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.