Comments on: Of OpenCourseWare and Lowriders

By: Cable Green

Cable Green — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:27:20 +0000

I’ll repeat my comment I made on the “Open Courses: Free, but Oh, So Costly” Chronicle article…

Sustainable investments need to be for local projects – for local reasons. That is, do what you were going to do anyway … just do it digitally, and then put CC BY licensing on it and share it with others. The global sharing piece doesn’t have to be expensive … post it in Connexions and do some quick blog, twitter and listserv advertising through your network – and, if the content is quality and useful, word will spread.

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:46:53 +0000

I’m sorry to hear that your OCW will be shutting down due to lack of funding. Although George doesn’t think 120K is significant, in this day and age, every bit counts. Just a side-note, what the heck created that cost? Couldn’t you simplify the format and posting and hosting so that it would be less costly?
What I find interesting is that you believe that educating faculty will make the difference “openness must become a core cultural value for each and every faculty member” Aside from the fact that faculty may believe that any additional work they do (over and above their regular teaching load) is worth compensation, many instructors are reluctant to allow others to control what they create.
Another potential barrier is how much the technology will get in the way. If we kept curriculum materials and information easy to upload and share (minimize startup learning and skills) it might encourage more faculty members to participate.

By: Jethro Jones

Jethro Jones — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:49:20 +0000

Darren, one of the hidden goals of what EBL (Evidence-Based Learning in our school district) is doing lends itself to this very well. They don’t talk about it explicitly much, but opening up teacher’s minds to the possibility of sharing things freely is what will really help students learn in the long-term. I think it is a huge part of what EBL is trying to accomplish (and hopefully, they will correct me if I am wrong)

EBL wants data to see how well students are learning. To you, that may sound like a lot of testing, but one of the end goals is having teachers who are good freely share their talents, abilities, lesson plans, expertise, etc., with those teachers that aren’t as good.

The real benefit to having EBL as a district-wide entity is that those beliefs will move us closer to being open than anything else we could do. As was mentioned, a cultural change needs to occur. I think EBL is our best bet for speeding that up. EBL doesn’t want to test the kids to death, they just want to surface the best teaching methods, lessons, assessments, and anything else that will help kids learn.

If we push for using Creative Commons on everything that we produce, we can leapfrog many other efforts toward openness. I think that it starts with making our professional development open (aren’t you interested in that a little?).

You are right, though, greed, envy and lust for power are great barriers to student learning.

By: Darren Draper

Darren Draper — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:20:20 +0000

“In order for open education to reach its varied potentials, openness must become a core cultural value for each and every faculty member.”

If this really is true, then I fear that the potential for an open educational environment in k12 is extremely limited. For as long as greed, envy, and lust for power exist among people, I see no way that EVERY faculty member in most institutions would ever fully embrace a culture of openess.

Sad, yes.

But how can the value of sharing be taught to those people that never learned it in Kindergarten?

By: Gavin Baker

Gavin Baker — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:52:20 +0000

Should we do nothing until we’re capable of doing it “right” in 2020, or are partial solutions (like OCW 1.0 and even OCW 2.0) better than nothing as we make that long journey?

To me, the answer is in the title of your blog: iterating toward openness.