OER and Web 2.0 Teaching Part One
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Contents |
Introduction to these online resources
On these pages, you will find activities and resources based on ISKME's recent summer workshop given for the Stanford University School of Education's Teachers for a New Era Summer Institute.
Summer Institute
The Stanford TNE Summer Institute provided us with four sessions, each lasting two and a half hours. We spent the ten hours in a mix of kinds of activities. In fact, each day there was some demonstration, discussion and debate, and hands-on work time. Naturally, both of these topics are rich enough to warrant much more time. Both OER by itself and Web 2.0 in the classroom could become semester-long courses.
If the time was short, it remained important to preserve some of the hands-on production time, since that is fundamental to both the OER process and the world of Web 2.0. Moreover, this direct experience is also fundamental to a view of learning that goes beyond acquisition of facts.
Overview and Approach
The resources on these pages are designed to be self-paced, so that teachers can jump right in as they have time, and move forward at a pace that works for their schedule. We have tried to structure the activities so that later activities build on earlier ones. In fact, there is a bit of spiraling that occurs: you may encounter a topic or idea more than once, each time gaining additional understanding of its role and application.
This is not to say that you can't just pick the pieces that most interest you. Feel free to skim and sample, then dig in where you find the most promise or feel your biggest need for your own professional practice or personal interest.
Participation
We welcome participation from teachers, student teachers, professional development experts, and others. Anything on these pages is licensed under a Creative Commons license, so you can copy and reuse these ideas elsewhere. (If you don't understand Creative Commons licenses, no need to worry-- that's one of the things we're going to explain.)
You can also join in the conversation online by joining this wiki, and adding your information and ideas.
Activity:
- To join this wiki, click on the link at the very top of this page, where it says "Log in / create account."
- At the bottom of this page, you can post your name and school information under the heading "Participants"
- Feel free to add, but not subtract, resources to any page.
How do you know?
Before we take a look at any specific Web 2.0 tools, and before we even start talking about Open Educational Resources, we want to take time to think about what knowledge and understanding look like.
Harvard University's Project Zero has some online tools to help teachers think about, and think through, what understanding is in very practical, concrete terms. If understanding is simply rote memorization of facts, we can just look up expert definitions of these terms and be done with it. But to avoid jargon and misunderstanding, it helps to tease out the difference among knowledge, understanding, and skill.
Activity:
- Take a look at http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ALPS/tfu/info1b.cfm, and think about these questions:
- How does this site differentiate among knowledge, understanding, and skill?
- What do you make of their definition of understanding as "the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows"?
- On the page, http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ALPS/tfu/info1c.cfm, read through the text, and answer the question (Question 1: What do you understand really well?) at the bottom of the page.
- Continue by clicking next. You will encounter two more questions (How did you get or develop that understanding? and How do you know you understand ?). Work your way through these questions, taking time to compare your answers with what others have said.
- What did you find? What did you notice about the lists of the strategies for understanding? What are the implications for your teaching?
- What do notice about evidences for understanding? What are the implications for assessing students?
One implication in teaching of this approach to understanding is the idea that, both as a teacher and as a learner, it's okay to try things before they're perfect. On the initial page (http://learnweb.harvard.edu/ALPS/tfu/info1c.cfm), they talk about the spiral approach of
- Give it a try
- Expect Errors
- Have a think
- Adjust
That's the spirit in which these resources were developed-- one in which we are grateful for honest feedback from you about what works and what could be improved.
You will also find that approach in many open educational resources.
We encourage you to try it out in your own classrooms. No large-scale, high-stake revolutions, but small experiments and prototypes.
Intro to OER
What are "open educational resources?"
Open educational resources are simply teaching and learning resources that are freely available to use and adapt.
Activity:
For a quick introduction to OER, view the online presentation, "Why OER" at http://www.iskme.org/what-we-do/projects/why-oer/WhyOER_en.htm.
Questions:
- Have you ever found yourself in need of a quick lesson idea for an upcoming lesson?
- Have you every worried about whether you would be able to adapt or copy an existing lesson developed elsewhere?
- How does OER help to solve these problems?
Additional background on OER
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_content
Using OER Commons
As you saw in the online introduction (http://www.iskme.org/what-we-do/projects/why-oer/WhyOER_en.htm) OER Commons (http://www.oercommons.org) is a multi-faceted tool that helps teachers and others use and share open educational resources.
Getting Started
The first thing you should do is to log in to OER Commons. It only takes a moment to register. If you register, you will have the ability to use the advanced and personalized features of the site, like being able to rate and tag resources, and being able to save a portfolio of resources you find valuable.
You can [|register here], or else [log in] now.
Finding OER with OER Commons
The simplest place to start with it is to help you find relevant content – lesson plans, curricula, illustrations, simulations and so on.
There are several ways to find things in OER Commons:
- Basic searching on http://www.oercommons.org/
- Advanced searching http://www.oercommons.org/advanced_search not only gives you boolean searching, but also allows you to search by date submitted (so you can look for recent additions), or by subject area, grade level, or language.
- Browsing by category (such as grade level, subject, collection; these are defined by the resource's creator) or tag (defined by OER Commons users like yourself)
Activity: Follow this tutorial page to learn how to use OER Commons to find valuable content: Finding OER Materials You Can Start Using Now
Tagging and rating resources you find on OER Commons
Activity:
For a good introduction to tags and tagging, and an explanation on how and why to tag resources on OER Commons, follow the tutorial at http://wiki.oercommons.org/mediawiki/index.php/Tagging%2C_Rating%2C_and_Reviewing_OER_Materials
Creating your own saved portfolio
After using OER Commons for a little while, you will likely have a big collection of resources that you find helpful. How to manage these?
OER Commons automatically creates a portfolio for you when you register. This portfolio allows you to easily find items you have rated, reviewed, tagged, noted or submitted, as well as your saved searches. Rather than trying to trying to remember how you found each resource, this is an efficient way to organize your items and interactions.
Activity:
Follow the tutorial on using the "My OER Portfolio" features.
Submitting content to OER Commons
The power of OER is not just in opening up new sources of content. Rather, the power comes from a new kind of process, and new kinds of engagement all along the cycle of learning. All teachers adapt curricula and materials for any number of professional reasons- to meet the range of different abilities in the classroom, to localize content, to change the form of a lesson, and so on. Many times these adaptations and improvements are stuck in the minds and classrooms of their creators. OER allows a way for teachers to get their changes and creations to a wider audience.
Using the tools on the site, you can submit your own work, or recommend the inclusion of other open resources.
Activity:
Submitting Materials to OER Commons
Using OER Commons with your students
Activity:
Follow this tutorial to learn more about the student benefits of using OER: http://wiki.oercommons.org/mediawiki/index.php/Students_and_OER
Introducing the task
Participants
Activity:
Please add your name, title, and school information here. If you post your email address, please replace the @ sign with " at " so that spam robots won't harvest your address.
Extending your learning about OER
Other online courses about teaching with OER
Introduction to Open Education
Free and Open Online Educational Resources. Note also the course blog they kept at http://oercourse.wordpress.com
The legal side
public domain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
Examples of other repositories of OER
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Public Library of Science. Peer-reviewed academic journals.
OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare. The first of the OCW sites and inspiration of many of the others.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health OpenCourseWare. Also includes a good image library related to disease and public health.
Open Textbook projects
High School Science Texts Free High School Science Texts "aims to provide free science and math textbooks for Grades 10 to 12 science learners in South Africa.
More background about open textbooks here: What are Open Textbooks?
Next Steps
Please explore the next parts of the course:
OER and Web 2.0 Teaching Part Two
