922-Session 7--Creating an OER from Scratch

I thought that we'd start with an inspirational, opening 'comment' from Angela, (a teacher who took a version of this class last summer ) :

Angela Tarr said...

... I feel the need to share. I just had an aha moment. To explain to my staff the basic idea of what OER is all about, I’ll give my own experience as a new teacher for an example. When I started teaching at 22, I had no clue what I was doing. I was assigned a mentor, who said, “I’m down at the end of the hall; holler if you need me.” That was my mentor program. (It’s now much more specific in the requirements of the mentor and mentee.) The only other teacher who taught the same courses I did would not share. A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. He wouldn’t give me anything other than generic advice. (Don’t smile until Christmas. Don’t let them walk all over you.)
Somehow I managed to survive. I was not a very good teacher those first few years; I struggled. After ten years of teaching, I asked to switch to another grade level when a teacher in my department quit. (Not retired, quit.) The other teacher who taught this grade level in my department shared everything. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. She said she had already done the work, why should I start from scratch? She and I had very different styles, so I wasn’t totally comfortable using her exact plans and assignments. (Since I was working on a master’s and had two young children at the time, she suggested that.) I adapted most of her materials to suit my teaching (and learning) style. Her gift of a place to start other than ground zero was huge for me. I could go to her and ask questions, observe her in the classroom, get help.
When I moved into the library five years ago, I handed fifteen years of materials over to my 22 year old replacement. I volunteered to do anything she needed me to do to get her off on the right foot. I answered questions, came to her classroom a couple of times to present introductions to units, anything she needed. In her first year she was better than I was at five or six years of experience in the classroom. I’m not taking the credit for her success; she works hard. I will pat myself on the back for giving her some tools to work with to get rolling. She’s the classroom teacher I wish I could have been.
Isn’t this what OER is all about? Sharing? Learning from the experience of others? Why should we start from scratch? (Unless we want to, or the learning situation is better served by doing so.) Granted, I didn’t have the internet when I started teaching. I could only share locally. Now we can share globally. We have amazing tools to work with. We need to use them. Our districts need to let us.

 You can read the rest of the class's comments from last year, here and from the Spring '12 semester here.

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This week we'll be covering how to create an OER from scratch.  Once again we'll be accessing Curriki's "Open Educational Resources Integration" project.  For this session we'll be accessing the module created by Dr. Michael Searson, the Executive Director for the School for Global Education and Innovation.

Mike created a CC licensed module aimed at both pre-service and in-service teachers.  His module will be particularly useful to you b/c you may very easily use it to guide yourself when you are training, or educating, others on OER's.  I've just gone through his module again and updated any dead links that I could find, but please let me know if you can't access something.  You may find all of the links in our syllabus under the Session 7's details.

Good luck and have fun!
DF

PS--Please also place your brief description of your midterm assignment under this entry's comments section with a link to the site where you have the presentation, so that the rest of us may view it.
Details and requirements are in the syllabus. (If you have a suggestion for modifying this to better suit your setting, then please pass your idea by me first.)  Please complete it before Session 8 which starts on 7/10.

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

Session 5--What Happens When You Merge Your Curriculum and a Wiki?

Session 5---Curriki.org

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.

Now there's no sense in re-creating the wheel, so I'll follow a similar procedure to Session 4.  Watch the videos below, pause them regularly, and try to re-create the instructions.  When we're finished you can explore on your own.

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."

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.

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!

Session 4-eBooks--CK12

In Session 3's 'Readings' in the syllabus, I had you read a little about CK-12. (Based upon a comment from one of you last session, you can get carried away exploring its resources.) They currently have mostly STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subject material, but their plan is to expand soon and include the humanities, arts, and material for primary students.  

There are many of you taking this course who teach in the latter subject areas, but if CK-12's model holds true, then they will have textbooks and workbooks in your disciplines w/i the next year or two.

Now you won't be taking this course in a year or two, so I'd like you to spend some time this week poring through CK-12's resources and practicing with the interface, so when that day comes you'll be the first one in your school to be using this great tool.

Let's start by watching this brief intro video that my friend Neeru put together recently to introduce herself and CK-12.




Now, in case you didn't get a chance to do the readings from last week or need a refresher, give their, 'About Us' page a skim now.  When you've finished I'd like you to read the most recent news articles about them from 2012.

You should be pretty excited and inspired about the possibilities at this point.  I was when I first learned about them in 2008.  I reached out to Neeru to explore building a collaboration and she flew me out to Silicon Valley in November '08 to meet with her, and her co-founder, about their work. I was so enthralled that I decided to add their resources to this course to help share their vision, and also to help contribute to the movement myself.

Imagine if our school districts began to use open education resources (OER) to 'collectively' write our own textbooks and curriculum material, and then began sharing them with each other. Sounds beyond reach doesn't it? But some systems and State Dept.'s of Education are trying just that. Read about Virginia for example. There's more about their plan here as well.  And those are almost four years old!

Now CK-12 just really began taking off around August of '08, so as I mentioned above, they don't have every discipline yet. But, like I said, they plan to broaden to other areas soon. Here's a brief demonstration to watch.

Introducing CK-12 Foundation's Digital Learning Tools - #2 from CK-12 Foundation on Vimeo.

Now if this all scares you a little or you feel a little intimidated---that's justified. I'm sure that you have a lot of questions. The biggest concern I hear is about the quality of the information. We'll go into more detail about that in the next few sessions, but for now think about how many teachers stray from the textbooks in their class and instead use quality, credible information that they have screened using their professional judgment.

Now think about how much information teachers have in their heads. If they took the time to write it out, and share it freely with the world, we would have a tremendously powerful tool.  I'd like you to spend the rest of your time trying to play with CK-12's Flexbooks. See if you can find one to use in your educational setting, and as I mentioned before, don't write it off so quickly b/c they don't have anything in your discipline or grade level just yet.  The practice today, will pay off tomorrow.

Let's start by viewing this quick start guide.

Now (if you haven't already) register on the site.  Here's how:

Now watch this tutorial and pause it regularly to see if you can follow her step by step:

Here comes the good part.  "Browsing" and "Searching"  Pause it as she goes through directions and try to recreate:

     

To be perfectly honest, most people just access and use these Flexbooks, rather than make changes to them to personalize things for their educational setting, so we're going to skip the editing and creating from scratch directions.  You can always check them out some day in the future with the links above (but you can watch them now if

All of this practice isn't good for much if you can't put the finishing touches on, and assemble, an eBook for yourself or your peers, so let's go through that and finish with the printing options.

Lastly, and most importantly, we have "Printing and Sharing".  Pay particularly close attention to the options here, b/c each one is useful in a different circumstance.  The 'sharing' is also a great addition that they've just begun to include in the CK12 options, so play with all of these options now and then we'll call it a day.

Good luck and as always please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Dave Fontaine

DaveFontaine1@gmail.com