Open Education Resources (Handout)
November 23, 2010
Modern technologies have allowed for the increased access to free informal and educational material. TED talks, Podcasts, RSA animated lectures, PBS online, Hulu, YouTube EDU channels, and ITunes U material are ways in which everyone can benefit and learn about creative ideas, thus encouraging lifelong learning.Today, everyone with access to the Internet can generate or contribute to the collective building of knowledge through wikis including Wikipedia, Fotopedia and online education groups (Nings, Grouply). Anyone with an internet connection has access to highly informative blogs and free newspapers including the New York Times, BBC, CNN, and the Guardian. In addition, various universities have increased the publication of their class materials freely to the online world.
Through MIT OpenCourseWare and its expansion to over 120 universities through the OpenCourseWare Consortium, thousands of classes have published their materials online including syllabi, readings, and video lectures. Many have opened forums for discussion and created group learning activities through programs such as OpenStudy and Nixty. Through OpenCourseWare, the use of Creative Commons licensing, and Open Source Software, an ever increasing array of materials with high levels of educational content are freely available to anyone with access to the Internet. In addition, many of these materials are currently being translated into various languages. Through Connexions, a Rice University OER initiative, individuals can “rip”, “copy”, “reuse”, “mix”, and “burn” high quality education material and create their own textbooks. These textbooks cost only a fraction of the price of traditional textbooks. Other freely available material such as Open Source Software, Open Books, Open Access Journals could significantly impact the cost of an individual’s education. How can these and other Open Education Resources transform education for developing countries? Could they contribute to the development of a high quality low cost education system?
OpenCourseWare Consortium – http://www.ocwconsortium.org/
Connexions Consortium – http://cnxconsortium.org/
Linux – http://www.linux.org/
List of Linux Distributions – Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions
Sourceforge – Open Source Software Directory – http://sourceforge.net/
Bill Gates on OCW – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfvxfkBVLqQ
OECD – Open Education Resources – http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/7/38654317.pdf
