Thing 12: Open Education Resources

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

Open Education Resources are a great source of material which can be used in a myriad of ways in the educational context and I am presenting this video clip to justify the need for Open Education Resources as there is a strong correlation between the availability of these resources and greater diffusion of knowledge and education.

I have reviewed the recommended platforms, which admittedly, I had never used previously, and found that probably I prefer OpenLearn with its wider choice of subjects available in my area.

I do have experience at following MOOCs, particularly the ones in the Economics and Innovation series on the Coursera platform. Whilst, I have found these to be helpful, personally, I not completed all the courses which I have registered for,  I guess that this is acceptable though, as some courses are more engaging and captive than others, and time constrains vary at different times of the year. I do take the habit of pointing out some Open Educational material to students (especially MOOCs), but as far as I know, only few of my students follow these courses religiously.  It is a pity, as I recommend them because I find them to be a good introduction to some content, or additional insights and opinions.

Thing 11: Copyright and Creative Commons

Oh gosh, I really have to come clean. According to the article presented in Thing 11 (and I have not doubt it has been researched, and is factual), I am a copyright criminal 😦

I was always under the impression (but there again, impressions are not necessarily founded) that for as long as the material was copyable or downloadable, and for as long as I cited the source of the material I had copied, than I was safe….now I know that I was not! Now I say, let by-gones be by-gones and let me take this opportunity to reform. I will start by reading up on Creative Commons and watch the video clips carefully again  to ensure understanding and appropriate use of material in the future.

I used the advanced google search for ‘Indifference Curves’ with the most permissive creative commons rights and did generate a number of images (much, much fewer that the ones generated by a general search on Google). When I went through the images, much to my disappointment, I realised that many of them were linked to Wikipedia, a source which I usually prefer not to use, or use with loads of discretion.

source: Silverstar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Simple-indifference-curves.svg

Consequently, I feel that not only is my search now limited, but the sources from which I can chose from are also rather limiting. Further, it am unsure as to whether I have actually identified the contributor properly…another minus.

So, whilst it is sensible and fair to ensure that copyright is respected, especially because we are operating in the education field, I feel that authors should give some more leeway for the use of their work, otherwise the propagation of knowledge is going to be severely hindered.