geographic restriction are being leveled out.

Think what a world we are becoming -- a world where money is not required in order for individual and collective intelligence to be expressed and compounded. Removing money from the equation, we will see in a very short time what universal affordable education will achieve in changing, brightening and modifying the world we live in.


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