UNFED notes 25.08.09
WRISE
Pam Mort from UNSW Learning Centre demonstrated WRISE, an online resource to help students with report writing in Science and Engineering. Developed in association with The University of Sydney and supported by an ALTC grant, the resource is publicly available. It is being used by staff and students across several disciplines, and has been found to be very effective when use is embedded in learning activities. The resource uses a free utility called Question Tools for developing online activities (like Hot Potatoes only hotter?)
Hear the recording of Pam’s presentation. Anyone interested in finding out more, or contributing to the resource, should contact Pam.
Open education
Our Web 2.0 guru Mike Bogle demystified the concept of ‘open education’ with a presentation showing the history and some manifestations of the idea. The evolution of the concept from sharing online resources to a cultural ideology represented by connectivism and social networking was discussed. How does this fit with the prevailing (capitalist) paradigm? Who controls knowledge and learning in an open environment? Who benefits?
Mike’s slideshow can be viewed, and the session was recorded. He has also uploaded all his links to this Diigo list. See also Brian Lamb of UBC on Where is the open education movement going?
What else? just the inevitable discussion on the arcane and convoluted process that is LMS implementation – complete with wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Next meeting
Anyone involved in educational development/educational technology at UNSW is welcome, come and join us!
Suggested topics for our next meeting:
- Please let me know any topics that interest you right now.
- One idea I have is – Creative commons (how to make copyright your friend)
Date: Wednesday September 30 at lunchtime. Contact Belinda to suggest topics or to join the mailing list.
Secured by
Rather timely to come across this recent post by George Siemens – “Here we are…there we are going” – http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=151 which is well worth a read around OER critique. Also http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/Critiques+of+Open+Education+Resources
North America certainly bears a great deal of influence in the discussion (both the US and Canada alike) – no doubt about that.
That said there are some strong and/or growing presences coming out of other parts of the world too – such as Otago Polytechnic in NZ and the Open University in the UK (granted I don’t know much about the latter example).
Personally I’m hoping to increase the presence of Australian institutions and educators in the scheme of things. Certainly there is interest in openEd in this region – and we’re fortunate to know several passionate advocates – however at this stage openEd activities and discussion appear to be fairly scattered in pockets and on a smaller scale.
What I’m also unsure of is the extent to which OpenEd exists internationally. For example, to what degree does language affect the perceived locus of control. Perhaps there are open education movements elsewhere in the world, and we are just inclined to lean towards nations where English is the primary language?
For example, I’ve heard Jim Groom refer to open educators in South America (I believe it was Brazil), but I’m hard pressed to remember who they are.
Much of the background information I ran across on the history of OpenEd relates to activities originating out of North America, so certainly that region has contributed to the movement a great deal. Nonetheless I’d be very surprised if this trend was restricted to English speaking countries.
Another research project for the late night hours I think
Hey, thanks Mike. I have updated the slideshare link in the main post.
You know, what interests me in the open ed discussion is where the locus of control is and the cultural influence that implies – is ‘open’ really open? You’d have to say that North America has overwhelming ownership of the space right now.
Demystified eh? Boy I hope so. Then again anytime I try to explain something all bets are off that it’s going to make sense LOL
For those people interested in accessing the slides from the open education session, they are also available on SlideShare at:
http://www.slideshare.net/mbogle/open-education
Hopefully we can convince the UNFED’ers to start blogging so the discussions can continue long after the gathering comes to a close. What do you say people? Start blogging!