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        <title>The Ed TechieThe Ed Techie</title>
        <link>http://blog.edtechie.net</link>
        <description>on open education, digital scholarship &amp; over-stretched metaphors</description>
        <lastBuildDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 09:48:36 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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        <itunes:subtitle>on open education, digital scholarship &amp; over-stretched metaphors</itunes:subtitle>
        <item>
          <title>Open researcher open course</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/neB0laJR5j8/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/mooc/open-researcher-open-course/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Tue, 26 Aug 2014 09:48:36 +0000</pubDate>
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          <category>
            <![CDATA[MOOC]]>
          </category>
          <category>
            <![CDATA[oerresearchhub]]>
          </category>
          <category>
            <![CDATA[Research]]>
          </category>
          <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.edtechie.net/?p=833</guid>
          <description>
            <![CDATA[Led by Beck Pitt, the OER Research Hub has developed an open course (don&#8217;t use the M word) on P2P University on being an open researcher. It is four weeks long, although you can study it anytime and it&#8217;s all available at once. The weeks cover: Open research Ethics in the open Open dissemination Reflecting <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/mooc/open-researcher-open-course/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
          <content:encoded>
            <![CDATA[<p><a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/day194.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-835" src="http://blog.edtechie.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/day194-300x225.jpg" alt="man spraying &quot;open&quot; on grafitti wall" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>Led by Beck Pitt, the OER Research Hub has developed an open course (don&#8217;t use the M word) on P2P University on being an <a href="https://p2pu.org/en/courses/2377/open-research/">open researcher</a>. It is four weeks long, although you can study it anytime and it&#8217;s all available at once. The weeks cover:</p>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.4;">Open research</span></li>
<li>Ethics in the open</li>
<li>Open dissemination</li>
<li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.4;">Reflecting on open</span></li>
</ul>
<p>It&#8217;s based on our experience of running the OER Research project as an open project. There are a number of interesting things that happen when you try to operate in the open. For instance, what ethical considerations are there to releasing data? What communication methods are most effective? The course explores these, using the fictional Mr O&#8217;pen. He&#8217;ll be in a pixar film before you know it.</p>
<p>The facilitated course starts on 15th September, although you could be doing it now if you want. There will be a weekly Google Hangout every Thursday over the 4 weeks of the course, with one pre-course hangout on the 11th. Take a look, we&#8217;re all finding out what being an open researcher means still, it&#8217;s not a defined set of approaches, so maybe there will be something there that works for you.</p>
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          <title>Quote of the day</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/7ZQRJcaO2pM/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/quote-of-the-day/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Thu, 14 Aug 2014 16:07:46 +0000</pubDate>
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            <![CDATA[battle]]>
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          <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.edtechie.net/?p=826</guid>
          <description>
            <![CDATA[I&#8217;m on holiday at the moment, in a cabin by Loch Ness with my daughter. Being a teenager she rarely sees pre-noon so this gives me the morning to have a run, and also to finish off my book edits. I have been collecting quotes to add to each chapter, but have been debating whether <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/quote-of-the-day/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
          <content:encoded>
            <![CDATA[<p><a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/day218.jpg"><img src="http://blog.edtechie.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/day218-300x225.jpg" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-829" /></a></p>
<p>I&#8217;m on holiday at the moment, in a cabin by Loch Ness with my daughter. Being a teenager she rarely sees pre-noon so this gives me the morning to have a run, and also to finish off my book edits. I have been collecting quotes to add to each chapter, but have been debating whether to use these.</p>
<p>I have a love-hate thing going on with quotes. I used to love a good quote, but the internet has ruined them. A quote on any subject is just a google search away, and twitter is full of those inspirational quotes that are meant to make you want to be the next Steve Jobs. If you want me to unfollow you on twitter, then an inspirational quote a day is a pretty sure way to realise it. That all of the beauty, complexity and nuances of life are reduced to pithy, Nike-advert type quotes makes me want to become a recluse in a cabin by Loch Ness and communicate solely through the medium of beard growth.</p>
<p>But having said that, I do love the judicious use of quotes in both literature and non-fiction. They not only bring in a different voice, but when used well, add a different perspective to the text you are reading that the author themselves cannot provide. So, I&#8217;ve decided to plough ahead with quote use, but adhere to these self-imposed rules:</p>
