TTT #286 Open Education: CONNECT... COLLECT... CREATE... SHARE... with Cable Green, Mary Lou Forward, Karen Fasimpaur 2.29.12

Post-Show description: 

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Chris Sloan and Scott Shelhart host a conversation about Open Education. They were talking just before the first ever Open Education Week which took "place 5-10 March 2012 online and in locally hosted events around the world.”

As it says on http://www.openeducationweek.org ”The purpose of Open Education Week is to raise awareness of the open education movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. Participation in all events and use of all resources is free an open to anyone. Read more

Our guests on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers are Cable Green, Mary Lou Foward and Karen Fasimpaur.

Cable Green, Director of Global Learning at Creative Commons. Most recently, Green was the Director of eLearning & Open Education for the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, where he provided leadership on strategic technology planning, openly licensing and sharing digital content, growing and improving online and hybrid learning, and implementing enterprise learning technologies and student support services. One innovative project, the Open Course Library, creates low-cost, digital, openly licensed (CC BY) instructional materials for 81 high impact community college courses. As Director of Global Learning at Creative Commons, Green is responsible for setting strategic direction and priorities to build a global movement that will enable robust and vibrant practices and policies for free sharing of education and learning assets. Cable will lead Creative Commons’ recently-announced project to provide technical assistance to winning grantees of the Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Community and Career Training Grant program.

Mary Lou Forward is the Executive Director of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, providing leadership for the organization’s efforts to support OpenCourseWare use and development globally. Prior to joining the Consortium, she served as Dean of African Studies for SIT Study Abroad. In that role, she provided academic and strategic leadership for 29 programs across the African continent, leading SIT’s incorporation of technology and distance learning in international programming and developing innovative opportunities to collaborate across countries and between diverse student groups. She has also worked on community-based development in Africa, with an emphasis on the incorporation of appropriate technologies and sustainable resources in small-scale enterprise development.

Karen Fasimpaur is an enthusiastic user of OER in K-12 classrooms. She works with teachers to help integrate, remix, and share open-licensed curriculum to engage students and differentiate instruction. Prior to this work, Karen was an educational multimedia producer, a textbook developer, and a teacher.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

09:43 guest-2781: Welcome to Teachers Teaching Teachers
09:44 guest-2767: HI all!
09:45 guest-3198: HI All
09:45 guest-2715: Hello TTT!
09:45 guest-2781: @Todd - is the audio OK?
09:46 guest-2715: Yes. Loud and clear, Scott. Thanks.
09:46 guest-2781: thak you
09:47 guest-2767: How's everyone doing tonight?
09:48 guest-3198: Coming to you live from Olympia, WA... I work on Education at Creative Commons
09:50 guest-3200: Hi everyone
09:50 guest-3200: hearing audio and seeing video now :-) great!
09:50 guest-2767: Hi Peggy. How are you? (Survive the wind this week? :)
09:51 guest-3200: Great!! Wind not too bad for me and no rain
09:51 guest-3200: great way to celebrate Feb. 29!! :-)
09:51 guest-2767: We had 40 mph + here yesterday but today it's better
09:52 guest-3200: I'm not in the Hangout--only viewing Livestream.
09:52 guest-3200: it's great to meet all of you!! fun putting some faces to familiar names :-)
09:53 guest-2767: There's room in the Hangout if anyone wants to join us there.
09:53 guest-3200: good luck Scott!! we're all pulling for you!
09:54 guest-3198: Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.
09:54 guest-2781: Thanks, Peggy. I got your email today. Thank you so much for all of your wonderful references!
09:54 guest-3198: http://www.openeducationweek.org/ is next week - March 5-10
09:54 guest-2767: Open Ed week web site: http://www.openeducationweek.org/
09:54 guest-3200: Thanks for the background. I have the link for Paul's Tumblr also.
09:55 guest-3200: http://paulallison.tumblr.com/
09:55 guest-3200: sounds like a fantastic opportunity for us!!
09:56 guest-3200: amazing power of PLNs!! Exciting @Cable!
09:56 guest-2767: One of the fun aspects of being involved in OER is how international the community is
09:57 guest-2715: Good question.
09:59 guest-2767: www.ck12.org
10:01 guest-3200: great explanation Cable!
10:01 guest-2715: It's hard, even with training!
10:03 guest-3198: Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org Open Licenses are here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses Cool thing is you do not have to give up your Copyright - you keep your IP - you choose which rights you want to share and under what conditions.
