Day One at Conference: Important Points

Mobile Learning is something UCT should be strongly considering; this is a new branch of technology for education and it can lead to greater / increased access to those that do not have traditional methods of accessig quality education. This could be rewarding for the continent of Africa especially if structured correctly

Approaches to OER development – Rory McGreal – Tekri Athabasca University Mobile learning – people r still designing for PC / laptop / paper and transforming over. We are in the mobile world and it’s easy to design for mobile and putting on pc than vice versa. 1.6 billion Internet connections out of 6.8 billion world population. That is 25% The world is going mobile – 3.4 billion mobile devices and 1.3 billion mobile internet users Mobile devices – look at accessibility, functionality, features, usability, performance and bandwidth – it’s a balancing act Fluid design – www is flexible for display on different sized screens, enabling users preferences (font size) etc Design for mobile first – not for PC. PC is no longer the standard.

OER Development: Don’t be married to a set curriculum Be flexible, things are going to happen what you don’t count on Alternative learning routes (What are the pertinent / relevant ones that can be applied to UCT?) Why share OER - a mjaor crux in selling OER to others

WikiWijs: UCT should aim for a similar space with their OpenContent space – what can we take from this example? What can we use, incorporate etc?

Twitter: Could be an excellent way of generating interest in OER; twitter is the language of this generation - short and to the point – precisely the way many students’ minds work! What role does Twitter play at UCT? How can this social networking tool be utilised here effectively?

Variety of models for funding: What funding model is relevant for OER at UCT?

Brigham Young University OCW Financially independent – receives no funding – just enrolments. Current model is sustainable because the cost for course development and teaching are covered by registrations - interesting prospect open publishing of books drives sales - VERY IMPORTANT; iTunes for example has driven the sales of digitial music. People r willing to pay for a quality product; they however will do whatever they can to thwart the rules the more they are restricted! Future works – replicate this study with a larger number of courses, gather more data - Could this be a study UCT could replicate?

Links that can be added to the wiki: University of Westminster multimedia training videos (www.multimedica.westminister.com) University of Colorado (Phet) A sustainable model for OCW development – David Wiley – Instructional psychology and technology – Brigham Young University www.elearning.ubc.ca Freelearning.ca - 3 or 400 content sites. Need custom search engine. A WordPress sites with search engine driven by delicious tags http://globe-info.org – 59 networks (Have a million OER available, but took 5 years to do the first 5000 - Is a gradual process, but can gain significant momentum and produce fruitful results like this) http://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/globefinderf1/search www.open.ac.uk/sociallearn (A site to bookmark for ideas) http://tecvirtual.itesm.mx – is creating an internet / web based repository of OER and mobile resources for the instruction and development of educational researchers at u/g, masters and doctoral level. UKOER – www.jisc.ac.uk/oer University of Hong Kong – look at their OCW site – their intention from beginning was to make all their courses available Bridging formal/informal learning – Yoshimi Fukuhara – Keio University http://cnx.org http://www.col.org http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/second_edition.html http://wikieducator.org

Day Two at the Conference: Important Points

On a global scale the niche communities of learning have enough mass to give me more if you give me mine - Cross collaboration with other universities could produce this critical mass of information

Removing friction (very important) Remove the space between me and the resources. Barrier of access needs to go. For most of us the problem has been solved (and maybe needs to be address) MELT portal solutions – learning resource exchange for school – rate stuff, put it in your folder, share stuff, tell people and follow what other people are using. http://lreforschools.eun.org . Talk about sustainable at moment. – 131436 resources there http://portal.mace-project.eu – schools of architecture in Europe. 92% of technology is same as high school portal. – 166.637 resources

Failing is fine – you can afford to try things out. What makes sense for students – if you open the laptop – need to rethink what you are doing. - U wont find out whats best without failing; what have we failed in that we can learn from?

What happens after you publish your OER? This is a continuous question that will pop up esp from newer OER contributors. What are the answers we give them?

We create a lot, but than what? Implicit feedback that others will find it, remixes it, translate and republish their improved version. So that the next person has an abetter version to work with. That pool of resources is growing This depends on ability to find the OER you are publishing – first need to be able to find it (Finding suitable, relevant OER remains a significant challenge; this is why spaces and wikis make so much sense) Web scale search is failing OER Not a lot of literature on topic. Educators and creators ask want to find X and not finding it. Using Google and there is 1.2 million results for cell organelles – not useful (Definitely a recurring challenge for myself; The results are haphazard – there is very little direction; it takes deep searches and searches within many searches to get anywhere. No structure – makes research very difficult) How do you find CC licensed work CC don’t keep info on CCL created Build a search engine – CC RDF enhanced search Google was not initially interested in this – only after they build something (BIG ISSUE! Licensed work needs to be EXPLICITLY clear otherwise whats the point?)

Towards a social learning space for OER – Simon Buckingham – Open University UK (Brilliant example of the way forward; many lessons to be learned here) How do we do what we’re good at as a university and remain open to innovation. What can we do as university and yet harness the innovation happening (Very relevant to UCT; Something we can all ask ourselves) Four dimensions of Open (Critical avenues to harness OER) Open IP – Open Source, CC, OER Open Economics – Google, wikinomics, Amazon Open Communities – YouTube, Blogger, FaceBook, Wikipedia Open Data Standards How do we harness in the energy in Open Economics for OER

How do I get through ocean of stuff out there (good question) Learners and educators can make many levels of contribution (These need to be identified to get prospective contributors interested about buying-in to OER)

Get feedback – continuous improvement mechanism (Focus groups are important but strangely under-utilised?)

There is a lack of OER available that can help conduct research - very true!

OER is about Embedding processes and transforming practices within the institution Is abut changing a worldview on the value of sharing Is about levering the synergies (The world is heading towards OER in education just as napster transformed the music industry; those institutions getting on board early and willing to embrace will be the ones reaping the most rewards)

S - word - Sustainability is important, but how to go about it, how to fund it etc is overwhelmingly more difficult

Day 3 at the conference: Important Points

Sharing is good but is it sustainable - good question

OER needs to be made a reality because it is the way of the future