Week 15: Wrap Up

Blog your overall feelings about the course. On the content side, what did you learn? How will you use it after the class is over? What did we not cover that you realize now we really should have? On the process side, how could the class be better next time it's taught? What would you change? What would you keep? Is there anything we as a group can do after the course is over? Also, besides describing your experiences and tips, please have a look at the Open Education wiki on http://opened.wetpaint.com :: We can aggregate our experiences there, and use it as a platform for open education matters.

How come we already got to the end of the semester? Wow, it was so fast!
About the course: first of all, I do appreciate the fact that Dr. Wiley has offered the opportunity of this course to students of different institutions. I am very grateful. By participating in this course, I could be in touch with people of different countries, different cultures and different perpectives.

I have learned much in the past 14 weeks: for instance, I learned about different types of licenses, about open education itself and also about learning objects. Before this course, I only had a vague notion of what those issues were. Above all things, this course has made me reflect on many different subjects and has made me review some of my own ideas about education.
Once the class is over, I can use what I learned to implement open education opportunities - as much as possible. I have realized that open education is the strongest way to the democratization of knowledge. And I think that educators do have some responsibility here.

I cannot think now of something that the course has not covered, but I can think of something that could have been better discussed: learning objects. I think that we had just a little time in order to learn in more detail about LOs. I realize now that they are a crucial element in the open education world.

On the process side, I guess that the new edition of the class would benefit from more use of collaborative tools. Blogs are too static. I do not know until what extent I felt like a part of a group. Sometimes I felt loose and even uncomfortable to comment on someone's else blog. Also, I learned that having at least the pictures of the participants makes much difference in the interaction process. It adds that personal touch.

I enjoyed the fact that the mechanics of the course has changed a little to include our interlinked thoughts on what other people was saying. Another thing that I can suggest is adding some type of group work - this would make people create stronger bonds.

What I would keep? In my opinion the syllabus is very attractive on the content side. Also, I would keep all resources that were shared with the students. It was wonderful to have access to such rich materials - and for free. What I would change? Just the timing and extent in which some subjects are presented (like the LOs) and also more collaborative opportunities. Maybe having an open chat area, where people could "meet" and talk randomly. Maybe this would require adopting a different delivery platform and I do not know until what extent Dr. Wiley likes them.

About the last question, I am totaly lost. I am not sure of what we could do as group once the course is over. Maybe we have not grown as a group, properly (although I believe that I have grown individually by being exposed to such rich and diverse group of people). Well, maybe we can all still keep blogging on the issue of open learning (I know that some already do this, but I did not use to until taking part in this course). By continuing to share our ideas, we can move beyond what was covered in the course. I have taken a look at the Open Education wiki (great idea), as suggested by Thieme. Having it will be a nice way to keep us together around the theme of the course - in a creative and dynamic way.

Again, I am very grateful for the opportunity. I wish everyone Happy Holidays and much peace.

Week 14: Reflecting on Week 13

ASSIGNMENT: Catch your breath, read your classmates' blogs for Week 13, and post your interlinked thoughts on what everyone is saying.

This week I have left comments for Antonio, Stian, Elisa and Rob.

Antonio talks about how OE receives no attention from the government. He also mentions issues of compatibility issues with licenses and how OER can be a real opportunity for developing countries.

Rob calls attention to the time span mentioned in Dr. Wiley's text. He makes a set of predictions, including one that there will be compatibility of the licenses. I do hope that most come true, especially the last one, about free long distance calls. :-)

Elisa talks about the role of pioneers in Italy in relation to OE and the issue of textbooks – how expensive they are and how OE could address this fact.

Stian has interesting points. Like him, I am also disappointed with the pedagogics of the universities. It is a problem that starts in the university itself as an institution that is responsible for educating professionals. I also agree that the time spent in class should address other things rather than lecturing.

As I have expressed before, I do like to read the blogs and learn with them. There are so many interesting perspectives and different insights about what we learn in the course. This is so related to what I wrote last week! I believe in the interaction that grows in the communities of learners. I will never buy the idea of having a "customer service" type of thing that works like a "learner support". Agreeing with such idea is contrary to all that I have learned as good practice in education. If we are going to have such thing, then, let's all leave the universities. There is already much useless work out there that is produced by "scholars". Actually, I think that we can do better!

