The Reflection of the Week:
In this week, we talked about Open Educational Resources (OER). Actually, I liked my article a lot, which provided important points on OER in European countries. It seems to me that OER in US is better than in Europa. Various cultures and languages in Europa are some obstacle to the improving and spread of OER because there are limited educational tools available in different languages and cultures.
OER creates free open software and development tools, course content, standards and licensing tools. OER is beneficial to both institutions and students and teachers. If we look at OER from the perspective of institutions, OER offers long term conceptual framework, enrich the pool of resources, save money by reusing resources. Also, OER promotes digital competence, which increases the ability of search, collect, and process; ability of use appropriate aids; ability of access and search a website and to use internet-based services. OER can be enhanced by promoting sharing and reusing resources and establishing rewards in institutions.
For teachers and students, OER saves time and effort by using resources, provides various subjects and topics, and promotes user-centered learning in education. Teachers should let their students use new tools and services. In addition, students and teacher should be aware of the license agreement that tells you how to use resources.
Reference: Geser, Guntram (ed.). (2007, January). Open Educational Practices and Resources: OLCOS Roadmap 2012
The Example of the Week:
The Global Text Project was created at the University of Georgia in 2004 to create electronic textbooks that will be freely available from a website. The main goal of this project is to make textbooks available for those who cannot afford them. More information: http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/home
The Quote of the Week:
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”- Nelson Mandela. OER has been growing for a decade and I think it will make easier to reach a broader of subjects of topics. So OER can be an important part in the education of future.
The Picture of the Week:
Maybe in the future, all educational resources will be reached by the mouse of your computer. OER will be so close to you as much as the mouse of your computer close to you.
(http://www.cvcc-cccv.ca/open-educational-resources)
Hello Cesur,
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting when you compare how OER is growing all around the world. You got me to think about Arabic OER as well. I agree with you. The lack of proper tools to create, manage, store, and locate OER in other places than the US is a big challenge. Also, I don't think educational organizations and institutions, in Kuwait at least, are as much involved with OER movement as educational institutions in the US. Most Arabic OER seems to be developed by either individuals or small group of people.
The topic of OER is my favorite topic in our class. I really see the potential benefits for sharing educational resources to make to whole world open for education and learning.