UPDATE on the mac and cheese post:
This is what I received after dinner last night. It's GIF that says, "I have not been entirely successful" and was followed by a picture of some interesting, yellow, gloppy stuff that most likely ended up in the trash. I think the Redditors would have a field day if he posted the picture of his culinary masterpiece. Alas, mom is still good for something.
"Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education" was an interesting article. This is a topic that I have very little experience with. I absolutely love the idea of education being free to all (who can access it). I love everything about it, but as I was reading the cynical side of me wondered what is in it for the university. Towards the end of the article the author did talk about this and I like the point that "if educational materials can bring people out of poverty, and information can now be copied and shared with greater ease, there is a moral obligation to do so." Information should be shared, because it is the right thing to do. Education, in my opinion, is the key to solving the problems in the worlds: war, hunger, climate change, and the list goes on. Sharing IS the ethical thing to do and in the end, it will benefit all of us. Now, that's all great in theory, but I was curious about these courses so I did a little digging. To be fair, at the time I'm writing this I only looked at the MIT OER site, but the courses offered are probably not going to lead to the end of hunger in under-developed nations y bringing people out of poverty. Quantum Physics and Programming in Java are great courses for people who already have an education, but what about a course where an illiterate adult can learn to read? Again, that's probably available somewhere, just not MIT's forte. My mom, who is not a native citizen but has lived in the US for over 60 years, would like to learn more about our Constitution. An OER course in American Government seems like it would be ideal for her.
Interestingly enough, there was a segment on the Today show this week about a new-ish website called Quill. This is free and uses AI-assisted technology to help high school students learn to write. It's not the same as OER, but definitely something exciting to watch as it becomes more widely used. The students highlighted in the story all felt it was helpful and they are getting ready to take their first standardized tests since starting the program so teachers and developers are eager to see the gains students have made.
I definitely want to learn more about OER. I can see myself becoming a user of this resource if I could find the right course.
Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jensen, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v9i1.469
Kelly, you raise some good points here about the disconnect between some of the rhetoric that surrounds OER ("These resources will save the world!") and many of the courses that are currently on offer. I tend to share some of your cynicism and think that part of what's in it for universities is that, in some cases, these courses can provide a great way for universities to build their brands, or to encourage students to enroll in their programs. For instance, when I worked for a large midwestern research university, my department helped the business school build a series of very low cost MOOCs which could be accessed by learners around the world; it just so happened that some of these courses could be used as credits toward the university's MBA program & other business programs. On the one hand, hey, that's fewer credits for an MBA student to have to pay for, so that's good for students, right? However, it can also be seen as a clever strategy for driving up enrollment in the MBA program. Ultimately, I think it has the potential to be both of these things--good for learners, yes, but also good for the institutions that are developing these programs.
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