In general, I have been an OER skeptic—not because I think OER is unimportant, but because getting the sustainability model right is really hard. But there is one notable exception to my gloomy outlook; one bright spot that I believe really will transform education. That’s Washington State’s Open Course Library project, under the leadership of […]
Open Educational Resources
Great OER Presentation in Eastern Mass Next Week
My good friends and fellow SUNY escapees Steven Zucker and Beth Harris will be giving a talk about their amazing art history open educational resources website smARThistory on Friday, October 1st at UMassOnline. There are several reasons why this talk is worth attending. First, smARThistory is simply one of the best OER collections I know […]
New LMS Entrant: NIXTY
You may have already heard a bit about NIXTY, since they have managed to make a significant media splash in the last few weeks. There have been a number of interesting analyses, both pro and con. I’d like to highlight a few aspects that haven’t gotten much coverage. For starters, here’s a screencast that NIXTY […]
Why OER Advocates Should Be Happy About the iPad
I got some comments on my Blackboard iPad post specifically regarding the push toward native—and therefore proprietary—apps and away from standards-based web apps. This concern is just one example of a constellation of complaints about how Apple is too closed. I understand those complaints and am not going to argue with them here. But whether […]
Thoughts On Anya Kamenetz and the Open Education Movement
Many thanks to Cable Green for linking to this interview with Anya Kamenetz: Kamenetz’s recent article in Inside Higher Ed has also been getting a lot of attention, as has her blog, as she promotes her new book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education. I have my copy on order […]
ITOE: Comparing Two OpenCourseWare Styles
It’s week three, and the course continues to elide the distinction between open education and open educational resources. That’s a shame because there’s a real opportunity to explore the differences in goals in the current assignment: Carefully review five (5) random courses from MIT OCW (http://ocw.mit.edu/) and five (5) random courses from CMU OLI (http://www.cmu.edu/oli/). […]
ITOE: Motivations for Open Education
Well, it’s only the second week of class, and I’m already turning an assignment in late. (It was due yesterday.) I can’t even argue (plausibly, anyway) that the dog ate my blog post. So much for iron self-discipline. At any rate, here is this week’s assignment: Carefully review at least 20 pages describing motivations for […]