Group items tagged

The Open Education is one of the most discussed topics on education internationally today. Can be defined as open education practices that characterize the opening of access to knowledge, ways of learning, learning technologies, educational systems, models of educational management, leadership and certification. Integral part of the Open Education are OER (Open Educational Resources), materials of teaching, learning and research, in any format or media, licensed to allow their reuse, adaptation and sharing by others. Since 2006 ABED disseminates OER and Open Education. Prof. Fredric Litto in 2006 wrote about open content and in 2009, the publication of the book 'Distance Education: State of the Art vol.1', ABED - Pearson Education, which won the Premio Tortoise brought the seventh of chapters on concept of openness in ODL open University of Brazil, REA, learning through virtual and digital libraries and digital repositories and virtual, written by Andreia inamorato dos Santos, Ronaldo Mota, Fredric Litto, Ana Paula Leite de Camargo and Ana Cristina Birth , respectively. Since then, in Brazil, have sprouted traces of a theme that would be provided shortly international prominence - Open Education. To expand the discussion of the topic in Brazil and international trends, ABED creates workgroup ABED OPEN. Coordinator for the group, ABED invited Dr. Andreia inamorato, international researcher in the field of open education, OER and ODL. "The group intends to involve the participation of teachers of basic and higher education, researchers, students, educational administrators, publishers, departments of education, nonprofits and private institutions," says Andrea. "The goal is to have the collective and representative participation of various social actors to be a working group with legitimacy, representativeness and goals, and can promote discussions on educational priorities in Brazil with respect to open education", says the researcher.

Argues that increasing corporate control is undermining the foundational values of higher education.

Here in Spain we have a similar evolution of higher education; private postgraduate private schools give masters that guarantee the access to top jobposts, but they are not focused on analysis, creativity and critical minds, but on pure business. What you need to be on your future job post is what you learn. Public institutions are still on air, but they are struggling with less and less public resources to survive. So I guess this is not only going on in USA.

Italy is going even worse...i'm an Adjunct Professor for maybe 1000 euro per year ... surviving by scholarships, call center mid term contracts, collaborations where i'm asked to pay for taxes the university should pay, all levels teaching.. I like "Some of the basic principles underlying effective pedagogy, such as small class size, individual attention and the importance of mentoring, are being sacrificed in order to increase head count, limit labor costs and create a one-size-fits-all educational experience." The problem is that universities are to make profits from fees (that's why they hire me instead of employing me) and offer any kind of courses, masters to increase their income! The problem is: how can we expect to increase the quality of learning as far as decisions are taking by political, business, organizational sides instead of scientific and educational ones?

Community Colleges for Open Education Resources I chose this resource since I work at a community college and The mission is expanding access to education by promoting awareness and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER). Over 250 colleges have joined the consortium and many more participate in our activities and use resources posted here. The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER)is a joint effort by individual community colleges, regional and statewide consortia, the Open Courseware Consortium, the American Association for Community Colleges, the League for Innovation in the Community Colleges, and many other educational partners to develop and use open educational resources, open textbooks, and open courseware to expand access to higher education and improve teaching and learning.

Open education information and group resources

Open education information and group resources

The Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, adopted by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in 2000, have become an essential document related to the emergence of information literacy as a recognized learning outcome at many institutions of higher education

As one of the academic libraries in the Philippines, we are also using the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education as bases for our Information Literacy program though its more than a decade. We recognize its competencies for outcomes based education.

A hundred years ago, higher education seemed on the verge of a technological revolution. The spread of a powerful new communication network-the modern postal system-had made it possible for universities to distribute their lessons beyond the bounds of their campuses. Anyone with a mailbox could enroll in a class.

This article provides a clear overview of the evolution of higher education along with the rapid development of technology during the past 100 year, and raises the issue whether today's networked education model has posted threat to higher education. Today's the rapid development of Internet and social networks have changed the way we learn, access information and connect with others. The emergence and popularity of MOOCs and various social media have brought a new learning model, connected learning, which is largely used in university and college courses. It expands learners' opportunities of learning, and brings them huge convenience to access information, share thoughts, and communicated with learners from world wide on the same topic. Learning in the current information age subverted the way we learn in traditional learning models, and sometimes caused problems. But I think it's normal for a new thing to cause problems, but as long as we figure out ways to overcome the problems and best utilize the new learning model and resource, it will bring us huge opportunities.