<ol>
<li>The quotes must be from material I have read myself and not just searched for a relevant quote</li>
<li>They are not directly referencing the content, eg there aren&#8217;t quotes about &#8220;open&#8221;, or &#8220;education&#8221;</li>
<li>They are slightly oblique to the content of each chapter, so hopefully consideration of the quote in relation to the content adds something extra</li>
<li>They are well written, so the discerning reader can use them as stepping stones of quality to navigate the peaty bog of my own prose.</li>
</ol>
<p>I&#8217;ll leave you to be the judge as to whether they work or not. Because as Emerson said &#8220;I hate quotations&#8221;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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        <item>
          <title>Infrared instead of sun</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/p5zCtdtQ2Tk/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/infrared-instead-of-sun/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Fri, 08 Aug 2014 12:06:30 +0000</pubDate>
          <dc:creator>
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          <category>
            <![CDATA[battle]]>
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          <category>
            <![CDATA[open access]]>
          </category>
          <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.edtechie.net/?p=823</guid>
          <description>
            <![CDATA[In case you missed it, The Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers have proposed some new open access(ish) licences for their research articles. They argue that: &#8220;CC licenses are intended to be used across the entire creative sector, and are not designed specifically for publishing, or for academic and scholarly publishing&#8221;. Well that was <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/infrared-instead-of-sun/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
          <content:encoded>
            <![CDATA[<p>In case you missed it, The Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers have proposed some new open access(ish) licences for their <a href="http://www.stm-assoc.org/open-access-licensing/">research articles</a>. They <a href="http://www.stm-assoc.org/2014_07_30_OA_Licencing_STM_Model_Licences.pdf">argue that</a>: &#8220;CC licenses are intended to be used across the entire creative sector, and are not designed specifically for publishing, or for academic and scholarly publishing&#8221;. Well that was kind of the point of CC licences, they were simple, effective and could be applied across many domains. That they are simple is not a fault, but the result of hard work and good minds. Compare the<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/"> CC-NC definition</a> with this one from STM:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;STM stand-alone non-commercial+TDM+Translation and some commercial uses other than “Reserved Commercial Uses”: rationale see comments under B above for those not having a be-spoke publisher licence or not wishing to use a UCLA licence or a CC licence or other licence&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>I do what now?</p>
<p>Needless to say most open access people have decried this unnecessary attempt to add confusion to the sector, and pointed out that we&#8217;ve been getting on just fine with CC licences, thanks. Here is the <a href="http://www.plos.org/global-coalition-of-access-to-research-science-and-education-organizations-calls-on-stm-to-withdraw-new-model-licenses/">PLoS response</a>, who state that the new licences would &#8220;make it difficult, confusing or impossible to combine these research outputs with other public resources and sources of knowledge to the benefit of both science and society.&#8221;</p>
<p>Other people more knowledgeable than me can point out the problems of the licences (see for example this <a href="https://storify.com/mweller/no-new-licences">discussion I had with Cameron Neylon</a> on Twitter) but the story is interesting to me for two reasons. The first relates to my digital scholarship interest, as it demonstrates a rather irritating academic habit, which is to say that the thing used by everyone else isn&#8217;t quite suited to the special needs of academia, and they need to create their own specialised, more complex version. It&#8217;s like academic versions of Twitter, or the death by metadata of learning objects. This is often well meaning, in that there may be some fine issues with using a general tool, but the benefits are worth the sacrifices. For a start those popular tools are popular for a reason, usually simplicity of use. As Cameron points out there is also a benefit to be gained form being part of a bigger, global community. Why create an academic ghetto of specialised use that no-one else relates to?</p>
<p>The second reason I find it interesting relates to the battle for open stuff. One could view it cynically and see it as a move by commercial publishers (many of whom STM represent) to either muddy the open access waters, or to control what the new definition of open is. Either way, open ends up not meaning what you think it means. And once that happens they can reclaim it to have any meaning. It could mean &#8220;Publisher X brand of open&#8221;, which means it is open to anyone who pays a subscription to their system. In this sense it is a good example of how the battle for open moves from big claims (open vs closed) to more detailed arguments which actually determine its future (CC vs STM open licence).</p>
<p>Unless they are forced upon authors, I&#8217;m hoping they&#8217;ll go the way of other unnecessary academic complications to perfectly functioning systems. People vote with their feet.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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          <itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
