Can you improve these explanations of math problems?
Posted by karen on August 18, 2008 in Uncategorized
This is a very interesting project that looks at the use of mass collaboration as a tool for education. Specifically, it is a study that takes various math problems using the Pythagorean Theorem and lets users rate and then improve them. Take a run through it — it doesn’t take long. (If you don’t happen to be a “math person,” the math isn’t very difficult.:)
If you visit the site and go through it, make sure to follow it through to the survey at the end. It presents some very interesting and thought-provoking questions about the collaborative process, application of this process to education, motivations of participants, and even the perceptions of quality of materials produced this way vs. textbooks.
I hope the results are published. I can hardly wait to see them.
Tags: oer | math | research | mass collaborationBig week for the open dictionary
Posted by karen on August 9, 2008 in Uncategorized
We’ve had a lot of new activity at the Kids Open Dictionary this week, largely because of several posts others have written about it. New people have been coming to the site every day, adding words, creating glossaries, and helping making this a richer resource. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.
As with anything on the Internet, I suppose, we’ve also heard some criticisms. Some of these have not been surprising to me (such as the seemingly incessant debate on which license is most “open”); others have come out of left field.
The most unexpected to me has been the suggestion that already-available, print-based commercial dictionaries are more than adequate, and that an open dictionary is unneeded or somehow even dangerous. I so adamantly believe in the need for differentiation in education and the necessity of a mix-up culture for creating appropriate learning resources, that this is an anathema to me. The whole point of OER is to provide better learning resources.
Textbooks are incomprehensible to many students. Vocabulary is a stumbling block for many learners. It is all well and good to tell students to look up words in a dictionary (if they have one available). My experience as a teacher, though, is that unless a kid has a dictionary right there in-hand, they are unlikely to do so.
Context is everything. Research shows that having definitions linked directly to the reading material increases comprehension. We have seen this in classrooms with the interactive ebooks we have created. Providing students with linked glossaries has helped with reading comprehension and built student confidence and enthusiasm for reading.
Commercial dictionaries don’t provide teachers the opportunity to mix content to provide this kind of context and interactivity. Legally, their definitions cannot be copied and pasted into other materials or edited to suit the context at hand (though we know many teachers do that anyway for the benefit of their students). Beyond that, commercial dictionaries often have definitions that are written at a language level that is not accessible to kids. (We’ve already heard a few adults say that a kids dictionary would be a useful resource to them.) These are just a few of the reasons we’ve started this open dictionary.
Beyond all this, I guess I don’t understand criticizing something that is free, open, and motivated only by creating a resource to improve education. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. If you do, come write a definition or two. We know that kids, teachers, and learners around the world will benefit.
Tags: dictionary | open | oer | differentianting instruction
New Open Ed presentation
Posted by karen on August 6, 2008 in Uncategorized
I’ve refined my awareness presentation about Open Ed:
This info and all the links (as well as the ODP, handouts, etc.) are also available here.
I hope that others can use these materials to let others know about Open Ed as well.
Tags: open | oer | creative commons
Being able to truly reuse OERs
Posted by karen on August 3, 2008 in Uncategorized
I am very excited that the new build-your-own-glossary feature is up on the Kids Open Dictionary. Try it out and let me know what you think. (We’re still refining and adding features.)
I’m excited about this for a couple reasons. First, I think it is a very useful feature that has immediate appeal to teachers and will help them see the value of the dictionary and adding words.
The second reason is broader. There is a lot of talk about remixing and reusing OERs — I think this is essential if they are to be used effectively to differentiate instruction. Every learner has different needs, styles, skills, etc., and learning resources need to be modified in order to be suitable. However, despite this, many OERs don’t lend themselves to customization. The reasons are many, but they include format (e.g. PDFs), content (lack of granularity), and simple logistics.
The dictionary, however, is ideally suited toward remixing and customization. Definitions of words are the right level of granularity and can be a valuable addition to almost any educational resource, whether it is a book, a web page, or a wiki. Everyone uses glossaries.
The glossary builder is great, because it outputs a variety of formats, including text, rtf, and pdf. (More formats are coming including wikitext and most likely an ipod format.) In addition, the glossary can be edited and refined, either within the dictionary system (so others can reap the benefits) or within the output file.
After you look at this (there are a couple samples up), please let us know if it is a valuable tool for you and what features you’d like to see added. We’ll also be producing a bunch of glossaries for various topics, books, etc. that everyone can use, so stay tuned for that.