10:03 guest-3207: OERs are important, but how do we support teachers in properly implementing OERS www.mypaperlessclasssroom.org
10:04 guest-2781: When I was student teaching I taught my 3rd grade students about CC
10:04 guest-3198: Check out these open textbooks for high school: http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/
10:04 guest-3198: all are openly licensed
10:04 guest-3207: great link, thanks Cable
10:04 guest-2767: There is a lot of prof dev available and using OERs.
10:05 guest-3207: training and personal cost . . .
10:05 guest-3200: and server space
10:05 guest-2767: Free, open PD for K-12 teachers on P2PU: http://p2pu.org/school-of-ed
10:05 guest-3207: free depends on taking advantage of device kids bring in
10:05 guest-2767: Re: cost...better to spend money on teachers and PD than on commodity textbooks imo
10:06 guest-3200: I agree Karen!
10:06 guest-3200: is the P2PU site yours @Karen?
10:06 guest-2767: We keep spending money over and over on what are basically the same textbooks
10:06 guest-3207: nice site Karen
10:07 guest-2767: Not "mine" but I'm the School of Ed organizer and an active P2PU community member
10:07 guest-3207: we need teacher with more skill tools, not book
10:07 guest-3207: the books turn into scripts anyhow
10:07 guest-2767: The scripting of curriculum is such a huge problem right now
10:07 guest-3200: it is definitely unsustainable (what we're doing now)
10:07 guest-3200: in my district we could only afford new textbook adoptions about every 8-13 years!!! Talk about outdated resources!
10:08 guest-3207: sharing is caring
10:08 guest-2767: In CA, there is no $ for textbooks any more for several years to come...that's prompted them to start moving to open textbooks
10:08 guest-3200: that's a "positive" for lack of school funding :-)
10:08 guest-3207: necessity is the mother of invention
10:09 guest-2767: CA open textbook initiative: http://www.clrn.org/FDTI/index.cfm
10:09 guest-2781: I spent $200+ for a paperback textbook last year
10:10 guest-2767: Even if you print open textbooks, the cost is something like $5/kid instead of $65+
10:10 guest-3200: but they need the computers or devices to view them on--who pays?
10:10 guest-2767: They can be printed.
10:10 guest-3200: so true @Scott!! most college textbooks now are in that price range!!
10:10 guest-2767: Or they can be on district-supplied devices or BYODs...depending on what's available
10:11 guest-3200: printing them doesn't allow for continual updating though
10:11 guest-3198: Here are the 1 year savings (to students) in the http://www.opencourselibrary.org/ estimates that the 42 faculty course developers will save students $1.26 million by using the materials during the 2011-2012 school year, which alone exceeds the $1.18 million cost of creating the 42 courses.
10:11 guest-3200: someone needs to turn on their mic :-)
10:11 guest-2715: I find that some OER materials are less slick than some of the commercial textbooks. If I'm wrong, please correct me. I wonder if access to easier design tools (6 listed on History Tech http://bit.ly/A1KH0A) will allow OER texts to be more inviting with better design?
10:12 guest-3207: I feel like we are all just waiting for the thing that makes tablets accessible on a wide scale
10:12 guest-3200: hooray!
10:12 guest-2767: One nice thing about OER is you can use in multiple formats...no lock-in by single vendors for specific devices
10:12 guest-3198: Look what they did in Utah: The $5 Textbook: http://utahopentextbooks.org/2011/08/26/the-5-textbook/
10:12 guest-2767: Todd, some are less polished, but not all...
10:13 guest-2767: Two more "polished" examples: 1) Online courses from Hippocampus http://www.hippocampus.org/
10:13 guest-3200: @Todd-I tend to agree with you if they are primarily text-based. But if they are multimedia and interactive I think they are very interesting
10:14 guest-2767: 2) FreeReading, a research-based 40-week reading intervention program http://freereading.net
10:14 guest-2781: Interactive, hyperlinked text is such a powerful way to present material.
10:14 guest-3200: is everyone in the Hangout also logged in here? would love to know who is in the Hangout
10:14 guest-2715: Thanks for the links!
10:15 guest-2767: One challenge for OER is that the txtbook publishers sell their product on the basis of tons and tons of slick ancillary products. Do we really need these (or need to pay for them)?
10:15 guest-2781: does that help?
10:15 guest-3200: so true @Karen!
10:15 guest-2767: In Hangout right now : Cable, Chris, Fred Mindlin, me, Mary Lou, and Scott
10:15 guest-3200: teachers get excited when they know everything they "need" is provided by the textbook company so they don't even need to make copies of the worksheets!
10:16 guest-3200: thanks Karen
10:16 guest-2781: @ Peggy, does the expanded view help?
