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A Video Community for Why Open Education Matters

This video was created in 2012, where the OER was already promoted, and I just learned about it in 2014. I guess there are still a lot of people who does not know about it. Now I wonder, what is going to change in the teacher's role? If there are more MOOC courses, does that mean the need of teachers will decline? When he mentioned that they use public funds to develop these Open Educational courses, does that mean the rise of taxes? Although I do support the OER, it is still developing, adjustments need to be made for the balance of these courses and the public sector.

I like this article. I think students are limited to get access to knowledge, resulting from distance, poverty, politics. Open education resources can reduce the distance, making people all around world join a same class. Free makes poverty students get chance to take courses which he couldn't afford before.

This is an interesting post. Thank you for your sharing. As mentioned in this post, new research shows that electronic readers promoted more deep reading and less active learning. However, from my own experience, I feel like electronic reading leads to less deep reading but more active leaning. For me, I will never choose to read electronically if I have the physical version of the book because reading from digital devices, such as e-readers, tablets and smartphones, make me feel it's not like reading, it's more like looking through some online content or some one else blog posts. When read electronic books, it easy for me to skip around, and lose focus, attention or patience. I always need to read a second time for fully understanding a paragraph, when I read electronically. Also, with out the convenient of highlighting and making notes, reading electronic books prevent me from better understanding the content and thinking deeply. However, reading electronically, especially reading online might promote active learning because in some online reading website or softwares, there's interactive section on the side where readers of the book or article post their own opinions or form a discussion. This promote people to read, think and learn actively and collaboratively.

"electronic readers promoted more deep reading and less active learning" Some of my observations. I believe the future is for electronic reading only.

For me, maybe I am old school, it depends on the mood. I am wired towards both the print and electronic books. I cannot wait to have a printed book in my hand this Christmas holiday. The smell of the new selection of books and the paging through is a wonderful experience.

Dr Jane McGonigal (a professional game developer) talks about the time spent playing video games (which approximates to the span of human evolution), and that this time has to increase to make any major changes to the world. I have selected this resource partially in relation to week 3's Clarke's lecture (and others), which talks about using our idle time to do something meaningful - participate in citizen science games, for example. Dr McGonigal's talk very much illustrates this point - except that it talks about solving global issues through indirect games, e.g. a World Without Oil online game simulates a world in which you have to survive oil shortage. Creator's research shows, that people maintain the skills and habits they have taken up after playing this intense game, which include making better choices for our changing environment. The only difference here from actual citizen science games is that Dr McGonigal's games are fictional (rather than providing direct data / input for actual scientific research), however, they empower people to influence global change, which is the topic of the other lectures this week, especially Morozov's thoughts about the power of internet and connectiveness to create "revolutions". Although Morozov has taken up a rather critical view, suggesting only those who want it, take the best from the Internet, Dr McGonigal's ideas might be what bridges the two - taking games, which are integral part of many people's lives, especially in the younger generation, and turning them into real "life schools" may help more people get the idea and the essential skills to "fix" their environments. In all honesty, this is a video I would watch again and again, and recommend it to anyone who would listen (and that doesn't happen often for me).

Gamification for learning - using game elements - sounds very promising. Prior to the internet, technology, there were board games or hands on projects - all with the intent to engage and interact with each other. So it is no surprise to me given the appropriate design/project that students can learn and solve real world problems. Letting students choose their persona and role also allows them to make their own future and take ownership for how they want to participate. Just like the original promise of multimedia training that was purported to replace the traditional classroom events and enable getting the "best" teacher recorded for all to have the same experience...I believe it was then thought that the learning experience needs o be "blended". Different techniques - online, face to face, etc.. This is not my field of expertise so these are just personal opinions. If the online game approach can be combined with face to face and tactile/outdoor activities, aka a blended approach - I think that might be very useful. I do also believe that design solutions should be encouraging win win situations to reinforce collaboration and the feeling that all can succeed. One question I might have is how do you measure success in learning?

