Open content, as defined by Johnson, Adams, and Haywood (2011),
is the sharing of information, practices, and experiences. Open content can help districts and
universities who struggle to keep textbooks current due to funding
limitations. It is creating an
environment where schools are feeling a responsibility to share their
information. An example of open content
is Thinkfinity sponsored by the Verizon Foundation. The site offers a blog where teachers discuss information in the digital age. Content
can be broken up by grade level, as well as subject area to further your
classroom. The online open content
websites for educators can be extremely beneficial for new and advanced
educators. In fact, the lesson I found
regarding “Why Brett Favre makes $8.5 million per year?” focused on the idea of
supply and demand, the diamond water paradox, and how it applied to
professional athletes’ salaries, and understanding the concept of
equilibrium. They included an entire
lesson and resources to allow differentiated instruction. Educators can use open content lessons like
this and adjust them to meet their needs and their students needs. “Sharable material reduce teacher workloads
as they do not need to be recreated from scratch. The same set of materials, once placed online and made sharable via the appropriate licensing, can also inform a wide variety of learning modalities, not the least of which is learning for the sheer joy of discovery” (Johnson et al., 2011, p. 23).
According to Wikipedia (n.d.) in 1998, David Wiley coined
the phrase open content. The intention
of open content is for material to be shared without conventional copyright
restrictions. Users of open content have
the right to reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute material to make it fit
their needs. It was very interesting to
see that Universities like MIT, Yale, and Tufts are making their courses
available for free on the Internet. One
open content site that I am very familiar with is Khan Academy. The site is a not-for-profit organization
that has a goal of changing education by providing a free education
for anyone, anywhere. Topics range from simple addition and subtraction to much higher levels of math including calculus and statistics.
Free content is also known as free information. It is legally similar to open content in that
is includes all work that is in the public domain and copyrighted works whose
licenses credit and support the following:
users can benefit from it, study and apply what is learned from it, make
and distribute copies of the content, and change or improve the content and
share the modified form of work.
Creative Commons is another not-for-profit organization
that uses free legal tools to allow the sharing of creative work. It is not an alternative to copyright,
instead the licenses work with the copyright laws so you can use copyright
terms to meet your needs. In their
Commons Deed form, it is much easier for the average person to understand a
license.
Even though I am familiar with ebooks, I had never heard
of Flat World Knowledge. It was created
to provide textbook options for students and faculty in a world where it seems
the price of a book could feed a family of five for an entire month! Educators can even modify a book to better
fit their curriculum because Flat World Knowledge provides an open license and a
MIYO (Make It Your Own) option to modify the material. According to Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, and Haywood (2011), "the most interesting aspect of electronic books, however, is not the devices they are accessed with; it is not even the texts themselves. What makes electronic books a potentially transformative technology is the new kinds of reading experiences that they make possible" (p. 8). Publishers are including multimedia, interactive graphs, links for more information, and videos. This is an incredible tool that is beneficial
to teaching and learning in the classroom.
Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC Horizon Report: 2011
K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., & Haywood, K. (2011). The 2011
Horizon Report. Austin Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Open Content. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January, 25, 2014, from
http://en.widipedia.or/wiki/Open_content#Major_open_content_repositories_and_directories
Horizon Report. Austin Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Open Content. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved January, 25, 2014, from
http://en.widipedia.or/wiki/Open_content#Major_open_content_repositories_and_directories
Kendra,
ReplyDeleteYour post was very informative and offered some great ideas. I think it is amazing to think that teachers are able to communicate electronically from all over the globe and share their tools and tips to a successful education. It is important that educators, as well as many professions, are up to date with the newest reformations in the technological world, in order to create the most beneficial learning environment for students.
I briefly learned about the Khan Academy in one my classes I took as an undergrad at Ohio State. For as much as I know about it, I am able to conclude the "school" is doing very well, with high rates of student success. It is incredible to actually think that students can learn math and other subjects virtually. It makes me wonder exactly what the future holds for the education world. Especially with big institutions, such as colleges and publishing companies, putting their course content online, I have to fantasize about a world with no physical teachers. Are we currently using education to it's maximum potential?
I did not get the chance to fully delve into the lessons that were provided on the websites, but I like how you were able to find interesting lessons which students could easily connect to and find entertaining. What’s convenient about the sites is that we do not have to stick to the content provided, but rather alter it to our own needs. So Brett Favre could have easily been changed to any other famous person or athlete that students would have been able to connect to.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that major universities are sharing their lessons online for free is exciting for me as a teacher. It makes me want to see how larger and “more prestigious” universities set up their lessons and how I can utilize them within my own teaching. The concept of open content is new to me, so I like how you are actually aware of open content sites such as Khan Academy. Having resources such as Khan Academy may be useful in relaying sites my ESL students could use so they can practice their English skills.
Like you, I have known and used ebooks, but I have never heard of Flat World Knowledge. The idea that teachers can use and create textbooks to meet the needs of their students amazes me and pushes me to want to learn how I could incorporate it more in my own classroom. Many of my students use tablets, smart phones, and laptops in their everyday lives, so by having their books readily available on those devices my students would have easier access to their books and it would not cost them as much.