Week 13: The Future of Open Education

QUESTIONS: What will the future of higher education look like? What impact will the open education movement have? How will we get there from here? What will be the effects of open education movement upon K-12 education? What will be the effects of open education movement upon high school education? What role can OERs play in developing countries?

Those are tough questions to answer! One needs much knowledge about the current state of things (politically, economically, culturally) in order to make safe predictions of the future.
After reading Dr. Wiley's document (2005 - 2012: the OpenCourseWars) I had the impression that some points were difficult for him, as well - and he knows far much more than anyone else, since he has extense experience in the field.

Another thing: even before Dr. Wiley mentioned how critics would feel about his US-centric discussion, I had already formulated this notion in my mind. :-) The whole text seemed apocalyptic for me and evolved around american myths - war, terrorists etc. It was fun for the most part, but I felt that it was a little too much sometimes.

Well, I can only hope that the future (this word that we use for time that will come after the present, but we just do not know "when") does not take any longer than 2012. But it might. When one deals with "the system" and depends on the actions of others, it gets almost impossible to predict when things will happen. I also hope that a war does not get started, but I agree that changes do not happen without much disagreement and struggle.

The beginning of the text talks about the consortium of universities in the USA and also about the top universities around the globe that will engage in similar activities. I find it difficult for this to happen withing the time frame proposed by the text. I even find it hard to happen the way that it is pictured, first of all (despite Utah's seminal initiatives). I think that there is a long way to go before there is fair awareness of the potentials of openness in education. There is even a longer way to go before the universities work with such openness withing their institutional structure. Can you imagine getting around the bureaucracy? I think that by 2012 educators who believe in open education will still be working a lot in order to spread the notion of open education and to untangle the misconceptions in the area - for higher education institutions as well as for k-12 systems.

The text talked a lot about how market will influence open education initiatives, but I did not see much discussion about how pedagogical practices will change - except for the MetaU and the Learner Support (which for me was a little disturbing). The notion that learners will be more participative and will "trib" a lot seems to be pretty fair. But I do not believe that the LearnerSupport (something like a customer service) will arise. At least not in terms of market regulation as the text suggests. Only because there are learning needs that cannot be satisfied outside the learner's culture. Learning needs context.

Having Brazil in mind - and jumping to the last question - I am sure that Open Education still has a long way to go there. I will give an example: I work for a Federal University there (I am on a leave for my PhD) and implementing online undergraduate courses for it took almost a decade. This happened because faculty members do not have the culture of online education and need to debate a lot before agreeing on something. Then the decisions need voting, approval of diverse instances etc before they really get implemented. I am not against discussion, but I only want to make it clear how hard it is to make things move.

The notion of a LearnerSupport that can be based anywhere in the globe also would not be accepted in Brazil - for the reasons that I already expressed. I believe that online learning communities are much more feasible. Instead of reaching for outside support, learners will seek support among their peers - this is the trend that Brazil is working towards right now. And I also believe that this works much more in harmony with the idea of "trib". Instead of having a cold Learner Support, learners will help each other and develop responsibility towards their own learning process. Who know if Open Education will make this happen - finally?

Week 12: Reflecting on Week 11

ASSIGNMENT: Catch your breath, read your classmates' blogs for Week 11, and post your interlinked thoughts on what everyone is saying.

Thanks to those who took the time to visit my blog. I have left comments on the following classmates' blogs: Andreas, Elisa, Karen, Antonio. I have the impression that there is a diversity in relation to our understanding about LOs. There is also much doubt. Again, I wish that we had more time to strengthen this part of our course.

Andreas talks about how difficult it is to judge the value of LOs. I would say that it depends on the context. I think that no resource is better than other per se, but it depends on the fact of being suitable for the learner in a particular situation.

Elisa stresses the importance of localization. I understood it as the need to adapt LOs to our local cultural contexts.

Karen starts by criticizing academia (which I liked :-)) and moves on to say that instructors do not take the time to customize resources. I think that this is a big sin. As Elisa pointed out, "localization" is very important.

