Comments on: Open Education versus Open Educational Resources

By: jimmiller5417

jimmiller5417 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:34:40 +0000

Both the technology platforms and the intellectual property rights represented by the the open educational and knowledge projects, create a direct challenge to the current form of formal industrial educational factories (cabbage heads in, coleslaw out). Universities hire Ph.D.'s for their deep knowledge on a given point and then force students to take the Prof's course to "earn" a degree, qualify for Federal student aid, and get a career going. The student is not given much of a choice of courses or even the order in which the courses are taken. The elearning projects give the student meaningful choices.

My second educational career (ag engineering) focused not only on the required ag engineering courses, but also on electives, including independent study. It was the independent study course which really were of most value, even taken from professors who had little background in the study fields and really did not care what I turned in, as long as it had plenty of citations in exactly the right format. The real value to me for the independent study courses came from the extensive access to traditional academic papers via the university library and to the science papers and discussions I could find using Google and Webcrawler. Also, my university has a very substantial and excellent IT system.

The eBook projects are extremely useful. Even more useful will be the virtual universities and learning centers exemplified by Wikiversity. My deepest thanks to Google Books for its commitment to community education.

Jim Miller
jimmiller5417@yahoo.com

By: Twitter Trackbacks for Open Education versus Open Educational Resources | TechTicker [techticker.net] on Topsy.com

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 11:57:28 +0000

[...] Open Education versus Open Educational Resources | TechTicker techticker.net/2009/08/17/opened-vs-oer – view page – cached In light of the recent Open Education Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the fact I am delivering a short presentation on the topic shortly, I want — From the page [...]

By: Twitted by tonnet

Twitted by tonnet — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:59:39 +0000

[...] This post was Twitted by tonnet [...]

By: Tension Between Open Education and OER «

Tension Between Open Education and OER « — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:18:49 +0000

[...] 19, 2009 · Leave a Comment Mike Bogle has a new post on discussions about open education and OER at Open Education Conference 2009. Bogle suggests that [...]

By: Mike Bogle

Mike Bogle — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:13:16 +0000

Sorry about the login requirement – I was gettnghammered by spammers for a while and thought it might provide a deterrent.

I certainly don't want it driving away or otherwise obstructing discusson though so as soon as I get home I'll make login optional again.

By: jimgroom

jimgroom — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:26:58 +0000

PS FWIW I hate that I had to signup to Disqus to comment.

By: jimgroom

jimgroom — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:24:24 +0000

I couldn't agree with your take on the different different approaches more, and you really nail it in terms of the subtle, yet intangible, distinctions that need to be drawn. Two years ago when I was at OpenEd 07 David Wiley suggested that content was infrastructure, and that compiling more and more gave us an amazing mount of resources for the world. I think the fact is that people are the infrastructure, we make OpenEd vital, alive, and relevant—and the networks through which we work are the infrastructure to connect us—content is the ever changing byproducts of these connections.
Or, as you say so beautifully:
“Open education is a mind-set; it’s a way of working. You don’t produce openness, you are open.”