Gaming promoters unfortunately for me have a commercial agenda and its always difficult to make that balance of pure learning and commercialization aspect

Looks at the "Linux model" as a successful way of doing business."I think there is a general movement and a general recognition in the technology community that we need to reform the patent process. There's far too much effort and energy put into creating patents that do not end up fostering innovation," said Musk. "I think no reasonable person would say that the current patent system is ideally suited to foster innovation."

A true pioneer, Mr Musk is. I think he has an extra sense for the future. Patents seem to be an institution which increasingly focuses on short term profit instead of the common benefit on the long run.

Patents are the biggest responsible for the technological delays. The laws should change radically.

Photo courtesy of Intercontinental Toronto Yorkville. There is not much restriction in this photo. You can copy or save the photo as you wish. I love to take pictures and during my recent trip to Canada, Toronto particularly, I was actually hoping that I could snap the beauty of this city at night looking at the Toronto Island Park, just the way it's supposed to be at this picture. But the chance was just elusive. It suddenly rained when I was at the park until I get back to the Harbor square. I am documenting all my travels abroad and planning blogging them. I might use this photo should I blog all my travels abroad.

Very nice photo Shirley!

The change has come more slowly to books than it came to music or to business correspondence, but by now it feels inevitable. The digital era is upon us. The Twilights and Freedoms of 2025 will be consumed primarily as e-books. In many ways, this is good news. Books will...

when I take a book in my hands, I always start with smelling paper (old or new), can we do the same thing with technology?

I do like physical book in my hand, but I find e-books more convenient either when I am writing my research paper or I want to read certain book right away. I heard that more and more universities are supporting e-book system, and getting rid of physical textbooks due to costs and other reasons. A lot more e-books will become useful in the future. I think paper books will exist, but it will be rare in the future.

The story of Aaron Swartz, incredible programmer and activist for internet rights, open access and open knowledge. Good documentary to learn a little more about the open access movement, see some important figures (Tim Berners-Lee, Lawrence Lessig, etc.) and the fight against the SOPA bill. A big part of the movie is about his personal life and legal battle over copyright infringement. Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

This was a great video! I enjoyed it very much and it was very touching. thank you for posting. @smoens - awesome blog too. thank you for the link.

For the Copyright section I recommend to watch this documentary: The Internet's Own Boy depicts the life of American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz. It features interviews with his family and friends as well as the internet luminaries who worked with him.

Canada's new anti-spam legislation (CASL) helps protect Canadians while ensuring that businesses can continue to compete in the global marketplace. On July 1, 2014 Canada's anti-spam law came into effect. I believe it's the strictest in the world. If you email anyone in Canada you need to make sure you comply with this new law. We had to take a number of measures at my company including ceasing all bulk emails until we get our new opt-in database populates; including a footer in all our emails that allows recipients to opt out of receiving emails from us, and company-wide training on CASL and what we need to do to comply. People can be personally liable for violating this law. I'm not sure if the government has any manpower to actually monitor and prosecute any violators but we will see. As a Canadian, I don't think my SPAM had decreased - I actually received more emails to 'opt in' to mailing lists. I have also noticed that almost every message I receive has an unsubscribe option at the bottom, something I've been taking advantage of. I am not sure how this will ultimately affect open knowledge or if it will but it has made me think twice about reaching out to people I don't know over email.

I am posting this articles because I am interested in understanding where it is ok to draw the line. As a citizen, I endorse freedom of speech and information. As a father, I prefer a more secure and controlled environment for my children. I defend my right to choose for myself the information I want to get, but do I have the right to exclude someone's opinion if his or her points of view are not shared or do not stand for by the principles of the community?

