Open Educational Resources

If Zotero is new to you, this page provides a great introduction. It is similar tool to Diigo, but is much better for sources outside of just web sites (books, articles, et cetera), and if you need to (at the end of the day) produce an academic paper or bibliography, Zotero is awesome.

By Blog for The U of M courses in Emerging Technologies

More rantings for the OER course

Just looked through the freelearning.bcccampus.ca site and was underwhelmed. Many links pointed to resources already known to most such as Wikivestiy and Flat world project. The BC opencourseware link points to the Capilano University site which provided some resources but not anywhere near an exhaustive list. Since BC has been at the forefront of distance and online learning and this is the state of their QER offerings, I think this does not bode well for less progressive regions or Provinces that have less funding

Here is my blog for the course with this weeks entry

My blog originally created for Intro to Emerging Technologies for Learning. I'm not a huge fan of blogs unless they have some utility and shooting my thoughts out there does not ammount to a utility. That said, it seems necessary these days to have a presence on the web so there I am.

Learning Object Report

Margerit's Blog

It just struck me that so many sites are extremely wordy ... and yet the Web 2.0 world demands quick visual processing of information, which means bullets, colours, great layout, good triaging of details, etc.

The ability to filter ( or triage) comes after much interaction with complex text over many years. That is why schools mandate ELA. Deep reading seems to be a thing of the past.

Is there any research out there on how accurate this filter is?

Nice summary of different approaches to licensing.

My blog, which I use mostly for course work. Occasionally I post ramblings to help me work out what I am thinking.

Use as a guide for Learning Object Report Assignment

try as a startingn point for this your blog assignment

"sample chapter" misnomer, since the entire book seems to be online

After reading this blog post, critique a library web site near you (you can use University of Manitoba Libraries, or your own institutional library, or somewhere else). Are libraries repositories or referactories? Can you find examples of both (a library that is a repository, and a library that is referactory). Rant on your blog for this week.

Posted my critique here: http://schalkmlouw.blogspot.com/2010/05/library-website-critique.html

This is just something to start (add?) to your planning for the final aggregation project. I'm going to continue to look for useful resources and will post as I find them.

What do you think of the comment someone made "On-line universities have diminished the value of most degrees and by extension the credibility of most forms of education."

Well, I really dislike Wente's anti-labour rant, because if we enjoy good pay, benefits and holidays it's because someone fought for those for us (even if we don't even bother to go to meetings). That aside, I do think the institutionalized education system is going to be facing some stiff competition from more open-ended forms of learning. However, if "diminished value" comes from increased access and a subsequent reduction in elitism, I'm all for it. Just because it can't be controlled doesn't mean it can't be good.

Every time I hear an argument for universities in democracy the critical thinking flag is brought out and waved around. I don't remember critical thinking being taught anywhere in the whole school system I went through. I remember being TOLD what critical sources to study and quote in papers but it wasn't for me to actually have my own strategy--I was a mere student. Of course we all understood the dangers of speaking back to authority (the professor, the university, the government, and all the others barking orders at us. Now students can do an end-run around these guys on the internet and the dispensors of academic wisdom actually DO need to teach critical thinking, which to them is simply knowing a list of "reliable" sources--nothing more. I think education is critical and industrializing and concentrating it has created interests to protect as much as it has created wisdom to distribute (to a select few). Wente represents a power group just as the universities represent a power group. neither has a lock on the truth, only interests to protect. The beauty of the internet is it breaks up the notion that having one coherant, easy to explain philosophy is the object of all education.