Saylor.org

Good Morning and Happy Monday! Open Education Week started today and we’re very psyched about it here at Saylor. Further building on this theme, we take a look at news from around the US and the world. From the state of California,to Scotland, to Berlin, Germany, open education is the name of the game. Student mentors, mentees,  teachers, and conferences all agree, open education is truly helping each and everyone of us around the world learn.

We begin this week with the ones at the heart of it all-the students. In Bakersfield, CA, Independence High School seniors are mentoring their 6th grade Digital Youth Network counterparts in writing.  The seniors read posted pieces from the sixth graders from the iRemix platform. The challenge for the seniors? The students must use constructive criticism and put their proof reading skills to the test. This gives both grades access to a new way to learn and use their expertise to help others like themselves.’It’s actually a lot more powerful than we tend to think it is, because kids tend to value other kids’ feedback a bit more than their parents’, teachers.’

Student Mentors: How 6th and 12th Graders Learn From Each Other (Mind Shift)

This Term, Teachers Are Trending; A Star Turn at the Online Lectern (Wall Street Journal)
Teachers are getting into the world virtual exchange too! The Wall Street Journal reports that teachers’ lectures and lessons are spreading around the world. Thanks to open access to these videos, a Scottish aircraft mechanic, Portuguese internet developer, and even a Colorado quilting expert now can take part in this global learning experience.

Apple’s iTunes U surpasses 1 billion downloads  (Ed. Tech. Times)
As we continue to look at open education around the world, cheers are ringing out at Apple’s iTunes U. The “world’s largest online catalog” has reached another shocking milestone 1 billion downloads!

Online Education and Jazz  (Marginal Revolution)
According to readers of Marginal Revolution‘s Alex Tarbok, open education almost has a “sacred power”, as it brings music to his ears. Tarbok uses jazz music to describe the process it takes to create an internet course.

Berlin edtech startup Scolibri designing LMS platform with teachers in mind (Ed. Tech. Times)
Finally, we find ourselves in Berlin, Germany. Scolibri, an edtech. startup has been hard at work, creating a LMS platform and meanwhile keeping it’s been teachers’ thoughts in mind. Scolibri worker Tobi Honig sees the teachers’ perspectives to be essential in this process.

Well? Are these changes in open education from around the world for the better? Are there any other stories that you have heard in other parts of the world? Please feel free to let us know by commenting below!

Have a great week! In other news…
How Should Social Media Be Taught in Schools? (Ed. Tech. Magazine)
K-12 student database jazzes tech startups, spooks parents (San Jose Mercury News)
Amid Busy SXSWedu Conference, Amplify Unveils K-12 Tablet (Ed. Week)

Photo Credit: smithco via photopin by NC SA 2.0 CC

Open Education Week kicks off starting Monday, with lots of events for all to enjoy online. For more information, including a schedule, go right to the source at www.openeducationweek.org. From this page, you can find a link for a mobile-optimized OEW schedule, as well as subscription links for all the popular calendars.

Want more info now? The following is straight from the OCW Consortium blog (CC BY 3.0):

The second annual Open Education week will take place March 11-15, 2013. Open Education Week is a five-day celebration of the global Open Education Movement, featuring online and local events around the world, video showcases of open education projects, and information. Its purpose is to raise awareness of both the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide.

Open Education refers to the growing set of practices that promote the sharing high quality educational resources and support learners to access education anywhere, anytime. Open Education incorporates educational networks, teaching and learning materials, open textbooks, open data, open scholarship and open source educational tools, collectively referred to as Open Educational Resources or OER.

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan expressed his support for open educational resources, “OER can help us bring the best K-12 teachers and college professors and most cutting edge course and teaching methods within the reach of every single motivated student.” He continued, “Despite the promise of this new approach, not enough people know about open educational resources and their tremendous transformational promise.”

“Open Education gives people access to knowledge, provides platforms for sharing, enables innovation, and connects communities of learners and educators around the world”, said Mary Lou Forward, executive director of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, a global consortium of higher education institutions and organizations supporting the benefits of open education. “Open Education Week highlights free and open opportunities already available to everyone around the world.”

For more information and to join webinars and events, see www.openeducationweek.org. Open Education Week is coordinated by the OpenCourseWare Consortium. Participation in all events and use of all resources are free and open to anyone.

Image: OpenEducationWeek.org, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

An announcement* from our friends:

The School of Open is launching beginning this Monday for Open Education Week, March 11-15. A community of volunteers from P2PU, Creative Commons, Open.Michigan, and Wikimedia will offer free online courses on copyright, CC licenses, Wikipedia, open science, open data, open video formats, and more. The main site has the digs on all of the courses that will be available, no further clicking required (which is just how we like it).

Get notified when it is open for sign-up at the announcements list (Google Group). Read more about the launch over at the Creative Commons.

If you can’t wait to learn more, check out the video:

*From http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/36913 | CC BY 3.0

On October 16th Alana Harrington, Executive Director of Saylor.org, presented at the Open Education Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Alana’s presentation, titled Making Open Courseware Count, explored how students are using Saylor.org courses to improve their lives.

Here is an excerpt from the presentation summary:

Over the past year, we’ve found that our courseware attracts a diverse student constituency. Students hail from a sprawling array of socio-economic backgrounds, cultures, and geographic locations. Some cannot afford traditional educational opportunities. Others find themselves in war-ridden countries like Afghanistan, where it is too dangerous to venture to a brick-and-mortar institution. Still others have rejected traditional schooling models, or decided to pursue academic interests late in life, or chosen to use Saylor.org for remedial purposes.??

Our free education model – like others in the open education community – has succeeded in increasing access to education around the world and creating an open environment in which students can learn for free. However, students are largely unable to translate their open courseware experiences into credentials that enjoy currency within the workforce, the job market, or the traditional academic community. In response, we are designing partnerships and strategies that will enable students to obtain formal credit for their work here at Saylor. This talk will present these approaches to the Open Educational Community in the hopes of participating in a dialogue about how we can “make open count” or — better yet — spurring the actions and partnerships that will affect this change.

 To illuminate some of our students’ real stories, we produced this short video of students speaking about their Saylor.org experience.  In addition we created this animation, which shows the different portals students can use to get college credit for their coursework.

How has open courseware impacted your life?  Please share your Saylor.org story in the comments section.