EC&I 831 Week 10 – Open Education

*This post has been written as part of my journey as a Ph.D student through University of Regina.

Week 9 of this course did not include blog prompts.

Week 10 Blog Prompt

Using content/topics discussed in class this week, write a post around the topic of open education and the culture of sharing.

The following videos represent a selection of resources shared in class to help introduce the concept of open education resources (OER) and sharing within the field of education.

I feel fortunate to have been introduced to the concept of OER as part of my B.Ed degree via our Internet for Educators course (search the internet for ed or #I4Ed tags on the blog to learn more). One of the first places where it appears on this blog was in 2013, “More Than Just Bill Nye… Using Video in the Classroom” in which I conclude the post by sharing some of my favourite OER accounts. Since that time, I not only utilized OER as part of my tool kit in designing student lessons, but also as a learner through my participation in:

• #ETMOOC
• BLP MOOC
• Microsoft Educator Center
• Coursera

When I was in the classroom I was in a small school that had limited resources due to the small population size and distance from an urban center. This often meant that OER played an important role to help expand the resources available to my students including digital textbooks, content videos, guest speakers, and more.

As an avid blogger I think that my personal stance on sharing is evident but if it needs to be explicitly stated, I strongly believe in sharing my work publicly. I share via this blog to only document my thoughts and showcase development over time but I hope to:

• gain valuable feedback from those with more experience than myself
• provide value to those interested in the topics shared here

Open Education and Open Practices Resources

• Into the Open Podcast series
  • A 7-part podcast series by Dr. Verena Roberts and Nicole Neutzling 
• Technology & Blended Learning – Blended Learning Practice MOOC Week 3
  • The content covered in week 3 of this MOOC introduces OER and the role they can play in blended learning (Chapter 6)
• Exemplary Collection of Open eLearning Content Repositories
  • A wikieducator page summarizing various OER repositories