June continued -Open Content
I was mesmerized reading in class recently about the views and
principles on open content. The readings in class leads me to believe more
strongly regarding a more defined structure and overall comprehensive framework in many areas of distance education. Sharing knowledge learned and showing competencies should be 2 of the results of us
students accessing the open content information. For teachers, framework around
strategies, evaluations and how these help students should be part of open
content information, as we (students, faculty) can only learn more from others.
I was thinking about struggles with open content as far as
just being able to download material and use it for your classroom “as is”. I don’t
agree with that and when I read Mr. Bates good, bad, and ugly article he
expanded on that a bit. I agree with him that using open content materials as a
basis or a resource for developing our own course work as teachers is a good
idea and I think it can be very useful, but a structure or framework needs to
be defined to ensure best practices. We need to really know the perspective of
the original writer and the intent of the material. One of the other articles had me thinking of
how just downloading open content and using it to develop a course could be
detrimental to schools and students. What if the content was not verified as
accurate? What if it was dated? We would not be helping students or faculty at
all, but possibly taking a step backwards. Lots to think about regarding open content.
Link to one of the
articles I found interesting:
Another great post! I was also wondering about where to exactly put myself in this discussion as the use of OERs is a difficult topic to discuss. When we discussed about OERs and read Bate's post, I was convinced that as teachers we should only release and share material that we believe could be suitable for students worldwide but as I started to think about sharing my own materials, I started to question my previous statements and think about all the additional work, time, and effort that must be put into creating material that is suitable for all audiences. I started thinking about the simple Power Points I usually make and how it could be misinterpreted or probably useless for other instructors. This discussion also helped think about the role of Wikipedia and how most if not all educators hate this type of collaborative encyclopedia. As a read the article by Chesney (2006), I started to analyze how people edit this website and probably are not experts in the field.
ReplyDeleteWould it be possible that Wikipedia and OERs should not exist so we can avoid problems with mistakes and inaccurate information? Should only experts in the field, or in the case of OERs, instructional designers be in charge of evaluating the resources available to the public?
I don't know how to answer those questions without thinking about the concept of "openness" and its benefits in education.
References
Chesney, T. (2006). An empirical examination of Wikipedia?s credibility. First Monday 11 (6). Retrieved January10, 2009, from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1413/1331
Good thoughts here. I tend to agree with you regarding Bates' opinions about open content. I do think it's a good idea and necessary for information to be shared. However, there should be some standards if information gleaned from random sources is going to be used as the basis for further educational materials.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post!