Open Educational Resources

What is OER?  So the first time I saw this in our discussions for my graduates course I automatically thought about work since we use OER often but to stand for Officer Evaluation Report, which I hate to write but required for officer promotions. So the use of OER was first introduced to me in graduates school and ti stands for Open Education Resources.  According to JISC, OER are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student or self-learner.  This subject became very important in the development of our blogs and some of our assignments for the course.  I was amazed in the number of OER materials that was actually out there and found that really people were eager to share information for free, as long as people didn't abuse it for profit.  So how do you know if something is an OER or not?  Nicole Comforto in her article, The Teacher’s Guide To Open Educational Resources, points out one of the best places to turn to is to look for a Creative Commons (CC) license.  Each license is not same and it is important to look how the author has ok'd the use.  You can also look at the permissions section on the websites to get more information on what they have agreed to the use of the material.  

Last semester we worked with various tools to create some items.  One of those items was an eBook, in which I created one based on my daughters list of Endangered Species she likes to read about and her teacher started to use it in the classroom.  My plan is to expand this book and in checking out OER resources in order to make this book available beyond my daughters class and for every little naturalist out there. 

Week 4 - Wrap up

So this week we took a look at a few more web 2.0 tools, Google Maps, Webquest, Fakebook and Edmodo.  Had used Google Maps to create my own maps before but I was introduced to the Google Map game where you pin a location based on a question, called Smart Pins. This game was a little addicting and my daughter and I played it for to long. Webquest had 1,000s of different subjects to chose from and I allowed my daughter to pick a subject to explore and we ended up doing some nature exploring based on the teachers directions in the webquest. I did explore Fakebook and as some of my classmates pointed out the ability to take a character from history or even a book and develop a Fakebook page to conduct a book report is taking something old and making it new.  This combines our social networking with our education system.  I love the idea and hope that teachers are using it to change up the old book reports we all use to do in school.  I spent a lot of time with Edmondo this week and trying to compare it to Symbaloo.  I wonder if I am missing something because Edmondo has numerous more features and can become very interactive with a class.  I wish that Edmondo would allow you to set your groups to public or private to allow it to be more open if you wanted an open class to attract more people.  Where I feel like Symbaloo is a great way to create a webmix of shortcuts that are focused on a specific subject and share that webmix there is really limited interaction from there.  I do have it set as my home page and have links set up for my grad school and another webmix set up for some hobbies. 

eLearning Modules Are Dead... They Just Don't Know It.

Arun Pradhan has marked eLearning modules as dead in his article "eLearning Modules Are Dead... They Just Don't Know It".  Do you think that eLearning is on its way out or do you think there will always be a place for it?

One thing that Arun pointed out is that when he is looking at something that he needs he tends to turn to google or a friend.  I have fond that I do the same for everything from working with various programs to issues around the house.  The other day I was getting my oil change and they called letting me know that I need to have my filters changed and wanted to charge me $90 for parts and labor.  I told my wife that I can order online for $40 and do it myself.  She asked if I knew how to do it and I brought up a YouTube video and told her sure I do here is a video.  I have used YouTube for many how to projects around the house and for hobbies.

At work, we have eLearning training for various programs to include Microsoft Office and internal programs that we have developed.  In most cases, I agree with Arrun people do not turn back to their eLearning often to figure out any issues that they might face.  Since we know that people will continue to seek it out somewhere we have begun to develop how to quick reference sheets (QRS)  that people can pull down to answer some common issues they face in the work place with the programs that we use.  Instead of our IT folks having to connect to each person computer they are able to provide a how to QRS to assist the employees with their issues.  In a recent project we looked at a couple of positions in order to do a job task analysis and was able to determine that the biggest need was the develop of job aids to help the employees with their tasks.  We found that even if we developed formal or eLearning training that it would not be as useful since some of the tasks they accomplish have a great time length between when they would get the training and when they will need it.

Even though I do not think it is completely dead, I can see his point on how things have changed and we are changing to meet those new needs and trends. 