10:16 guest-2767: But so much of those ancillaries go unopened and unused. Waste of money. Textbook publishers need to unbundle. They often even require buying hte print books even if you just want the digital version
10:17 guest-3200: yes!!!
10:17 guest-2781: OK. Recording just the "big screen" but will stream the expanded view
10:17 guest-2767: I creative commons license 99% of all my photos online.
10:18 guest-2767: It's hysterical to see how people use them.
10:18 guest-3199: we only use openly licensed photos for presentaitons
10:18 guest-3199: now there are over 80M of them
10:18 guest-2715: David Blight's Yale lectures on the Civil War seems like the gold standard of (non-interactive) quality content. http://oyc.yale.edu/history/hist-119.
10:19 guest-2781: CC seems to be a difficult concept for tech newbies understand.
10:19 guest-2767: In Flickr you can do an advanced search to find CC licensed photos that you can reuse
10:19 guest-2781: I use compfight
10:19 guest-3200: I find that too Scott--they think if it's CC it's free to use without thinking about the different licenses
10:20 guest-2767: Google has an advanced search option as well that filters results on open license
10:20 guest-2781: http://compfight.com/
10:20 guest-3198: Here is the Power of Open Book: http://thepowerofopen.org
10:20 guest-3200: Yes Scott-expanded view is outstanding!! Thanks!
10:20 guest-2781: SOOOOO many educators still think they can take anything from the web because it is for education.
10:21 guest-3198: check out this model: http://www.flatworldknowledge.com
10:21 guest-2767: So true Scott
10:21 guest-3198: give the books away for free on the web - openly licensed - sell the derivative works
10:21 guest-3200: this is a conversation that MUST be shared out once the recording is available!!! So much valuable information to help us explain this to others!! Thank you all!
10:22 guest-2715: @ Peggy George (guest-3200) re: "teachers get excited when they know everything they "need" is provided by the textbook company so they don't even need to make copies of the worksheets!" --> I agree. As teachers get busier, I respect the impulse to want to trust take-and-bake curriculum.
10:22 guest-3200: "sexy" technology :-)
10:23 guest-3200: yes Todd--that is exactly what they are thinking--anything that saves them time is valued
10:23 guest-2767: Biggest issue with Apple textbooks...technology changes. It's scarey to get locked into to any one platform.
10:24 guest-2781: I worry about the tech getting in the pedagogy.
10:24 guest-3200: great point about thinking broadly about the sources and not just text!
10:24 guest-2715: How so, Scott?
10:24 guest-2767: Also kids need to be able to view curric and classrm resources on a variety of their own devices too...phones, etc.
10:25 guest-3200: do you mean will someone "steal" your stuff and claim ownership?
10:25 guest-2767: It is a requirement of all CC licenses that people must attribute the source.
10:26 guest-3200: I was just curious about what he was saying...
10:26 guest-2781: teachers get so hung up on smartboards, ipads, etc. that they use tech just because they have it, not because it is the best practice.
10:26 guest-3200: CC licensing is very strong and clear!
10:26 guest-2767: He was saying that people would "borrow" (plagiarize) and not attribute the source
10:26 guest-3200: @Scott-that is part of educating them--if they are open to technology and want to use it they will be ripe for learning how to use it more effectively
10:27 guest-2767: Yes, Scott, the tendency to focus on the tech tool of hte minute instead of learning is high
10:27 guest-3200: love this story!
10:27 guest-2781: So true. That is why I like to help present PD.
10:28 guest-2715: Good explanation of CC!
10:29 guest-3200: outstanding!!
10:29 guest-2781: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
10:29 guest-3198: This is what you get when you click on a CC license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
10:29 guest-3198: Ah - Scott beat me to the punch
10:29 guest-2781: :-)
10:30 guest-3198: Flirk Commons: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
10:30 guest-3198: YouTube Creative Commons: http://www.youtube.com/t/creative_commons
10:30 guest-2767: I still post some stuff under "all rights reserved" copyright. It's really everyone's choice, but it's good to know the options, what's legal (and not), etc.
10:30 guest-3200: they have choices to make about CC and I don't think they understand it well. But the licenses are so clear! They want someone to say "here are the rules" (the old copyright charts) and it's a whole new ball game with CC
10:31 guest-2767: And kids *really* need to know about this stuff. #21stcenturyskills
10:31 guest-2781: @Mary Lou Interested in another trip? A teacher fried of mine is going to Liberia this summer.
10:31 guest-3198: You can share these CC videos: http://creativecommons.org/videos
10:31 guest-2715: As we create more collaborative pieces, where identity and space is negotiated, will this make CC more difficult for sharers and users to figure out?
