Let's first watch this 5 min. video on the shift to Digital and Open Textbooks.
Now, on to Curriki. A great place to start is to hear about the history and mission behind the site. One of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, former Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, joins Curriki CEO Kim Jones to talk about their efforts to make learning materials free and open to everyone on the Internet.
Let's start with, "Viewing a Resource in Curriki"
Now let's look at what members can do with resources.
With all of these resources available and at your fingertips, you'll need to be assured that your access the best and highest quality information, so let's next learn about, "Reviewed Resources."
We'll skip the screencasts on how to rate and comment on resources for now, b/c that's a little more advanced, but when you're ready you can view it here.
Now it's time for the fun part---finding useful stuff. Let's start with, "Search Basics."
I've always been a big proponent of pragmatism in teacher training, so for the rest of your time this week I'd like you to spend time exploring these resources and looking for material to suit your specific educational setting. Please keep track of your thoughts and reflections and post them under S5's entry.
For those chomping at the bit for us to cover eReaders and tablets---your time will be here soon.
Have fun!
Now it's time for the fun part---finding useful stuff. Let's start with, "Search Basics."
There are few things more frustrating than searching endlessly for a resource and not finding what you're looking for, so our next video will walk you through the "Advanced Search" options and filters.
Most of the benefits to using OER's can be increased exponentially by working collaboratively with a group of your peers, so the last video we'll watch will be on how to access and create 'groups' in Curriki.
For those chomping at the bit for us to cover eReaders and tablets---your time will be here soon.
Have fun!
22 comments:
The first video is interesting. I am glad the Comcast host asked the question about kids with no internet at home. I actually have a few. The kids with no internet in one of the towns in our district can go to the library, but the kids in the other town can no longer do that. The library shut down due to the town budget. Sad.
This post is to get follow up posts through email.
The second video opened my eyes to what Apple is up to. They want to keep things more "closed" to make a profit with the Apple. I have to google to see what the differences are between and Apple Reader and an iPad.
The one comment I would like to make about this week’s readings reflects my biggest concern about the OER movement. I was very surprised to see many broken links and older data within the readings of the OER Handbook at http://wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook . Ah, why not go in and correct them myself? I don’t consider myself an authority to do so, and it would take time. Or notify the creators of the site? Maybe that would be a solution, but I help students and other adults all day long at my job. I am sure there are many more excuses to not contribute to the open education community. There is just too much information out there to keep it all current, so how can teachers efficiently make sure they are using the best information out there?
That is where sites like C-K12 and Curriki really excel. Both have strong educational and technology partnerships to continue to develop and grow. I particularly like that Curriki offers professional development to schools. To me, good “help” pages and tutorials, indicate that these resources are meant to be used and are not just links on a page to try to work with. The sponsorship money also suggests that the sites are updated and improved instilling confidence in the resources found within.
Regarding Curriki, I found it also well organized, considering the amount of material that is one the site. I really like that there are not only member reviews and comments, but good comments from Curriki as well. I think a good way to get faculty to start contributing to open source materials is to encourage them to rate and /or comment on the resources they find and use.
Kathleen, I was pleased that the interviewer asked about the lack of Internet access at students’ homes also. I too live in an area where people do not have Internet, or they may only have dial-up. Thankfully many of the lessons and lectures can be downloaded in school (teachers may want to leave time for all to do this during class), but may cut out the benefits of “interactive” textbooks and assignments.
Which leads me to Apple. They certainly do seem to be trying to lock up the market, don’t they? It bothers me that the Apple textbooks can not be used on non-Apple devices, as far as I can tell. So if the school likes the Apple textbook product they are forced to provide an Apple device to each child and staff member. And don’t forget your Apple TV for the classroom! I do hope C-K12 can make a go of it, to push back Apple.
I am going for comment delivery too!
Ugh. I had a long post on my phone that accidentally deleted . leslie I agree about apple and now almost wish that we were switching to ipad . I haven't finished all of our homework for this session but I am happy to hear that curriki does professional developm.ent . from watching the mcneely guy on the video I was under the impression that they were short handed . we are getting a new principal in the high school and maybe he would be interested in this kind of professional development . it sure would be more interesting and useful then the professional development we have had these past several years . please excuse all the typos I did this with the voice. recognition
I mean I wish we weren't switching to ipad .
Oh, technology! I was thinking about the same thing about the Curriki PD. A fresh face never hurts when teaching or training. I have concerns about my school starting their Ipad pilot program too. The good thing is that it looks like everything will play on an Ipad, just the Apple textbooks won't play on other devices. I don't know if my administrators know this or if they are just ignoring the fact because of the coolness factor. Sounds like a good topic for a midterm project, doesn't it?
