Tag Archives: MOOC

OERCourse2014

OCL4Ed – 2nd Learning Reflection

This is my second learning reflection in the course “Open Content Licensing for Educators”, provided by Open Educational Resources University via WikiEducator.

The course continued using tools and methods already adopted on a first session. I enjoyed the brief material both in textual and video formats but above all is the interaction between other participants, namely in Twitter and Google+. Just after couple of days I know for sure that I really enjoy studying on a course like this! I enjoy the open and participatory structure that utilizes the existing knowledge of the participants as well as allows each of us to steer our learning action towards personally set goals. We share a lot but we are also pretty free to learn what we need to.

I enjoyed David Wileys clear definition on openness.  Free access is essential but not sufficient criteria because users need also flexible permissions to reuse, revise, remix and redistribute the material. I inspired to tweet a question about the “openness” of currently hyped xMOOC’s because I see their openness very limited. In many cases, the material is copyrighted and there is a growing trend to transfer courses into mode the offers certification but requires payments.

I also enjoyed Lawrence Lessig’s and Eben Moglen’s videos, and made a notice that in Finland we don’t have the “Fair use” principle, which covers most of the educational activity in US. For us Finns it means that we should be twice as active in open licensing and I think that is the case in most of the world too.

I already knew that there are different definitions of Open Educational Resources but I was somehow shocked how weakly I performed the OECD definition quiz. I am not sure if that definition is very useful and I prefer using Stephen Downes’s brief definition instead: “Open Educational Resources (OER) are materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone”

Although the distributed structure of this course with several different tools used in interaction might disorientate some participants, I must say that I personally enjoy the diversity.  I see Twitter primary as a tool for personal reflection but sometimes that might cause some interaction too. For example, the responses I received to my tweet about closed file formats lead me to think that I probably need too provide more technical guidance to teachers producing open educational resources.

However, Google Plus has some strengths too. Shared and structured forum supports interaction inside the course and is probably more suitable to collaborative knowledge building than Twitter. I think it is easier to develop new and somehow still vague ideas and thoughts while you are not obliged to compress them to 140 characters. And I really appreciate the fruitful feedback and generous support the participants, especially Wayne Mackintosh, provides to us learners!

 

OERCourse2014

OCL4Ed – 1st Learning Reflection

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This is my learning reflection on the first session in the course “Open Content Licensing for Educators”, provided by Open Educational Resources University via WikiEducator.

The course started with brief material clarifying the basic concepts and ideas behind openness in education. Stephen Downes pointed out why sharing is so important factor in education and Desmond Tutu told why it is important to have organized action toward free and open education. I tweeted my own reflections, answered to the survey and contributed to the Google+ discussion about teaching as a vocation or profession by posting my own thought and commenting to others.

I work as an Educational technology specialist in University of Helsinki and I have worked in the field of online learning almost twenty years. I consider having relevant amount of knowledge about the importance of openness in education, as well as having practical skills in searching, producing, re-using, sharing and licensing open educational resources. I have also taught university’s teachers in these topics. However, I need to deepen my practical knowledge about open licensing. I am pretty familiar with licensing new content but I have also found certain difficulties while re-mixing content with different licenses (nc/non-nc, pd, gnu etc).

I am glad to see the growing efforts in opening the education, especially tertiary education. Nevertheless, I have found lots of difficulties in promoting openness in education. I think my primary substantial interest in this course is to develop and share ideas how to enhance openness in education, both globally and locally. How to motivate teachers to develop their attitudes toward more open culture of teaching? How to motivate teachers to share more? How to describe the immediate benefits of sharing to teachers? How to describe the theoretical and ideological framework behind open education? What are the essential practical skills that every teacher should acquire? 

I am asking these questions because I see my own role primarily as a promoter and educator, which lead to my second motivation in participating this course. I am planning to lead this kind of course in Finnish later and I am waiting to get (and share!) ideas how to organize this kind of course myself. This model of connectivist MOOC feels very attracting although I could have some blended elements in my course too.