OER’s, DL’s, Reuse and Culture
its about being a phd student researching digital resoures in a multicultural world.Archive for September, 2006
on open ed 2006
we just finished open ed 2006 here at utah state. it was a good 3 days for me, and i heard so much, and more importantly got to connect with a lot of really interesting people. unfortunately, because my brain is on such an overload from EVERYTHING that has to do with july 31st 2006 on, i don’t have anything eloquent to say about the 3 days, but i’ll do my best to write something of pertinance down here.
but first, let me share with you a picture:
yep. we took them on a hike. not too hard, i got to talk with a few very interesting people on the way up and back, and see a beaver dam, and see the sawmill that cut the wood for the logan mormon temple. good stuff.
so, back to the subject at hand. what did i garner from the experience?
- whoo hoo! we coslites aren’t the only freaks in the world saying ‘open it up, give it away!’ there’s actually a whole lot of us. i mean, i knew it, but it was nice to meet the people behind the blogs, wikis and ocws.
- we’re still very much at the beginning of this. i mean, i knew we were, but to listen to some of these presentations it became apparent how much we are still dealing with beginning of the movement issues. this what it must have been like at conferences about things like this whole ‘www’ thing, or later – online learning. still grappling. but thats okay, from my very new view, its just what the beginning of a movement looks like. though, it seems like we’re not at the very beginning, but more like nearing the end of the beginning stage. to see small colleges, non-profits, for-profits, for profit universities there means that this whole idea of mit and the rest of the ocw consortiuum is starting to have an affect.
- we need to start doing more research about all of this. we need data to back up our claims. we can’t simply rest on our laurels. as we move into the next stage of this movement detractors are going to want research data. what to research? well, for me its about localization. i think we also need to understand our different purposes and research our methods for moving forward with those goals.
- we need to remember the people, the users. it was nice to have that confirmed by rex allen from the church of the lds perpetual education fund. just like we need not forget all of us sitting behind blogs and wikis, we also need to remember our users who sit behind our ocws, wikis and blogs.
- what else? localization = good. but doing a detailed user analysis is something i need to do.
i think thats it that my addle-brain can come up with in this moment. to that end, what do i do next, what brilliant ideas did i come up with? oh goodness, good question. seriously.
- my project on localization is a good thing. its important and will lend something to our movement, and i’m excited about it.
- lets start creating a volunteer base here in the united states like they’ve got going, i think, at OOPS in china. i had someone tell me that they’d love to do outreach in connection with cosl, and they’d do it for free. when starting a grassroots movement, you’ve got to have volunteers. volunteers are some of the best advocates for what you are doing, because they love it so much they are willing to do this for free. they are passionate. wikipedia is a great example. lets here in the states follow in the footsteps of our chinese friends and start building that base.
- permaculture. i chatted with brian lamb briefly about his post on permaculture. my friends out at lost valley educational center are permaculture people. i’ve already thought about trying to ocw their ecovillage permaculture certificate program, and after taking a chance (seriously, i’m playing this ‘i’ve only been here for x weeks as long as possible, because i can still say stupid things and people will just put it to ’she’s just new, she’ll get smarter later.), and sharing with him my idea, i was very encouraged by his reaction (thanks brian!). i’ve already emailed my friend who runs the program about meeting with him when i’m in oregon next week for a week. i’m going to take a break, but i want to explore this idea while i’m there in person
thats it for now, but its my intention to listen to as much of the conference as possible on my ipod during my 26 hours going too and from oregon next week and the week after next. i hope i’ll come up with more ideas.
more on effectiveness of ocw.
as i’ve stated before, the good professor fellow says that you can’t study the effectiveness of open courseware. i’ve been thinking about it, and as i stated before i’ve been chatting about his comments with some of my fellow phd students, new and old.
we disagree with the good professor fellow. and he may be this brillant guy who coined the term ‘open content’ but as we all know, sometimes its good to put new brains on things.
so, i just got back from a bike ride. my first bike ride in 2 weeks – i had issues with old tires, flat tubes, and bad tubes. it wasn’t a long one, but it was good to clear my brain – a bit – and think about a lot of things – work related, life related, mother nature related (ever been to logan, utah? oh my goodness, how can you not think about mother nature related things on beautiful sunny days in logan, utah? you should come.. to the open ed conference next week, and you can see what i’m talking about).