I am trying to stay positive here - I really am - but I have to say I am underwhelmed with what I have seen so far in Curriki. I realize I am not the target user - I don't teach K-12, and I'm a librarian rather than a classroom instructor - but I explored this resource in the hopes that material created for upper-level secondary students might apply to the community college students in my online research class. Two of the first three sources were broken links. One I did find was a generic research assignment on "social problems" in which "primary sources" were incorrectly defined as newspaper and magazine articles written about the topic.
Perhaps it's unfair to criticize an effort this wide-ranging after only 1/2 hour or so of exploring the resources. On the other hand, I'm not sure a lot of people would persist on a site when at least half of the sources selected led to broken links, outdated information, no resources relevant to their field of teaching, or assignments of no particular distinction.
I will continue to pursue sites in more conventional academic areas, and look forward to reading others' comments about sources they have found, but after fruitlessly searching for 30 minutes, I felt compelled to post my initial reactions.
Oh, and Kathleen and Leslie - totally with you on Apple. I love my iPad; do not love a closed educational system!
I found Curriki to be another good resource especially the real time scoring. Did anybody else find it the site to be REALLY slow? Something was said by former Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, that I found interesting. The trend in International schools has been to not grade and/or give as few tests as possible. One of the reasons most commonly given for this is the possible damage to a child’s self-esteem. But McNealy points out that almost all children are subject to a scoring system in which they win or lose via video games. It’s something that is painfully obvious but I for one hadn’t thought about before, good for you Scott McNealy. Anyway the site although slow (for me anyway), was fairly user friendly especially in its grade and age breakdowns. I found one particularly good lesson about analyzing information and making decisions about the source, ‘Search for the Gorilla’ was very user friendly and the Kids would really enjoy it. This is a great skill to master and one within the IB model, which we have to emphasize over and over again. However, when I tried to download the interactive lesson in order to put it onto 4 different computers and make it into a learning center, I couldn’t. I’ll have to bring the Curriki web site onto the individual computers and have the kids all go into the lesson.
By the way Leslie I love your little rant about Apple, what a bunch of propriety ratbags! Unfortunately we are an Apple school, I can’t even back-up my information from the Mac onto my generic hard drive.
I had an interesting experience with Curriki. I joined, and as Simon said our joining and searching the first day was excruciatingly slow. Then on the second day I got error messages when I tried to look at any resource. I emailed the help people - had a response with an offer to go through it together via phone within 15 minutes. I had stepped out and when I got back they had already gone in and fixed my account - the day I joined they had some server issues. What great service and response time! That is one roadblock to using online resources - Plan B for when they don't work. Now I have more problems using things in foreign countries than the average user probably will, but it is great to know how quick the response time was...Will go check out more things now and see what I can find.
Leslie, I agree about the broken links and for me some pretty basic resources like graphic organizers etc.in the OER materials. But it is a new place to look and FREE is very good. All my "old" go to sites are getting more and more expensive and many won't send things to foreign IP addresses. I am having some discussions with visiting teacher friends who are very current and none of them have heard about any of these resources and movements. I am helping to spread the word!
Like Kathleen, a small number of my students do not have internet access or even computer access at home. These students are often told by teachers that they are still expected to do the work, and that they can use the school library or the town library. However, the town's library has limited hours. The school library used to be open after school every day, but is now only open two nights a week due to budget issues. As much as I want to push technology in my classroom, I'm always worried about the student who needs extra time but cannot work on a technology-bsed assignment at home.
Of all of the curriculum websites we've looked at so far, curriki definitely had the largest amount of materials related to the content I teach. I did several searches, and almost always found something that I could and would use. It's great to have a site that this things like novel-based study guides and vocabulary lists. These things take forever to create on your own, and there's really no sense in reinventing the wheel when so many competent teachers have already prepared the same materials. I also really liked the ratings provided by the site. I agreed with the site's assessment of the quality of every lesson I looked at. I tend to be very pivky about the materials I use in my classroom, but left like curriki provided me with several lessons I would be comfortable printing and using without needing to make any major changes.
I spent some time on Curriki and I agree there were many broken links. Also, I found some of the material to be older and not necessarily in line with the common core as it stands today. Perhaps this is a function of OER being in its infancy; however, it makes the process of searching for useable lessons arduous.
With some subjects, particularly in math, the site would benefit from more layers to categorizing the material. There are a lot of topics that fall under “8th grade math”, more specific details regarding topics on the initial pages would make navigating the site more user-friendly. There were many math lessons that have been not been reviewed or altered since they were added in 2005. This makes me feel like this is just a repository and not being used as the collaborative it is claimed to be. Again, this could also be because of the OER movement is still not mainstream enough yet.