Tags: dictionary | oer
Ed Week article about Open Ed
Posted by karen on July 28, 2008 in Uncategorized
Ed Week recently published an article about Open Ed.
I thought it was a pretty good article (aside from misquoting me twice* and misspelling my name :). This article definitely shows the growing attention to Open Ed in K-12.
Here are some things in the article I thought were interesting:
- It’s interesting how other tangential issues and technologies get associated with Open Ed — in this article, it’s wikis. True that some OERs are created or housed in wikis but that’s almost coincidental. OERs don’t even have to be produced through mass collaboration (which is where the wiki connection comes from). Many OERs are produced by subject matter experts and cannot be “edited by anyone.”
While I love wikis and mass collaboration, I think that confusing them with OERs leads to some unfortunate misconceptions, such as the idea that OERs can’t be scholarly, accurate, or high quality. The comments after the article bring those misconceptions to light. As I point out in my own comment, there are many OERs, including FreeReading, that are research-based, quality-screened, and then “frozen” to maintain that quality. - I like the way from AAP discounts OERs. (Yes, these are the same people who, when asked about the problem of textbooks being too heavy for kids, suggested the solution of buying two copies for each kid so they never had to carry them.) Their rep then goes on to say “If digital formats are what teachers want…, textbook publishers have, over the past six or seven years, added digital materials to supplement print textbooks.” First, if he really thinks that those materials reflect the best of application of technology in instruction, I’d love to spend a couple hours with him showing him what is possible. More importantly, though, what we really want isn’t “digital formats”; it’s instructional materials that are accessible and relevant to students and that lend themselves to differentiation. We’re just so tired of trying to get publishers to address these real needs that we can’t wait any more (and our kids can’t wait) so we’re doing it through other channels. (This message is also a relevant one for Microsoft. I hear that they are not being so flip about denying the trend toward open source though.)
- I thought that some of the comments made online by readers were quite interesting. I hope that the readers of the print version of Ed Week get to see them. (This really points out how web-based journalism changes the dynamic of information delivery.) Here are a few:”Free Open Content materials help students around the world rich and poor to get access to great educational content. Our own Schools have been so economically strapped that about the only media materials that are available to teachers are Text Books and that is only because the Text book companies over the years have arranged for special funding for text books that is separate from the funding the schools get otherwise. Free and Open educational resources may one day break this expensive and inefficient monopoly.” - Herb Schuchard”The fact that textbooks are still a piece of school’s budget is a travesty. I can’t think of a more outdated educational learning tool.[and in addressing the concern about “scholarship” and accuracy]
…Open source materials are valuable not b/c they’re ‘always right’, but because accessing the information is an educational experience in and of itself. Students are no longer looking up the ‘right answers’ in a textbook; they’re doing real research, weeding through the admittedly massive amounts of data out there to find the answers to their specific questions. It’s a matter of student-centric learning, as opposed to students learning what textbook publishers deem ‘valuable.’”
————————-
* One of this misquotes was “teacher-based” instead of “research-based” in regards to FreeReading. Here’s the other:
After talking about the kids open dictionary and the decision to put it in the public domain (something we are very proud of) …
Interviewer: Aren’t you afraid people will just rip it off?
Me: No! We hope they do. We want people to use this in as many ways as possible. That’s the whole point.
This got translated into:
“‘We’re hoping lots of people will rip it off and do what they want with it—it’s one of the most basic needed resources,” Ms. Fasimpauer [sic] said. ”
[sigh]
Tags: oer | education week | aap | wikis | textbooks
Empowering students to drive their own learning
Posted by karen on July 10, 2008 in Uncategorized
I recently read the Reading Next report about adolescent literacy by the Alliance for Excellence in Education to the Carnegie Foundation. I think the lack of student engagement that is leading to unbelievable drop-out rates is a national calamity. I am astonished that there hasn’t been more of a national outcry. How can we spend so much on education and get such abysmal results? How is it that neither of the major presidential candidates have a substantive educational platform? How will our nation thrive (survive?) if the majority of our students are not literate, let alone versed in 21st century skills? (OK, I’ll stop now.)
In this report, the authors outline 15 major elements that are viewed as being critical for a program seeking to build adolescent literacy skills. These 15 elements are broken into instructional issues and infrastructural ones. The instructional components are things like direct, explicit comprehension instruction; content-embedded reading and writing; strategic tutoring; and differentiation. These are all research-based and also intuitively obvious.
