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)?