Author Archives: Jennifer Maddrell

MOOC: Massive Open Online Course

Posted on July 30, 2008 | 27 Comments

There has been a lot of buzz about the free and open Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course to be facilitated by George Siemens and Stephen Downes in September. To date, over 1,200 people have signed up for the course prompting a new label, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), to describe this super-sized open education course. Over the weekend, George and Stephen joined the folks at EdTechTalk.com to discuss the design and facilitation of such a mega-course. Linked here is the recording of George and Stephen on EdTechTalk.com #81.

George summarizes some of his thoughts following the EdTechTalk.com conversation within a new blog documenting the development and delivery of this unique open education course. He reflects,

As a group, we all share in the success (and failure) of MOOCs …We have to walk a line between innovating teaching and learning while still keeping things at a level that permits the ideas we’re presenting to translate into the realities of educators and administrators … While Stephen and I are facilitating this course, I think it’s critical that the larger community identifies with it and takes ownership of it. Our course isn’t happening in a vacuum – we’re building on our own previous work and the work of others. And once our course is done here, others will hopefully learn from our experience and build on it. Spiralling innovation. But I’m hoping we won’t only see people building on our work. I hope we’ll see others building with us … Research opportunities are enormous. MOOCs are uncharted, largely undocumented, territory. This course will produce a significant amount of data – both quantitative and qualitative.

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OER Research Network

Posted on July 28, 2008 | Leave a comment

Cathy Casserly links us to the wiki proposal for the Open Participatory Learning Research Network (OPRN), a proposed global network of open educational resource (OER) producers and users. The Open University and Carnegie Mellon University began this proposal to foster research in the design and use of OERs.

The OPLRN aims to be a global network of OER producers and users as participatory researchers who share designs, methodologies and evidence for evaluating the effectiveness of OERs in increasing and equitably distributing knowledge.

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Open Training Platform

Posted on July 21, 2008 | Leave a comment

The Open Training Platform hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) offers free access to an online collaborative space and openly licensed resources targeted to local community development. The online platform is designed to be a central access point for both trainers and self-learners.

Open Training Platform

As of today, the platform includes 1,885 registered members and 2,464 training resources in 294 categories. The scope of the platform covers:

… all fields of development including education (including teacher training), natural sciences, civil societies, culture, legal issues, computer training, media and communication, information management, community empowerment, entrepreneurship, literacy, languages, health and sanitation, agriculture, gender issues, sustainable development, microfinance, and HIV/AIDS.

Depending upon licensing, materials can be adapted to include local examples or changed to match the local audience or context. A guide on the platform provides recommendations on how to adapt the materials, as well as a host of outside resources. In addition, a link to itrainonline.org offers free resources to support the use of the training materials using the latest information and communication technologies.

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IRRODL Call for Proposals

Posted on July 19, 2008 | Leave a comment

The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL) has released a call for proposals for a theme issue entitled “Trends and Issues in Open and Distance Learning in Africa” co-edited by Dr. Rashid Aderinoye and Dr. Richard Siaciwena. The IRRODL is a refereed and open access online journal “that aims to disseminate research, theory, and best practice in open and distance learning worldwide.” The publication target date for this special issue is December 2009 with the initial proposal outline due by October 1, 2008.

… this Regional Theme issue of IRRODL aims to describe and analyze current trends and issues in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in Africa. It will seek to detail the actual and potential contribution of ODL to social and economic development in Africa, and it will do so by revealing the challenges and obstacles to ODL’s optimal effectiveness, efficiency, quality assurance.

Proposals are requested from a range of topics, including:

  • Models of ODL
  • Widening access to education through ODL
  • Teacher education
  • ODL for national development
  • Issues in the management of ODL

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Open Education at OSCON 2008

Posted on July 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

The O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) kicks off next week [July 21-25, 2008] in Portland, Oregon (USA) and includes a panel discussion on open education. As part of the “emerging topics” sessions, the discussion will focus on how open source principles can be applied to education. Panelists include:

Cliff Schmidt (Literacy Bridge), Danese Cooper (Open Source Initiative and Intel Corporation), Mark R. Shuttleworth (Canonical Ltd.), Derek Keats (The University of the Western Cape), Bobbi Kurshan (Curriki), David Wiley (Brigham Young University / Open High School of Utah), Brian Behlendorf

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Event: Open Education Seminar in Brisbane

Posted on July 16, 2008 | Leave a comment

What is Open Education and what does it mean for the future of learning? What role can Australia play? These and other questions will be addressed during a free open education session prior to the Open Access and Research (OAR) Conference 2008. The open education seminar is hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellance for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) and the The Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law Project of Queensland University of Technology and will be held on September 23, 2008 at the Gardens Points Campus in Brisbane Australia.

