Open Course Ware (OCW) Reviewed

The First Look

When I first looked at Open Course Ware, I was directed to the following video about MIT, and how they started the program.

I explored the course offerings at MIT, and found that a few would be interesting, but I did not have the time to explore them and meet the deadline for this blog post (MIT, 2014).  Most of the courses were out of my subject area so I began searching what other universities had to offer.

Since the University of California at Irvine is where my brother received his Masters Degree, I decided I would look at their OCW offerings. The following is my report about exploring the UCI's OCW site and one course.

Exploring UC Irvine

After typing in the phrase Open Course Ware into Google search, I saw that the UC Irvine had offerings so decided to look at their website.  The home page looks user friendly as shown in the picture below, so I decided to explore the course offering.

(http://ocw.uci.edu., 2014).

The next step was to look at the terms of use which is part of the menu under the About Us link as shown in the next image.

(http://ocw.uci.edu., 2014).

There are courses, conferences and lectures available, but I decided to explore a course (http://ocw.uci.edu., 2014).  I picked Education 173:  Cognition & Learning in Educational Settings (English) (http://ocw.uci.edu/courses, 2014).   The course seems applicable to my studies at Walden U.  The next step is to look at the course information and related resources, then I will start the course.  The image below shows the links.

(http://ocw.uci.edu/courses., 2014).

I was a bit disappointed because the following image shows all the course information. 

(http://ocw.uci.edu., 2014).

Before I explore more of the course I am going to discuss what I have noticed so far about the UCI OCW website and the ease of access so far.  Chris Dede’s article about Planning for Neomillennial Learning Styles touches upon the idea “Napsterism (p. 8)” , where people who used to purchase prepackaged music, now can mix their own radio stations using services such as Pandora®, or I Heart Radio®, or MP3’s.  The same can be said for OCW, that was started by MIT in  2001, for people who simply want to learn without the expense associated with enrolling in a major university (Smith & Casserly, 2006).  Now people who want to learn specific information at a higher lever can enroll (if enrollment is even necessary) in a college course online, or other programs labeled open educational resources by Smith & Casserly (2006).

UCI is doing what so many other major universities have started, and it leads to questions about the course design and ease of access.  According to Dede’s definition of the Millenial learners, it would appear that they require very little in the way of guidance to using anything electronically based (2005).  However, it makes me wonder if current OCW courses will be out of date for learners who grew up playing games in virtual realities, while several learners can still learn by reading the material with visual aids also available (Dede, 2005).

It is my opinion that the UCI course site is geared towards someone who knows how to navigate a website, and it is probably a good call for people who are seeking this type of courseware.  Now lets look at the actual course.  Each part of the course has to be downloaded into a Word® document, and with today’s technology featuring Google Documents™ and .pdf files, it makes me wonder why they selected Word® documents, when it might not be the choice for the learners.  Once I open the syllabus, I see it was designed for the Fall Quarter of 2007 (UCI, 2007).  That explains the download document choice more fully. No changes have been made to the syllabus for the type of student who might take this course by simply downloading it and not have access to any support (UCI, 2007).  

According to “Michael Moore’s theory of Transactional Distance” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2012, p. 44), I would classify this type of learning extreme independent study.  Parts of it would fit into Knowles Theory of Andragogy, but not all of it, because students are not taking this course as a group (Simonson et al., 2012).  While it seems that adults would have the discipline to take this type of course, there is no feedback, or anyone to answer questions, even though the course mentions a noteboard with a link to access it, and to email TAs with questions or comments (Martinez, 2007).

Some of the handouts are in the form of .pdf files that contain PowerPoint presentations, that can be enlarged by using the keyboard so that the slide images can be seen more clearly (UCI, 2007).  The title slide does not mention a specific author for the presentation on the .pdf handouts for cognitive processes; just the title is given (UCI, 2007).  There is a PowerPoint presentation to download on metacognition and emotion that contains lecture notes at the bottom, but does not feature any audio (UCI, 2007).  

