Although open educational resources (OER) are high on the agenda of social and inclusion policies and supported by many stakeholders, their use in higher education (HE) and adult education (AE) has not yet reached the critical threshold.
One outcome from ICT is the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, which expanded during the last decade. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative played an important role in instigating the OER movement around the world
Turkish OCW Consortium was formed with twenty-four member universities in the leadership of TAS (Yazici et al., 2008). The number in the consortium has since increased to forty-eight. Initiating an OCW project at an institution requires careful planning of resources and vision
instructors in Turkey are the key players at this early stage of the movement and it is important to understand their perceptions and tendencies in relation to publishing their course materials
What benefits do faculty members accrue from publishing course materials freely on the Internet?
What barriers do faculty members face when they want to publish course materials freely on the Internet?
What incentives would enable faculty members to publish course materials freely on the Internet?
Following the announcement of cuts in higher educational funding, universities are desperate to seek new forms of revenue and more effective ways of marketing their courses.
It is no secret that releasing Open Educational Resources (OER) via the web can lead to greater student numbers
he problem is that it is not just about releasing content. There is now so much material around and so many repositories offering material that there is intense competition for attention. Just because the content is free, it doesn’t mean that anyone will use it.
expensively funded release of university content in Ireland that was accessed by just 40 students.
University of Westminster has around 25 students on it, yet an average of 2,500 unique users from all over the world consume the course’s OER content
It is not as simple as just releasing OER on to the web or in a repository. The real work begins when you try to promote and disseminate the resources
t is not just about having a Facebook account or a Twitter feed. To make these things work, you have to interact with the people who follow you (your so-called friends or followers). You need to link to other key players releasing interesting content related to your own, respond to questions and requests on a regular basis and regularly update your content with lists of the most popular and newest releases.
One great thing about using the web for marketing is that you can track everything you are doing. I can tell you that today, 10 people came to our OER content via our Facebook site, 25 came via Twitter and 12 via YouTube. This is powerful stuff, because you can home in on what really works.
it is the argument that OER can be sustainable and even make a contribution to a university’s bottom line that is perhaps the most pertinent one.
The mobile revolution is finally here. Wherever one looks, the evidence of mobile penetration and adoption is irrefutable: cell phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), MP3 players, portable game devices, handhelds, tablets, and laptops abound. No demographic is immune from this phenomenon. From toddlers to seniors, people are increasingly connected and are digitally communicating with each other in ways that would have been impossible to imagine only a few years ago
Why Not Mobile for Learning?
Using portable devices to support teaching and learning is not a new concept in educational circles.
The heightened interest in mobile possibilities for teaching, learning, and research can be attributed to a number of factors: the continuing expansion of broadband wireless networks; the explosion of power and capacity of the next generation of cellular telephones; and the fact that mobile telephones, a familiar tool for communications, are already fully ingrained in contemporary life as part of our social practice
As a result, U.S. educators are finding themselves in the awkward position of knowing that the mobile revolution is coming, without really being able to imagine what it’s going to look like or what the possibilities for mobile learning may be.
mobile learning represents the next step in a long tradition of technology-mediated learning. It will feature new strategies, practices, tools, applications, and resources to realize the promise of ubiquitous, pervasive, personal, and connected learning. It responds to the on-demand learning interests of connected citizens in an information-centric world.
t also connects formal educational experience (e.g., taking a class, attending a workshop, or participating in a training session) with informal, situated learning experience (e.g., receiving performance support
The success of mobile learning will ultimately revolve around a mosaic of rich converged experiences. These experiences will rest, in turn, on a foundation of converged network and device technologies, wireless services, rights management, content management, search management, and transactional processing power. Successful mobile learning will demand a rich presentation layer that runs efficiently on a variety of platforms and a variety of form factors.
First, there are more wireless networks, services, and devices than ever before.Today’s wireless communications industry is in global growth mode
Second, consumers are demanding better mobile experiences than ever before. In reflecting on what makes an experience great, Kevin Mullet has noted that other things being equal, we want our experiences to be as vivid—as immediate, direct, and engaging to our senses—as possible.
Third, people want "anytime, anywhere" connections more than ever before.Demands for information, performance support, instruction, training, and education are being shaped by people who want access to resources, assets, program, and people when and where they need those connections most.
The mobile revolution is finally here. Wherever one looks, the evidence of mobile penetration and adoption is irrefutable: cell phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), MP3 players, portable game devices, handhelds, tablets, and laptops abound.
Take a look around and chances are you’ll see a mobile device. Phones, iPods, laptops, netbooks, iPads, USB drives, and handheld games seem to be everywhere. Combine these ever-present gadgets with educational and productivity uses and you’ve got mobile learning.
Mobile learning can happen anywhere: in a classroom, at the dinning room table, on a bus, in front of a science exhibit, at the zoo…anywhere!
today announced that more than 500 universities and colleges on four continents are using Wowza Media Server® technology to deliver live, on demand and interactive content to students and faculty on multiple players and devices, including Flash® and iPhone®.
The collegiate market is among the most aggressive adopters of streaming media technology solutions as the modern campus expands beyond the traditional four walls of classrooms, labs and lecture halls and the Internet is an increasingly inseparable component of learning curriculum
online education sector grew 13 percent last year and had been growing at about 20 percent in previous years.
Universities are discovering that lecture capture is a competitive advantage and of great benefit to 'millennial' learners, who are accustomed to convenience and to on-demand access to myriad content sources," said Alan Greenberg
the University of New South Wales in Sydney found the Wowza servers to be much more cost effective and easier to maintain than its separate legacy QuickTime™ and Windows® streaming servers,
With Wowza Media Server 2 we are able to consolidate our media resources onto a single platform, while also opening the door to new campus IPTV and iPhone streaming capabilities for our UNSWTV and lecture recording services,"
Many other universities are leveraging the Wowza Media Server's iPhone and IPTV streaming capabilities to expand enrollment and make courses and other content such as athletics widely available outside
"Wowza is focused on helping educators make learning more accessible and affordable by using online video content," said Dave Stubenvoll,
Wowza Media Server was named Best Server Hardware/Software in the Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards in 2008 and 2009, and received the 2009 Best Innovation award for Wowza Media Server 2
“We are now reaching people all around the world that, without iTunes U, we never would have touched,” said its vice-chancellor, Martin Bean, formerly the general manager of Microsoft’s education products group
Mr. Bean looks at iTunes U and YouTube as free marketing — an opportunity to take “all those active inquiries and those leisure learners and expose them to who we are as a university.
Other universities say that limited resources, copyright concerns or the reluctance of old-fashioned professors are keeping them from recording and uploading lectures.
The courage comes from taking the next leap of faith. Universities no longer define themselves by their content but the overall experience: the concept, the student support, the tutoring and mentoring, the teaching and learning they get and the quality of the assessment.”