505 Initial Reflections into OER
Coming into this class, my only understanding of open education resources was from my brief experience in 502 where we discussed creative commons and looked at the impact for the future of education. I remember thinking at the time that we had barely scratched the surface, so to review, I started by reading the definition of an OER. https://goo.gl/k5IuSN The first thing that caught my attention was that there are different definitions for what an OER actually is. Although I had a general idea, I was surprised at the variety of resources covered. The definition by William and Flora Hewlett states that “it includes full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge". To prepare for class, I watched the listed videos and read a few of the readings. At the time, one of my takeaways was the idea that all great artists build on the work of other people. Lawrence Lessig’s message that many of our youth today find their voice in remixing and recreating digital content struck home. I often watch my daughter create videos and remixes of what she feels is important in her life, most likely not giving a lot of thought to copyright. Is she breaking the law? I agree we need to find a balance between copyright and copyleft. I had not given thought to ownership of work until our synchronous class, when Alec mentioned controversy surrounding teachers-pay-teachers. As a resource I often use to find ideas or spring-board my own, it hit home. I find the opinions about what property is and is not really interesting. Are the ideas created by these teacher’s original work or are they created from other people’s ideas and remixed? Why do we expect people to recreate the wheel when we can expand and improve from it? The idea of teachers sharing resources led me to an interesting video, Sharing: The Moral Imperative by Dean Shareski. Shareski supported my idea disclosing that nothing he had created was completely original. We need to be embracing a culture of sharing where we can use, critique and remix other people’s work. Based on David Wiley’s idea that it is the obligation of our institutions to teach within our buildings and beyond, I agree with Shareski’s quote that “teaching is sharing and if there is no sharing, there is no education”. David Wiley, in his article iterating toward openness, explains the most important point of open education resources is the support in student learning. I have had similar experiences to Stefanie, trying to teach from outdated textbooks in all areas of the curriculum. Wiley cites studies and reviews showing the effectiveness of using OER’s in place of regular textbooks as either the same or better. He also highlights the fact that high prices do not equate to high quality, although this may seem counterintuitive. I would recommend a quick scan of his article if you are interested, which was written in response to Op-ed: If Open Education is the Answer, What is the Question? I am left after my first post with many more questions than I have answers for and I look forward to this fascinating journey through OER.
Stefanie Crema
5/12/2016 10:08:43 am
Lindsey, I really related to the part of your post that spoke about how many of teacher's ideas are really original. Teaching really is one of those professions where sharing is such a large part of the process and something that I have never really given a lot of thought to. When I really think about it, the amount of 'original' ideas that I use in my class is few and far between. Most of the materials, lessons and units that I use have come from an idea or shared resource at some point in time. Most commonly I build upon it or change it to fit my needs, but I can't take much credit for the original idea. I too have used Teachers Pay Teachers without giving a second thought to ownership of the materials. If I were to use only my original resources and ideas, I'm not sure how exciting my classes would be, and what an overwhelming amount of work that would be too! Comments are closed.
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AuthorK-7 Coordinator in SD68. Archives
January 2017
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