Flexknowlogy – Jared Stein's ARCHIVED blog – update to jaredstein.org

During the past month my unit’s offices have been affected by construction in the building in the form of diesel fumes filtering in through the HVAC system. Today a couple of staff members who were toughing it out were told by doctors that they have high levels of carbon monoxide in their blood and the offices have to be cleared out. This might explain (1) my fatigue, and (2) the pleasure I’ve been finding in spending a little more time out of doors as I walk across the BYU campus to David Wiley’s IPT 692R. Today’s topic: Media Issues begins with the question,” what is ‘open’?” and examines the 4 Rs of Openness (more…)

For reference here’s a quick run-down of Creative Commons (CC) v. 3 licenses with comments on their usefulness for open education. As most of you probably already know, CC provides a means by which creators can license their works differently from pre-existing intellectual property licenses. In the USA the two options have been copyright or public domain. CC provides for lots of options in between (more…)

It wasn’t snowing heavily like it was last Tuesday, and I had extra time to get to the BYU campus, but I decided to save myself some future headaches by learning to take the bus. I got on the right line, but going in the wrong direction. Thirty minutes later, I switched buses and made my way just in time to the second live meeting of David Wiley’s IPT 692R: Intro to Open Education course. Here are my notes (more…)

I’ve suggested that “open education” should not be seen as synonymous with various related efforts. Just as there are only approximations at a manifesto for the open education movement, there is no single definition of what efforts constitute or contribute to open education, and open education can not be fairly defined by more granular efforts for the production of open educational resources, opencourseware, etc. That is as much due to conflicting definitions of “open” as it is to organizational motivations (more…)

When I think of open education I tend to think of it at a granular level, in terms of open educational resources (OER), opencourseware (OCW), or even the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC). At these more limited levels engaging in open education makes a lot of sense to me, and offers very attainable, short-term goals which serve bot the “target audience” (whoever that is) and my institution. But OER, OCW and open education are not synonymous. Open education, though often referred to as a “movement” is a broader philosophy, one which prescribes aspects of the creation, release, and access to education (more…)

In revisiting a post I drafted Saturday morning I decided to split out the following passages into a new post to isolate a few details and trivia on the history of the open education movement, mostly to facilitate explicit fulfillment of quests for IPT692R (more…)

Today we received the official word that UVU is willing to support and approve publishing faculty-authored content as opencourseware or open educational resources through our well-planned UVU Open project. This decision is limited by an administrative final approval process, but at least the process is there, and the President is willing to let us join this international experiment of sharing (more…)

Mike Caufield asked that I put up a screencast on the OpenShare mod for Moodle. Here’s one that comes in just under 8 minutes–shorter even than my hatcheted and curtailed preso at MoodleMoot ‘08 SFO (more…)

The OpenShare block in Moodle

Tonight I’ve released the first all-new version of the OpenShare modification for Moodle 1.9, which I demonstrated last week at OpenEd 2008.

You may view OpenShare documentation or simply download the OpenShare mod now.

(more…)

Today I am presenting at the SFo MoodleMoot on how Moodle can be used to deliver Open Educational Resources, especially through our modification of Moodle, the Open Meta Mod.

Presentation slides are now available and you are welcome to participate in the backchannel through the chat window provided below.

Presentation Slides

openmod.ppt

Web Sites Referenced

• OpenCourseWare Consortium
• Open Educational Resources Commons
• David Wiley’s OpenContent Wiki
• David Wiley’s OpenContent blog
• Utah Open High School
• Creative Commons licenses
• MIT’s “Making the Case for OCW”
• Why a Reputation Economy?
• UK’s Open University LearningSpace
• OpenContentDIY
• Leigh Blackall’s slide on Another Way

P.S. After my presentation was over, I came back to my hotel to find this bus in the parking lot. It’s nothing less than a sign for a questioning open education convert.