The infrastructure issues outlined in the report include:
· Extended time for literacy (2-4 hours per day)
· Meaningful professional development
· Cross-curricular team teaching
· Strong instructional leadership
· A comprehensive coordinated literacy program
· Summative assessment
OK, these are all optimal, but with the exception of the last item, these conditions do not exist (or could not easily be made to exist) in most middle or high schools. The culture of secondary education in our country today is just not geared this way.
I think these issues – most importantly, the lack of strong instructional leadership at the building or district level – are at the crux of a lot of problems in secondary education.
Having said that though, I do not believe that we can tie our children’s education (or our nation’s future) on the infrastructure failings of the educational establishment.
What is the solution? Perhaps, it is empowering students to drive their own learning through open resources and web-enabled tools. With the right tools and strong motivation, adolescents may be able to do a better job at this than we as “educators” can.
What are your thoughts on this?
Tags: oer | literacy | Reading Next | Carnegie
It is an awesome world… or How Web 2.0 Came Through for Me
Posted by karen on July 2, 2008 in Uncategorized
I had a weird experience today. I was at NECC, sitting at the back of a big room waiting for a session to start. It was on open content, something I am very passionate about and am always looking for new information and perspectives on.
The time of the presentation came and went, and there were no presenters. I could see concern mounting, and people starting to shift around, getting ready to leave. I approached the person coordinating things and asked if they needed a “stand in.” They said sure. (There were over 100 people in the room, and I hated to see that many people interested in the topic leave empty-handed. I think OER is such an important topic that everyone needs to know about… and I’m mostly not very shy. :)
Lately, I’ve been putting up all my presentations and workshops on the web with a variety of tools such as wikis, Slideshare, etc. Because of this, it was super easy to stand up and use any Internet-connected computer to present. (Bizarrely, it was probably the first time during the conference that I didn’t have my own laptop with me.) Considering what a weird situation it was, I think the presentation went really well. This is something I wouldn’t even have dared attempting without technology. It is an awesome world we live in.
And best of all, some great new people know about the kids open dictionary and are helping up build this important tool.
Thanks to everyone who attended the session (even though it may not have been exactly what you expected :). Special thanks to Randy Orwin and Brad for helping with the tech setup to make this happen.
…and yes, for those of you wondering, I did verify that the small intestine is approximately 7 meters long!
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Dictionary goes live — come play!
Posted by karen on June 23, 2008 in Uncategorized
The Kids Open Dictionary builder is now live!
Please try it out and enter a word or two. Whatever you do doesn’t have to be perfect; others will jump in and refine as we go.
In case you missed it, this is the first completely open, public domain-licensed dictionary designed with kids in mind. We intend for the final product to be used by a variety of OER producers, web sites, book publishers, hardware manufacturers, teachers, students, and others.
In a lot of ways, this is one of the most needed components for many OER projects and is a great mass collaboration project. Please join us!
Tags: dictionary | oer
License info for images - metadata
Posted by karen on June 20, 2008 in Uncategorized
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to record information about an image’s license, attribution, etc. In the past, I have used not-very-efficient techniques such as recording this info separately in a text file and sometimes trying to include it in the file name.
A friend recently recommended storing this in the Properties Summary. (Right-click an image; choose properties; click Summary tab and Simple.) What a simple and useful idea. I am going to start recording the following (slightly modified from CC suggestions; see below):
- License: [include license and license URL]
- Attribution URL:
- Attribution name:
Here’s an example. (You can download it to view the properties.)
That reminded me that I’d heard that Creative Commons suggests a standard for metadata. They suggest something called XMP — Extensible Metadata Platform. In reading more about this, it appears that you need special tools, both to create and to read this. (I’m not entirely clear on this though; I spent almost an hour looking for an example image and couldn’t find one. If anyone knows of one, please post a link.) Possibly not very feasible for the “mass” audience. The good news is that doing this makes content machine-searchable as open content.
For now, I think I’m going to stick with using properties for this.
What other ideas do you have?
Tags: oer | metadata | licensing | images | photos | clip art
What is most important about OER?
Posted by karen on June 12, 2008 in Uncategorized
I am facilitating a series of hands-on workshops to help educators to learn about the value of OER. What topics do you think are most important to spread this movement? Licensing issues? Available resources? Wiki editing skills? Open source tools?
Tags: oer | licensing | wikis
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