My overall opinions of this UCI OCW is that of appreciation for entering the free coursework game.  The learning theory is a combination of the two I have already mentioned and Fordism (Simonson, et al., 2012).  This is one size fits whoever chooses to look at this course (Smaldino, et al., 2012).  I feel that the course has value as supplemental material for learners to use when studying cognitions and learning, but the work I looked at lacked references that I have become used to seeing so that I can seek out more information on my own.  Fordism theory suggested that money was the determining factor for mass marketing educational products (Simonson, et al., 2012).  The OCW courses are free, so the learner has to look at that and be prepared to get what they pay for in some instances.

When I first started looking at resources for this blog post, I visited the MIT site not knowing that they were the first university to provide OCW (Smith & Casserly, 2006).  I was going to test one of their courses, because that might be the closest I ever get to attending that prestigious university.  The website is worth visiting, and it seems a bit more challenging than the UCI website, but it is worth the time to see, especially if you are interested in engineering or more technical courses (MIT, 2014).

Conclusion

I learned that there are several universities involved in OCW, and other schools have similar content called, Open Educational Resources (OER), but this form of sharing knowledge free of charge is in response to a “United Nations’ call for everyone in the world to to have a basic education by 2014, with the goal of closing the digital divide” (Smith & Casserly, 2006).  

When I take a look at the developments in both OCW, and OER over the past few years, it is amazing to see what can be accomplished when educational institutes embrace an idea for the benefit of humanity.  It makes my criticism of open coursework seem very insignificant to the big picture.

References

Dede, C., (2005).  Planning for neomillennial learning styles. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/planning-neomillennial-learning-styles

iHeartRadio. (2014).  http://www.iheart.com

http://ocw.uci.edu. (2014).  University of California-Irvine, OpenCourseWare [website].

Martinez.  (2007).  Education 173:  Cognitions & Learning in Educational Settings (English).  Retrieved from http://ocw.uci.edu/courses

MIT. ( 2014).  MITOpenCourseWare. [website]. Retrieved from http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

MIT OpenCourseWare. (2007). MIT OpenCourseWare 1800 event video. [video production]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbQ-FeoEvTI

Pandora.com. (2014). http://www.pandora.com

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Smith, M. S., & Casserly, C. M. (2006). The promise of open educational resources. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 38(5), 8-17.  

UCI.  (2007).  Education 173 Cognitions and Learning in Educational Settings. Fall Quarter 2007.  [pdf ].  Retrieved from http://prod.ocw.uci.edu/upload/files/ed173cognitionprocessesfall07handouts.pdf

UCI.  (2007).  Education 173 Cognition ad Learning in Educational Settings;  Metacognition. [PowerPoint].  Fall Quarter 2007.  Retrieved from http://ocw.uci.edu/courses

Week 3 Application Assignment Walden U. Distance Learning Course

Interactive Tours

Scenario:  I am the ID for a high school in California and a history teacher wants to be able to have her students take a tour of two museums in New York.  She wants her students to be able to interact with the museum’s curators, as well as see the works on display.  She also wants her students to participate in a group critique of one or two works of art that she selects.  I am going to suggest technologies for the teacher to use to provide the best learning experience for her students.

For this posting I will only use one museum for my examples, since the teacher will only have to duplicate the efforts for the other museum.

Since providing travel for the students to New York is not in the budget, I will have to consider other means to meet the needs of the history teacher.  The school has excellent Wi-Fi capabilities, and the teacher is able to use a computer or other device with the projector that is permanently mounted to the ceiling in each classroom.  Students also have access to iPads and mobile devices.

Questions for Analysis of the Project

1. How comfortable is she in using the technology that exists in the classroom? 2. Is the Wi-Fi connection stable? 3. How comfortable are the students using their mobile devices or classroom computers/iPads for research? 4.  Is Google Earth available on the computers in the classroom, or in the computer lab? 5. Will she be making her own lesson plans using my suggestions for meeting her lesson’s requirements? 6. Do all the students have the necessary clearances to use the school computers? 7.  Is there enough time to contact curators of current exhibits or of those soon to begin, to set up either a Face Time meeting, or a Google hangout, or a webinar? 8. Is the she willing to compromise if the curators are unable to have a live meeting during the class? 9. Does the teacher know if the museums have systems for virtual classrooms in place?  Has she contacted the museums to discuss her ideas?  If so, will she share her contact information? 10. When viewing art the teacher and the students might be exposed to work that contains nudes, culturally diverse works, works that might be of a distressing nature depicting the brutality of life.  Has the teacher cleared this with the school, or school board before her idea is developed more? 11.  Are there other permissions students might need before participating in this unit, or lesson?

