K12 Open Ed

In the United States, schools are in a constant battle to try to keep cell phones out of schools. Districts issue policies that ban cell phones; parents protest the rules as a “safety issue”; court cases result. Few are seeing the educational possibilities. Trying to express my own feelings about cell phones in schools in less than 50 words recently, I said:

 “Schools ban cell phones out of fear and the lack of a vision of potential advantages. How much would that change if every child could access interactive textbooks, instructional videos, educational simulations, collaborative communities, and an electronic library via their phone? We should teach students responsible use and take advantage of this powerful (and potentially free) tool for learning and collaboration. “

And while I do see potential for cell phones for learning here, the far greater potential is in the developing world. It seems to me that if OER is going make a difference to education worldwide, it is likely to be tied to mobile phone usage. BBC just ran a good article about this.

I’ve been thinking about potentially interesting OER projects on which to collaborate with developing country schools. This (combined with the dictionary project) just might be it.

Alec Couros and the University of Regina are starting a new online course called Computers in the Classroom: Appropriate Curriculum and Instruction Related to Computer Technology.

The course will include some coverage of open education tools, and Alec has told me that visitors are welcome. Thanks, Alec! (I’m looking forward to watching and participating as time permits, though my current workload is such that I won’t be able to participate to the degree I did in David Wiley’s Open Ed course.)

Looking at the course wiki and overview also provides another take on how to combine free and open synchronous and asynchronous tools for online learning.

NROC is well known as one of the best repositories of OERs. They have received funding from the Hewlett Foundation and are featured in collections like Curriki and OER Commons.

If you look at the terms of use, it says this:

“The content on this website is provided by the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education for personal enrichment only. It is not intended for use by educational organizations or commercial vendors. Anyone wishing to purchase a license for this content should contact us at info@montereyinstitute.org.”

There is also a blurb on licensing the NROC content, which reads:

“NROC Licenses are content use arrangements for commercial vendors, textbook publishers, and charitable organizations. Business terms range from competitive license fees for commercial organizations to free use (Open Educational Resource) for select organizations providing access to underserved students. Academic institutions interesting in using the NROC Library should go to NROC Network.

Commercial vendor licenses are fees per user with volume discount pricing and an annual minimum. Use licenses for textbook publishers are fees for use of NROC media files for new product development and support for book sales. NROC Licenses for charitable organizations or non-profits providing access to underserved populations are offered at no cost.”

So, this doesn’t seem like open content to me. Am I missing something?

Well, I have to say that I am a bit sad to see the Open Ed course ending (though not unhappy to be having that little extra time back in my week). I learned not only about open ed, but also about online learning, lifelong non-traditional learners, blog-based collaboration, learner-driven learning, international education, and more.

Most of all I want to thank everyone who participated in the class. I learned so much from all of you and enjoyed our conversations. I will continue to read your blogs and hope we will continue to talk. (I only wish I knew Italian!) Thanks also to David Wiley for putting this together and for making it an open experience.

I will continue to use what I have learned, to participate in the open community, and to expand my learning in this area.

If anyone hears of other similar education-related open courses, please post them on your blogs. I look forward to participating in other learning opportunities like this.

A few other miscellaneous thoughts on process:

– I loved the addition of the week to read, reflect, and comment. (Another suggestion to accomplish this would be to require initial posts to be done by Turs. night and comments by Sun. night.)

– I missed the assignment to spread the word about open ed within our organization (which I have done anyway). Perhaps in future classes, the first few weeks of reading could be condensed a bit and this kind of creative sharing and advocacy (and other hands on projects) could be included and even expanded.

– I’d like to see the inclusion of K-12 open ed initiatives, in addition to post-secondary. I’d also like to see more discussion of international and developing world issues and concerns.

– In future courses (or any other blog-driven collaborations), it would be helpful to have weekly Technorati tags that we would all use and access. This would save a lot time spent wading through non-participating people’s blogs and other unrelated blog entries. (My reader runneth over!)

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Thanks again, everyone! Keep writing, and stay in touch!

Here are some thoughts on Week 13 posts on the future of open education.

– Meg brings up some very good points about assessment. The idea of competency-based learning is very appealing, but the decisions on what is to be tested and how are difficult. The complexities of standards, curriculum, and assessment alignment are challenging and frequently get bogged down in politics. Take the current fiasco of K-12 education in the U.S. as a case study in how not to do things. The academic standards and accountability of No Child Left Behind sound like good ideas. The actual implementation has resulted in a educational environment that is detrimental to the learning of most children (or as Judge Alan Page recently said, is ensuring that all children are left behind).
Question: How can standards- or competency-based education be implemented without these problems? [Stian has some intriguing thoughts on this.]

– Jessie brings an interesting perspective on these issues from China. (As a sidenote, I just heard a presentation by educational technologist Alan November in which he staked out the position that U.S. primary and secondary schools are more restrictive than any others in the world including China where he recently visited. He is understandably vexed by the absence and even banning of tools like blogs, wikis, social networks, and cell phones here in the U.S.)

– Stian talks about the “inflation of degrees” and makes the point that perhaps a traditional university degree is not the most appropriate path for everyone despite the fact that we seem to be making that a goal. I couldn’t agree more. This makes me wonder if Open Education might someday evolve to be not just tools, content, and implementation resources, but a whole new educational model. Perhaps we need a way to learn that is radically non-traditional but still somehow still recognized as education. Move beyond competency-based systems — forget the whole existing model of formal education and create something new. (I’m suggesting this as an option to, not a replacement for, the traditional system.)
Question: Ideally, what could that look like? [Stian offers some intriguing ideas in later in his post.]

– Jennifer’s post last week drew from her presentation at the Open Ed conference and talked about how OER and “openness” could be blended within a traditional learning environment. I found that much of her discussion of “openness” in a broader context (as a learning environment and pedagogical approach) could be applied whether or not OERs are used.

Her reminder that education does not equal content is important. Many of the criticisms and concerns about OER could be alleviated by remembering this. Learning happens in a context that includes not only content, but instructor/facilitator input, learner interpretation, collaboration, and many other influences. Having good (open) content is a great start, but we shouldn’t be so arrogant as to think that it’s everything.