The Next and Possibly Greatest Education Game Changer

There is an exciting movement that will truly be a game changer in education, and it is a movement towards openness. A key player in this movement is the OpenCourseWare Consortium, which brings together higher education institutions and organizations from around the globe in an effort to create educational resources that are free and open to all. Within this parent organization is the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER), which was established to support community college participation in the adoption of open educational resources. CCCOER started in California in 2007 under the auspices of Dr. Martha Kanter, U.S. Undersecretary of Education, and joined the OpenCourseWare Consortium in 2011. While the majority of the participating colleges are located in California, CCCOER has grown to 200 colleges in 12 states and 1 province.

So what is OER really? In a nutshell, Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under open licensing so teachers can use them for their courses without having to worry about copyright infringement. The other major benefit to OER is that they are free to access, so learners are not required to pay excessive fees to study and learn from these resources.

There are entire textbooks available for student and teacher use. The licenses vary, but the most flexible of licensing allows instructors to edit the texts to suit their course needs; they can elaborate, cut, move, and add to the content.

As a teacher, this sounds like a dream! We no longer have to create course materials from scratch. Our students will no longer need to spend exorbitant amounts on publisher packs, course cartridges, or student accounts that expire too soon. They can even save on textbooks, which have the potential to be better than what publishers produce since they can be revised and edited by the course instructor, and may have been revised by several other instructors over time.

As an instructional designer and Blackboard support team member at Harper College, instructors complain to me about their course cartridges. First, there is no consistency in the process for accessing publisher materials. But the part that really bothers them is that they have so much cleanup to do since cartridge uploads are all-or-nothing, and many of the resources included in course cartridges are mediocre at best.

I am hopeful that OER will not only help instructors provide higher quality educational experiences to their students, but will also democratize learning. The disparity of access to education will lessen if we can provide free high-quality educational materials to students and schools that otherwise couldn't afford such resources. Perhaps an appreciation for education and the role of educators will grow as more citizens are given access to quality learning materials.

Stay tuned for a blog about the CCCOER movement and a few highlights recent accomplishments. Hopefully, the ideas will inspire other colleges to take on the mission of promoting OER.

MOOCs and the Future of Education. Highlights from Stephen Downes' Keynote

As I mentioned yesterday, I am attending the Online Teaching Conference held at Long Beach City College. This report covers the keynote speech presented by Stephen Downes, specialist in online learning, new media, pedagogy and philosophy, and one of the two individuals who designed and instructed the first MOOC. Here are some of the highlights.

What is a MOOC?

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. While parts of this acronym seem self-explanatory, I like how Stephen Downes went deeper into the meaning of each term, since it really added clarity to its original mission and character. Stephen joked (though I think he was serious) that a student accused him of being a techno-socialist, and this is why:

M is for Massive. 

Massive does not imply the number of students enrolled, but rather the capacity to handle an extremely large number of students. The first MOOC was created with foresight; the infrastructure was designed to support massive numbers of students. Stephen emphasized that broadcasts are not MOOCs even though they are intended for massive audiences; a true MOOC involves interaction and engagement as opposed to one-way communication.

O is for Open.

When Stephen Downes explained "open" he offered a poignant definition: Open does not just mean that the course is available to the public. Rather, it is truly free. Anyone is able to attend at any time without registering, submitting credit card information, or purchasing supplies, subscriptions, or equipment. Course materials are open-source or open-licensed. Internet is needed, but in many communities, internet can be accessed for free from libraries. Language is also not a barrier; individuals can participate in their own language, and they do. Free tools like Google Translate could be used to help speakers of different languages communicate with one another.

O is for Online.

This one was self-explanatory.

C is for Course.

This was mostly self-explanatory, except for one key point; the course Stephen Downes described is one in which the core of the learning process takes place through the interaction between participants. This definition is in stark contrast to teacher-centered instructional styles such as lecturing, where an expert basically fills "empty vessels" with his or hew knowledge. In Stephen's MOOCs, students and instructor alike bring their experiences, creations, ideas, questions and observations together to enhance and deepen the learning experience for everyone. Stephen went on to explain how connectivism was the founding philosophy of the original MOOCs (which are now referred to as cMOOCs, to differentiate from xMOOCs, represented by Coursera and edX.)

What is Connectivism?

In a nutshell, the connectivist philosophy has four components:

Aggregation: 

Knowledge and information is aggregated by the students and instructor through research and creation, as opposed to traditional courses where material is developed ahead of time.

Remixing: 

Materials are reorganized through correlating and comparing with other materials found online and in the course.

Re-purposing: 

The aggregated and remixed materials are then re-purposed on an individual basis; students collect, reinterpret and re-purpose knowledge based on their individual goals.

Feeding Forward: 

Participants are encouraged to share their re-purposed materials, which are their personal conclusions and interpretations of the information researched, assembled and critically-studied during the course.

Concluding Thoughts.

Other, (arguably less altruistic) variations of MOOCs developed over the past few years, but Stephen Downes' variation is one that can change the future of education in a positive way. Along with Open Educational Resources (OER), MOOCs have the potential to democratize education and help break down the socioeconomic barriers that make it difficult for students from the lower socioeconomic strati to advance in their lives and careers. I also agree that in light of this paradigm shift, we need to rethink how we define "success" in education. Rather than having an across-the-board measure of success, perhaps we need to weigh against the goals of the individual students. Through diligent research, we may find general trends that can help administrators quantify success, while staying true to the students' objectives.