the work related stuff had to do with the effectivness of open content, and this seemingly inability to study it. and after having a nice chat with my bike and mother nature, i came to the conclusion that maybe the good professor fellow is wrong, and that maybe we mere phd students are right.
how so?
what are the end goals of open courseware? i mean, whats the purpose of investing all this money into all this stuff? why is mit on board with it, notre dame, usu, tufts, johns hopkins? why are we doing this stuff?
and then beyond looking those who are delivering it, lets take it to a higher, more ideological, level. what is the purpose of education? why do we think that education should be a basic human right for everyone? what is the big deal? why do we even care about educating the masses? and please don’t tell me its only about people making money. i’m over that whole capitalistic thing, seriously. lets get a bit more ideological and more heartfelt with our arguments.
i think that we as humans want to learn. we need to learn. we have this drive deep in our souls to fill our brains, hearts, minds, souls, with more knowledge. knowledge has helped us become who we are, knowledge helps us become who we want to be. we are ingrained with a need to learn.
and then there’s the discussion about what is knowledge and what do we want to learn? well, i don’t think that knowledge is just what we get when we go to formalized educational institutions, or even when we sit in front of our computer screens and read news, or when we take classes from institutions beyond official ‘institutions of learning.’ no, i have this more wholistic point of view about learning, and knowledge. i think if we want, we can be learning in nearly every situation we’re in.
i’m still struck by this interaction i had the other day. i was at one of the many socials i seem to be going to, and i got, for a few minutes, to hang out with one of the cutest 15 month olds i’ve ever met. i mean, seriously, this is one cute kid. and i held his hands and we walked around and chatted with people. we walked over to his father, and when he realized thats who we were standing in front of he let out this great gasp of joy, his father let out the same gasp, and even i joined in on the moment. it was a pretty cool moment, and i got to be there.
now, how does that tie in? well, i’m on this whole learning kick. i love to learn. i love to learn from brilliant professors, i love to learn from my friends, i love to learn from young people, and most of all i love to find the learning in moments like the one i got to share with that cute kid and his dad. i am a life long learner (btw, what did i learn in that moment? its personal, but i got to have another lesson in something that i’m learning).
and that gets us back to open courseware and the effectiveness of it. whats the purpose of it all? what is the purpose of open courseware? and how can we study it? i think the purpose of education in all its great forms is to create life long learners. i think its to show people how fun it can be, even in the hardest moments. i think education is about giving people a tool so they can make their lives what they want it to be. and i know, thats all ideological and all, but while i love concrete measures of things, i’m also an ideolouge. i love living in my ideals and even more so, figuring out how i can give those ideals strong ground to stand on. i think that open courseware is one of those things — ideals that if we can look at the effectiveness of its goals, can have strong ground to stand on.
oh yeah.
Not directly related to my work here at USU, but related to my life. The Nuestro Lugar / Our Place Teen Center, a project of LEAD: Leadership Education Adventure Direction, just received a $5,000 grant from the Symantec foundation for the technology lab. I wrote the grant. Whoo hoo! I can’t wait to see Nuestro Lugar when I go home after finals.
effectiveness of ocw
i’m having a conversation with a friend of mine, a fellow 1st year phd student here at USU. we’re both curious about the effectiveness of ocw, because we both want to take it to the grassroots, to the people who can’t afford to get to higher education. those are the folks who could really benefit from it.
today i had a good conversation with the the good professor fellow and we chatted about this whole ’studying the effectiveness of open courseware’.. essientally he said that it really can’t be done. and further, if you go to no significant difference you’ll find study after study that talks about how its not about the medium through which you are learning, but how effective the design of the instruction is. so, don’t study the effectiveness of ocw, because its just a different medium.
makes sense. okay, thats nice to finally figure out after 2 weeks of banging my head against the wall. but i learned a lot, i think, during those 2 weeks and now its time to move on.