          <itunes:subtitle>In case you missed it, The Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers have proposed some new open access(ish) licences for their research articles. They argue that: &amp;#8220;CC licenses are intended to be used across the entire creative sec</itunes:subtitle>
          <itunes:summary>In case you missed it, The Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers have proposed some new open access(ish) licences for their research articles. They argue that: &amp;#8220;CC licenses are intended to be used across the entire creative sector, and are not designed specifically for publishing, or for academic and scholarly publishing&amp;#8221;. Well that was Continue reading</itunes:summary>
          <itunes:keywords>battle, open access</itunes:keywords>
          <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/infrared-instead-of-sun/</feedburner:origLink>
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        <item>
          <title>Battle for Open – references</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/V9b3iWewhRs/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/battle-for-open-references/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Wed, 06 Aug 2014 16:44:33 +0000</pubDate>
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          <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.edtechie.net/?p=816</guid>
          <description>
            <![CDATA[I&#8217;m doing some revisions to the final text of my book The Battle for Open at the moment. When you&#8217;re going through it like this, you notice a few names keep cropping up. So I did a count for certain names, and this includes whether they are mentioned in the text and then in the <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/battle-for-open-references/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
          <content:encoded>
            <![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m doing some revisions to the final text of my book The Battle for Open at the moment. When you&#8217;re going through it like this, you notice a few names keep cropping up. So I did a count for certain names, and this includes whether they are mentioned in the text and then in the references, so you get a double hit. The top names were:</p>
<ul>
<li>David Wiley &#8211; 38</li>
<li>Sebastian Thrun &#8211; 25</li>
<li>George Siemens &#8211; 14</li>
<li>Dave Cormier &#8211; 14</li>
<li>Stephen Downes &#8211; 10</li>
<li>Audrey Watters &#8211; 8</li>
</ul>
<p>I&#8217;m a bit surprised Audrey isn&#8217;t more to be honest, as one blogger said of something I&#8217;d written &#8220;he seems to be channeling Audrey Watters&#8221;, and that pretty much feels like much of what the book has done, so maybe I should go back and check that.</p>
<p>Anyway, David Kernohan suggested (nay, demanded) that I put up the references:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" width="550"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/mweller">@mweller</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/davecormier">@davecormier</a> you should publish the index and references now.</p>
<p>&mdash; ժǻƲïժ κēŗɳoңȺɳ (@dkernohan) <a href="https://twitter.com/dkernohan/statuses/497056047501418496">August 6, 2014</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>So here they are in the, yes, not very open, formats of Word and PDF &#8211; if people have suggestions for other useful formats let me know. I haven&#8217;t been through these in the final copyedit yet so there may be some bits missing, don&#8217;t go all reference purist on me.</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Battle-for-Open-refs.pdf">The Battle for Open refs</a> (PDF)</p>
<p><a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Battle-for-Open-refs.docx">The Battle for Open refs</a> (word)</p>
<p>[Update - At Alan Cann's suggestion, I've put it <a href="http://figshare.com/articles/The_Battle_for_Open_References/1128670">on Figshare</a> too]</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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          <itunes:subtitle>I&amp;#8217;m doing some revisions to the final text of my book The Battle for Open at the moment. When you&amp;#8217;re going through it like this, you notice a few names keep cropping up. So I did a count for certain names, and this includes whether they are me</itunes:subtitle>
          <itunes:summary>I&amp;#8217;m doing some revisions to the final text of my book The Battle for Open at the moment. When you&amp;#8217;re going through it like this, you notice a few names keep cropping up. So I did a count for certain names, and this includes whether they are mentioned in the text and then in the Continue reading</itunes:summary>
          <itunes:keywords>battle</itunes:keywords>
          <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/battle-for-open-references/</feedburner:origLink>
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        <item>
          <title>Why don’t we talk about PLEs anymore</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/jdTY5t7tQkc/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/ple/why-dont-we-talk-about-ples-anymore/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Wed, 23 Jul 2014 09:42:23 +0000</pubDate>
          <dc:creator>
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          <category>
            <![CDATA[PLE]]>
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          <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.edtechie.net/?p=803</guid>
          <description>
            <![CDATA[I know some people will immediately respond to this title by declaring &#8220;I do! And look at all these other people who do&#8221;. And yes, there is a PLE conference. But my sense is that we don&#8217;t use the term, or more significantly, discuss the concept of Personal Learning Environments, like we did in 2010 <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/ple/why-dont-we-talk-about-ples-anymore/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