Antonio stresses the key aspect of adaptation versus reuse. For him, adaptation is the key and not reuse. I think that many of us are on the same page here, but we just use different terms.

I have learned a lot by reading the blogs. And I am happy that this strategy has been implemented in the course.

Week 11: Open Education and Learning Objects

QUESTIONS: Some people believe that open educational resources "fix" many of the problems experienced by those who work with learning objects. Why do you think they would say this? Do you agree? Why or why not?

I was so happy to reach this moment of the course! The Learning Objects literature is so interesting! I just wish our course schedule allowed us more time to study this subject in more detail.
I do not know about the other colleagues, but I could not hear all of Dr. Wiley's online presentation. It would not load completely, for some reason. It stopped at about minute 21. Well...
I still remember the first time that I heard about LOs. It was more or less five years ago and I was puzzled by such concept. I then made my own research and learned some basic ideas. But I did not learn then about how significative openness to education is. I do agree with what "some people say" about open educational resources.
As I said, I did not listen all of Dr. Wiley's presentation, but from what I could understand adaptability and reusability are critical for LOs. "Frictionless" adaptability is even more important. Simply because obtaining permissions (to use copyrighted materials) is too hard and complicated. It has two costs, according to Wiley's chapter The Learning Objects Literature (p. 351):
1) "The license cost paid in exchange for the rights to reuse a learning object" and 2) "the hidden transaction costs associated with determining who holds the rights to a specific learning object."
As one can see, having an educational object that is sharable, simple, reusable and adaptable does not free instructional designers from having big headaches. :-) Openness is the feature that frees one from having to pay those costs. And the Creative Commons as well as the GNU licenses are the ones to guarantee such openness.
We have learned that there are all kinds of approaches to LOs - from more traditional to more permissive perspectives. But to me the assumption that open educational resources are the solution to achieve the democratizion of education is still the stronger one. Maybe this sounds visionary and idealistic but, well, the world does not progress without those elements. But let's not forget that quality is an element that cannot be forgotten - no matter what the approach might be.

Week 10: Reflecting on Week 9

ASSIGNMENT: Catch your breath, read your classmates' blogs for Week 9, and post your interlinked thoughts on what everyone is saying.

First of all I want to thank those in the course who visited my blog and posted their comments (Elisa, Megan, Alessandro). Other people have taken a look here, but did not leave their impressions in the same manner. That is OK. I am so happy that finally someone took the time to come here and interact. This is the first time in the course that I feel connected to the other students. Another point that I want to make is that I am so impressed by the quality of the postings of most participants in this course. I do not like the word "participant" in this context, but my limited vocabulary does not allow for fancy constructions... I am doing my best, though. :-)
As I read the blogs, I noticed that some people have left the course and some appear to have never posted anything. Oh, well... I have learned a lot by reading the classmates' postings. Here are the points that called my attention most:

Emanuela Zibordi read "Free Culture" by L.Lessig, and highlights the two groups of people that interact in our society – those who want changes and those who do not. Those who seek innovation and want to make a difference sometimes find frustration. With open content, there is the opportunity to change this situation. She says: “I think, and hope so, the sharing of open content will become larger and will have right and appropriate lows.”

Karen Fasimpaur read Larry Lessig’s book Code v2 and thinks that the author went too far with the idea of fair use. She also criticizes the author’s extremely emotional language in expressing his ideas.

Andreas Formiconi read Wikinomics, written by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. He points out that some ideas in the book are too optimistic. He describes how the author analyzes how new mass collaboration models are challenging traditional business models. But asks: “And what about education? Is it worthwhile to work hard to devise some clever business model to foster open education or should we just wait for the next 2.0 wiki-similar tool?”

Rob Barton had the opportunity to revisit the World is Flat with a more focused view in education this time. He comments on online office productivity software and how “we are becoming used to being able to collaborate online from anywhere, and the classroom should be no different.” He also discusses the lack of collaboration among diverse types of licenses.

Elisa read "Free Culture", by Lawrence Lessig. She says that people interested in open education should read about free culture. She was happy about how the author analyzed copyright revisions due to the technological developments. She comments on an interesting situation in Italy that I had not learned about: a bill that “claims that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money.”