10:31 guest-2781: She is looking for educators to come along.
10:31 guest-2767: Mary Lou, where did you live in Africa? (I lived in Tanzania for a couple years)
10:32 guest-3200: I've used Wanna Work Together for years embedded on a wiki for AZ teachers. :-) Love it!!
10:32 guest-3199: madagascar for 6 years
10:32 guest-2767: awesome
10:32 guest-3199: then I spent about 3 months a year in various countries for 10 years, Dean of African Studies
10:33 guest-3199: love Tanzania, by the way
10:33 guest-3200: I remember that study/report!
10:33 guest-2767: When I work with kids on this topic, we do a side-by-side quality assessment of various resources. The lesson: You need to look closely at any source and always use multiple sources.
10:33 guest-3200: great example!
10:34 guest-3200: doesn't take years to update things!
10:34 guest-2715: Wikipedia v. Britt. - Would love a link! I missed the reference.
10:34 guest-2781: Now higher ed says Wikipedia is a good "starting point".
10:35 guest-3200: try this link Todd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
10:35 guest-2767: We talk about who are the "authors" of various resources...wikipedia, textbooks, etc. and what pros and cons do each author group carry with them.
10:36 guest-3200: Wikipedia really encourages people to read critically too--don't just accept everything
10:36 guest-2781: Yes, and it also sparks some great discussions.
10:36 guest-2715: That's great that the link is on Wikipedia! Thanks Peggy.
10:36 guest-3200: yes!!! really valuable tool!
10:37 guest-3200: the financial message is a powerful one!
10:37 guest-3199: UBC English Prof gave Wikipedia as an assignment to students - to write articles on an assigned novel
10:37 guest-3199: grade was based on the feedback they got and number of corrections made by others
10:37 guest-3200: great assignment Mary Lou :-)
10:38 guest-3200: wow!! awesome connections!!
10:38 guest-2715: I appreciate that dynamic work in OER is being done in WA, my home state.
10:39 guest-2781: I hope the model catches on in other states.
10:39 guest-2781: I spent thousands on textbooks over the past 5 years.
10:39 guest-3200: it will Scott! it makes so much sense!
10:40 guest-2715: OER seems big in Utah. Open High School of Utah uses these resources to a great extent.
10:40 guest-3200: hear! hear!!! I'll vote for Cable!!!
10:40 guest-2781: Common sense is against the rules in many states.
10:40 guest-2767: I've told Cable he should run for public office, Peggy :)
10:40 guest-3200: he should!!! so articulate!
10:41 guest-3200: but he has much better ways to spend his time!
10:41 guest-2767: Here's a good place to see some high quality OER for K-12 http://content.k12opened.com
10:41 guest-2767: Another good place to contribute to OER that is focused on K-12 is www.curriki.org
10:41 guest-3200: don't you have to pay for Merlot?
10:41 guest-3198: If you want to see me on my soapbox re: open policy (time index 10:25): http://sloanconsortium.org/conferences/2011/aln/obviousness-open-policy ;)
10:41 guest-3198: MERLOT is free
10:42 guest-2767: No, Merlot is free, but not all open licensed (need to do an advanced search)
10:42 guest-2781: Curriki is a local favorite
10:42 guest-3200: thanks Cable! I will definitely check that out!
10:42 guest-3198: http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm
10:42 guest-2767: http://www.merlot.org
10:42 guest-2781: Great links tonight!
10:42 guest-3198: CK-12 open textbooks: http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/
10:42 guest-2767: I love Curriki for K-12
10:43 guest-3198: check out this OER K-12 bill in WA State: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=2337&year=2011
10:43 guest-2781: from fred... http://cnx.org/
10:43 guest-2781: http://cnx.org/
10:43 guest-3200: I think that's what I remembered from my university faculty days--not all of Merlot was free.
10:43 guest-2767: http://openstudy.com/
10:43 guest-2767: http://p2pu.org
10:43 guest-2767: Open Courseware for higher ed http://www.ocwconsortium.org/
10:44 guest-2715: P2PU.org looks really interesting...
10:44 guest-2781: P2PU is a great program
10:45 guest-3200: the real world!!!
10:45 guest-2715: MIT = the Wilco of Universities.
10:45 guest-2781: Logo robotics, or "analog" lego?
10:45 guest-2767: We have 7 new groups for K-12 teachers starting at the P2PU School of Ed next week. Join us!
10:45 guest-2767: You're also welcome to start your own P2PU group.
10:46 guest-3200: I heard some of the MIT students whining about their courses that they pay big money for are being watered down because of the open courses.
