OER
eLearning Papers: Call for articles on Mobile Learning open until November 19th
While learning has always expanded beyond the walls of the classroom, the proliferation of devices and applications, which have greatly expanded when, where and how information can be accessed and stored, brings this issue to the fore. How have such devices had an impact in learning, and what role may they play in the future? This issue hopes to showcase practical examples and generate serious reflection on an emerging topic.
Today’s youth are growing up in a world very different from the world their teachers or parents knew when they were young. Where and how they learn is changing as mobile learning and social networking become part of their every day life. Ubiquitous access to social media, tools and knowledge resources is taken for granted, while passive teacher-directed work dominates life at school.
Open, social and participatory media have significant potential to transform learning and teaching. They offer numerous ways to communicate, collaborate and connect with peers. The range of free educational resources and tools is rapidly increasing. Cloud computing has enabled free or inexpensive access to applications that were once available only to those who were willing to pay premium license fees.
The gap between the potential and actual use of technology in education is a paradox. eLearning Papers seeks to facilitate the sharing of innovative and creative uses of technology to support learning among its readers. The upcoming 32nd issue focuses on mobile technology applications and their potential to enhance learning within the broad spectrum of education and training. Papers are welcome on any aspects related to the use of open, social and participatory media, cloud computing or mobile learning. Some suggested focus areas are listed below.
- How do mobile devices enhance learning and creativity?
- Mobile learning and creative classrooms
- OER for mobile learning
- Mobile learning management models and strategies
- Learning design for mobile learning
- Mobile learning platforms, devices and operating systems
- Authoring tools and technologies for mobile learning
- Content design and development for mobile learning
- Platform specific applications for learning
- Augmented reality in education
- Mixed reality and mobile devices supporting learning
- Mobile devices and schoolwork, in classrooms and beyond
- Mobile devices supporting performance and learning at work
- Low-tech mobile learning, e.g. the power of SMS
The article submission deadline is November 19th, 2012. The provisional date of publication is December, 2012. For further information and to submit your article, please contact: jimena.marquez@elearningpapers.eu
Guest editor: Prof. Dr. Martin Wolpers, Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik FIT
Consultation on Opening Up Education Initiative Launched
The consultation on "Opening up Education - a proposal for a European Initiative to enhance education and skills development through new technologies", will explore the perceived need for EU action to promote the use of open educational resources (OER) in education.
From 13 August 2012 to 13 November 2012.
New technologies, in particular the internet, together with globalisation and the emergence of new education providers, are radically changing the way people learn and teach. Open access to education resources offers an unprecedented opportunity to enhance both excellence and equity in education. The EU aims to help both individual learners and education and training institutions in Member States to benefit from these opportunities and to increase their contribution to society.
In the last quarter of 2012, the Commission will present a Communication on Rethinking Skills aiming to increase the quantity, quality and relevance of skills supply for higher economic and social outcomes. This will, among other actions, announce a new EU Initiative on "Opening up Education": a proposal to exploit the potential contribution of ICTs and Open Educational Resources (OER) to education and skills development. This new EU initiative on "Opening up Education" will be the topic of a subsequent Communication in mid-2013.
View the consultation document 
[45 KB]
The Nordic Open Education Alliance
The Nordic Open Education Alliance is a network to promote OER and collaboration amongst stakeholders in all educational sectors.
Launched in 2013, the network aims to gather people and institutions with similar visions and ideas to create better education in the Nordic countries and beyond.
The alliance runs stakeholder meetings and facilitates the dialogue through online and face to face meetings. It also supports OER in Nordic countries by collecting repositories and related research.
The Nordic OER Alliance has published a Position Paper that outlines 18 consequences for the Nordic countries related to Open Education.
Open Education: multilingual, user driven and glocalised
MOOC on Climate Change
The Brazil’s Open University (UaB) “Climate Change: The Context of Life Experiences” MOOC seeks to introduce the concept of climate change in the context of sustainable development. The course is offered only in Portuguese.
Some of the fundamental questions that seek to be addressed during this course are:
- How is climate change, and how does it influence our society and our day-to-day?
- How can we evaluate what we are told about what to do about climate change, so we can take our decisions in a rational and informed way?
- How can our stances and behaviours influence the future of planet?
This course is not intended to determine what should be done, but to help participants understand and critically analyse the guidelines prepared under a variety of perspectives.
Fluid learning: vision for lifelong learning in 2030
IRRODL - Open Educational Resources: Opening Access to Knowledge Vol 14, No 2 (2013)
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL) has published a special issue dedicated to Open Educational Resources (OER).
The Vol 14, No 2 issue is made up of contributions to the OER Knowledge Cloud by authors working in three of the world’s leading open universities, namely the Open University (UK), Athabasca University (Canada) and the Open Universiteit (Netherlands), as well as other researchers working in the field.
The articles begin with a case study of an OER implementation followed by a rationale for using OER on mobile learning and a description of developing content for use on mobile devices. Other articles explore the long-term sustainability of OER and their disruptive influence on traditional institutions, as well as the need for national policies and their use in other languages. In the final article, the author looks at visualisation and mapping of OER and their use.
Open Praxis volume 5 issue 2
Open Praxis is an online magazine published by the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) which aims to be an open forum for global collaboration and discussion of issues in the practice of distance and e-learning, focusing on research and innovation on open education and learning.
Volume 5, No 2 of Open Praxis, published in June 2013, includes the following articles:
- The use and production of OER & OCW in teaching in South African higher education institutions (Case Study), by Igor Lesko
- Pedagogical quality enrichment in OER based courseware: Guiding principles, by Pradeep Kumar Misra
- The Openness of the University of the Philippines Open University: Issues and Prospects, by Maria Fe Villamejor-Mendoza
- From resistance to acceptance and use of technology in academia, by Sofia Matrosova Khalil
- Comparing communities of inquiry of Portuguese higher education students: one for all or one for each?, by Jose António Moreira, António Gomes Ferreira, Ana Cristina Almeida
- Networked curricula: fostering transnational partnership in open and distance learning, by María Luz Cacheiro-González, Patricia Mata-Benito, George Ubachs
- Review of A-VIEW 3.5 software, by Mandar Lakshmikant Bhanushe
The impact of Spanish and Latin American's Open CourseWare in Higher Education
“The impact of Spanish and Latin American's Open Course Wares in Higher Education” is a study conducted by the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), in collaboration with the National University of Distance Education (UNED).
The study shows that there is a profuse implementation of the OCW model in Spain, being the second country with more universities participating in it, behind the United States. However, the use of OER in higher education is still incipient in Latin America.
Authors conclude that there is a need to provide greater resources to develop the model further.