It is time to rethink the digital experience in higher education: we have a chance not only to reimagine our encounters with the large scale but also to embrace our opportunities at the other end of the scale. William G.

"MOOCs offer opportunities but are also pose the danger of further exacerbating existing educational divisions and deepening the homogeneity of global knowledge systems."

Very interesting! Thanks. "MOOCs and MOOC-type courses have added a new dimension to the educational landscape by strengthening the non-formal educational space and providing opportunities to experiment with the disaggregated components of the educational experience"

After watching the Willinsky video, this hit home even more. I think the value of quality education is extremely important, and creating a "global village" of learning is still in its growing pains. Having a face-to-face instructor/professor/facilitator lets you ask the questions that pop to mind and being in a classroom setting allows an idea to flow and develop into other ideas. There are a lot of social media tools that are familiar to a lot of students living in a Western culture, but those social tools are not always available to developing countries; many do not have access to schools or even have a computer - as this article indicates, MOOCs are certainly a venue that opens learning opportunities for those who do not have access to learning in a formal environment, but may have access to the internet. What I particularly found interesting were the various MOOC categories - Gateway: MOOCs for prepping to get into higher learning; Research showcase: promote an institute's research areas; Professional skills: MOOCs for those who need to "upskill" or specialize…and there are others. The main reason for taking this course was to improve my knowledge of what social media is out there (MOOCs are part of it), how it is being used, and how useful is this "new" media is within the publishing realm. It is a challenge.

"The edupunks are on the march. From VC-funded startups to the ivied walls of Harvard, new experiments and business models are springing up from entrepreneurs, professors, and students alike. Want a class that's structured like a role-playing game? An accredited bachelor's degree for a few thousand dollars? A free, peer-to-peer Wiki university? These all exist today, the overture to a complete educational remix."

The internet has is and will continue to change how we educate our children but we will still be using university's perhaps a younger student population will emerge as access instantaneous, making learning faster , less time required to achieve a high school level.

This volume in the New Media Consortium Series of reports (NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition), examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative inquiry within the environment of higher education.

I took a course taught by this professor on Coursera - The History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education. Davidson contributed the Hacking the Academy, a source I posted elsewhere. Her blog is a great exploration of creativity in Higher Ed (or the lack thereof). The blog is on the HASTAC site - Humanities, Arts, Sciences, and Technology Alliance Collaboratory. LOTS going on there... I enjoy her blog because of the lively language and the provocations - at least they are provocative for so-called traditional schools.The recent blog post reviews a film about education The Ivory Tower; "...that the movie is strong and powerful on the problem, and a bit weak on solutions." Haven't seen it. Davidson puts in a plug for HASTAC: "HASTAC has been addressing the connection between equity and innovation since its founding in 2002." I'm digressing. This is not a critique of her particular blog post, just a suggestion that the blog is interesting and HASTAC site has lots on it that is relevant to the topics we're exploring in this course.

While we are talking about (open) education, let us look for the handbook. Part I, Chapter 7: "E-learning - an introduction"

It is an essential document for educators and librarians. The Handbook focuses on issues of knowledge and learning and teaching and leading its readers to a mode of considering education as revisiting learners' prior knowledge into the mode of thinking and understanding through the study of primary sources. After Biggs and Moore, the authors of the Handbook view students as individuals who actively construct their knowledge and learning as a process that involves a process of individual transformation. The document touches all the essential questions of education including motivation and deep approach to studying. curriculum design, the use of technologies in learning opportunities and other.

This report shows the importance of college education. With the rise in cost of higher education, it is all the more important to have alternatives to the traditional route for college. For those who question the value of college in this era of soaring student debt and high unemployment, the attitudes and experiences of today's young adults-members of the so-called Millennial generation-provide a compelling answer. On virtually every measure of economic well-being and career attainment-from personal earnings to job satisfaction to the share employed full time-young college graduates are outperforming their peers with less education.

There are also costs to society - countries with fewer educated citizens cannot be as competitive in the global environment. It behooves countries to try to figure out how to keep education economical for its citizens.

Well said. Thanks for bringing up this topic and adding it to the conversation. I don't doubt that those who keep learning and gain skills will be more valuable economically and probably then more economically rewarded. But I have serious doubts that the current program of institutionalized degrees is the best route for citizens.

An interesting overview of the challenges that the open education faced in the last 10 years. The "Last mile" part emphasizes the role of a teacher in guiding students to the right resources available online.

Open Source and openness in Higher Education: MOOC, OCW, OER.