10:46 guest-2767: The big money is for the credit/degree. You don't get that with the open courses :)
10:46 guest-3200: a consortium is such an important concept
10:47 guest-3199: sure, I think you're always going to see the elite argument
10:47 guest-2781: from Fred.. Can't leave without linking to Lewis Hyde's 'Common as Air'--most important book of this decade- http://www.lewishyde.com/publications/common-as-air
10:47 guest-2767: Obstacles = politics, institutional momentum
10:48 guest-2781: Knowledge=Power. Some teachers don't like to share and give up their perceived poser
10:48 guest-2781: perceived power
10:48 guest-2715: Are students positive about Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)experiences?
10:48 guest-2767: I don't find that to be at all an issue in K-12.
10:48 guest-2767: K-12 teachers love and are willing to share in my experience
10:48 guest-3200: and they don't want others to critique it--they want it to be the final, authoritative word! very proprietary
10:49 guest-3198: Turning point for me was reading this book: http://www.wikinomics.com - punch line was "open up or die" - was advice to fortune 500 companies
10:49 guest-2781: Not everywhere :-(
10:49 guest-3200: it's much more a university issue
10:49 guest-2767: That is one of my fav books. it's one of the things that got me into open stuff
10:49 guest-3200: @Cable--that book really influenced me too
10:49 guest-2781: before we wrap up - please share you twitter handle...
10:50 guest-3200: Scott are you posting this video later? will you also post the chat log?
10:50 guest-2715: I'm posting all my courses notes, resources, agendas, plans all on one open Google Doc: http://bit.ly/MONOLINK. This has taken me months...The jury it out as to whether the effort benefits anyone.
10:50 guest-2781: It is being recorded as usual. Youtube should be up later tonight.
10:51 guest-3199: @Todd, sometimes its hard to know the benefits from open, since you aren't tracking
10:51 guest-3200: most of our syllabi were required to be posted on Blackboard and that isn't easy to share outside of Blackboard--very restrictive
10:51 guest-2767: #oer is a pretty active hashtag on Twitter for those interested
10:51 guest-2601: I'll check it out and get back to you Todd. Thanks in advance
10:52 guest-2781: Chat log SHOULD be recorded. I'm going to copy/paste to a Google Doc just in case
10:52 guest-3199: @peggy, Blackboard has just created CoursSites to enable sharing outside of Blackboard
10:52 guest-2767: We share on Bb by granting public access and also open licensing content and putting up in other formats as well
10:52 guest-3200: I know where to find the recording but wasn't sure who was posting it and if the chat log could also be posted (usually happens on EdTechTalk posting)
10:52 guest-3200: great to know Mary Lou!! I'm not at the university any more but that is good news!
10:52 guest-2781: I'm using Paul's accounts. Things should be "normal"
10:53 guest-3199: #openeducationwk if you want to follow next week's events
10:53 guest-3200: @Karen--that is definitely not the norm for Blackboard because universities are paying for Blackboard
10:54 guest-2781: Blogs+reflection = personal growth
10:54 guest-2767: I know :) That's my subversion of the proprietary norm. Works great in K-12. Really a lot easier than higher ed
10:54 guest-2715: It's hard to not post on Blackboard. My university expects it. Students expect it. The new Starfish mandate is locked into Blackboard.
10:54 guest-3200: what an awesome conversation!!
10:55 guest-3198: Another turning point, for me, was reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Long-Tail-Future-Business-Selling/dp/1401302378
10:56 guest-3200: great story Mary Lou!
10:56 guest-3198: Want to sway people - have them watch Larry Lessig give this keynote: http://www.educause.edu/Resources/Lessig2009
10:56 guest-3199: @Todd, you can check out the webinar next week on Bb CourseSites, which shows how to transfer from closed Bb into an open Bb format that can be shared
10:56 guest-3198: AND have them read the Cape Town Declaration: http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration
10:57 guest-2715: Thanks Mary Lou. Will do.
10:57 guest-3200: these links are so helpful!! it's going to take me days to follow up on all of them!
10:58 guest-3200: Dave Cormier and Jeff Lebow would be very proud of your hosting tonight Chris!!! Super job!
10:58 guest-3200: thank you all for sharing tonight!!
10:58 guest-2715: Yup. Good conversation. Thank you! I love your http://www.openeducationweek.org/ web site.
10:58 guest-3200: I'm definitely coming to some of the webinars next week!
10:59 guest-2767: Thanks everyone!
10:59 guest-2767: Hope to see you on some some webinars next week.
11:00 guest-2715: Is there a twitter address to follow to track the webinars?
11:01 guest-2715: Never mind. Found it.