Category Archives: Open Educational Resources

Free Resources for Educator Excellence (FREE) for Developing, Integrating, and Delivering E-Learning Solutions

Open Educational Resources, Professional Development, Schedule Development, ,

I attended a presentation at the E-Learn conference animated by Dr. Robert Moody of Fort Hays State University, USA. See below for the blurb on this. His presentation is available online at http://goo.gl/G988y

E-Learning Solutions (ELS) became widely available in 1997, and its attractiveness and use have increased significantly ever since. This software provides instructors who exclusively teach online with the resources to make course materials like syllabi, lecture notes, tests, asynchronous discussion boards, and live chat available online in one, easy-to-manage location. Online students can use these ELS sites to access course materials, submit assignments, check grades, as well as interact with instructors and other students. Among the most notable are Blackboard, WebCT, Desire2Learn, ANGEL, and eCollege. These vendor-driven software solutions have been extensively adopted by higher educational institutes throughout the United States. In fact, many have also been adopted by K-12 educational curriculum providers to supplement textbooks and other educational materials. This tutorial will provide insight and the presenter’s reasoning behind his departure from Blackboard, to creating his own unique E-Learning Solutions using several free open source digital tools.

Some of the tools he mentioned are listed below.

First ones that I’m already familiar.

Skype
Google Apps
YouTube
Facebook

There were several that were new to me.

Ning is a cloud based tool for creating your own custom social networking environment. See http://Ning.com. Dr. Robert uses Ning as his Blackboard replacement.

Screencast-o-matic is screen capturing software. It is supposed to have a feature set similar to Camtasia. The latter costs $200 and up. It will let you record videos up to 15 minutes in length.

Engrade.ca “is the Canadian version of the popular US-based online classroom community tools. Engrade.ca is hosted on Canadian web servers to comply with Canadian laws concerning government data storage.” I wonder if it is the open source grading solution I’ve been looking for.

Voice Thread was also mentioned and recommended but not discussed. Flash Meeting, a video conferencing system was also discussed. It won’t work on the iPad as it Flash based. It records the conference as well. You can have up to 30 people.

OpenClass — a free learning management system from Pearson

Mathematics, OER, Open Educational Resources, Professional Development, Schedule Development, , ,

Some interesting developments in online education platforms. Pearson Publishing who provides the MathXL platform I use for teaching online is introducing OpenClass. It is a new kind of learning management system that is offered through the ‘Cloud‘ via Google Apps for Education.

OpenClass will be offered free of charge. A beta version is supposed to be available October 18th. Pearson’s model is to provide and charge for curriculum content. However, other content providers will also be able to make use of the platform.

For more details see the press release here. See their website at http://www.joinopenclass.com. A promotional video, without much in the way of details, is available here.

This development could very well be the ‘game changer’ Pearson claims it to be. The demand for online learning continues to grow, here in BC and around the world.

I Have Seen the Future — and it includes Open Educational Resources (OER)

OER, Open Educational Resources, Professional Development, Schedule Development,

What are OERs?

Open educational resources (OER) are digital materials that can be re-used for teaching, learning, research and more, made available for free through open licenses, which allow uses of the materials that would not be easily permitted under copyright alone.[1]

A key part of OERs is that they are  available under a Creative Commons License which permits the re-use and even re-mixing of educational resources.

There are a number of repositories available providing a range of resources from learning objects through to complete courses. Here are some examples:

Wikieducator

BCcampus’ Shareable Online Learning Resources

National Repository of Online Courses

OER Commons

Open Courseware Consortium

YouTube.com

To see more about what I’ve written about Open Educational Resoures, enter OER into the search box on the top right of the screen.

Pearson Introduce OpenClass

MathXL, OER, Open Educational Resources, , , , ,

Some interesting developments in online education platforms. Pearson Publishing who provides the MathXL platform I use for teaching online is introducing OpenClass. It is a new kind of learning management system that is offered through the ‘Cloud‘ via Google Apps for Education.

OpenClass will be offered free of charge. A beta version is supposed to be available October 18th. Pearson’s model is to provide and charge for curriculum content. However, other content providers will also be able to make use of the platform.

For more details see the press release here. See their website at http://www.joinopenclass.com. A promotional video, without much in the way of details, is available here.

This development could very well be the ‘game changer’ Pearson claims it to be. The demand for online learning continues to grow, here in BC and around the world.

Essential Skills for Fundamental and Intermediate Math Learners

Essential Skills, Mathematics, Open Educational Resources, ,

As part of my 2011 Schedule (Faculty) Development time, I’m looking at linking Camosun’s Fundamental Math (021 through 039) and Intermediate Math (052 through 057) learning outcomes to the Human Resources and Skills Development Canada’s (HRSDC) numeracy essential skills. The former are provincially articulated here in British Columbia.

Some other resources that may prove to be helpful are available below.

Google Essential Skills Fundamental Math

Google Essential Skills Numeracy

What is clearly missing is a link between Open Educational Resources and Essential Skills. A google on those terms brings up mostly references to things I’ve written on the topic.