Building a community for developing OERs
Published | November 2010 |
Conference | The Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning |
ABSTRACT
The transition to lower secondary education is now at the centre of the Education for All agenda in many countries. As more children are progressing through primary school the demand for secondary school places is growing. However, the demand for places in the school is not the only challenge governments are facing for sustained improvement in quality education. One of the most important requirements is an improved learning environment, which includes the provision of learning materials (UNESCO, 2010). While access to learning materials is a significant barrier in many countries, tremendous progress has been made with the development of OERs (stimulated by benefactors such as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and UNESCO) and educational content has been provided freely to institutions and learners across the world (Sclater, 2010). The Commonwealth of Learning, in collaboration with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation initiated the Open Educational Resources for Open Schools to address the challenge of access to quality educational resources while at the same time enhancing the capacity of teachers in writing distance education materials using new technologies. When embarking on a large scale project, such as developing open educational resources, it is important to involve the right people to commence and complete the project successfully. It is essential to choose educators with ample experience in their field of teaching in order to ensure that the end product will be of a high standard and, of course, on an appropriate level for the target users. This paper will explore the challenges experienced by the teachers involved in this project. This includes the relationships between the different partners, technological, cultural as well as work related challenges. It will also explore the different support mechanisms which allowed the teachers to deal with the challenges in building a supportive community which lead to the success of the project. Developing open educational resources is not an easy task. It demands high level of motivation and courage of those involved to overcome the challenges they face to make the changes to succeed.Keywords | challenges · collaboration · community · culture · K-12 · OER creation · technology · UNESCO · William and Flora Hewlett Foundation |
Language | en |
URL | http://wikieducator.org/images/2/26/Frances_Ferreira.pdf |
Export options | BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar |
Viewed by 127 distinct readers
CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS
The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.










Click a star to be the first to rate this document
▶ POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS
Open schooling with open educational resources: Opening doors, creating opportunities
Bagopi, Masego; Dailey, Margaret; Ferreira, Frances; Gauthier, Cindy; et al.
Open educational resources (OER) offer a practical, workable solution to the challenges of educating outlying populations. Not being subject to traditional licensing restrictions, OER can be used, reused and adapted to ...
Match: ferreira, frances; k-12
Open educational resources for blended learning in high schools: Overcoming impediments in developing countries
Larson, Richard C.; Murray, Elizabeth M.
With today’s computer and telecommunications technologies, every young person can have a quality education regardless of his or her place of birth. This is the dream that Open Educational Resources (OERs), when viewed ...
Match: developing; collaboration; k-12
Forum on the impact of open courseware for higher education in developing countries
UNESCO
In a unprecedented move, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) last year announced that it will put online the substance of nearly all its courses during the coming few years. As the number of academic courses ...
Match: developing; unesco
A qualitative investigation of faculty Open Educational Resource usage in the Washington Community and Technical College System: Models for support and implementation
Chae, Boyoung; Jenkins, Mark; Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges
This report is based on interviews with 60 faculty in Washington’s community and technical college system which was built upon a previous state-wide survey with 770 faculty.
Faculty were queried about:
* how and ...
Match: community
Open Educational Resources: Mainstream adoption and educational effectiveness
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The idea behind OER is simple but powerful—educational materials made freely available on the Internet for anyone to use, distribute, and revise. These digital materials have the potential to give people everywhere ...
Match: k-12; william and flora hewlett foundation
Background and action paper on OER: A background and action paper for staff of bilateral and multilateral organizations at the strategic institutional education sector level
West, Paul G.; Victor, Lorraine; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Match: k-12; william and flora hewlett foundation
If content is king, why are OER still uncrowned? A developing world perspective’
Kanwar, Asha; Kodhandaraman, Balasubramanian; Umar, Abdurrahman
This presentation seeks to critically examine the experiences of the Commonwealth of Learning in the creation and dissemination of OER and to share the lessons learned. What are some of the key components of ...
Match: developing
New technologies for teaching and learning: Challenges for higher learning institutions in developing countries
The application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is already changing the organization and delivery of higher education. The pedagogical and socio-economic forces that have driven the higher learning ...
Match: developing
Comparing learner community behavior in multiple presentations of a Massive Open Online Course
Gallagher, Silvia Elena; Savage, Timothy
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) can create large scale communities of learners who collaborate, interact and discuss learning materials and activities. MOOCs are often delivered multiple times with similar content ...
Match: community
Community tracking in a cMOOC and nomadic learner behaviour identification on a connectivist rhizomatic learning network
Bozkurt, Aras; Honeychurch, Sarah; Caines, Autumm; Bali, Maha; et al.
This article contributes to the literature on connectivism, connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) and rhizomatic learning by examining participant interactions, community formation and nomadic learner behavior in a particular ...
Match: community