7ED021
week 5
Curriculum – content design, models and
principles and the (political) rise of OERs
Structure of today’s session
• Review last week’s learning and discuss the
blogging experiences
• Undertake curriculum planning activities (II)
• Explore, discuss and critique curriculum
design and delivery choices in relation to the
wider reading/previous experience
• Self nominate for blogging activities this week
• Peer sharing - Martin.
Warm up activity in small groups – you will need
access to a mobile device in your group
Go to: http://bit.ly/wMDdlA
Work your way through the activity considering
design choices and learning and teaching
assumptions.
You have 15 minutes.
(R)L0s to OERs
Terminology?
What do you know already?
The Learning Objects model of learning
This model of learning is based upon the notion of the ‘learning object’ as ‘any digital
resource that can be reused for to support learning’ (Wiley 2000). However learning
objects have come to mean many things to many people (Polsani 2003). Essentially the
model has emerged from the potential of reusing learning materials and has been
adopted as part of the development of standards for learning technology. Consequently
the model is rather more instructional and technological, to the extent that learning
objects (LOs) have been described as ‘an instructional technology’ rather than a model
or approach to learning per se (Wiley 2000).
Furthermore the model is dependent upon the learning specifications and standards
developed by the Learning Technology Standards Committee of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers set up in 1996. They define LOs as ‘any entity, digital
or non-digital, which can be used, re-used or referenced during technology supported
learning’ (IEEE LTSC definition cited in IMS Global Learning Consortium 2002, p.7).
(Conole & Alevizou, 2010 p.3)
(R)Learning objects and the rise of
repositories
1990s – MERLOT – in your groups go to MERLOT and
explore for 5 minutes – what’s changed?
Merlot’s definition
Group discussion
2000s – JORUM – in your groups go to JORUM, select find
and browse through the resources for 10 minutes –
what do you notice?
Group discussion
OERs
The term was coined at the 2002 UNESCO Forum on the Impact
of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing
Countries as, “The open provision of educational resources,
enabled by information and communication technologies, for
consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for
non-commercial purposes.”
UNESCO believes that universal access to high quality education
is key to the building of peace, sustainable social and economic
development, and intercultural dialogue.
The shift to open
The term Open Educational Resources (OER) emerged in the
early 2000s; since then OERs have gained increased attention for
their potential to obviate demographic, economic and cultural
educational boundaries, through free access, redistribution and
reuse. (Conole & Alevizou, 2010 p.71)
MIT OpenCourseWare
Open University OpenLearn
– in your groups go and find a course and browse for 5/10
minutes. What can we learn?
Open – in whose interest? Ripple Project University of Oxford
The Four Rs of OER for teaching and
learning practices
• Reuse – Use the work verbatim, just exactly as you
found it;
• Rework – Alter or transform the work so that it better
meets your needs;
• Remix – Combine the (verbatim or altered work) with
other works to better meet your needs;
• Redistribute – Share the verbatim work, the reworked
work, or the remixed work with others.
David Wiley, 2007 (cited in Lane 2011)
Support and guidance in the new
landscape
Inhabiting the ‘open’ space
Slideshare
Scribd
Cautionary tales
It wasn’t surprising to find that students were Googling for anything
they could get their hands on but the extent to which academics
are doing this as well was unexpected.
They were solving a resourcing ‘problem’ ...but much activity was
below the waterline (iceberg).
Not a way to save time – finding online resources takes time.
Barriers – how you discover things, hard to find good resources, can’t
find them, need trusted sites, quality control – repositories have to
be searchable by Google.
TALL blog (Oxford University)
Summing up
This week’s blog posts
• Beetham – Stephen
• White et al. (2011) video on OER impact (JISC project) - ?
Round robin review of this week – something I am taking away .....
Task – think about my use of OERs on this module – how useful
have they been?
Practice share - Martin
References
Conole, G. & Alevizou, P. (2010). A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. HEA
Academy, York, UK. Online: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf.
[accessed May 2011].