Kay, R., Lauriclla, S. (2011). Exploring the Benefits and Challenges of Using Laptop Computers in Higher Education Classrooms: A Formative Analysis. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology. 37:1

a. Laptops and mobile devices are ubiquitous in todays classrooms as students are digital natives. Because of decreasing prices of technology over the past few decades, an overwhelming majority of the university students surveyed own a laptop (87%). Because of this quick onset of technological adoption, culture has lagged, in terms of re-defining the social institutions that such mobile and computer technologies affect. According to this analysis, students feel that the use of a laptop helps in aiding studies, is useful for gathering course and supplementary materials and engaging in peer collaboration. Several challenges have been noted: communication based challenges, relating to social media, email and messaging services; and entertainment based challenges, relating to media consumption. These challenges serve as potential sources of distraction for the student using the technology and others. In their findings, 16% of students reported being distracted by pornography during class, on their own or others' computer screens, which ranked higher than computer games, at 1%. The authors conclude that the benefits of laptop use in class outweigh the challenges 2:1. Possibly, if the functionality of student laptops are integrated into course curriculum further, students can benefit from further peer collaboration, increased academic benefit and decreased distractions.

Great article that talks about the very nature of openness! In this article the author argues that openness in education has been successful in establishing itself as an approach. However, this initial victory should be viewed as part of a larger battle around the nature of openness. Drawing lessons from history and the green movement, a number of challenges for the open education movement are identified as it enters this new stage. The value of openness to education is stressed in that it relates to opportunities for development and the role of the higher education in society.

Thanks for sharing this, Marieke. It provides a wonderful overview of the central issues of "openness". This is one that should definitely be bumped up into the course reading list.

Hola Marieke. Coincido con Kevin en que el artículo es muy ilustrativo, con datos y una interesante reflexión sobre el acceso abierto. Pero me parece que la comparación con el movimiento verde requiere matizarse, principalmente el de los verdes porque era un movimiento político de transformación civilisatoria (eso se proponía, al menos) y terminó bastante desinflado (http://newleftreview.org/II/81/joachim-jachnow-what-s-become-of-the-german-greens). Igual, el texto vale la pena. Danke

This article gives opinion that university is playing an important role that will not be replaced by the open educational opinion, which I also agreed. Instead of considering OER as a threat to university, the article argues that "OER can help institutions provide higher education to rapidly increasing numbers of students and lifelong learners".

Thank you for sharing the article Ming Tang. I think you make a great point about OER and the university working together as opposed to a "war of the roses" type scenario where a married couple refuses to work together. As the article mentioned the university is the one that gives the diploma and is the one that deals with accreditation inspections, etc. OER to me would make a nice complement on the arms of any university. Another good article along the same lines can be found at http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/impact-globalization-and-future-university.

Thank you Melduncan2!

Just released. This is the result of a survey about the usage of OER in higher education. It gives insightful views on how OER are perceived within universities. It becomes thus a good support for those trying to implement an institutional strategy for OER. Best regards Ricardo Twitter @ricbruno71

In everyday life we are learning continually from each other. Whatever the situation, most of us draw on the knowledge, skills and experience of our friends and colleagues. Within any educational setting learners naturally engage in informal peer learning to make sense of their course, test their ideas and share their concerns.

Peer learning is engaging, and researches say that people learns most effectively when they are interacting with each other. It creates this network of knowledge when you share and connect with people, it not only benefits the individual, but benefits everyone as a whole. It also relieves the pressure of University funding with teachers having to teach such a large class, which affects the quality of learning as well. With peer learning, students engage with one another, and will eventually find the correct answer. It is not independent learning, this is interdependent learning.

Thank you for your share. I think this is a great article that introduces the potential of peer learning in higher education from the teacher's perspective. I agree that connected learning does a great job in promoting student's interactivity, creativity, motivation and interest in learning a particular topic with peers. In addition, peer learning provides learners with opportunities to collaborate and learn a subject together, which might maximize the productivity if used in a correct way. Peers and collaborative learners can do their own research separately, and meet together to discuss and express different opinions on the issue, which can inspire student's deep thinking. However, peer learning and collaborative learning is not always superior to individual work, or contributing to the learning result of every individual. Sometimes it might decrease the learning productivity if the group members or peer partners over reply on others in the group without doing much themselves, or if they didn't communicate well. Thus it's important to practice students learning ability and teacher's facilitating ability in peer learning or collaborative learning.