Opened, Week X

This is the “Week X” post. Why? Because this is the Week X of the course.
The week X is, for me, the week that neither students nor teachers nor tutors would like to “meet”, but it happens.
In the week X you feel frustration and disappointment.
Frustration is relate to a lack of feedback from your teacher/tutor/mentor.
Where is the beautiful relationship made of glances and smiles and jokes and smell after a hot morning in the classroom? Online teachers/tutors/mentors, did you ever think about this human aspect?
Disappointment arise from the awareness that more or less 40 people all around the world are reading things and writing about them but don’t build up any social network.
We are doing our “homeworks”, for sure reading some posts by someoneelse … but then?
I would like to get in touch with some of you, know who you are, what are your dreams, needs, faces…
I would like to get some feedback from Wiley!
David, if you are there knock the door!!!!
Please!!!!

ClassTools

Rimando al link: classtools e al sito di maestroalberto che parla in maniera diffusa di questo, a mio avviso utile, strumento didattico online.
USO GRATUITO.

Opened, week 7

Preamble: (skip it if you don’t have much time or don’t want to read something not closely related to the course)

Well, a long time ago (three years ago more or less) I decided to jump in the great adventure of technologies for didactic purposes, thus I begun to search the internet and more to find out the instruments (yeah, instruments) that could help me in making my teaching methods improve in quality considering the main aim: to make lessons and school projects where students are more effectively involved, where they really create – where they do instead of only listening and repeating (in whatever way you may mean this).

Thus I decided to buy some server & database space paying it by myself.
I considered it a sort of professional engagement and development.
What I thought, and still think, is that whatever the “free” or “open” platform is, it might always happen that, some day, sooner or later, it won’t be anymore totally free, that the owners’ might charge me with some costs. Or, and this would be even worse, that the platform is considered as no more useful by the owner, and closed.
Imagine all the problems with the file/data transfer, and all the consequences…

The course, the questions:

Then, a lot after the preamble, came the course on openeducation and the OER and OCW and so on…
And then, week 7, the questions, the problems…
Well, I acknowledge that the first reaction was “yet another week of technicalities” about copy-right-left-something else.
So far so good, I begun to read and view – I also added some videos in italian language to the syllabus, so to help the italians’ group… and myself.
But couldn’t yet grasp the problem behind the questions given for the week.
Now, thanks to the rss feeder, I found that someone else (STIAN:
http://reganmian.net/blog/2007/10/08/opened-week-7/) had already “done the homeworks”.
His article was really interesting to me, helped me to re-read some passages. Peculiarly I focussed my attention

“As far as I understand, the reason to use CC NC is not primarily to prevent people from making money off material, but rather to avoid that open material is “re-appropriated” by commercial entities. In this case, I believe SA does provide sufficient “protection” by making sure that all “value added” is returned to the community.”

My dog and I
After all, I went out with my dog for a walk in the countryside (you know Tuscany is gorgeous in this season…).
Walking along a river, we arrived at a point where another small one departed, thus I decided to follow it, my dog preceding me.
We were in the full of a wonderful country-field, in the coming sunset, walking all quiet and away from computers, ©, CC and so on…
Then, in the distance, I saw that the path was leading directly into one house’s property. My dog and I decided to go on, and after a few meters we were in the middle of a private backyard, which wasn’t divided from the countryside from… NOTHING.
No signs that we were entering a private backyard, except for some human voices and an old garage.
I said “hello” to the men in the garage and went straight on to the opposite side of the property, exiting it.

The trespassing
While my dog and I were trespassing the chain at the opposite side and gained a public road, I wondered:
– Well, they would have been in their full rights, they could have told me to go back, or even… shot me in the worst case.
But they let me go through and beyond.
After all, I didn’t diminish their property by passing by.
And I could enjoy my walk in the warm sunset.

CC, SA, BY, bye bye…
I don’t have a clear answer for the questions we have been given this week.
Is this license maybe an answer? : “>http://learn.creativecommons.org/

My perception
The site I talked about in the preamble was based on moodle, which is open source. What’s better than open source?
But even open source can be used as closed software.
Digging in the page of moodle sites, I tried to access as many as possible in order to see what other people (mainly teachers) are doing with their pupils through moodle.
Well, what’s the result? The very most part of sites are “public” in the homepage, but when you try to access a single course, you are required a subscription (usual and maybe correct) and even a password, or you’re not allowed not even to see the material and lessons and so on.
I can understand that a company trying to make money can need to protect some courses – after all they’re living or trying to from it.
But a school? Or a college? To me, it sounds more or like if during my walk with the dog, the men had told us “ok, you can see the path but you need to tell us the password to go through… or go simply back your way home”.

see also the discussion about the topic in LTEver

Opened week 6 through a mindmap

(made with mappio.com)

Opened week 6

Understanding the importance and value of the public domain,
1. how much (what percentage) of this value would you estimate is realized when works are licensed with a Creative Commons or GFDL license?
2. To what degree would the open educational resources movement (and therefore the world) be additionally benefited if OERs were simply placed in the public domain? Please explain.

Well, I tried to understand the real reason behind that precise “what percentage”, as I first read the questions and was reading the papers and something more around this week’s topic.