The session convenor is Professor Brian Fitzgerald of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) with special guest Melissa Hagemann of the Open Society Institute and Soros Foundation Network. Discussion leaders include:

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Free Knowledge, Free Technology Conference

Posted on July 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

The Free Knowledge, Free Technology (FKFT) 2008 conference is underway in Barcelona, Spain. Hosted by the Science, Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF) Consortium and the Free Knowledge Institute, the conference will focus on the production and sharing of educational and training materials on free software and open standards. The agenda runs in three tracks, including free knowledge and technologies in 1) society, 2) public bodies, and 3) education. The education track includes a Future of Education keynote by Stephen Downes.

As noted on the conference website,

FKFT 2008 Conference will bring together hundreds of people from different continents including government representatives, school and university teachers, IT companies, publishers, and NGO’s. By gathering together people from all these groups, we aim to stimulate both present and future collaboration between diverse disciplines, sectors and countries, through the medium of free software programs and the sharing of successful experiences related to free software and free technologies.

As highlighted within education section of the Free Knowledge Institute’s website,

The emerging open education movement combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative culture of the Internet and free software communities. It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint. Educators, learners and others who share this belief are gathering together as part of a worldwide effort to make education both more accessible and more effective.

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Open Educational Context?

Posted on July 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

Harold Jarche adds an intriguing educational content twist to Umair Haque’s post and paper on user generated context. Haque argues the positive value to content publishers from the context created by users (complementors) of the original works. Haque suggests that the greater the user generated context surrounding the work, the greater the demand for the work.

For content players and publishers, user generated context means that connected consumers aren’t their competitors – but are vital, essential complementors, who create very real value for them. The more context there is, the greater demand for their content is likely to be. That means that it’s vital for content players to explode the amount of context connected consumers create about them.

Jarche suggests a similar opportunity for educational content producers when the learning content is “hackable” by teachers and learners:

Creating good content on a platform that lets users (teachers & learners) add context may be the real killer application in education. Content developers and institutions have been so concerned with protecting their content that they don’t see where the real value lies. Letting others add more context will only increase the value of their content.

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Simple side of openness

Posted on July 11, 2008 | Leave a comment

In a post from a couple weeks back, Brian Lamb reminds us of the simple side of openness. With openly published content and a custom search engine, you are well on your way to the simplest form of open sharing. As Brian notes,

The technology cost is negligible … What is required (in addition to Google’s scary hegemonic presence providing a powerful platform) is openness. The resources need to be indexed on the open web, and when people do cool stuff and then blog about it, others can take the work to unexpected places.

Brian links to Tony Hirst’s OER custom search which we mentioned previously and notes the similarly simple OER Dynamic Search Engine started by Scott Leslie. Within Scott’s OER Dynamic Search Engine wiki, search for content in the existing listed sites on the wiki or contribute a new link to the list by following these deliciously simple steps.

Got a new site? Log in as username: edtechpost_guest (same password) and add it to the list. Simple, eh?

Simple side of openness … indeed!

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Terry Anderson at ACDE Conference

Posted on July 10, 2008 | Leave a comment

Terry Anderson, professor in the Centre for Distance Education at Athabasca – Canada’s Open University, shares in his blog today links to the slides (see below) and the paper he wrote for this morning’s keynote at the 2nd Conference of the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) held in Lagos Nigeria and hosted by the National Open University of Nigeria. Terry addresses an array of issues surrounding inclusive education ranging from the right to education to specific educational models. Terry notes,

This talk has forced me out of my comfort zone, as I’ve had to do more thinking about contexts without a pervasive Net … I also noticed considerable interest in Open Educational Resources and was very encouraged by the work of oerafrica.org and peoples-uni.org in introducing and supporting the produsage of shared resources in Africa.

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