The following is a video that explains the Google Cultural Institute and using Google Earth features.

There are more ways to use Google to create museums after doing research.  The following video shows what one school teacher is presenting, and having her students also create.

The next video shows how one teacher used Power Point to create her own museum, and she lets her students create their own museums for presentations.  This video is less than 10 minutes long.  The second part is another 12 minutes, but would be worth watching to be able to duplicate this process.

There are several more videos on YouTube to help teachers and students to make museum presentations and it is only limited by their creativity.

The following is my Camtasia recording example of using Google Earth street view to explore The Metropolitan Museum of Art while sitting in the comfort of my home.

There are also apps for the iPad for exploring current exhibits.  For example right now there is a showing at The Metropolitan  Museum of Art in New York that goes through February 1, 2015 titled El 

Greco in New York (Met Museum.org, 2014).  The teacher could 

use the information from the iPad app (where I located the 

information about the exhibit) as a starting place and then conduct 

an internet search (such as I just did) to get more information that

she would be able to share with her students who might not have 

access to the Apple App.  

I have learned from tutoring World History that El Greco is mentioned in text books for his influence on modern art, but students are not really given enough time to explore how the time of his life led to the style and subjects of his work.  I learned more about him during a Spanish class taught by a man who studied at the University of Madrid.  El Greco died 400 years ago, and this exhibit is a celebration of his great art that highly influenced modern painting (MetMuseum.org, 2014).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a wonderful website with several resources for teachers.  The first one is called Learn For Educators and you can follow the link that opens in a new window. On the learn for educators time line page there is a wealth of information including lesson plans. There is a series of pictures with links, and by following the links there is more information. New York City has so many great museums that it would take months to view them all.  If teachers will run Google searches for the museums they want to visit they can find good online resources and possibly apps for their mobile devices.   The Guggenheim museum has a great online site.  There are videos on the site that are very educational, and it is all free.  Here is the video link. The 82nd and 5th Museum's home page is incredible, so before you leave this blog you should take a few minutes and click on the link to it, so you can give your eyes a feast of all the incredible art.  I am sure that teachers can broaden their students' appreciation for art in history by visiting some of these museums right from the classroom.

References

Bowen, R.  (2014).  Week 3- Google Earth and New York MMoA .  [Video]  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdLujkcsbQA

Google Cultural Institute.  (2013).  [Video] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzMXbvBsALo

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york

http://www.guggenheim.org/video

Jenkins, R. (2012)  Virtual Museum. Building A Room. Part 1. [Video]  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWeiYxkicHM

Jenkins, R. (2012) Virtual Museum.  Part 2.  [Video]  Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl6gq87TiYc

Lee, D. (2014).  Technology Integration:  Virtual Museums with Google Slides Presentations.  [Video] Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GaguGpvFAQ

Metropolitan Museum of Art.  (2014).  [Website].  Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/museum-departments

3 Types of Distance Learning Models- A brief review

This week at Walden we have been looking at Distance Learning and I have visited quite a few web pages, and eBooks to learn a whole lot of information that I will share in this post.

I created my first eMaze presentation without sounds or narration to distract anyone, and I will see how it works embedding it here. The presentation varied from my original answers to questions regarding the Distance Learning Models, and I will attempt to include both of them here.

The presentation works best if you pop it out and view full screen.  I will see if I can get help to work out the reasons and adjust it so it will fit in the space for the blog.


Emaze was time consuming and I have spent 6 hours today working on it.  If I had more time I would do more with it.

Here is the PDF that I created from the original study.

My Model of Distance Learning

My Distance Learning Definition

The following blog post answers questions about the definition of distance learning, and why I feel that the definition will always be changing.  Defining distance learning reminds me a bit of a game I played as a child.  One child would have a message to read to the next one, and the message would be passed around the room verbally.  By the time the message was given to the group by the last child, it was changed from the original.  Each child would relay what they had heard, or their interpretation of what they thought they heard.  My personal definition of distance learning might have several of the same components of those visiting my site, but will most likely differ in some ways.

