Open-Education

UPDATE: This is in response to Stephen’s comments on my last post. If I had a dime for every time I titled an entry like this… :) Stephen, it’s nice to have you back. This article seems to still take the point of view of republishers or educators. Yes, I am an educator, and this article is written from my perspective. In fact, I titled it *My Current View* on the CC-NC Licensing Option Controversy in OCWs. :) I’m not apologetic at all about this. I want to participate in the work of expanding educational opportunity, and I can only do it as an educator. That’s what I am. ...

Toru Iiyoshi recently made a great post about the main tenet of open education. Here are a few of my responses: ...

I know this reads more like stram of consciousness than something well organized. But I had to dump something out here… it’s getting cramped inside my brain. ...

A new blog on the block from COSL’s own John Dehlin. The blog follows open education news and hosts the Open Up! podcast, which so far has interviewed me, Steve Carson from MIT, and Stephen Downes. There will be several of us posting from time to time, so come check it out! - http://cosl.usu.edu/openup/ (thanks D’Arcy for reminding me to include the link!!!)

I pulled these paragraphs from my Commission testimony in the interest of time and not blurring my central message (higher education needs to stay in step with society). I submitted this recommendation to the Commission separately, and thought you might enjoy it. I would appreciate comments / thoughts: Affordability. Part of the rising cost of higher education for students is the ever-increasing cost of textbooks - textbooks can add as much as $1000 per year to the cost of college. The National Association of College Bookstores says prices of college textbooks have risen nearly 40 percent in the past five years. In a survey of textbooks by the California Student Public Interest Research Group, new editions of textbooks cost 58 percent more than previous versions, with an average cost of over $100 per book. (Crane, 2004; Pressler, 2004). The impact of these costs is especially severe on low-income students. According to the General Accounting Office, the costs of textbooks represents 26 percent of the cost of tuition and fees at public four year schools, and almost a full three quarters of the cost of tuition and fees at 2 year public schools where low-income students are more likely to enroll (Bershears, 2005). ...

A couple of quick links to folks covering the Commission meeting where I got to testify last week: http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/02/2006020601n.htm http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/02/06/commission I think they liked it! I hope there is a positive impact…

So the Commission meeting is over and my testimony is given. There were three speakers on the panel on “Innovative Teaching and Learning Strategies.” First was Tom Magnanti, Dean of Engineering at MIT. He spoke very clearly about the benefits of MIT OCW and the role of OCW in the future of education. He recommended the creation of a national OCW repository including materials from secondary / high school levels through graduate school. ...

Following up on Steven’s post Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources from a few days ago, here is my paper for the OECD meeting in Sweden next week. I had a length constraint of 2-3 pages, which fortunately Steven didn’t have. ...

One of the risks of writing things is that your readers will, whether through ill-will or simple misunderstanding, completely miss whatever message you’re trying to communicate. Such is the case with my RIP-ping on Learning Objects post. I must have read ten blog posts or emails now thanking me for putting the nail in the learning objects coffin. Are people even reading what I’m writing? Let me quote myself: There have been lots of articles around the blogosphere of late ringing the death bell for learning objects. It’s hard to tell if they’re right or not…. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about these declarations since they started appearing, and I’ve come to the somewhat troubling conclusion that I don’t think I care if learning objects are dead or not…. So whether learning objects are dead or not, I couldn’t say. And to some extent, who cares? ...

Next week I have the opportunity to present a few remarks to the US Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Since I had to submit my comments ahead of time, they’re actually done, and I thought I would share. I would greatly appreciate any thoughts you have, as I don’t actually talk to the Commission until next Friday. (UPDATE 06 Feb 06: I have included the new Introduction and Summary as delivered to the Commission.) ...