922-Session 6--Personalizing/Customizing/Remixing/Localizing

Welcome to Session 6!  


Before we get into the content of this week's lesson, I thought I would speak a little about the Midterm Project. There are more details in the syllabus, but in general you are to create a presentation (using the tool of your choice-a few are listed on Wikidave here)  The over-riding goal of this assignment is to convey the power, influence, and benefits (for your particular setting) to your organization if they begin to embrace OER's and incorporate more Digital Content.  More details can be found at the bottom of the syllabus.  As I have stated in the past, I want this to be as pragmatic as possible for you, so if you have an idea that is outside of the description, and if you think that this would be more useful for you, then just pass it by me first for pre-approval..  Other than that, there aren't any restrictions on the direction you take this, just make sure that it is practical for your setting.  You'll post a brief description of it under Session 7's blog posting as well as a link to where we can view the presentation (if anyone finds this too difficult, then I can walk you through it depending upon which presentation tool you use) and it will be due before Session 8 (7/10/12).
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This week we will be discussing a topic I'm sure you are all interested in.  "How do we really customize this content to serve our local educational community?"

Before we address that I thought that I'd take a moment to address some possible gaps.  A few of you have asked for some more examples of 'open' content for the humanities.  OpenLearn  is a site of free, open courses all CC licensed, so the material can be copied and shared, and you can create derivative works from them as well.

I just did a quick search for Spanish lessons and material and received these results.  And these for French, so it may be worth exploring. (I use Chrome, as opposed to Internet Explorer or Safari, so it was nice when I was exploring the lessons in foreign languages b/c there was a button to translate the page.  Worked pretty well from my layman's perspective.)

Another great site to access and borrow from is Folksemantic. (Link was working last week, but not today, so if it doesn't open, come back to it.) Give them a quick skim. One of our topics for this session is the 'personalization' of Digital Content that you cull/borrow.  Read about Folksemantic's personalization on their 'about us' page.

They have lots of CC licensed material to support History classes (This link takes you to just the courses available. If you change the drop-down to 'all resources' then the choices for material increase x/1000.)  They also have lots of great 'open content' for ELA. Like here for Elementary grammar (they even give you directions about how to put it into your wiki or webpage).

They also have plenty of resources for those of you teaching World Languages.  Here's a brief video introduction.  To get there I just did a search for 'any resource' with a search term, "portuguese."
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Next we are going to continue with following along with the "Integrating Open Educational Resources in the Classroom" material created by my team of professors for a Curriki Fellowship.  This session will walk you through the personalization, customization, and remixing of OER's to suit your specific goal or curricula.  Let's start with Dr. Cynthia Gautreau's introduction video here. (I know she says it's the third module, but I thought that it would fit best in our S6.)

When you've finished with that I'd like you to then go through her module here.  You don't have to complete every assignment here, but I would like you to reflect on questions 4a, b, and c here.

Please go through the material diligently to ensure that you gain a comprehensive level of knowledge with this content.

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Now, I debated whether or not to add this one, but sometimes my material can get rather heavy.  This video is the polar opposite.  Once you get through the silliness, the content is actually accurate.  Who's hungry for some CC Cake?




Lastly, the dreaded mid-term.  As I've mentioned repeatedly throughout the semester, my motivation for teaching this course is to have educators gain the most practical information and resources available for their particular setting.  Additionally, you've all noticed that I've been keeping tabs on the workload each week b/c I realize that you all have 'day-jobs' so the last thing I want to do is overwhelm you.

So in the past I've given an in-depth mid-term assignment, but the workload was heavy.  In place of that this semester I'd like you to still focus on the goals of the original midterm, but strip it down and simplify it.  The over-riding goal of this assignment is to convey the power, influence, and benefits (for your particular setting) to your organization if they begin to embrace OER's and incorporate more Digital Content.  More details can be found at the bottom of the syllabus.  As I stated above, I want this to be as pragmatic as possible for you, so if you have an idea that is outside of the description and if you think that this would be more useful for you then just pass it by me first for pre-approval..

Good luck this week and as always, have fun!
DF