Connection in a Social Age

Image from https://essaybox.org/

This is really to follow up with my last blog and the use of web 2.0 in the classroom but what about the teachers themselves?  How are they using the web 2.0 to develop their skills and programs used in the classroom?  In 2012 the Primary Source Survey by Scholastic and the Gates Foundation found that teachers only spent 4% a day collaborating and 44% would like to see if increased. Amanda Roman in her article, How to Connect with Other Teachers in the Social Age, takes a look at the different types of tools that educators can use to connect with one another. Amanda introduces us to five platforms that can be used to connect these educators.  This includes Staffirm (mostly UK), Google+, podcasts, and Linkedin.  She admits that educators have a lot on their plate and it makes it hard to juggle the different requirements and needs pulling at them every day but I think it is still like dating when married, some times you have to plan it in and just make it happen, even if its not the perfect time or tasks are knocking at your door.  If you do not plan it in, it will never happen because there are already so many things that we try to do in a day that just cannot be done.

This also brings up the question of identity.  You just have to do a quick search of the headlines and see the cases of educators being fired or discipline for something they said on a social platform or pictures they posted.  So how do educators get around this issue when they are trying to connect in a social world, do they really have the freedom?  I can see these restrictions placed on them restraining their ability to connect and freely speak.  As our class had discussed in past discussions, should they post anonymous or under a pseudonym, so that there ability to speak freely is there or should they hold back the things they say?

Web 2.0 Practice in the School

All of my experience has been in the work force and training adults.  When my daughter entered school we, as parents, were heavily involved in the school.  As I started my Masters degree in Instructional Systems and Learning Technology I tried to aim my assignments, projects and papers towards either my work that I was involved in or with my daughters school so that I could implement the work right away.  Technology is growing and I wonder how teachers balance their work load and the introduction of technology into their classroom. In the article by Charles Cook, The ‘digital native’ in context: tensions associated with importing Web 2.0 practices into the school setting, Mr. Cook looks at 53 mixed gender focus groups from age 13 to 15 in the UK.  Many of the findings were ones that I expected to see, for example the tension of blocks that are placed on the schools web 2.0 to prevent learners from going to certain restricted sites.  What I did not think about was the separation from in-school web 2.0 use to out-of school web 2.0 use.  I guess I never thought it as two separate types of cultures and that the use of web 2.0 would differ so much but as the article pointed out if neither the learner or teacher fully embraces web 2.0 in the classroom the learner will follow the culture that they are comfortable with, out-of school.  In the article, many of the learners admit some of the same concerns that educators have with the abuse of the system in the in-school web 2.0 use but at the same time there is a contradiction when conducting school work and a site is blocked and the teacher tells them to just look it up at home then.  My daughter is still young where I do not think that this same type of concerns have crept up on her yet but I wonder for those that are educators in the middle to high school do you see these same conflicts of two different cultures coming to head and how do you deal with it and balance the use of web 2.0 in the classroom?

Exploring

I spent a lot of time exploring this week with various web 2.0 tools for my knowledge sharing assignment.  After creating my items for the knowledge sharing I posted on Pinterest, Diigo, scope.it, Slideshare and tweet about it all.  I liked the ability to pin easily with Pinterest but found it hard to share my information with other people unless they were following me.  I didn't like the idea thata I had to follow various topics as when I first open Pinterest I do not like to see a full clutter of suggested things.  What made it worst is that I chose fishing as one of my topics and every 5th suggestion seems to be a bikini clad girl with a fish.  I quickly stopped following that topic as I do not want my wife and daughter thinking I am pinning those type of items.  There might be a way to stop hide that specific suggestion but I have yet to find it.

I found Diigo a little hard to create a group and just share it with the public as you have to subscribe to more then just the free user plan. You are able to invite others but my goal with my board was to share it with all that might be interested. I can see how this would be great when working in small groups and you are able to invite them.  On the Scoop.it site I ran into similar issues as many of the extra functions required me to pay for it.  I had a lot of people that were interested in my material message me asking if they had to join to see it rather then try it out they prefer to skip it.  I found that slideshare gave the best all around analysis data and ease of sharing. More to come when I start to wrap my assignment up but in less then 24 hours I have had 1,045 viewers and over 20 different countries. Tracking this has been exciting to me and I have received a lot of emails  and messages through social media with questions or comments.  Check out my original blog post to get the links and check it out.

Flounder Gigging

I have been trying various applications and tools to figure out how to share my information and items posted for my graduates course project. I chose the topic of flounder gigging based on my interests and some work that I was developing for others.  The first item is a step-by-step module on how to build your own wading flounder gigging light.  I have chosen to use slide share in combination with scoop.it to get the word out.  I will also post various links in other applications that have public access in order to hopefully share the information and get interaction from others.  For the purpose of this project I will post the various items links as a response to this blog.  So far playing with the different options I found tools like diigo had to many limitations for the free users or like scoop.it I could not create a public group with my free access.