I love the idea that progress and science being based on communication. Often the idea that I have in my mind is a scientist working alone, and that is never truly how the great break-throughs come, but rather from building on the science that we have learned about previously. I still have a problem with the Author Pay part of Open Access publishing, and it seems like it is not actually "Open" if you have to pay to play. The Utopic Version is really the way that I think of "Open" publishing even with all the pit falls of finding the Utopia. I like the rebirth by giving the onus to the reader to review, and that is a model that works as seen by Wikipedia, because people are willing to aid progress with out conventional compensation. I understand all of the problems with this, but I love the possibility.

The Canadian Government promoting how sharing private content of someone is illegal. Having the internet and our social media tools, it is so easy to share and connect with people. It is great in many ways, like education, social life, work etc. but when it comes to personal life, maybe it is not as great. People like to share because it is easy and fast, there are no physical restrictions. There are consequences but because there are too many people doing it, it is hard to target everyone. With this digital age coming so quickly, maybe rules, regulations, and education are still trying to catch up. If I have not taken this course, I would not have known that sharing a screenshot on Whatsapp with friends is actually illegal. The point is when everyone is doing it now, and we were not deeply educated on this topic beforehand, how is this going to stop? When sharing screenshots has became a trend, how is it possible to stop?

I think this video does an excellent job of not victim-blaming, or casting any moral judgement. I think it's easy to say "don't take pictures", etc., but approaching it as a strictly legal matter may be a better route to take. Speaking of the general open access movement, I think some valuable lessons could be taken from this for raising awareness about appropriate uses of open access information. It reminds me of the Disney compilation copyright video we watched at the beginning of the course - using some very literal imagery to get a point across, and explaining what the law is, not what people are doing with it.

I think this PSA does a really good job of communicating a 'touchy' subject in a tasteful manner. The message is simple and very relatable for adolescents. Cyberbullying is a tremendous issue among youth in Canada and I am really glad to see the government taking preventative initiatives.

This article is interesting in that it introduces (although repurposes an existing term) the concept of participatory surveillance in the digital age as something a little less sinister than what Manzerolle argues against in his paper for the OK MOOC's 3rd module. Instead of seeing the user as a victim of the commodification of social media as Manzerolle suggests, Albrechtslund instead focuses on the fact that people are offering this information freely. Although this was written in 2008, a couple years before Manzerolle, I think these articles really balance each other. Albrechtslund focuses on the complexities of having a digital identity in a physical world and light-heartedly refers to surveillance as something users are aware of as they participate. Are users also aware of the commodification of their participation? I think many are, and for now users are ok with it. I appreciated Manzerolle's mention of options like Diaspora, which I think as a concept could play an important part of negotiating the tension between data ownership and digital social participation.

I think these types of discussion of the implications of privacy and surveillance need a full module--in each module i keep thinking its something we need to consider. here is a more light hearted take from the humorous news website the Onion: http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/

This reminds me of a point made in Yevgeny Morozov's illustration video -- that dictatorial governments don't necessarily have to torture people to get information; they can simply follow Tweets and Facebook status updates. In the case of Rwanda, American religious social media is painting a picture of the Paul Kagame government that is at odds with what many dissidents in that country report. I agree with koobredaer -- a module on privacy and surveillance would be valuable.

"This paper provides a brief overview of the ideas and principles underlying the connected learning movement, highlighting examples of how libraries are boosting 21st century learning and promoting community development by partnering with a range of organisations and individuals to incorporate connected opportunities into their programmes"

Thanks Kevin for sharing this.

El lado oscuro de las bibliotecas: "¿Quieren leer? Pues a pagar" Es un delirio: cuando tomemos prestado un libro de una biblioteca será preciso pagar un canon http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2014/08/27/babelia/1409137321_870906.html

"The motivation for my own authorial decision to turn my back on traditional publishers was both psychological and entrepreneurial. The psychological was purely personal. I am a Depression baby. My father was hard hit during the Depression and it was difficult for him to get and hold a job. He was always at the mercy of others, and I vowed early on never to be beholden to others to make my living. Controlling my own destiny has always been one of my principal obsessions."