The Overlap of Worlds: Teaching and Learning Online

How many of you define yourselves as a Teacher? During this session there won’t be a PowerPoint, and even though I am a self identified geek – you aren’t in for a mind numbing discourse in techno-tools. What I’d like to do today is have a conversation with you; a dialogue about teaching with you.

I work in a world where teaching is important but looks a bit different than what I or, perhaps most of us here, went through in school. Not only does the teaching look different, but so does the classroom, the activities, the “chalk”, the books, and activities. But what is not different is that through the relationships between teachers and students, the materials we use to learn with, and the conversations that we have (internally and with one another) learning happens.

How many of you define yourself as a Learner? Today I invite you to tell me about your world and I will tell you about mine – let’s see where they overlap. Let’s explore some ways our worlds can overlap to help you connect to your students in new ways or strengthen the ways in which you work with them already.

Are we getting our students ready for OER

Perhaps I am just looking through rose-tinted virtual glasses or am just naive due to inexperience, but the more I learn about the Open Educational Resources the more I stand in awe of the potential that bringing free accessible education to anyone, anywhere has for our world. The web can be wall-less, political and country-less -- but do we have what it takes to sustain that type of freedom and openness? Also, are we giving our children and students to tools of critical thinking and discernment needed to successfully find and use what is of quality and discard what is not?
http://blog.worldcampus.psu.edu/index.php/2008/03/01/in-doing-oer/

The conversations on Ken Udas' blog at the Penn State World Campus is an interesting place to sit and listen and learn from the people tackling these and other questions about OER.

CIDER - Resource, Community, Information

While looking for material for our latest assignment, one of the web links I followed brought me to the Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research CIDER. Just now looked up at the clock and realized almost two-hours had gone by! So even though it may not exactly fit in with our class assignment, this site is so rich in information, opportunities for interaction and community, and cutting edge information this place is definitely worth a peek. Make sure you have a fresh cup of coffee when you log on -- if you are a complete geek like me, this site will hypnotize you for awhile :) --Tracey

CIDER http://cider.athabascau.ca/

International Learning Communities and Resources

Last November, I had the great pleasure of attending a pre-conference workshop The Power of online learning. Making a difference.at 13th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning. The workshop, lead by Ken Udas of Penn State,Christine Geith, Asst. Provost, Exec. Director of MSU Global, Michigan State University,and Wayne Mackintosh, Commonwealth of Learning (COL) was my first glimpse into this extraordinary community of international educators devoted to providing open access to educational resources, tools, and information on a global scale, primarily to developing countries These educators, designers, and builders of global communities also see flexible and open educational sources as vehicles to the reduction of of poverty, and the promotion of peace and independence. Providing learning at a distance to isolated communities or those with limited financial or technological resources requires creative work-arounds or using older delivery methods, such as radio broadcasts, to make content available to the educators and their pupils. However, for some of these collaborative communities, such as the Commonwealth of Learning, UNESCO, or ICDE, the means of providing content seems not so nearly important as to help countries achieve overreaching goals to develop culturally, educationally, and economically. The COL also makes use of OSS [open source software] to aide in the development of delivery platforms and OER [open educational resources] for content availability. The WikiEducator is one such blending of OSS and OER. The planet feels quite a bit smaller to me all of a sudden --Tracey