          <content:encoded>
            <![CDATA[<p>I know some people will immediately respond to this title by declaring &#8220;I do! And look at all these other people who do&#8221;. And yes, there is a <a href="http://ple.unitar.my/">PLE conference</a>. But my sense is that we don&#8217;t use the term, or more significantly, discuss the concept of Personal Learning Environments, like we did in 2010 say.</p>
<p>This is not to disparage the term or work on it, I think it was very useful to frame the difference in the way we began to operate when all these new, easy to use tools suddenly became available. I&#8217;m interested from an educational technology perspective in what the decline in its usage tells us. Google trends backs my impression up that we don&#8217;t talk about it as much, and given that terms tend to linger, I would suggest that it shows it definitely isn&#8217;t a hot topic amongst ed tech people:</p>
<p><script src="//www.google.com/trends/embed.js?hl=en-US&amp;q=%22Personal+Learning+Environment%22&amp;content=1&amp;cid=TIMESERIES_GRAPH_0&amp;export=5&amp;w=500&amp;h=330"></script></p>
<p>If you accept for now the premise that it isn&#8217;t discussed as much, then what does this tell us? There are a number of possible reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>It&#8217;s become commonplace, so drawing the distinction between your set of tools and an institutional learning environment isn&#8217;t necessary. It&#8217;s a bit like saying &#8220;my phone is <em>mobile</em>!&#8221;</li>
<li>It&#8217;s become absorbed, so it is seen as an extension of the LMS, or rather the LMS is just one other part of it. We don&#8217;t differentiate between tools for different settings because the boundaries between personal and professional have been blurred.</li>
<li>There has been a shakedown in the market, so actually we&#8217;ve all settled on the same few tools: Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, Slideshare, plus some other specific ones. My PLE looks pretty much like your PLE, so it&#8217;s not really a <em>Personal</em> one anymore. Just like with the early days of search engines, we don&#8217;t talk about whether you prefer Lycos or Webcrawler now, we just Google it.</li>
<li>It wasn&#8217;t a useful term or approach. There were projects that attempted to get data passed between LMSs and PLE tools, or to set these up for people, and in the end people just opted for some tools they found useful, and didn&#8217;t feel the need to go further.</li>
</ol>
<p>For some of these reasons you could argue that the PLE was a success, it made itself redundant as a term, which illustrates it reached penetration. For others you could argue it was maybe a case of academics inventing something that wasn&#8217;t really there. For me, I found it a useful way to think about these new tools and moving away from pre-packaged solutions, but that&#8217;s become second nature now. Anyway, it&#8217;s useful to revisit terms and see what they tell us about the current situation. I shall now go into hiding from the pitchfork (some hand-crafted, some mass produced) wielding PLE mob.</p>
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          <title>New home</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/-rvchreQlkg/</link>
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          <pubDate>Fri, 18 Jul 2014 09:35:47 +0000</pubDate>
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            <![CDATA[I&#8217;ve finally (after 8 years) moved from Typepad to WordPress, and even more importantly, my own domain. Blame Jim Groom, that guy just wears you down until you say yes. Have tried a new theme, expect I&#8217;ll mess around with it and also widgets. If you&#8217;re here from the old place and use an RSS <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/weblogs/new-home/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
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            <![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve finally (after 8 years) moved from Typepad to WordPress, and even more importantly, <a href="http://reclaimhosting.com/">my own domain</a>. Blame Jim Groom, that guy just wears you down until you say yes. Have tried a new theme, expect I&#8217;ll mess around with it and also widgets. If you&#8217;re here from the <a href="http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/">old place</a> and use an RSS reader (I know, who uses them now?) then the new feed is <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/feed/">http://blog.edtechie.net/feed/</a></p>
<p>All you WordPress geeks out there can tell me what plug-ins I must have. Time to start annoying the neighbours.</p>
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          <title>The iceberg model of OER engagement</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/VQWZrh9ZFKM/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/oer/the-iceberg-model-of-oer-engagement/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Mon, 07 Jul 2014 12:42:56 +0000</pubDate>
          <dc:creator>
            <![CDATA[mweller]]>
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          <category>
            <![CDATA[oer]]>
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          <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.edtechie.net/uncategorized/the-iceberg-model-of-oer-engagement/</guid>
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            <![CDATA[I&#39;m pretty sure I&#39;m the first person to ever use the iceberg analogy&#8230; I&#39;ve been pondering ways of thinking about open education awareness, and OER usage that might help shape OER policy. So here&#39;s one I want to try out. Open education in general, and OERs specifically, form a basis from which many other practices <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/oer/the-iceberg-model-of-oer-engagement/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
