WEEK 2: Introduction to Wikiversity

This week we are exploring either LeMill or Wikiversity. We need to set ourselves up to be a contributor to one of these OER sites by creating a profile. We also need to contribute to an area of interest by contacting the editors, contributing to an existing resource and create a new resource.

My Profile
My Wikiversity profile is a work in progress as I have bigger plans for my work here (and will post this later). This wikiversity profile does link to my web portfolio site. To view my MediaWiki profile go to my profile on WikiEducator.

My Notification
I began by investigating materials for how to get started in programming with PhP. I found a number of introductory programming resources. Nothing that provided OER for how to set up the development environment. The lessons I found were lessons on beginner programming with different languages, nothing how to set up the software development environment to start the actual programming. So I posted a question on a couple of talk pages. The question was;

getting a development space
I'm wanting to get into programming PhP, there seems to be a number of good open access courses for intro to PhP and further. What I am looking for is a course on how to set up the development environment. Can anyone point me to such a course? -- Prawstho 17:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I posted this question to the following two talk pages;

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic_talk:Computer_programming
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:Web_design

My New Resource
As eluded to in my notification, there seems to be the requirement for a course on setting up a software development environment. Now this may be only my need, but I will assume that as I develope out the course it may attract some attention. We shall see... I created a new Wikiversity page within the Computer Programming topic called "Creating a Development Environment". Let's see what interest this draws...

Conclusions
It would seem success within Wikiversity comes from engagement. I couldn't find a place to sign-up for membership or contact this particular person to become an auther for a particular school. I guess the idea is to just jump right in, keep going and wait for feedback and the engagement from others.

WEEK 2: Existing OER projects

I’ve been familiar with all these open education projects for a while;

• Open University (UK) Open Content Initiative
• Rice Connexions
• MIT OpenCourseWare
• LeMill.net
• Wikiversity.org

The OpenCourseWare project at MIT has always amazed me the most. Cause to see all their curriculum online and available for download just seems to go against the American ideology of capitalism. I’ve always been surprised that they are putting it out there for free and under a CC-BY-NC-SA license. I remember reading a while back how they aligned what they were doing with opencourseware and the universities mission. As their mission states they want to "advance knowledge and educate students ... that will best serve ... the world", there doin' it!

When I was looking at all these open education projects I was asking myself, which one I would use if I was developing a new course or program. And what was important to me is that I am familiar with the technology (publishing and course development tools) and that the project embraces a licensing scheme that I am happy with. The licensing scheme is important as it encourages or restrains the reuse of my work. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all the projects have embraced a CC license of some sort. So I felt comfortable that I could work with all sites. Being familiar with the technology pushed me toward Wikiversity. I am already familiar with using MediaWiki to publish content and find it an effective tool for developing courses online.

OER - Two important and relevant views

This 2006 stream speaks to what MAY be coming with OER.



This more recent 2008 stream that looks at the reality of the sharing we need to enjoy what the previous stream spoke of...

Download media

Models for sustaining OER

Stephen Downes wrote a good article on approaches to sustaining OER. It's a good read if you have the time. http://ijklo.org/Volume3/IJKLOv3p029-044Downes.pdf

WEEK 1: Ilkka has created a valuable contribution

I found this paper by Ilkka filled with a very good description of OER and some very important statements about OER and it influence on education. I really appreciated the historical references and how OER is tied to the Open Source movement. Tuomi (2006, page 4) makes the important observation that “When educational processes and objectives qualitatively change, new systems are needed for measuring their performance and benefits.” This stands out for me because I am seeing change in much of education and I see OER as one of the influences. I also believe this is important for it recognizes that we need new approaches to measuring performance and benefits within the use of OER.
Pedagogical Benefits
Ilkka also does well in pointing out the pedagogical benefits of the Open Source movement where he speaks of how “The informal communities of practice that develop open source systems have produced some of the leading software engineers of today. In some cases, open source projects seem to clearly outperform traditional formal educational models in their capability to create expertise and skills.” I share the constructivist belief that one of the best ways to learn something is to have to teach it. So having people develop OER and be a contributor to a global OER repository may be the best way for them to learn the subject. Being involved in a community of practice focused upon the developing OER for a subject domain may well be the best way to learn the subject.
Context Area
As I got further into the paper my appreciation for its depth increased. The introduction of the three areas (page 25) really got me thinking and I began to wonder if there was a fourth area, the context of the resource. Or does context fall into the social? It doesn’t seem to in the paper. Either way the three areas are valuable, though I believe context needs to be considered an area itself.
Levels of Openness
The three levels of openness are also very thought provoking and Openness II makes me wonder if there is the need for a new type of global institution that grants formal degrees after working through (or creating) a number of OER courses.
The fountain
I really like the visual of the open fountain and when it comes to education where knowledge can be shared and created in large numbers of learners from a single source really is a fountain. How this will be recognized within the concept of the commons and the idea of academia and commercial endeavour will be interesting to be a part of.
More on Context
As the paper came to a close with the five points of view I again began to wonder where learning context fits within these views. I believe there is room for one more view that would sit between learner view and teacher view. It would be the contextual view – context of learning (the what/where/how/language/culture/localization of the OER being utilized). I believe this idea is reinforced at the top of page 33 where Ilkka speaks to how the resources are consumed in qualitatively different markets.
My Conclusion
I found this paper a great introduction to OER and all the issues which surround this amazing topic. I did find the paper did require a level of technical understanding with regard to the subjects of frameworks, SCORM, etc.

Lawrence Lessig Free Culture Video

In my opinion this video is an accumulation of Lawrence Lessig's work. It shows his historical depth regarding the issue of freedom and copyright, it shows his outstanding presentation approach, it provides a roadmap to those who want to engage and it tells of the importance of this issue to our future and our children's lives. For all those interested in the free culture and creative commons movements it is a must watch video.

Peter welcomes everyone to composing OER

Hello all participants, I am very excited about this wikiversity course. I have had an interest in OER and all things open and free for a while now and over the last 18 months have been focusing on OER within completing a Master of Education (IT). I live on the west coast of Canada on an Island that is one hour from Vancouver. I am interested in this course for I believe that if we are going to create all the OER to meet the global and developing worlds needs for curriculum it will have to be done by a large participatory and collaborative group. I believe this course will cover most, if not all, the topics important to understanding the development of OER. I also believe that after this course I will be able to further the message of OER and speak to most questions that could be asked regarding OER. If you want to get a greater idea of who i am please visit my web site at http://www.rawsthorne.org or view my wikieducator profile at http://wikieducator.org/User:Prawstho

Buy only what you NEED

This is something that has kicked around in my head for many years and i try an practice it every day... This 20 minute flash video explains why.

Composing free and open online educational resources

I just signed up for this course about developing OER. It is very similar to what I was proposing in my paper titled "Utilizing Open Educational Resources for International Curriculum Development". I believe this will be an excellent course as I have been following the work of Teemu for a while. He also posted a comment to one of my blog posts a while ago. So it would seem the seven degrees are reducing...

The OER4D Program

So I finished another paper and put it over on my academic blog. The paper is more of a proposal for a new university level program about utilizing OER for development. Or in other words it is an Open Educational Resource (OER) about how to create, eruse and alter existing OER. I believe a course like this is overdue. So I've written this proposal and if all goes well, I hope to start building the resource in the new year.

Why a Learning Systems Architect?

So I was prodded into making a defense for my new role of Learning Systems Architect… Here is my rant of a response, enjoy.

Nobody apparently needs!?! Everybody needs! They just aren’t aware of it yet. But they should be, and will be. What sort of organization? Any organization engaged in the knowledge based economy and want to encourage their employees to self construct knowledge and thrive within their organization. See John Seely Brown; http://www.johnseelybrown.com/speeches.html#digitalage The organizations internal pain would be

1. employees seeking more interesting opportunities elsewhere, 
2. a general erosion of an organizations ability to identify and create new knowledge at an ever increasing rate… 
3. let your mind wonder…

A Learning Systems Architect works as the implementer and technical eyes / expert for the Chief Learning Officer. The Chief Learning Officer makes sure the organization has everything (politics, budget, infrastructure, knowledge, etc) in place to be a learning organization. Otherwise, the organization dies… The World 2.0 is here, knowledge doubles every 18 months, 1.3 billion youth will emerge from the developing world in the next 10 years to fill an estimated 380 million new jobs, only 130 million university seats exist today in the developed world, where will the 130 million (10% of the 1.3 billion) of the developing world students get their education? When all the seats are occupied by developed world students? Answer: the learning organization with a learning infrastructure built by a Learning Systems Architect…

Thanks again for prodding me to clarify… Please, prod me again. This is known as socio-constructivist learning. It is a core theory that a Learning Systems Architect builds a learning eco-system…

Learning Systems Architect

Learning Systems Architects perform some or all of the following duties:

• Collect and document user’s requirements and develop logical and physical specifications
• Liaise with clients, product managers and senior management regarding the feasability and design of product development
• Research, evaluate and synthesize technical information to design, develop and test computer-based learning and instructional systems
• Develop data, process and network models to optimize architecture and to evaluate the performance and reliability of designs
• Ensure that performance, scalability and extensibility requirements of the product are gathered and met
• Plan, design and co-ordinate the development, installation, integration and operation of computer-based learning and instructional systems
• Assess, test, troubleshoot, document, upgrade and develop maintenance procedures for operating systems, communications environments and applications software
• May lead and co-ordinate teams of information systems professionals, interactive media developers and instructional designers in the development of courseware and integrated information systems
• May research and evaluate a variety of learning management systems, interactive media software products and software frameworks.

Employment requirements

• A bachelor’s degree, usually in computer science, computer systems engineering, software engineering or mathematics
• Post-secondary education and experience in education and learning theory within K12, adult and life long learning.
• A master’s or doctoral degree in a related discipline(s) may be required.
• Experience as a computer programmer and software designer is usually required.

New Job Description

I am looking for a new job. I have just spent a year in St. John’s Newfoundland on a paternity leave and doing some instructional design and workshop facilitation. My family has now returned to Vancouver. I have fired up my networking engine and have begun to send out emails and contact people I know in Vancouver. One of those people; Troy Angrignon after receiving an email from me asked for me to be more specific to what I was looking for. I know what I am looking for; I’d like a job as a Learning Systems Architect. A formal job description of a Learning Systems Architect doesn’t exist, so I am going to write it myself. After some reflection and some google searches I came across a few web pages that I will use as reference to build this job description;

1. The Canadian National Occupational Classification site; http://www23.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/2001/e/groups/2173.shtml
2. The Learning Systems Architecture Lab; http://lsal.org/
3. A Senior Architect position description I pilfered from
   desire2learn (I wish they had an office in Vancouver); http://www.rawsthorne.org/docs/SeniorArchitectDesire2Learn.pdf
4. A description of a Learning Technology Systems Architecture
   (LTSA) put together by the IEEE; http://www.edutool.com/ltsa/04/index.html

Recording a Lecture

I’ve been giving some thought to recording lectures using a voice recorder and lapel mic. Once you get past the argument of whether you believe this is a good idea or not, here are a few suggestions;

1. Number and Title your slides and refer to the title or number during the lecture - this keeps listeners on the same slide
2. Re-state all student questions before answering them.
3. Pause your recorder when a large pause occurs due to an activity.

You may want to consider getting an audio editor like audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ to increase the volume of your MP3 recording and editing out the long pauses… Don’t spend too much time editing, this can become a time hole. Posting the MP3’s to odeo http://odeo.com can also be a good idea for it could attract more attention to your work.
Having lectures posted as MP3’s, slides and lecture notes provides the ability for students to review and reflect after the lecture. This provides a new way for students to deepen their learning.

I’ve chosen Ubuntu

I’ve chosen Ubuntu linux as the OS for this Moodle project. Why Ubuntu? A number of reasons;

1. There has been a lot of positive buzz about Ubuntu on slashdot and other locations
2. Getting started is really easy, I also visited the redhat, suse and BSD sites and found the Ubuntu site provided the easiest UI. (I believe a products website / UI says a lot about the product.) I will also admit it was a toss up with OpenBSD…
3. I like the idea of supporting a Linux product from the African continent
4. I like their idea of a version specifically for education
5. Their support seems to be consistent and integrated across versions and releases

The server end-point is a LAMP server. So once I have all this up and running, I’ll make another post regarding the experience.

My Journey to Moodle and Beyond

I knew this day would come. I am beginning the build up of my Moodle Server. I have been watching the LMS / CMS space for a number of years now and I knew I would be taking the leap into an FOSS solution. I’ve always been partial to Moodle for it seemed the purest FOSS available and it has always grounded itself in constructivist pedagogy. What really pushed me to commit to Moodle was this report from Idaho State University. So follow along if you like, I’m starting with the build up of a LAMP server, then I will follow up with the Moodle install… from there who knows. I do know that I have been forming some strong opinions regarding where the VLE should be going.

Memorial Workshops

I added a summary page of the workshops I facilitated while working with the Instructional Development Office of Memorial University. These workshops focused on the pedagogy of Web 2.0 (blogs, podcasts, wikis, tagging and social software).

CKMS4D

I've got through my first draft of this CKMS4D paper. But after getting some feedback it seems I need to focus for another while or so to have it be a stronger offering. I still figured I should get this first release out and see what, if any, feedback I may get.

Web 2.0 is very significant

I stumbled across this document "The Disruptive Force of Web 2.0: how the new generation will define the future". It certainly captures a view into the youthful future. When you add to this the projections of youth global population we have a very interesting and exciting road ahead. I've included here my thoughts regarding this speech;

Much of the current technology innovation was developed by people in their early 20's (Google, Linux, Skype, Microsoft, many others). It is clear that the young will continue to build the future.

The current wave of the Web 2.0 is very disruptive; online social networking is not neutral, content proliferation is un-monitored and therefore stresses the importance of media literacy, VOIP is turning telecom sideways or even upside down, IP and copyright is being questioned at many turns. All of this, of course, has two sides. A global social network with an easy flow of un-monitored content accompanied by cheap telecom and an ability to mash-up new works is exciting, and potentially very democratizing.

It is the growth of mobile services that are having the greatest impact. This 'speech' talks about what the Web 3.0 will look like. And with the growth of mobile devices I believe it will fall within this mobile space. And the globalization and 'hopefully' democratization that will occur could be a big step in the right direction.

In my mind all this builds toward a global education system. That will be very social and very self-directed. The idea of socio-constructivism at a global level.

UNESCO Podcasts

I am really looking forward to the results of this UNESCO project. The idea of participatory video (PV) is quickly growing and a highly successful form of activism and community development. As the price of ICT countinues to drop and the developing world has increased access it is only a matter of time that the transparency of the developing world issues will be impossible to deny or ignore. I hope that these PV efforts will increase the dialogue among all planetary inhabitants. Or even if it only creates a dialogue within the community to make things healthier, that is good.