Tag Archive: #h817open


OPEN EDUCATION: FIRST CLASS / FIRST VIDEO

Filed under: Humour — 5 Comments
May 3, 2013

“Where are all the other students?”

The brief for the final assignment of the Open Education MOOC run by the Open University (#h817open) was to reflect on the question of openness in education. Participants were asked to create a video covering one of the following elements:

  • What aspect of openness in education interests you most (and why)?
  • What the future direction of open education will be in your opinion, justifying your answer.
  • Your experience of studying an open course versus traditional, formal education.

My contribution (my first ever video creation!) was made with the help of Xtranormal.

It is a not too serious look at how students can feel isolated by the open online courses.

It doesn’t necessarily help to be one of thousands enrolled on a course if you can’t make any real connections with other learners.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comment

OPEN EDUCATION: HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?

Filed under: Music — 3 Comments
April 17, 2013

Exploring rhizomatic learning – activity 20 of the OU Open Education MOOC

Rhizomatic

Dave Cromier considers the nature of  joined up learning networks.

I used to live next door to a reclusive old lady whose neglected back garden was like a jungle. Once a year she would come out armed with a range of electric tools to blitz everything in sight but obviously it all just grew back again.

Leggy raspberry plants were the most pervasive and these would spread over into my garden. These had long passed the time when they bore fruit so they were just an eyesore with prickly stems.

This all goes to prove that everything in a garden isn’t always lovely and that even the most perfect seeming eco-system sometimes needs a helping hand.

This came to mind after watching Dave Cormier’s video, Embracing Uncertainty – Rhizomatic Learning in Formal Education (2012).

The American Heritage Dictionary define a rhizome – pronounced ‘rise-ohm’ – as “a horizontal, usually underground stem that often sends out roots and shoots from its nodes”.

Cormier likes the idea of things growing out of plain view which have no real start and no real end. His organic metaphor contrasts with the conventional idea of educational networks as something more clinical and organized with lots of clean lines, neatly connected. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS : ONLY CONNECT

Filed under: Blogging — 6 Comments
April 15, 2013

OPEN EDUCATION :  REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING NETWORKS

"I never teach my pupils: I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn" - Albert Einstein.
My Wordle for Personal Learning Networks

Wordle for Personal Learning Networks

One of the effects of the abundance of online learning resources is the trend of coming up with new terms to define what we mean by education and even to question what its purpose is.

There are still relics of the Dickensian notion that students are vessels to be filled facts but, thankfully, this is a pedagogy that by and large belongs to the past.

Yet, although we like to think we live in a more enlightened age, the rapid nature of the change over the past two decades continues to be hard to assimilate.

Openness implies accessibility and an accommodating attitude so, all things being equal, these should be good times for teachers and students, life-long or otherwise.

So why do I feel so much doubt and uncertainty? Shouldn’t my mood be more celebratory? Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

OPEN EDUCATION : PUNKS vs THE X-FACTOR

Filed under: Blogging — 12 Comments
April 14, 2013

LEARNER EXPERIENCE IN MOOCS

Coursera+DS106

This is my assignment for activity 14 of the Open University’s ‘Open Education (#h817open) course  in which I look at how MOOCS have been defined and  compare the Direct Storytelling courses (ds106) with those provided by Coursera.

DEFINING MOOCS

The MOOC acronym was coined in 2007 by David Cormier and Bryan Alexander to describe the University of Manitoba course ‘Connectivism and Connective Knowledge’. This attracted less than 3,000 students so was, by some degree, less massive than more recent online courses.

Some have argued that the monolithic nature of MOOCs now depersonalises them to the point that they can only pay lip service to the principle of ‘connectivity’ and makes the use of the adjective ‘open’  a bone of contention.

An example of the backlash can be found in Reclaim Open Learning, a network which prefers to talk in terms of “small pieces, loosely joined’ rather than an unwieldy and impenetrable mass of resources.

Continue reading →
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

THE RIGHTS AND LEFTS OF CREATIVE COMMONS

Filed under: Blogging, Music, Photography — Leave a comment
April 7, 2013

English: Three “Layers” Of Creative Commons Li...

Three “Layers” Of Creative Commons Licenses (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A question posed as part of the discussion of copyright options in the Open University’s Open Education (MOOC) is what Creative Commons license students would choose for their blog?

This blog is not written for commercial purposes and as far as I’m concerned, readers are  free to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon any of my posts, even commercially, as long as they credit me, Martin Raybould, as the creator.

I am clearly not alone in this view. In the article Sites of Resistance: Weblogs and Creative Commons Licenses, Clancy Ratliff of the University of Minnesota writes: “The vast majority of bloggers do not get paid for keeping their weblogs at all; they do it in order to freely give and publish their ideas and receive other ideas in return. The bloggers I interviewed, when asked why they got Creative Commons licenses, all expressed desires to share ideas and relinquish some control over their content”. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment