Photo credit: Robin Good

‘MOOCs indicate that we are seeing a complexification of wishes and needs’ – so we need a multispectrum view of what universities do in society. George Siemens, (18:51 25th March 2013).

A terrific webinar hosted by Martin Weller with George Siemens speaking. Link to the recorded event and my notes to follow.

I took away some key reasons why OER has a future:

1. Hype between terrifying and absurd.
2. State reduction in funding will see a private sector rise.
3. Increase in rest of world’s desire for HE OER
4. Certificates growing.
5. The Gap
6. Accelerating time to completion
7. Credit and recognition for students who go to the trouble to gain the competencies.
8. Granular learning competencies and the gradual learning and badging to stitch together competencies.

And a final thought from the host:

‘If you’re not lost and confused in a MOOC  you are probably doing something wrong’.  Martin Weller (18:45 25th March 2013)

Which rather means I may be doing something wrong!

I posted to Linkedin, I am neither confused, nor lost. Indeed I have a great sense of where I am and what is going on, have met old online friends and am making new contacts and enjoy using two of my favourite platforms: Google+ and WordPress.  (All the fun’s at H817open)

A selection of papers are proving enlightening too:

1) John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health OpenCourseWare (2009) Kanchanaraksa, Gooding, Klass and Yager.

2) The role of CSCL pedagogical patterns as mediating artefacts for repurposing Open Educational Resources (2010) Conole, McAndrew & Dimitriadis

3) A review of the open educational resources (OER) movement: Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. Report to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

I’ll post a 500 word review of the above shortly as per H817open Activity 7.

The value is both expanding the reasons for OER as well as having a handful of objections, negatives and concerns. Like all things regarding e-learning, they is no panacea for putting in the time and effort.

And a couple of others that look interesting:

Disruptive Pedagogies and Technologies in Universities (2012)  Anderson and McGreal

Open education resources: education for the world? (2012) Richter and McPherson

Related articles

• Open Educational Resources – Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education (learningwithtechs.wordpress.com)
• Embracing OER & MOOCs to TRANSFORM EDUCATION…? (slideshare.net)
• Open Educational Resources: Development and Challenges for India (slideshare.net)
• Designing OER with Diversity in Mind (slideshare.net)
• Activity 7: Exploring OER Issues (ouopenlearn.wordpress.com)
• New MOOC…Openness and innovation in elearning (totallyrewired.wordpress.com)