RE: the iPad discussion. I think that we should not write off Apple as a closed source yet. In a recent iPad training session, the presenter shared a vision of a fully technology integrated experience for teacher/student/parent. Apple creates and markets an integrated system and has taken the steps to create curriculum framework to help schools translate that to a custom curriculum. I think they are surfing the first wave of the change in educational philosophy (teaching the technology savvy student). They have developed a support system to help schools that decide to use their method. Their model is dependent on their technology. As the technology community catches up (in many areas this has already happened), what Apple sells will not be the cutting edge. I can foresee a time where Apple might embrace open source activity. My school issue iPad (1st generation) had a program that allowed me to translate documents done in mac software to powerpoint or word in order to share it with others. On my iPad 2, I have a Word and Powerpoint. I think this indicates that perhaps that change is already under way.
I also love the comment about how Apple is keeping it closed when it comes to their iTextbooks. Our district was able to attain a small collection of iPads. While the device is rather amazing, I was frustrated by the lack of content for my secondary math students. The who iBook Author process was disheartening. Why should we all need an iPad to access the information. Ok...my rant is done...for now!
I found curriki to have a lot of potential & especially liked that they broke things down into more age categories than some of the other OER resources. I watched many of the videos/tutorials with my 6th & 8th grader in the room & had an interesting conversation with them about the OER movement. In the end they liked the idea that if they were struggling with a subject, that there are resources out there that might present them in new ways. They also liked the collaborative aspect, and my 8th grader thought it would be great to have a drink next to him while exploring content online since he's always thirsty in class!
For younger students, I just worry that too much tech will begin to infringe on the time kids need to learn how to interact socially & appropriately with others in fcae to face situations. I get more and more uncomfortable each year with the amount of time kids are spending looking at screens. I work in a district that is heavily tech based (yes, almost 100% Apple,) and I often find myself struggling when planning my lessons. I feel pressured to make each lesson as tech rich as possible, yet at the same time, I want to give my students opportunities to interact with materials and each other. When I do incorporate tech, I worry about the broken links, slow sites, etc...as though of you who work with young kids know, once they get off task, it's realy hard to get them back!
I suppose in the end it all comes down to balance. Like several people before me have mentioned, I also worry about the digital divide, and think that the segment we saw somewhat casually dismissed the interviewers concerns. I think this divide is growing rapidly, and it is going to be really important for states/countries to find a way to close this gap.
I felt like I was able to find more resources in Curriki that I would be able to use with my students. Like with the OER Commons, I found that with the plethora of information, I really needed to use the advanced search mode.
I found the tutorials great for all of the open commons collections we have investigated so far. Additionally, they are well organized and easy to navigate by just investigating them without even viewing the tutorials.
I like the rating system in Curriki as an additional way to investigate the quality of the resources.
One thing I wondered was if like wikipedia, the content could change frequently. If so, it would be hard to rely on a lesson really being there for you, unless you copy it for yourself to use.
As for the ipad discussion, I love using my ipad 2, because it is up and running so quickly. The thing that I don't care for is how much content I miss, because of not having Flash. For example, I have not been able to use the ipad for a lot of this class work.
Other than the Flash issue, I find the Apple products to be wonderful, but I don't find their customer service to be so great.
I have to agree that one of the big concerns from my district is the digital divide. My high school is over 50% free and reduced lunch. As long as the student can download items at school they can access it at home, but they will be losing the interactive features. There are all the benefits of up to date items and customized content, but many students will not be able to get all of the benefits that area associated with the digital content.
I do wonder if perhaps we might be wiser going with laptops for students rather than the iPads that we are transitioning to in our district. It seems that the laptop might be much more versatile.
One of the points that is made about the cost of textbooks actually could be stronger than stated. Yes, the textbook may cost in the range of 60 dollars. Consider that at the high school level, students may be carrying around 5, 6, 7 books at 60 dollars each. The cost of buying devices for students seems much more reasonable for districts.
I wanted to share another site that has lesson plans, Thinkfinity.
http://www.thinkfinity.org/
I shared this with my staff and they have used lesson plans from that site. It does have the same problems that were mentioned. There are broken links. That can cause major problems for teachers who are planning a unit, and then suddenly are trying to work on the fly to come up with another plan. This even happened last year where the teacher went in and checked on Friday, she actually came to me to get the link so I know that it worked Friday. On Monday she came down with all her classes, and the link wouldn't work. Luckily she had printed off a copy to work off of over the weekend, so we made hard copies and went off of that for the day and were able to come up with a new plan for the next day.
Post a Comment