Megan makes in her blog a nice inventory of the books read in our class. She read William Easterly's "The White Man's Burden". Megan thinks that “we should focus on Searching for specific answers, instead of Planning the big plan - is a particularly important concept for the Open Ed movement.”

AlessandroGiorni also read Coase’s Penguin and elaborates on 3 topics related to his personal experience as an educator in Italy:

1. How does he motivate his colleagues to gather in a (virtual) room, to discuss, to produce learning materials, to share them?
2. How much important are costs for question (and answer) #1?
3. How does he trust “educational resources” produced by peers (=colleagues)?

Week 9: Elective Reading Synopses

QUESTIONS: What can the open education movement learn from the book you chose to read? Elaborate on at least three points. Which of the ideas presented in the book did you find hardest to believe or agree with? Why?

First of all, I am sorry for posting this a little late (it is Tuesday). I have spent last week at AECT where I presented twice (with Dr. Jay Harriman and with Dr. Robert Maribe Branch). Unfortunately, I also got sick due to the air conditions in California. I was not able to complete the week reading until today. Sorry if this caused incovenience to someone else. I guess that it still fine to publish my post today (is anyone out there reading it, after all? :-)). I do not like to be late and just wanted to justify. Hopefully, it will be fine - I have contacted the instructor by e-mail on this matter, but did not receive a response so far.

The book that I chose is this: Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm, by Yochai Benkler. I have finished reading this book with an overall good impression about it. It does not bring a dull language (except in rare cases when the discussion gets too much into the realms of business and management) and the author gets straight to the point the he wants to make (pretty much like my own writting style).

The book investigates the phenomenon of large-scalle collaboration systems (peer collaboration) and as the author explains, this endeavour is "intended solely to define the phenomenon and assess its sustainability and welfare effects in general terms." Against all old economical beliefs, this type of collaboration has survived and flourished, reaching sustainability. The author constantly contrasts this new kind of "business" with the traditional commercial types of firms. This new collaborative system has posed challenges to the old organization theory and represents a new cultural production system.
I guess that the open education movement can learn a lot about motivational issues with this book, since it analyzes why people are motivated to collaborate for non-profit reasons. Also, it analyzes why the large-scale collaboration systems can be sustainable. Sustainability here is due to these factors, according to the author: modular work, granularity and low cost integration.
As for motivation, there are social and psychological gains that money does provide. Well, this is not a new concept in this course, but the book analyzes in detail how this occurs in comparison to the traditional types of business. The author states:

"We see similar social-psychological reward structures to reward and motivate participation in other practices that produce high positive externalities that would be difficult fully to compensate in monetary terms, like teaching; military service; or uncorrupt political, cultural, or spiritual leadership. Similarly, to the extent that peer production can harness motivations that do not require monetization of the contribution, the information produced using this model can be released freely, avoiding the inefficiencies associated with the public goods problem of information."

Motivation is also tied to the new cultural approach that has emmerged with peer-collaboration: the decision-making process got decentralized, for instance, what makes individuals free to create and to identify the tasks that they would like to perform. Is there a better thing than not having a boss or a supervisor (who might ultimately know less than you?). In my opinion, this factor is the most attractive one. Also, since you become part of a community, you are instigated to create more and more. Peer-review works in this process works as a means to reach relevance and accreditation. "Pleasure of creation" can be another factor tied to motivation, but this one alone may not be the reality of the majority of the participants. This is hard to believe, since I know that some collaborative projects also attract many young people in the academy who are willing to gain experience which is difficult to reach in more traditional settings. This is vey good, really. Free software production is a good example.
Motivation, however, can suffer "threats". The author points some circumstances in whice the threats can occur: failure of integration and unilateral appropriation. The worst case of unilateral appropriation may be when one makes private monetary profit with the work that has been collaboratively developed. Another scenario is when someone's contribution is not integrated properly into the whole project, changing its quality.
Identification and proper allocation of human creativity are the strong features of large-scalle collaborative systems. I think that it takes more than a business and management analysis to fully understand the growth of this phenomenon.