open educational resources (oer) for teaching and learning

Open Educational Resources(OER) for Teaching and Learning

By

Archana Thakran

OER Expert, Progia LLC

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +1-732-983-0154(USA)www.contentbyexperts.net

mailto:[email protected]

OER Introduction

• Open Educational Resources (OER) are ‘materials offered freely and openly to use and adapt for teaching, learning, development and research’.

- The Commonwealth of Learning (COL)

www.contentbyexperts.net

Poll #1

• Are you familiar with Open Educational Resources?

a. Yes

b. No

c. Somewhat familiar


How do I recognize OER?

• OER are recognized by the licenses associated with them. Creative Commons has created an open licensing scheme that allows you to use OER without any legal issues.

• There are 6 CC licenses. The content author can decide to release their work under any one of these.

• 3 licenses give you the freedom to use OER commercially and 3only allow Non-commercial (NC) use.

• The interpretation of NC term is subjective. It is often clarified by the author what non commercial use means.

• However, in each of the cases, you have to give credit to original author.


Benefits of OER

Better Learning Outcomes

Excellent opportunity to learn from high quality top notch material

Students motivation who can review the course material at their own pace and time

Faculty development and recognition

The school cannot retain its competitive edge without it.


Poll #2

• Are you currently using OER in your organization/practice?

a. Yes

b. No

c. Planning to adopt


Why

OER is Important for

Developing Countries like

INDIA?


Why OER is Important for India? OER has the promise of meeting huge challenges facing Education Industry in India

Soaring Demand

• 240 million additional students will seek college education by 2020

• By 2022, India will be short of 180 million skilled workers in sectors including technology, infrastructure and automobile. (Tribune India, April 2013)

Capacity Gap• India needs additional 800 universities and 35,000 colleges by 2020 to reach goals set for higher education," Kapil Sibal, Former Human Resource & Development Minister, India

• Shortage of Qualified Teachers: India faces shortage of nearly 1.4 million trained teachers, Deccan Chronicle, July 7, 2013

• Outdated curricula and learning material

Access Inequality

• Rising Cost

• Uneven Infrastructure

• Student Enrollment varies widely from state to state


What is in It for Me?Students

Opportunity to learn from the best teachers in the world

o Higher motivation level

o Reduced dropout rates

o Better career options

Better way of learning

o 24x7 Access

o Most up-to-date learning material

o Peer to peer discussions

o Lower cost

Faculty Empowerment & Self-

Development

o Participation (and networking) in transformation sweeping the Education Industry

o More time in problem solving, critical thinking, coaching rather than just delivering routine lectures

o Exposing students to real world situations and examples through widely available, high quality OER

Opportunity

o Opportunity not to become irrelevant by new ways of learning and teaching

o Opportunity to create a brand for yourself, to win world-wide recognition for your work

Education Institutions

Competitive edge nationally and internationally

o Faster turnaround time creating new courses

o Reduction in the cost of producing, maintaining and distributing learning material

Increased Student enrollment

o Continue to maintain brand image that is respected and recognized by the public and the employers

o Building Capacity through introduction of new learning models (flipped classroom, MOOCs, SPOC, etc.)


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Issues and Challenges of OER Adoption

Lack of Awareness & Mindset: What is OER? How to motivate teachers to use it? Why should I share my content for free? What is in it for me and my faculty? Thoughts which resist in OER adoption.

Quality Control: Strongly impacts the School's Brand and its Reputation. How do you select OER for use? Is the material relevant, significant, accurate and presented in an effective manner? Is the content that you create discoverable by others?

Localization: The power of OER may not be realized unless the learning material is tailored to the needs of your students. MIT material may not be at right level for your students, may not be complete, may have extra administrative content etc.

Standards and Compatibility: There are no agreed upon standards for mixing and matching OER material from different sources and working with different devices

Resources & Commitment: Adopting OER and the new models of teaching require substantial resources and commitment. Does every teacher and class use OER as they wish or there is an institution guideline and central resources for them to use?

Potential Misuse of Social Media: it must be carefully monitored and best practices followed along well thought out guidelines


Poll # 3

• What issues or challenges do you think would hinder OER adoption in your context?

a. Lack of Awareness & Mindset

b. Quality Control

c. Localization

d. Standards and Compatibility

e. Resources & Commitment

f. Lack of Institutional Policy


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• Be Bold, Show Leadership

• Educate yourself with the OER Movement and its Best Practices (start from http://www.oercommons.org)

• Engage, Network, Partner with OER implementers

• Explore your Options: Create a Strategy, Implementation Plan and Guidelines for OER adoption

• Allocate Resources: Technical, Financial and Promotional

• Promote OER, Train Faculty and Students for OER adoption

• Don't let Technology stand in the way of adoption, start small and experiment. Adapt and Tailor OER to your unique needs.

• Give teachers tools to select, organize and use high quality OER effectively

• Track Progress, Recognize and Reward Effort and Performance

To Adopt OER, Schools Must


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•Awareness •Content creation using OER•Technology to use OER in classroom –Open LearnWare

What Progia is doing in India


Awareness-Workshop

What we cover in workshop:

• About OER

• Licensing of OER

• Finding OER

• How to use OER in a Classroom

• Technology to run courses


Content Creation

• We have created 25 Courses using content from OER.

• Eg. NIESBUD, Govt. of India

• They are commercializing these OER based courses and students are taking it for a minimal fees.

• Through these efforts, we have made OER self sustainable.


Technology: Open LearnWare

• Open Learnware is an on-line learning & teaching platform that integrates Open Education Resources (OER) with a practical set of software tools that make OER delightful to use for schools, educators and the learners.


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Screenshot of Course Taker


Poll #4

• Would you consider integrating OER in your practice?

a. Certainly,Yes

b. Not decided

c. May be

d. No


Discussion & Questions
