Month: January 2020

Historically, educational content has always come at a premium.  Education was a luxury that only the rich could afford, whether it was private schools, tutoring, or lessons.  More recently primary education was considered a human right, at least in most developed countries, and is offered to our children for free, even required.  However, higher degrees of education, in Canada, are still extremely expensive, causing many who still desire an education to take on large amounts of debt.  Some of these educational resources are available online, at a cost.   Openly licensed educational content has a different pursuit however.  The goal is to make educational content available to the public free of charge.  The main difference then is that online educational content either has a cost associated to it, or its access and use is limited.  However, openly licensed educational content is free to use, and often can even be replicated, and modified to create additional teaching resources.

An example of such an educational resource is Kimball’s Biology Pages, which can be found at the following url: https://www.oercommons.org/courses/kimball-s-biology-pages

It is a freely available resource created by John W. Kimball.  It’s a biology textbook, formatted in HTML to be viewed and easily navigated through a standard web browser.  It covers a variety of topics, and is kept up to date regarding changes in the world of biology as well.  It’s an excellent resource for anyone interested in the topic, but unable to afford a $200 textbook.

Relevance: The information would address class objectives relating to biology.

Accuracy: The information is accurate, with no obvious content errors or omissions.  No obvious spelling errors or typos.  It is unclear whether the material has been peer reviewed.

Production Quality: The information is clear and understandable, the interface is simple, but not completely user friendly.  Due to the simple html it is not as easy to understand the layout as it could be.  The design features do not strongly enhance learning.  It is not a multimedia resource.

Accessibility: The resource does not seem to be available in alternate formats.

Interactivity: The resource does not encourage active learning or class participation.  However, it could be adapted to do so, since the license allows modifications.  There appear to be no embedded questions.

Licensing: The license does allow for educational reuse of the materials, as well as modifications and adaptations.

I would use this OER as a reference regarding basic biology concepts so as to have a reliable source to go to instead of simply “googling” terms or querries.  It is searchable, has clearly defined sections, and was put together by a professional that is very familiar with the material, and strives to keep it all up to date.

I personally use OER’s in my own life for many of the DIY prjects that I take up.  This includes minor home repair, as well as simple programming, like setting up and using a Raspberry Pi.  The OER’s available I find very useful for my own educational purposes.  I also use OER’s when applicable for creating content for a variety of the course assignments I I’m given, for example creating PowerPoint presentations, or in class educational activities.

I found the difference between instructor-centered learning and student-centered learning very interesting.  It seems that with Instructor-centered learning there is a risk of students “zoning-out”, or losing focus, more so at least than if they were guiding their own learning.  However, when learning is student led, there is a higher risk of erroneous information being learned and never being corrected, resulting in a much less efficient learning outcome.  It seems that a mix of the two is best, with an instructor there to watch for wrong information being learned, but allowing a more active role by the student of teaching themselves the content, stepping in to clarify when a concept is too complex.  This also would vary significantly between subjects, like academic learning, cognitive processes, or athletic and physical activities.

The difference between synchronous learning and synchronous learning seems to be much more one of convenience.  In an ideal scenario, students would have all the time to dedicate to learning that was required, and different subjects would have ideal schedules for how to learn them (for example, learning a sport takes significant training, and you can’t do all of it in one day, but also can’t split it up into 5 minute increments over too long a period).  With working adults having drastically different schedules and availability, asynchronous learning helps each individual to accomplish the required learning activities within the time that they have available, without a need to excessively reschedule their lives.

With the advent of how accessible information is in our current day and age, along with the incredible amount of new information becoming available every year, connectivism seems to offer clear advantages over other more classical learning theories.  Other learning theories, like behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism have a clear focus on the ability to either internalize information, behave in a manner that expresses the learning of something, or an ability to externalize information already learned.  All three focus on the information permeating an individual, which is a process that can take a long time, time which renders information currently being produced as irrelevant more rapidly than allows it to be fully learned.  In connectivism, the focus is instead on how information can be gathered from different sources.  Classically, this would have made very little sense, in a world where information was largely stored on books and digital media didn’t yet exist.  However, nowadays, with the internet at our fingertips, the ability to quickly gather, interpret, and apply information is of incredible importance.  Connectivism focuses on information flowing, from sources to the right people needing it to carry out action in organizations.  Carrying vast amounts of information within one’s head is no longer an ability of value when compared to being able to call up necessary information, understanding it, and applying it.  I think connectivism is a valuable perspective to have going forward regarding how to interact with information.  However, our educational institutions are still behind when it comes to training connectivism, and many grading and teaching methods still rely on older perspectives of knowledge acquisition, which are not preparing people for the challenges they’ll face in the work environment upon graduation.