Open Content & Ethics

“The movement toward open content reflects a growing shift in the way academics in many parts of the world are conceptualizing education to a view that is more about the process of learning than the information conveyed in their courses,” (Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K., 2011, p. 22). Open content is a new measure of education, in which textbook companies and various institutions are making content available online, for free. When comparing traditional educational resources to open content, it is no surprise the latter is more pleasing. Conventional textbooks are beginning to appear outdated, and schools are beginning to face an increasing struggle to renew their educational resources in a cost-effective and timely manner. Many of the establishments releasing content online operate as a normal publishing company does. Flat World Knowledge, for example, writes and edits their books in a traditional fashion, but releases copies of the text for free online, making students pay for a hard copy only if desired. Teachers can benefit from the availability of online content as well, finding useful resources and shareable material that can contribute to their curricula. This way, teachers are able to easily devise new lessons with creative material, which will hopefully keep their students engaged and interested. “As customizable educational content – and insights about how to teach and learn with it – is increasingly made available for free over the Internet, students are learning not only the material, but also skills related to finding, evaluating, interpreting, and repurposing the resources they are studying in partnership with their teachers,” (Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K., 2011, p. 22).

As discussed in previously posts, technology is spreading at a fast rate to schools, and educational tactics are beginning to revolve around what technology makes possible. “Currently, most electronic books and journals are essentially copies of printed versions that can be read on a computer or mobile device. Exciting new examples hint at the possibilities offered by more advanced forms of electronic books – self-directed, interactive experiences; easy exploration; collaborative work; multi-modal, immersive activities; and other deeply engaging approaches to learning,” (Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., & Haywood, K., 2011, p. 9). The advancements of technology have resulted in electronic readings to include graphs, videos, illustrations, and helpful tools, such as bookmarking, dictionary look up, and annotations. Because schools are investing in electronic equipment, such as iPads, laptops, and even Kindles, open content is becoming easier to attain and take advantage of. Although the prices of the latest technology is rather costly, the advantages tend to outweigh the costs, giving students and teachers endless educational opportunities to integrate into the curriculum. Looking only a couple years into the horizon, I feel it is safe to assume all students, both at the high school and college level, will have as much, if not more, of their content evolving from the Internet or other virtual databases.

One drawback to the movement of open content is authors’ copyright protection. Foundations, such as Creative Commons, offer licenses to secure authors’ rights to their work, if they may choose to do so. “CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law,”  (Creative Commons). Copyright holders are also given the choice under CC0 to decide against copyright protection altogether, sort of like a “no rights reserved” policy. If the authors do decide to opt out of their safeguard, is it okay for readers to copy their work? After all, because they have “no rights reserved,” using their work would not really be considered plagiarism, right? I am curious to learn more about this issue, and see how this could play in to students who may be writing papers, etc. If this philosophy is accurate, I feel that teachers need to be particular when explaining the concept of plagiarism to students, and depict a fine line between what is right, and what is wrong.

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon REport: 2011 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K, (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. 

www.creativecommons.org

In The Clouds

The first cloud computing website I found is called "Sense-Language." The website offers free tutorials and games to help students practice and develop their typing skills. This virtual class allows participants to track their typing-skills progress, and even offers a certification upon completion of a test. With the various techniques the computer, as well as other technology, is serving in our schools, I believe typing is quickly becoming a necessary subject for students to master.

www.sense-lang.org

The second website I discovered is called "Mindflash." This website is a sort of study aide, allowing students to create web-based training courses. You simply upload existing videos, power points, or notes, and the website instantly creates an online studying tutorial. This is very beneficial for students when preparing for tests and exams, or even to simply engage in further learning experiences.

http://www.mindflash.com

The last website I came across is called "NoRedInk!" Students are able to master grammar and writing skills through a web-based learning platform. NoRedInk! offers exercises, quizzes, and final assessments, making the learning very adaptive to all different types of students. Teachers can use the tools offered in their Language Arts classrooms as well.

www.noredink.com

I decided to follow a group called "Sites for Education" on Diigo. This group offers an ample amount of resources for teachers. There are tons of links suggesting unique ways to incorporate math, religion, social studies, etc. into the curriculum. Many of the members in the group are teachers themselves, which allows me to gain other educator's points of view on various subjects.

Overall the information provided about tags, cloud computing, and bookmarking has been very eye opening for me. As I continue my path to becoming a future educator, I feel it is very beneficial to being regularly informed on the constant growing tools that can be used for education. "The reason cloud computing is so relevant in the near-term horizon is that it has opened doors for more flexibility, more space, more collaboration, and ultimately, more creative uses of internet resources for educators to incorporate in their classrooms," (The NMC Horizon Report, 2011, p. 12). I hope to be able to integrate technology and other methods of teaching into my classroom curriculum, with the hope to instill a broad range of standards amongst my students. In addition, I think collaboration is a huge value in the school environment. Folksonomys, cloud computing, and tags are perfect examples of this concept. "For content to be searchable, it should be categorized and grouped. While this was believed to require commonly agreed on sets of content describing tags (much like keywords of a journal article), recent research has found that, in large folksonomies, common structures also emerge on the level of categorizations," (Wikipedia). These low cost, newly emerging resources are helping to filter specific, necessary information into a more basic, simple format for students to comprehend. In addition, these tools are beneficial in the creation of a one-to-one learning environment, both at home and in the classroom. I am interested to see the advancements both technology and the Internet will make in the next couple of years, and how this will further affect the classroom and basis of learning.

Blogging & Twittering

Throughout my lifetime, I have witnessed the uprising popularity of social media. Not only has it become a leisurely pastime of entertainment, but networks such as Twitter, FaceBook, and Blogger have evolved into forms of effective communication. "Such tools make it easy for students to move past the classroom walls and connect with their peers around the world as well as giving them access to experts in fields they are studying. Online communication tools may be synchronous or asynchronous; based in text, audio or video; and enable one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many communications," (2009 Horizon Report). For example, blogs are a strong educational tool, encouraging students to learn in a different context than the standard pen and paper, and forcing them to relay what they are learning in a creative manner. In addition, students with blogs are able to follow and view their classmates work, thus allowing them to compare, edit, and analyze each other's ideas. As technology becomes more prominent and available, teachers are given an easy pass to incorporating social media into the school curriculum. 

Twitter, another form of social media, is conveniently devised to expand awareness and intelligence about real world topics. I choose to follow the Department of Education, which offers valuable information about the educational world. Teachers can encourage students to follow thousands of different accounts, each offering useful tips, tools, and ideas on various issues. With a Twitter account, students are able to view similar ideas to theirs through "hashtags." "For example, if you try clicking a particular hashtag in a message, you will see the list of posts using the same hashtag. Hashtags allow an audience to interact live during events, such as conferences, TV shows, political events, etc.," (Hashtags.org). I think social media will only continue to expand in positive ways for the field of education.