The focus is clearly on the concept of public domain, and it results somehow limited by the CC license and GFDL license.
At the extremities is the © concept, which is opposite of public domain.
That’s the way I feel it after reading this week.
As much as I’ve read about CC and GFDL, I am tempted to say that if the public domain is 100% without ©, and © is 0% public domain, CC is in some degree (depending on the author’s decision) under 50% public domain or, better defined, over 60% ©ed (copyrighted); GFDL is more or less over the edge of 50% public domain, to some extent being it “free”.
An example of it wikipedia itself, which is based upon the GFDL license.
When I try to think about the implications related to question #2, I have different reaction.
a. My first instinct-driven answer is “totally!!!”. I mean: open resources for education, withour any constrain, without any problem or concern like “am I violating anyone’s copyright?”…
b. My second answer is to take the definition of public domain: “Public domain comprises the body of knowledge and innovation (especially creative works such as writing, art, music, and inventions) in relation to which no person or other legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests within a particular legal jurisdiction”
and “In contrast to copyright is “public domain.” A work in the public domain is one that can be freely used by anyone for any purpose.”
Well. I find that many “open courses” are not so that publicly at disposal, so open and accessible.
I try to explain what I think with a short story: it was a few years ago, I went to Washington DC and visited the National Museum: it was easy, you go in, you see what you want, and you go out.
No ticket (no cost) no inspection (no password) free and uncontrolled going around.
How many “open sources repositories” or similar (like lms/cms managed courses) are really in the public domain?
Too many sites (school sites, e.g.) are “open” at the surface, I mean public at first glance, and then you are required to get a password, for which you need an email address, get an answer, reply through a specific link…
c. my 3rd answer is: the OER movement would greatly benefit from OER 100% in the public domain, but it’s too far now to be realized.

OpenEd, week 5, question 3

In the context of open education projects, what does “quality” mean?

Quality is not only measurable through quantity: not through the quantity of objects, or modules, or videos, or courses given/offered by an institution or internet platform (whatever you may mean under this definition).
I tried to access the different sites “watching” at them from two different points of view
a) the one of a casual websurfer, without big experience with e-learning, seeking for some personal improvement
b) the one of a teacher who is usually digging the net for ideas and professional self-improvement.
At the end of my Doppelgänger path, I found that a course (or a platform, or a place) where I can’t get in touch with other persons, collegues, peers, in order to get answers to my questions or to help others get their answers, isn’t of big quality to me.
I think that the presented sites differ in their structure, going from a bottom social level to a top social level, as I saw them some don’t even offer fora or social exchange instruments; but even those (like connections or http://openlearn.open.ac.uk) which stress more this aspects, don’t have an intense social exchange.
Quality is, in my opinion, constituted by/through/thanks to social interaction.
Social interaction can run through informal paths, like skype, emails, sms…. or through formal paths. like dedicate fora or mailing lists.
This is – as I consider it – the vital juice of any community.
Another way of making is through the chance of being able to give personal contribution to a project.
It’s more or less like in a traditional classroom: if pupils can’t do each one their own part “play the role”, and are instead pushed into the static role of mere listeners, they will be as soon as possible demotivated and give their attention to something else.
Quality is for me the capacity to attract and keep “magnetised” attention and motivation.
In this regard I can only agree with emanuela’s post:

at the other side of the network must be people who help, facilitate, guide, value and support the learners. Unfortunatly I didn’t find these quality indicators into the viewed courses

At the end, from teacher to teacher, David: why didn’t you put in the list this resource? –> http://www.oercommons.org

OpenEd, week 5, part 1 (questions 1+2)

see the map

OpenEd week 2,3,4 (Part II)

As Settembre 21, 2007 Pubblicato da aggiorni | Didaktik/didattica, LTEver, OpenEd | | Ancora nessun commento.

OpenEd, week2

At the beginning of the three weeks, I wanted to read all the papers and then “answer the questions” given by Wiley.
But then, I decided to share my thoughts about the papers while doing the reading, the “homeworks”.
Thus I will put here my Idea, and what the papers “awake” in me as a teacher, and then summurize the all in order to give a coherent answer to the course’s provocation.

The paper Giving knowledge for free has a captive title. Up to now I’ve read part one and two. Part one is a sort of review of the present situation, depicting an image of what is happening more or less worldwide, although it is strongly focussed upon western countries, rich countries, and so on.
It is not astonishing, as the introduction itself states the adressees of the paper: managers of higher education, institutions, stragists and decision makers.

The paper works around the concept of OER, open educational resource(s).
In the second part, it tries to define nearly the meaning of open, educational and resource.
It is openly said that the definition field concerns digital resources.

Up to now I find it too much limited to define OER, which in their very sense may or might have a broader meaning, only referring to digital and to computer based/delivered.
It is true that the paper puts it in clear as starting point, but I think that open educational resources should be defined starting from another point of view, that is wondering how to dismantle the idea of ©, changing it to copyleft or somethingelse.
The paper talks also about some experiments where creative commons licences where limited to a certain regione (e.g. BC of Columbia). It highlights the limitation given by password-and-registration systems (I think it is referred to the whole mass of LSM or PHP-based sites)
It would be interesting to try and see how to make these resources really open, where open is meant as something else rather than only 24h available and usable”.

OpenED, Week 2,3,4…

OpenEd:
I’m beginning the papers for week 2, 3, and 4.
I hope I’ll cope with that mountain of texts, now that school is beginning again!
Anyway, I try reading and re-reading the questions, so that they become clear in my mind and I can make “the sponge effect” (not Sponge-Bob!!!!) during the reading itself…:

“QUESTIONS: What do these overviews of the field have in common? What do they emphasize differently? What are the aims of the authors of each report? Do you see a bias toward or against any ideas, organizations, or approaches in any of the reports? Which report spoke the most clearly to you, and why do you think it did? Based on where the field is now, and these initial ideas about where it might go, what part of the open education movement is most interesting to you? Why?”

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