472 research outputs found
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A Framework for teaching Ethics to ICS Students and Practitioners using Open Educational Resources
This project has exploited findings of a pilot study funded by The Open University's (OU) CETL known as COLMSCT (Centre for Open Learning of Maths, Science, Computing and Technology – http://open.ac.uk/colmsct) and carried out under the auspices of OpenLearn (http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn), the OU's open content initiative. The project has used the experience gained in that study to create a multimedia self-study course introducing ethics in ICS to advanced students and practitioners. The course has been made openly and freely available as an OpenLearn unit that can be studied, re-used and re-purposed by the wider community involved in the area
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Communicating, learning and the in-between: a study of the impact of open-access, informal online learning environments
1. The broad aim of this project has been to contribute understandings of the uses of computer-mediated communication in 'informal' (not leading to certification) yet institutionally-hosted online spaces. The project consisted of an investigation into engagement with communication and discussion tools provided by OpenLearn, the Open University's Open Content Initiative (http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn).
2. The research focused on a selection of examples of asynchronous and synchronous communication situations within OpenLearn, including a selection of forums from the LearningSpace (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk) and various instances of synchronous communication using FM (FlashMeeting) that took place within the context of two pilot studies organised by the researcher in coordination with discipline-based colleagues.
3. Whilst the research was based on an action research orientation, the approach was predominantly exploratory and ethnographic methods (observation and participant observation) were used, complemented with semi-structured interviews, as appropriate. Thematic analysis was used within a grounded theory approach.
4. The study suggests 5 themes as core elements of engagement in CMC within an OER context: 'validation�; 'privacy�; 'trust�; 'purposefulness�; 'leadership'. The themes are mutually-dependent and each warrants more detailed investigation, and relevant topics are discussed.
5. In short, the study provides a contribution to enquiries on the impact of OERs in that it brings to light, from within a sample of learning situations across the 'informal�/�formal' space, a number of boundary issues concerning curriculum and, in particular, pedagogy. It suggests that a major aspect of the impact of OERs is that their availability is not only creating new challenges but also uncovering previously veiled tensions and questions regarding identity and boundaries.
6. A number of outputs have been generated, including two new projects that capitalise on understandings facilitated during the pilots carried out within the remit of this study
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What about the teacher? Open educational resources et al
As I began writing this proposal, serendipity struck in the form of two conversations about Open Educational Resources (OERs), one with a colleague in my own institution who has a respectable track record in innovative uses of educational technologies, another with a freelance learning facilitator engaged in full-time voluntary work. 'Without a teacher, learning is difficult and, often, impossible'. 'It took me six months to find my way around something I could have learnt in a week, if I had some stepping stones'. 'Even strongly motivated groups of learners quickly collapse without a teacher'. I was reminded of another colleague's view, of OERs as 'a modern version of a library'. In a world in which marketing and media discourses are strongly represented in widespread ideas such as 'content is free; it's a matter of editorialising', what is the role of such a library? Crucially, is there anything left for the 'teacher' in this scenario?
This paper presents a reflection on those conversations, which form part of my current ethnographic research in the area of engagement with OERs. The initial findings are consistent with previous work that has highlighted the role of contextual elements in shaping a learning resource, suggesting the need to understand the assumptions upon which OERs are built as a sine qua non for meaningful re-use. The discussion suggests that the definition of OERs should be extended to include, put simply, 'the role of the teacher', even if this needs to be reinvented in multiple, perhaps not yet imagined, ways
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From print to Web: issues in re-purposing for an Open Resources Repository
The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement has gained rapid support for its goals of universal access to education. The UK Open University's contribution is OpenLearn, a project funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation which, over the next two years, aims to re-purpose several thousand study-hours of existing learning materials for online delivery.
The UK Open University has gained a hard-won reputation for the quality of its learning materials and integrated Supported Open Learning model. However, these materials are, as a rule, developed within the framework of long courses that typically require between 300 and 600 hours of study. Furthermore, many of the courses are 'interdisciplinary' in that they are developed by teams that include members associated with different faculties. The courses are, therefore, generally structured in terms of themes that run throughout the course and may span a variety of academic disciplines. Also, despite the breadth of knowledge brought into play when a course is developed, the courses normally reflect pedagogical and disciplinary assumptions and views that are prevalent in the UK.
Based on the authors' experience of the OpenLearn project, this paper explores some of the key issues encountered when re-purposing resources. These issues include how to provide material not supported by tutorial guidance, the suitability of media components for conversion and the inter-relationship between the multimedia components. The paper will also briefly discuss the requirements for evaluation of the re-purposing process. The issues raised are potentially of relevance to other re-purposing initiatives
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E-Learning and support tools for Information and Computer Sciences
The availability of Web 2.0 tools together with associated Open Educational Resources (OER) enables the creation of new social and collaborative learning spaces. This paper investigates student preferences (across three cohorts) in terms of openly and freely accessible Web 2.0 tools to provide a space where students can interact with each other and their tutor to discuss concerns that arise within their final year project-based learning. This intervention was planned since existing arrangements that support communication between tutor and distance learning students appeared insufficient to facilitate the necessarily intense episodes of interaction required for productive supervision. The findings suggest that different student cohorts are interested in using a variety of Web 2.0 tools. This paper gives initial feedback about intended usage of Web 2.0 tools for co-operative and collaborative learning for final year project work
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Using drama to introduce ethics to technology students and practitioners
In this poster we describe the use of Joe Penhall's play 'Landscape with Weapon' as a resource to teach ethics to students and practitioners in technology. 'Landscape with Weapon' is a play in three acts that revolve around issues confronting an engineer who works in the weapons industry. The play raises a number of broad questions concerning intellectual property rights, duty and responsibility in professional conduct, amongst other ethical issues. Crucially, however, although the play raises 'big' questions concerning technological development, it is in the portrayal of relationships between individual characters each with their own personal ethical stance, and it is in the development of these relationships through conversations and outbursts that vital ethical questions arise.