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<p>I&#39;m pretty sure I&#39;m the first person to ever use the iceberg analogy&#8230;</p>
<p>I&#39;ve been pondering ways of thinking about open education awareness, and OER usage that might help shape OER policy. So here&#39;s one I want to try out.</p>
<p>Open education in general, and OERs specifically, form a basis from which many other practices benefit, but often practitioners in those areas are unaware of OERs explicitly. It is likely that these secondary and tertiary levels of OER awareness represent a far greater audience, than the primary “OER-aware” one, so one can view the sizes of these audiences like the metaphorical iceberg, with increasing size as we push into these unseen areas. The three groups of OER usage I see are:</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 14px;"><em>Primary OER usage</em> – this group is “OER aware”, in that the term itself will have meaning for them, they are engaged with issues around open education, are aware of open licences and are often advocates for OERs. This group has often been the focus of OER funding, conferences and research, with the focus on growing the ranks of this audience.<br /></span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><em>Example</em>: Community college teacher who adopts, and contributes to open textbooks</span></p>
<p><em>Secondary OER usage</em> – this group may have some awareness of OERs, or open licences, but they have a pragmatic approach to them. OERs are of secondary interest to their primary task, usually teaching. OERs (and openness in general) can be seen as the substratum which allows some of their practice to flourish, but they are not aware, or interested in open education itself, rather in their own area, and therefore OERs are only of interest to the extent that they facilitate innovation or efficiency in this.<br /><span style="font-size: 14px;"><em>Example</em>: Flipped learning teacher who uses Khan academy, TED talks and some MERLOT OERs in their teaching.</span></p>
<p><em>Tertiary OER usage</em> – this group will use OERs amongst a mix of other media and often not differentiate between them. Awareness of licences is low and not a priority. OERs are a ‘nice to have’ option but not essential, and users are often largely consuming rather than creating and sharing.<br /><em>Example</em>: A student studying at university who uses iTunes U materials to supplement their taught material.</p>
<p>&#0160;David Wiley has talked of <a href="http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/905" target="_self">Dark Reuse</a>, that is whether reuse is happening in places we can’t observe, analogous to dark matter, or it simply isn’t happening much at all. He poses the challenge to the OER movement about its aims:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If our goal is catalyzing and facilitating significant amounts of reuse and adaptation of materials, we seem to be failing. …<br /><span style="font-size: 14px;">If our goal is to create fantastically popular websites loaded with free content visited by millions of people each month, who find great value in the content but never adapt or remix it, then we’re doing fairly well.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>By considering these three levels of OER engagement, it is possible to see how both elements of Wiley’s goals are realisable. The main focus of OER initiatives has often been the primary OER usage group. Here OERs are created and there are OER advocacy missions. For example, Joanna Wild suggests <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/score/files/score/file/OER%20Engagement%20Study%20Joanna%20Wild_full%20research%20report.pdf" target="_self">three levels of engagement for HE staff </a>that progress from piecemeal to strategic to embedded use of OER. The implicit assumption is that one should encourage progression through these levels, that is, the route to success for OERs is to increase the population of the primary OER group.</p>
<p>Whilst this is undoubtedly a good thing to do (assuming one believes in the benefits of OERs), it may not be the only approach. Another approach may be to increase penetration of OERs into the secondary and tertiary levels. Awareness of OER repositories was very low amongst this group, compared with resources such as the Khan Academy or TED. The focus on improving uptake for these groups is then to increase visibility, search engine optimisation and convenience of the resources themselves, without knowledge of open education. This might be realised through creating a trusted brand to compete with resources such as TED.</p>
<p>There is evidence that openness has a <a href="http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2014/05/the-open-virus.html" target="_self">virus like quality</a>, in that once people are exposed to it, awareness grows and they seek opportunities to expand open practice in other areas. If this is the case, then emphasising effort on this initial exposure should be a high priority for funders in the OER world.</p>
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          <itunes:subtitle>I&amp;#39;m pretty sure I&amp;#39;m the first person to ever use the iceberg analogy&amp;#8230; I&amp;#39;ve been pondering ways of thinking about open education awareness, and OER usage that might help shape OER policy. So here&amp;#39;s one I want to try out. Open educatio</itunes:subtitle>
          <itunes:summary>I&amp;#39;m pretty sure I&amp;#39;m the first person to ever use the iceberg analogy&amp;#8230; I&amp;#39;ve been pondering ways of thinking about open education awareness, and OER usage that might help shape OER policy. So here&amp;#39;s one I want to try out. Open education in general, and OERs specifically, form a basis from which many other practices Continue reading</itunes:summary>
          <itunes:keywords>oer, openness</itunes:keywords>
