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Open Educational Resources For Secondary Schools in Norway. "Nasjonal digital læringsarena" - er et fellesinitiativ fra fylkeskommunene som har til hensikt å etablere fritt tilgjengelige, fullverdige, dynamiske fagnettsteder for alle fag i videregående opplæring.

The resources seem to be perfectly adopted to the classroom use. A fantastic collection!

How an open course can work. "We don't want the students to remember the formulas. We want to change the way they look at the world."

I liked how Ted explains the way students access to Open Courses and how right he is when he says that if there are no due dates, even if the topic is very interesting, there are always other things to do first, therefore, you end up not doing it. I am also with him in not doing moocs to long that can get you bored and end up losing all your attention.

very informative!

European Commission - Press Release details page - European Commission Press release Brussels, 28 October 2014 Meet Poppy, the first completely open-source, 3D printed, humanoid robot (@poppy_project). Poppy is a robot that anybody can build and program.

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

Places the popular concept of the makerspace within the theoretical context of experiential education.

I have a 11-year old daughter, so a lot of the readings and activities we do in this course usually lead me to compare between how they apply to k-12 "fundamental" education and professional development. We are lucky in that some of her teachers are experimenting with flipped classroom and project-based learning. However, as a parent on the sideline, sometimes I wonder about their activities. How do I or anyone evaluate an activity to know that it is "educational"? This article gives a great definition, "...an experience is educative if it lead to further growth, intellectually or morally..." Another quote I like a lot is "learner to take initiative, make decisions, and be accountable for the results."

Good article on the Maker Movement, and references to the thinking of John Dewey. I hadn't realized some of the Maker Movement extends back to the 1970's. I had the chance to meet Sylvia Libow Martinez a couple of years ago (of Invent to Learn - http://www.inventtolearn.com/) and got a deeper insight into the power of the Maker Movement, Maker Fairs, and how sharing knowledge and collaboration is producing some amazing things in the realm of 3D printing, wearable technology, and changing paradigms for education.

Young, K. (2004). Internet Addiction: A new Clinical Phenomenon and Its Consequences. American Behavioral Scientist. 48:402

a. Although this is a psychology article, it poses an important concern over the rise of internet addiction in connected populations. This article is relevant to this course, as it relates to the notion of critical consumption; some users are unable to filter information effectively, which should be recognized as a concern. Young states many statistics from educators and researchers discounting internet use in the classroom as it is far too distracting and the loss of productivity (in both students and the workforce) is immense.

Some might argue that this article shows the downside of connected learning and e-resources, however this is not the case. Certain web activities mentioned in the paper such as chat rooms, social media, and video games are not the focus of this course. Open Knowledge deals with the light side of the internet, which is the interconnectivity, the accelerated learning, and the ability to publish ones own content. The internet can definitely be misused, but not every web activity is "junk food". If someone obsessively became a mathematician and ultimately ended up being the best mathematician in the world due to "addiction" people would call him or her a genius. The trick is to filter which content and activities one engages in.

A collection by Edutopia about digital citizenship.

A great collection of thoughts, lists and posters that can be very helpful in teaching digital literacy and digital citizenship in the classroom. There are so many aspects of digital citizenship to consider and copyright is one of those things that I think many educators forget to discuss, but it's so very important to understand.

Digital citizenship is a very large topic and it encompasses so much, including digital literacy. Every day it is more and more important for people to develop critical lenses regarding what is digitally available. With so much out there, I think part of being a good digital citizen is to have a critical lens to filter all the information.

Teachers are discovering the value of imparting media-literacy skills, from critical analysis of news programs, commercials, and films to basic design and video-production techniques.

This is an excellent video summarizing all the skills and necessity of them in a participatory culture. Everyone is spending more and more time in the multimedia world these days, especially the youth, who can be considered the most vulnerable. An ability to perceive all the information we are getting through a critical lens is profound, as is an ability to dissect and understand the logic of multimedia. Learning the tricks of graphics, cinema, music studies (collectively called "communication studies"), young people learn to understand and create media, find new ways to express themselves efficiently in an ever-changing world and supplement the traditional ("written") curriculum, which is behind the needs of today's man. The point is illustrated nicely by George Lucas, founder of The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF): "Everybody is affected by this, and it should be taught in school." I agree 100%.

Re-thinking communication skills is absolutely essential for all educators, since much of the communication students are faced with during a day comes in the shape of different kinds of media. But the result of this is also that we need to address the fact that not all educators are necessarily equipped to teach about media because it's rarely included in teacher's programs (especially if you were trained twenty or thirty years ago). So the video makes a lot of good points about media-literacy and hopefully our educational systems will make sure that educators are given the tools to include this in their classrooms.

Colleges and universities aren't just teaching businesses about the value of technology, they're leading by example. At the core of their lesson is an essential technology: the video content management system. With it, universities are able to use low-cost computers and anything from high-end cameras to consumer webcams to record every lecture in every classroom across campus. Some go beyond recording, broadcasting live courses to remote learners around the world.

"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.

Article about how a resource such as twitter can drive classroom learning going forward.

This is an area I'd like to tune up for myself and learning communities that I work with. Twitter's potential seems huge and not yet well utilized (in my networks) for closing the gap between sharing information and building relational solutions that move insight into action.

The reason I really like using Twitter for education is that it fits so well with constructivism. Like other social media, Twitter blurs the line between content creators and consumers, making interactions inherently collaborative; and more than that, the short character limit ensures that these interactions remain a dialogue rather than long-form conversations that frustrate sharing. I think suggestions like this article makes are also important beyond Twitter, because-let's be honest-it won't remain the dominant form of social media forever. Like we've talked about throughout the course, we need to be sure that technology doesn't drive change and that we don't simply adopt technologies because of their vogue; but whatever tools we end up using absolutely need to become more open and collaborative, or we risk losing student engagement and, ultimately, students themselves.

The Digital Literacy for Educators Basics lesson will prepare you with a fundamental understanding of Digital Literacy for Educators, its features and general benefits in the classroom. Review the first lesson, watch the training video from a Google Certified Teacher, and complete a self-check quiz to confirm your understanding.

Relevant article on the cost of textbooks and the rise of open education Before entering the classroom of an intro-level economics course, students get a real-life experience with the subject - the required textbook costs $290 on Amazon. And that's just one book for one class. Textbook costs have surged 1,500 percent since 1970, according to the Economist magazine.

The co-founder of Coursera on digital revolution and online education. The results can be better than traditional lecture-model in the classroom. Better results means more students passing with results above average. And "It turns out, maybe not surprisingly, that students like getting the best content from the best universities for free". ;)