so, back to the conversation between me and cohort member. there is something different about open courseware, thats what we both think. just like online learning is different than face to face in a class learning. i use the analogy of different kinds of clay — simply because i like to take the abstract to the concrete. georgia red clay just dug from the earth is different than the stuff that crayola creates and calls clay, which is different than the stuff that potters out at the oregon country fair use to create their works of art. in some ways it is the same thing — all that clay — but in other ways it is difference. there is a difference between open courseware and e-learning with instructor support. it presents differently and the interaction with it is different. imho it is all instruction (yes, that too is up for debate, but i think it is instruction), but its just different.
so, back to my conversation. we’re bound and determined to look at this question. we’re bound and determined to find a difference and to measure it.. i can’t speak for her, but i can be rather bullheaded about things at times. so, we took the question of effectiveness and played with it, molded it just a bit. these are questions we came up with:
- are there teachers using open content?
- how to measure the outcomes of the learning that happens in open education?
- does using ocw help to build a grassroots movement?
- does using it encourage people to develop their own open content?
- does using ocw change teaching styles?
- is it possible to look at how ocw effects the teaching and learning process of students (and students loosely defined as anyone who learns) and teachers (defined as anyone who teaches either informally or formally, so, essientally anyone)?
- do people teach and learn differently based on their experiences with ocw?
- does ocw help to create life long learners, does ocw become a stepping stone for further learning?
localization is really instructionally sound?
i’ve been thinking a lot about localization lately. its one of the things i hope to study in the spring. but for me its not exactly localization, its more regionalization. i’m not thinking about things like culture as in a completely different culture than the american one, or language. for me its about how to take a piece of open courseware to a specific audience. i guess its more of a reuse (ah, no ‘reuse’ category at the good dr. wiley’s weblog, i’ll find a link later) issue, reusing a piece of ocw. anyhow, my point. i was talking to someone in the department today about being stuck on this concept of regionalization — what does it mean? and i think i started to understand — part of regionalization (and localization?) is making it instructionaly sound for the audience. and what happens with oer’s is that regionalization / localization happens at the local level – with the instructor being the one to make it instructionaly relevant to the user.
so, this is a challenge. how to make oer’s instructionally relevant at the development level? and then i guess there’s this whole point of, each of us is different, and what is meaningful to one person is not necessarily meaningful to another person. its difficult enough to deal with that in a class of 10 students, much less one of 30 (imho one of the problems of public schooling, but another issue for another day), much less the to any possible person in the whole of the internet. but maybe.. oh, thats another post for another day. think the long tail – making a lot relevant to a few people, rather than relevant to lots of people.
so, what does this mean? i’m not really sure what it means. it means that i’m now looking at another piece of this whole open content world. it means that i’m now understanding why we need to understand this whole reuse issue.
this is like an onion. so many layers, and i just keep peeling it back, seeing a new layer, and then a new way to see it. its facinating, absolutely facinating.
yep, its my first post.
i’m a phd student in instructional technology. yes, we keep blogs. oh yeah, thats what we do. and wikis and del.icio.us accounts and and and and and. and i should be more creative and start this over at my own domain (yes, i have one, have had one for a long time), actually, i should be more of a purist. but anyhow.
the question i’m stuck on today, that i’ve already written about one place, and i’m writing it here, cause this is my official phd weblog, i think is this: by taking a course on OCW and changing it – because that will make it more instructionally effective – can i say that i’m actually studying the effectiveness of OCW? does it have to be in its raw form? because the course in its raw form is NOT instructionally sound. instructionally sound online education is not what this is.. you don’t have pages and pages of scrolling.
now, i am taking it and doing with it what i’m supposed to be doing, but the thing is is that everyone knows that this particular piece of content changes lives, so i don’t need to study that. does it change the lives of young mothers? thats another field, not mine. i’m about the delivery system. thats what all those o’s are in my title.
I'm Brooke, a second year PhD student at Utah State University in Instructional Technology. My interests include digital resources, reuse and localization. Specifically I'm interested in the interplay between culture and reuse of oer's (open educational resources). How can we reuse instructional materials so that they are culturally relevant to users. What is culture? How do we define it in an educational setting? Is making something more culturally relevant more motivating and will that make it more instructionally effective? How can we quantify culture so that we can create processes to more easily adapt instructional resources for the complexities and depth of culture? It's a lifetime of work. 