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        <item>
          <title>Flipped learning – why openness matters even if you think it doesn’t</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/_RISpqNdc4I/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/flipped-learning-why-openness-matters-even-if-you-think-it-doesnt/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2014 11:28:40 +0000</pubDate>
          <dc:creator>
            <![CDATA[mweller]]>
          </dc:creator>
          <category>
            <![CDATA[battle]]>
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          <category>
            <![CDATA[flipped learning]]>
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          <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.edtechie.net/uncategorized/flipped-learning-why-openness-matters-even-if-you-think-it-doesnt/</guid>
          <description>
            <![CDATA[As I mentioned a couple of posts back, we&#39;ve been working with the Flipped Learning network in the US. My colleague Bea De Los Arcos, has a good post about FlipCon, their annual conference.&#0160;As I argued, Flipped Learning has the whiff of a commercial brand about it, but that I felt it was a useful <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/battle/flipped-learning-why-openness-matters-even-if-you-think-it-doesnt/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
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            <![CDATA[<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="640" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jb-london/4060747161/in/photolist-c6xEUA-8HHGRA-9rMzEs-aWbCma-9Abjvv-5VgMJK-6NxNqE-4xuRd6-4XXHK5-amxAaS-m9nq5-daZiKy-kEXUKc-3f58u2-8z22B6-cDH1MG-9AegkW-4a4GEX-8wJc2H-4ucvWc-dWEYK3-kLidV-7bQoE6-axBLCc-6rkkWr-3jkig4-4MR8Lc-51tgT9-6iN7Gj-6PvMz9-bFSnSP-8FKxRi-6qmcLm-7RNf1p-5dU9yn-eKzrJu-5oReeD-4Lb9vH-6RrcR6-eHqHDo-r2qDe-4a4FQr-8havc-2uwEpG-bU9bUi-dZtPv6-5nf55x-92ME7M-73Fv6N-bFyRHp/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="427"></iframe></p>
<p>As I mentioned a <a href="http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2014/06/is-flipping-a-useful-concept.html" target="_self">couple of posts back</a>, we&#39;ve been working with the Flipped Learning network in the US. My colleague Bea De Los Arcos, has a good post about <a href="http://oerresearchhub.org/2014/06/27/goodbye-mars-flipcon14-reviewed/" target="_self">FlipCon, their annual conference.</a>&#0160;As I argued, Flipped Learning has the whiff of a commercial brand about it, but that I felt it was a useful approach for many teachers. And as Bea notes, the enthusiasm of teachers who Flip is notable, and that is surely a good thing.</p>
<p>In my Battle for Open book I make the argument that the direction of openness is important to all of us. But I think it&#39;s sometimes hard to make that connection to practice beyond the world of open education itself. The direction of Flipped Learning offers one such example I believe.</p>
<p>We&#39;ve found that there was a <a href="http://oscailte.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/research-findings-on-flipped-learning-and-oer/" target="_self">high level of adaptation of OER by Flipped teachers</a>, but that the range of sites they use is quite limited (YouTube, TED, Khan academy dominate). To me this suggests a picture that teachers are (obviously) time poor, so they like convenient solutions. Flipped Learning itself can be seen as a convenient solution to blended learning, and the collection of resources at somewhere like Khan is again a time-saving, convenient approach. But having found resources, teachers want to be able to blend and adapt them. We&#39;ve also found support for the &#39;openness as virus&#39; theory in that people tend to become likely to seek out other open resources, become aware of CC licensing, etc.</p>
<p>Now, given the pressure on teachers, and the desire for a convenient solution, wouldn&#39;t it be great if someone came along and offered a really good collection of resources for Flipped Teachers to use (maybe allied to the Common Core), combined with advice on how to Flip, a platform, and so on? Well, look here, Pearson have partnered with the Flipped Learning network and are o<a href="http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PS2244" target="_self">ffering a course on how to Flip</a>. As it says &quot;Contact your local Pearson Account Executive and get flipping today!&quot;</p>
<p>Now, there&#39;s nothing wrong with this, in the same way that commercial companies offer solutions based on open source software, it can be part of a healthy ecosystem around the subject. But it doesn&#39;t take too much imagination to see how Flipped Learning could become a Pearson trademark, and a solution offered by them to schools. And then all sorts of things stop happening &#8211; the freedom for it to develop in a manner led by teachers, the inclination to find resources beyond those provided by Pearson, and perhaps most significantly, it stifles teachers becoming part of the broader, open community.</p>
<p>I think this example will be telling. For many teachers in the Flipped Network, open education isn&#39;t a primary concern, for instance they may not be aware of the term OER. But it is a substratum which allows them to operate in the manner they like. Before they know it, this openness could be undermined and replaced by a packaged, proprietary solution, and they won&#39;t even know what theyt&#39;ve lost. That is why I think the battle for open is significant for all of us in education.</p>
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          <title>MOOC completion rates DO matter</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/tnqFLWOqfIA/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/mooc/mooc-completion-rates-do-matter/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2014 08:29:55 +0000</pubDate>
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          <category>
