Building Open Educational Resources from the Ground Up: South Africa's Free High School Science Texts

This paper presents a case study of the development of the South African project Free High School Science Texts (FHSST), an initiative to develop a free high school science text for all teachers and learners in South Africa. The goals of the case study were two-fold: to examine and analyze the practices associated with the successes and challenges encountered by FHSST; and to encourage a participatory, analytical process that will assist other open education projects in thinking about and sharing their practices, processes, and strategies. Beyond its implications for South African education, the FHSST project can serve as a model for peer production of open content, offering insights into planning and decision making around 1) recruiting volunteers; 2) sustaining their participation; 3) using technology to create effective workflow; 4) conducting hackathons; and 5) facilitating teacher trials. Findings from this study offers insights into overall approaches and goals that may prove instrumental across open education projects, serving as a reference for development of assessment tools and resources that may assist open education projects in tracking, sharing, and advancing their learnings and success

Creating, Doing, and Sustaining OER: Lessons from Six Open Educational Resource Projects

The development of free-to-use open educational resources (OER) has generated a dynamic field of widespread interest and study regarding methods for creating and sustaining OER. To help foster a thriving OER movement with potential for knowledge-sharing across program, organizational and national boundaries, the Institute for Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), developed and conducted case study research programs in collaboration with six OER projects from around the world. Embodying a range of challenges and opportunities among a diverse set of OER projects, the case studies intended to track, analyze and share key developments in the creation, use and reuse of OER. The specific cases include: CurriculumNet, Curriki, Free High School Science Texts (FHSST), Training Commons, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), and Teachers' Domain

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTS) as a Tool for Intercultural Education. A collaborative experience in secondary education in Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero, Mexico

This paper discusses the collaborative experience of creating educational materials for a secondary school in Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero, México. In this school, students from Nahuatl, Tun savi, Me'phaa and Spanish speaking communities live and learn together. The intercultural context provides challenges for science education that we sought to address. The use of collaborative technologies in science classes has made visible the cultural diversity in the classroom, helping students and teachers recognize themselves as active agents in the construction of common knowledge and in sharing their\ud knowledge. This experience also shows the importance of ICTs as technologies of expression that reinforce individual and collective identity in intercultural contexts

Non‐hierarchical learning: sharing knowledge, power and outcomes

Arguing that every student has the capacity to succeed and that every student must be provided with the opportunity to reach their full potential, this article introduces a new pedagogic approach that draws on a wide range of influences. Linking theoretical practices from sociology, pedagogy, social and educational psychology, and cultural studies, the approach posits that teaching and learning should be conducted in non‐hierarchical classrooms where all members are equal and working towards shared objectives. A theoretical frame is outlined and the factors that helped shape it are reflected on. A conceptual framework which covers the goals of instruction, instructional materials, classroom management, instructional methods, and assessment is also presented. It is hoped that educators will consider the concepts included in this article and, if possible, incorporate them into their teaching practices

Expectations eclipsed in foreign language education: learners and educators on an ongoing journey / edited by Hülya Görür-Atabaş, Sharon Turner.

Between June 2-4, 2011 Sabancı University School of Languages welcomed colleagues from 21 different countries to a collaborative exploration of the challenging and inspiring journey of learners and educators in the field of language education.\ud \ud The conference provided an opportunity for all stakeholders to share their views on language education. Colleagues met with world-renowned experts and authors in the fields of education and psychology, faculty and administrators from various universities and institutions, teachers from secondary educational backgrounds and higher education, as well as learners whose voices are often not directly shared but usually reported.\ud \ud The conference name, Eclipsing Expectations, was inspired by two natural phenomena, a solar eclipse directly before the conference, and a lunar eclipse, immediately after. Learners and educators were hereby invited to join a journey to observe, learn and exchange ideas in orde

Creating a Natural Environment for Synergy of Disciplines

The paper presents the authors’ experience in stimulating the synergy of disciplines via active learning methods; the emphasis being on project based learning. Promoting this method is demonstrated in the context of teachers’ training courses and developing a set of IT textbooks. Numerous examples are presented showing that the synergy of various disciplines is quite natural when integrating the study of IT with math & art & fashion design; math & language; history & crafts & math; electrical engineering & math. The project samples developed by teachers are inspired by ideas in textbooks and are accomplished by means of specially designed computer applications. The importance of working on projects tuned to the learner’s interest as a decisive motivation factor is emphasized. In addition authors show that the bouquet of projects becomes more colorful with every new issue of the courses thanks to the learners’ creativity and the collaborative knowledge building

Implementing personalizing approach in teaching academic writing

Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

Mainstreaming Open Textbooks: Educator Perspectives on the Impact of OpenStax College open textbooks

This paper presents the results of collaborative research between OpenStax College, who have published 16 open textbooks to date, and the OER Research Hub, a Hewlett funded open research project examining the impact of open educational resources (OER) on learning and teaching. The paper focuses primarily on the results of two surveys that were conducted with educators during 2013 and 2014/2015. These surveys focused on use and perceptions of OER and OpenStax College materials, financial savings and perceptions of impact on both educators and students. This paper reports on the research findings related to the impact of OER on educator practice and make a series of specific recommendations based on these findings

What About the Bookstore?

There is often an assumption that academic libraries and bookstores are adversaries around the development of textbook affordability projects. This article shares the results of a survey on library-bookstore relationships and suggests that the two organizations have a shared interest in student success upon which a productive relationship can be built