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.
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(http://ocw.uci.edu., 2014).
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| (http://ocw.uci.edu., 2014).
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| (http://ocw.uci.edu/courses., 2014).
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| (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 However, it makes me wonder if current OCW courses will be out of date for learners who grew up playing games in virtual realities, while several learners can still learn by reading the material with visual aids also available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
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