As I went through the primary grades and early years of college, distance learning was carrying stacks of books home nightly to work on homework, usually without any help since both parents worked.  They might proof read papers, or tell me to use the dictionary.  I was pretty much on my own as far as being self-taught at home, and would bring questions to the teacher the next day, hoping to have them answered.  Maybe this is stretching what distance learning is to you, but it is what distance learning is to me, or how it has evolved for me, and helped develop my skills as an independent learner.  Other ways I used independent learning was by purchasing books that further explained subjects, such as Calculus, or hobbies that I wanted to learn, such as drawing.  This contributed to my distance learning before the computer and internet changed almost everything for the way I learned.

This is my definition of distance learning prior to starting the course based on the above statements.

Distance learning may or may not be led by an instructor who can be contacted for assistance.  It is self motivated learning that requires the learner to take the initiative to do what is necessary to gain the knowledge that they seek.  Learning can be accomplished through a variety of methods including:  reading a book, attending webinars, purchasing a course online with no structure, enrolling in an online course that has structure, watching television, listening to pod casts, or viewing videos.

According to Terry Anderson’s introduction to his book, Theory and Practice of Online Learning, the practice of distance learning has been evolving for 150 years (p. 2).  Other sources have it going back to the 1800’s with early correspondence courses (Laureate, [Multimedia],  n.d.).  It seems that my original definition fits somewhere within the range of the last of the 20^th century and the beginning of  21^st  (Anderson, 2008).  

A question I have is if the terms Distance Learning and  Distance Education should be thought of as the same?  In forming my new definition this is an area of consideration.  The term, Distance Education, appears to be more formal and include directed learning from an institution that is led by an instructor.  My opinion is based on several criteria and definitions listed in the book Teaching and Learning at a Distance Foundations of Distance Education that mention that instruction is led by an instructor who is not face to face with the students.

Dr. Simonson states in the video that the last decade, since the internet use has grown that Distance Education has been increasing (Laureate, [Video], n.d.).  His definition of  Distance Education includes both distance teaching and distance learning and also includes that it is formal education where the teachers, students, and resources might be separated by location and time zones (Laureate, [Video], n.d.).  Distance Education also must include a criteria for evaluation of the learner (Moller, Foshay, & Huett, 2008).  It can not solely be based on an instructor giving assignments, and the students completing them (Moller, Foshay, & Huett, 2008).  Learning has to be evaluated to both prove the effectiveness of the course instruction, and  the students' mastery of the material (Moller, Foshay, & Huett, 2008).  

My new definition of distance education follows.

Distance education includes both a teacher and learners in a structured course  that is part of an educational setting, such as a school, college, or university.  Students, instructors, and resources can be separated by distances and time zones, without the necessity of face-to-face interaction.  However, students and teachers must have access to viable means for communicating during the course term. Students should also be able to interact with other students taking the same course at simultaneously to learn from each other, as well as the experiences of the instructor. Course materials should include assessment criteria to evaluate the learners' progress.

Throughout this week, I have seen distance learning evolve from correspondence courses starting in the 1800’s, to the use of technology through telephones, radio, and television, up to present times with mobile technology using cellular phones, and portable tablets with internet access (Laureate, [Multimedia],  n.d.).  I foresee that distance education will continue to improve as it becomes more acceptable by educational institutions that are well recognized, and more and more students see the advantages of this style of learning.  With mobile devices, the content management systems are going to have to become more user friendly with a variety of operating systems for the expansion to continue smoothly.  This will open up the field for those offering programming and support for the systems, and institutions using them.  The future looks great.

References

Anderson, T. (2008).  The theory and practice of online learning.  Second edition.  Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8: AU Press, Athabasca University.  Retrieved from  http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/99Z_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Laureate Education, Inc. (n.d.).  Distance learning timeline continuum.  [Multimedia Program].  Retrieved from https://class.walden.edu

Laureate Education, Inc (Producer).  (n.d.). Distance education:  The next generation [Video file].  Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008).  The evolution of distance learning:  Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 1:  Training and development).  Tech Trends, 52(3), 70-75.  Retrieved from http://content.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., &  Zvacek, S. (2012).  Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

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Mind Map For Distance Learning Definition

The following is the start of my mind map for my distance learning definition.
Distance Learning Definition on MindMup


If you would like to view this as an image here is the link.  The image should only be available until May 2, 2015 though.