            <![CDATA[MOOC]]>
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          <guid isPermaLink="false">http://blog.edtechie.net/uncategorized/mooc-completion-rates-do-matter/</guid>
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            <![CDATA[It has become accepted practice amongst those who know about MOOCs to sniff at completion rates. Focusing on them (hell, even mentioning them) demonstrates just how constrained you are by the old ways of thinking daddio. I find this particularly from the cMOOC crowd, and I&#39;ve stopped talking about them, because as David Kernohan suggests, <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/mooc/mooc-completion-rates-do-matter/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
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            <![CDATA[<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="479" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pranavbhatt/7324846936/in/photolist-bwfc44-cLA8bo-WezqD-byEnrg-c3Fmhh-hFAPdy-9n5VYM-bJgi6i-aRoPba-cagKNq-cLA8eE-aTHUsa-e1ryDW-bLRvP4-c5kFXW-9ksLQy-9ksMcd-dLH8ro-bBFr6n-AuPPH-bxNhgC-bJghYH-qx7-bvmvsm-7endAu-9j18Q4-7jRhMw-aMwTiv-cLA8x5-eK48Vh-3EtZpv-dz6dbs-91KoMh-5f5dRY-NQ1hD-byUx57-hyNZh-79Kxrn-9n6cVi-hTUe2B-8ojesm-a3HWge-hTNHCZ-4CmTQz-amPMjE-cLA7L5-9n8Zb3-bo57GD-h3zR77-95HGyi/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>It has become accepted practice amongst those who know about MOOCs to sniff at completion rates. Focusing on them (hell, even mentioning them) demonstrates just how constrained you are by the old ways of thinking daddio. I find this particularly from the cMOOC crowd, and I&#39;ve stopped talking about them, because as <a href="http://followersoftheapocalyp.se/why-do-you-hate-learning-why-do-you-hate-the-future/" target="_self">David Kernohan suggests</a>, to even talk about them is like saying you hate learning.</p>
<p>The commonly used argument against completion rates (or even worse &#39;drop-out rates&#39;), is that they aren&#39;t relevant. <a href="http://halfanhour.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/like-reading-newspaper.html" target="_self">Stephen Downes has a nice analogy</a>, (which he blogged at my request, thankyou Stephen) in that it&#39;s like a newspaper, no-one drops out of a newspaper, they just take what they want. This has become repeated rather like a statement of fact now. I think Stephen&#39;s analogy is very powerful, but it is really a statement of intent. If you design MOOCs in a certain way, then the MOOC experience <em>could</em> be like reading a newspaper. The problem is 95% of MOOCs aren&#39;t designed that way. And even for the ones that are, completion rates are still an issue.</p>
<p>Here&#39;s why they&#39;re an issue. MOOCs are nearly always designed on a week by week basis (which would be like designing a newspaper where you had to read a certain section by a certain time). <a href="http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2013/12/redefining-mooc-completion-rates.html" target="_self">I&#39;ve blogged about this before,</a> but from Katy Jordan&#39;s data we reckon 45% of those who sign up, never turn up or do anything. It&#39;s hard to argue that they&#39;ve had a meaningful learning experience in any way. If we register those who have done anything at all, eg just opened a page, then by the end of week 2 we&#39;re down to about 35% of initial registrations. And by week 3 or 4 it&#39;s plateauing near 10%. The data suggests that people are definitely not treating it like a newspaper. In Japan some research was done on <a href="http://www.japan-guide.com/topic/0108.html" target="_self">what sections of newspapers people read</a>. There is an interesting gender split but also the sections are quite evenly divided:</p>
<p>Men top 5 sections:</p>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">Headlines (62.0%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">Domestic News (55.4%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">Sports (55.4%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">Economy (53.3%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">International News (47.8%)</span></li>
</ul>
<p>Women top 5 sections:</p>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">TV listings (71.4%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">Headlines (65.3%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">Domestic News (53.3%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">International News (50.8%)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 14px;">Crimes and Accidents (39.2%)</span></li>
</ul>
<p>For MOOCs to be like newspapers then you&#39;d expect 65% to read the topics in week 1 and, say 54% the topics in week 7. This doesn&#39;t happen. Now, it <em>could</em> happen, if MOOCs were designed that way, and you thought that was appropriate for your subject matter. But to say it <em>does</em> happen is simply incorrect.</p>
<p>Now for any individual this may not matter, you&#39;ve dropped out when you felt like it, and maybe that was a meaningful experience (or maybe it was a painful experience because you felt out of your depth, but we don&#39;t like to talk about that either). But for MOOCs in general as a learning approach it really does matter. Most MOOCs are about 6-7 weeks long, so <strong>90% of your registered learners are never even looking at 50% of your content</strong>. That must raise the question of why are you including it in the first place? If a subject requires a longer take at it, beyond 3 weeks say, then MOOCs really may not be a very good approach to it. There is a hard, economic perspective here, it costs money to make and run MOOCs, and people will have to ask if the small completion rates are the most effective way to get people to learn that subject. You might be better off creating more stand alone OERs, or putting money into better supported outreach programmes where you can really help people stay with the course. Or maybe you will actually design your MOOC to be like a newspaper.</p>