Although it is not always clearly recognised, it is in the everyday, routine conversations and dealings of people that ethical questions are refined, developed and, on occasion, answered. Accordingly, such dialogues influence action and guide conduct. Rather than focussing on the formulation of theory, a play can demonstrate how ethical stances fare when placed alongside one another. Also, a play encourages the audience to empathise with characters thus inviting the audience to examine their own ethical positions through their reactions to the dialogue, gesture and action set out in the play script. In short, a suitable play such as 'Landscape with Weapon' can function as an allegory representing issues and questions of relevance to an audience of practitioners in a variety of areas of technology development.
This poster uses 'Landscape with Weapon' as an example of one amongst several plays and dialogues used as resources for teaching ethics in the Unit 'Introducing Ethics in Information and Computer Sciences' (working title), currently under development with the support of a grant from the HEA Subject Centre for ICS. The Unit, a self-contained multi-media course, will be made available, for re-use and re-purposing under a Creative Commons License, on the LabSpace (http://labspace.open.ac.uk), the experimentation site of the Open University open content initiative OpenLearn (http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn)
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Co-authorship in the age of cyberculture: Open Educational Resources at the Open University of the United Kingdom
Locating Open Educational Resources (OER) as a phenomenon of cyberculture, this paper presents a reflection on the possibilities of co-authorship that are entailed in OER initiatives of different natures and settings within a large organisation. A selection of OER-related projects and activities carried out at the Open University of United Kingdom (UKOU) are examined from the perspective of a comparative framework proposed by Okada (2010). The framework identifies key features and differences between ‘Closed’ and ‘Open’ Education, that is, respectively, formal education, which takes place within the constraints of institutional Virtual Learning Environments, and informal education, which is gradually taking place more widely in cyberspace. The paper is introduced with a succinct discussion of the connection between cyberculture and the emergence of OER, followed by a presentation of the comparative framework adopted. The UKOU´s structure and methods are then presented, and various projects are discussed. The article concludes by proposing a brief commentary on the creative potential that is being unleashed at the very boundaries between formal and informal educational spaces that cyberculture is challenging
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Resources for an experimental course in ethics
Technology and ethics was the topic of a recent experimental distance taught course using synchronous and asynchronous e-media. This pilot was offered to a restricted number of IT-literate practitioners without formal background in ethics. Offering the course across disparate time zones meant synchronised sessions were limited thus a question posed in planning was 'What resources should the students study between the synchronous sessions to ensure a lively and economical debate?�. In this account we describe some of the resources that were deployed and what they offered
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Open educational resources and teaching in the 21st century: questions concerning authority
As a source of materials for education the Web is, to a large extent, shifting ground. Open Educational Resources (OER) provided by Higher Education Institutions constitute, at least in principle, a reliable category of Web-based resources given their association with traditional forms of expert authority. Nevertheless, OER embody different aspects of academic thinking and practice, competing, in an unlevelled field, with other sources that may provide a much more immediate appeal in that they afford quick and easy consumption of information delivered in a piecemeal, often uncritical, fashion.
This paper draws upon a piece of research in the area of ‘online informal learning’ to illustrate issues arising from the availability of open content and, in particular, OER. This research suggests a number of aspects related to the impact of open content on assumed boundaries between teacher/learner, formal/informal learning, training/education, content/presentation and, crucially, in how the blurring of these boundaries may have an impact on the location of ‘value’ within views of education in which marketing and business discourses predominate. The paper argues that, despite the need for critical debate on issues regarding validation, current arguments focusing on ‘expertise’ risk diluting its significance in subtle yet fundamental ways
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Music, sounds, the Stradivarius and the computer: A dialogue between the music-maker and the music-listener
In what might be described as an 'ecological' spirit, here I recycle an ancient form, the dialogue. I find the dialogue form particularly appealing for its potential to encapsulate ideas both as content and form. This dialogue, between the music-maker and music-listener, is intended as an allegory that uses accessible language in a contemporary, conversational style. From an epistemological perspective, the split maker-listener may be viewed as a fabrication that subsumes numerous conflicts at personal, group and societal levels. The text is about creativity, freedom and ownership, about concept, percept and practice within multidisciplinary and multicultural contexts. It can be reconstructed in different ways when the music-maker and the music-listener are personified under a multitude of guises within multiple contexts.
I have added a bibliographic list following the dialogue that includes some examples of the background reading that has helped to shape the thinking underlying the text. In particular, I have been deeply influenced by Gregory Bateson's writings, especially his 'metalogues', a collection of humorous, deceptively light dialogues that do not specify theatrical elements. I feel this lack of obvious affective content in the text allows readers to construe their own views of how the negotiation of discourses may take place, regardless of what I may have imagined or thought to have implied – or not – using a few italicised words
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