7ED021 week 5 Curriculum – content design, models and principles and the (political) rise of OERs

Structure of today’s session Review last week’s learning and discuss the blogging experiences Undertake curriculum planning activities (II) Explore, discuss and critique curriculum design and delivery choices in relation to the wider reading/previous experience Self nominate for blogging activities this week Peer sharing - Martin.

Warm up activity in small groups – you will need access to a mobile device in your group Go to: Work your way through the activity considering design choices and learning and teaching assumptions. You have 15 minutes.

(R)L0s to OERs Terminology? What do you know already?

The Learning Objects model of learning This model of learning is based upon the notion of the ‘learning object’ as ‘any digital resource that can be reused for to support learning’ (Wiley 2000). However learning objects have come to mean many things to many people (Polsani 2003). Essentially the model has emerged from the potential of reusing learning materials and has been adopted as part of the development of standards for learning technology. Consequently the model is rather more instructional and technological, to the extent that learning objects (LOs) have been described as ‘an instructional technology’ rather than a model or approach to learning per se (Wiley 2000). Furthermore the model is dependent upon the learning specifications and standards developed by the Learning Technology Standards Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers set up in They define LOs as ‘any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used, re-used or referenced during technology supported learning’ (IEEE LTSC definition cited in IMS Global Learning Consortium 2002, p.7). (Conole & Alevizou, 2010 p.3) (Conole & Alevizou, 2010 p.3)

(R)Learning objects and the rise of repositories 1990s – MERLOT – in your groups go to MERLOT and explore for 5 minutes – what’s changed?MERLOT Merlot’s definitiondefinition Group discussion 2000s – JORUM – in your groups go to JORUM, select find and browse through the resources for 10 minutes – what do you notice?JORUM Group discussion

OERs The term was coined at the 2002 UNESCO Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries as, “The open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes.” UNESCO believes that universal access to high quality education is key to the building of peace, sustainable social and economic development, and intercultural dialogue.

The shift to open The term Open Educational Resources (OER) emerged in the early 2000s; since then OERs have gained increased attention for their potential to obviate demographic, economic and cultural educational boundaries, through free access, redistribution and reuse. (Conole & Alevizou, 2010 p.71)(Conole & Alevizou, 2010 p.71) MIT OpenCourseWareOpenCourseWare Open University OpenLearnOpenLearn – in your groups go and find a course and browse for 5/10 minutes. What can we learn? Open – in whose interest? Ripple Project University of OxfordRipple Project University of Oxford

The Four Rs of OER for teaching and learning practices Reuse – Use the work verbatim, just exactly as you found it; Rework – Alter or transform the work so that it better meets your needs; Remix – Combine the (verbatim or altered work) with other works to better meet your needs; Redistribute – Share the verbatim work, the reworked work, or the remixed work with others. David Wiley, 2007 (cited in Lane 2011)Lane 2011

Support and guidance in the new landscape

Inhabiting the ‘open’ space Slideshare Scribd

Cautionary tales It wasn’t surprising to find that students were Googling for anything they could get their hands on but the extent to which academics are doing this as well was unexpected. They were solving a resourcing ‘problem’...but much activity was below the waterline (iceberg). Not a way to save time – finding online resources takes time. Barriers – how you discover things, hard to find good resources, can’t find them, need trusted sites, quality control – repositories have to be searchable by Google. TALL blog TALL blog (Oxford University)

Summing up This week’s blog posts Beetham – Stephen White et al. (2011) video on OER impact (JISC project) - ?OER impact Round robin review of this week – something I am taking away..... Task – think about my use of OERs on this module – how useful have they been? Practice share - Martin

References Conole, G. & Alevizou, P. (2010). A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education. HEA Academy, York, UK. Online: [accessed May 2011].