<p>Kernohan raises the point that it is in the commercial interest of MOOC companies to dismiss drop out rates. A good question to ask yourself when someone says completion rates don&#39;t matter is &quot;if they had 90% completion rates, would they still be telling me they don&#39;t matter?&quot;.</p>
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          <title>Is ‘Flipping’ a useful concept?</title>
          <link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEdTechie/~3/3nQVU6IvEeU/</link>
          <comments>http://blog.edtechie.net/flipped-learning/is-flipping-a-useful-concept/#comments</comments>
          <pubDate>Thu, 19 Jun 2014 15:24:23 +0000</pubDate>
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            <![CDATA[As part of the OER Research Hub my colleague Bea De Los Arcos has been working with the Flipped Learning network in the US. If you don&#39;t know what &#39;flipped learning&#39; is the basic idea is that you use classroom time for peer interaction, discussion, interaction, and homework for instruction (often via online video). From <a href="http://blog.edtechie.net/flipped-learning/is-flipping-a-useful-concept/" class="more-link">Continue reading</a>]]></description>
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            <![CDATA[<p>As part of the <a href="oerresearchhub.org" target="_self">OER Research Hub</a> my colleague <a href="http://oscailte.wordpress.com/" target="_self">Bea De Los Arcos</a> has been working with the <a href="http://flippedlearning.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1" target="_self">Flipped Learning network</a> in the US. If you don&#39;t know what &#39;flipped learning&#39; is the basic idea is that you use classroom time for peer interaction, discussion, interaction, and homework for instruction (often via online video). From the OER perspective it&#39;s an interesting group because open education is related to what they do, but it doesn&#39;t come from the open education world.</p>
<p>I&#39;ve just written a section on Flipped Learning for this year&#39;s <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/innovating/" target="_self">Innovating Pedagogy </a>report, so I&#39;ve been thinking about the whole approach. I&#39;ve heard people dismiss it as &#39;that&#39;s just another name for blended learning&#39;. <a href="http://moreorlessbunk.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/the-flipped-classroom-is-decadent-and-depraved/" target="_self">Jonathan Rees</a> doesn&#39;t like it at all, and thinks it puts too much onus on the learner. There is also something about the way the US system operates in that approaches like this become a brand to be promoted, which can seem quite odd outside of that context.</p>
<p>I would also say, that like OERs, hard evidence is often lacking of its benefits, but there are some <a href="http://www.flippedlearning.org/cms/lib07/VA01923112/Centricity/Domain/41/HigherEdWhitePaper%20FINAL.pdf" target="_self">persuasive case studies</a>. And the people who take it up do seem genuinely converted and enthusiastic (<a href="http://flippedlearning.org/survey" target="_self">96% of those who had flipped saying they would recommend it</a>), which indicates there is something there. I have a feeling that those in educational technology (particularly in higher ed) can be a bit sniffy about such things: &#39;we&#39;ve seen this before&#39;, &#39;where&#39;s the evidence?&#39;, &#39;what solid pedagogic theory are you basing it on?&#39;, etc. While Flipped Learning can certainly be seen as a form of blended learning, I&#39;ve come to see it as a useful way of framing it for teachers. Blended learning can be a bit vague: use the best mix of media for pedagogic effect. That can leave you floundering, what media for what purpose? Flipping gives this more structure. What do you spend your time explaining that could be effectively delivered online? And what could I do in the classroom that&#39;s more engaging than simply delivering information.</p>
<p>One criticism of flipping is that it kind of assumes that all teachers are just standing there lecturing anyway, and this is far from the truth. So when you scratch the surface you&#39;ll find plenty of teachers have done elements of flipping, without even knowing the term. And there is also an emphasis on video, indeed some people seem to view it as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michal-tsur/research-confirms-video-i_b_5064181.html?ir=College" target="_self">being about online video</a>, whereas the interactive element in the face to face session is the more important aspect.</p>
<p>Overall though I think it&#39;s a useful way of approaching the possibilities that the internet offers for education, while still recognising the value of the teacher and the human interaction. By asking the question &quot;how could I flip my classroom?&quot; it gives a way of thinking about the best affordances (klaxon!) of online and face to face. And that seems like a good thing.</p>
<p>(Here is a nice little sheet Bea produced for the Flipped Learning Network to help explain CC licences):</p>
<p><a class="asset-img-link" href="http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c0c0e53ef01a73ddc379e970d-pi" style="display: inline;"><img alt="Ccforfln1" border="0" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c0c0e53ef01a73ddc379e970d image-full img-responsive" src="http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c0c0e53ef01a73ddc379e970d-800wi" title="Ccforfln1" /></a></p>
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          <itunes:subtitle>As part of the OER Research Hub my colleague Bea De Los Arcos has been working with the Flipped Learning network in the US. If you don&amp;#39;t know what &amp;#39;flipped learning&amp;#39; is the basic idea is that you use classroom time for peer interaction, discus</itunes:subtitle>
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