Open Education Resources (OER) Brings Free and Affordable College Options Closer to Reality

I’ve been critical of the "Generation Debt"-producing “College for All” mantra in pieces like The College Myth: Why College isn't Worth the Cost for Many Careers Today.  However, Online learning and OER  (Open Education Resources) have tremendous potential for  driving down college costs.

In particular I’ve featured colleges like Harvard and MIT who are placing their classes online and organizations like University of the People and School of Everything who are sharing a variety of online learning opportunities. All of these options are being offered at little or no cost.  

In many cases students are able to take the reins and move through the courses on their own.  In other cases they use study groups like  Peer 2 Peer University or tutors to support them especially in some of the more difficult subject areas like Algebra or Physics where they may want or need additional support.

While getting a free education is fantastic, what is really promising is that now more and more places are offering accredited degrees for their classes. The classes give students access to online laboratories, self-assessments and student-to-student discussions. While access to the course content is usually free, there will be an affordable charge for a credential.

Perhaps what is most groundbreaking is what Stanford professor Daphne Koller shares with us in her recent TED Talk. Koller is excited to be making the college experience available to anyone through her startup, Coursera which currently has classes from 16 top colleges. While colleges have been putting lectures online for years, Coursera's platform supports the other vital aspect of the classroom: assessments and assignments that reinforce learning with a unique peer to peer system of evaluating student work.  

Koller points out that the future of education is here now. She shares how people from around the world are learning at their own pace and getting together online with thousands of others to learn globally while also putting together traditional supports like face to face or online study groups or tutors to support that learning.  

To get more of an insight into what this might mean and look like, check out Koller’s TED Talk below.

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Four Reasons to Consider a Non-Traditional College Program

College grads are having a hard time getting jobs these days.  Anthony Cody recently explained to us that the failure of schools is not that they are not teaching students to become skilled workers, but instead it is not giving them enough experience with doing things in the world. Employers don't want to hire people who learn the theory behind or are "trained" to do things. They want people that have actually done things.

Students are waking up and realizing that in many cases the traditional four year “college experience” doesn't set them apart from the rest and provides few guarantees for employment related to their degree upon graduation.  


Fortunately, there are colleges like Sanford Brown that are hearing this message loud and clear and they are being designed with a focus of providing programs that result in jobs for grads and also give them the flexibility to hold a job and get experience while doing so. That’s possible in part because these  institutions are offering online learning opportunities. More and more young people and people who never completed college are realizing the benefits such as schedule flexibility and a lower cost than traditional options. 


This lets them get a degree as fast as possible to practice in a field that’s in demand and start making their dreams come true.

Here are four benefits of online education programs:
1. Save Time
You can complete an online education program in about half the time required to complete an undergraduate education at a four-year university.
2. Take Relevant Courses
At an online college, you are in full control of your educational experience. You are able to choose all of the classes that you want for your educational experience. You do not have to waste your time sitting through pointless classes that have nothing to do with the actual things you want to accomplish in life. You can choose classes that will give you the practical skills that you need to succeed in the business world or whatever career that you ultimately decide upon.
3. Pay Less for Online Courses
Online educational programs cost less than traditional programs resulting in significant savings for students. With an online program, you can save yourself from paying thousands of dollars in tuition fees. You will also be able to save money on the cost of finding an apartment to rent at or near a college campus. Apartment rentals on college campuses tend to be very expensive in comparison with apartment rentals that aren’t in the heart of a college town.
4. Have Time for On The Job Experience
Online college programs offer a schedule that is more flexible than a traditional college. This gives you the time you need to acquire the on-the-job experience as an employee, apprentice, or intern that will help you get that job upon graduation.  

Choosing to pursue an online education is a smart idea for the person who is on a budget and does not want to waste time in taking irrelevant classes. It requires diligence and discipline, but the result could be a savings in time and money while providing more options for success upon graduation.

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A virtual classroom that’s more intimate than face to face

When the conversation of online learning comes up a big concern is the lack of face-to-face interaction. I recently read an article about a virtual classroom that is more intimate than many face-to-face, brick and mortar environments.  The reason...because the students faces are close up...sort of like Google Hangout.  Additionally, the instructor and students could capture and share one another’s screen.  

In this case, it meant that the instructor had planned for a way for all of the students contribute virtually face-to-face. It also meant that students were focused.  It was as though they were all in the front of the class.  The author who wrote about this experience explained that though it may be hard to believe, there was closer intimacy in this virtual classroom than many of those he’d experienced in the classroom. He attributes that to being the case possibly because of the close-up of each person’s face and he got a sense that each student knew they were expected to contribute which raised the bar for all.

Prior to joining the class, students were expected to come prepared by watching and interacting with three hours of online video.  Instead of talking head lectures though, they were highly produced NOVA-like documentaries.  When watching them, what they didn’t understand they could watch again or bring up in the discussion area of the video prior to class.  

The idea transforms what it takes to be an effective teacher in a world that harnesses the technology available.  First, the “lecture” that we traditionally hear becomes an extremely high quality production that can be seen by countless students anytime, anywhere.  Money is allocated to this upfront and then maintenance through revision, but all teachers of the future won’t be spending time doing this.  It will be a specialty done by master experts who can present well to large audiences.  


The common teacher role will move to one that acts more as a discussion facilitator who helps students make meaning of, build upon, and if applicable make creations in relation to what they have learned.  Teachers will be able to spend more time with small groups, pairs, and provide individual support.  Standardized assessment will likely also branch off into its own specialty.

The role of the traditional teacher is fading away.  What will you do? Hang on to what you know or help students forge new pathways to success?
_____________________________
Want to read more? See what these four online professors think of teaching Massive Open Online Courses.

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Blended Learning! A new cartoon from Jeff Branzburg

Want to learn more? Read this introductory guide to online learning terms.

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Required reading for online learning educators

The International Association for K-12 Online Learning puts out many publications.  Here is a list of some of their more recent publications that will be of interest to online learning educators.

• Authorizing Online Learning, Patrick and Vander Ark (2011)
• iNACOL Online Learning Definitions Project (October 2011)
• Authorizing Online Learning (VanderArk and Patrick, published by NACSA, August 2011)
• The rise of K-12 blended learning: Profiles of emerging models (Innosight Institute, 2011)
• Clearing the Path: Creating Innovation Space for Serving Over-Age, Under-Credited Students in Competency-Based Pathways (Chris Sturgis, Bob Rath, Ephraim Weisstein, and Susan Patrick, January 2011)
• Digital Learning Now Report: 10 Elements (December 2010)
• When Success is the Only Option: Designing Competency-Based Pathways for Next Generation Learning (Chris Sturgis and Susan Patrick, November 2010)
• Going Virtual! 2010: The Status of Professional Development and Unique Needs of K-12 Online Teachers (Lisa Dawley, Kerry Rice, Glori Hinck, November 2010)
• Lessons Learned from Virtual Schools: Experiences and Recommendations from the Field (Richard E. Ferdig and Cathy Cavanaugh, November 2010)
• A National Primer on K-12 Online Learning, Version 2 (Matthew Wicks, November 2010)
• Class Connections: High School Reform and the Role of Online Learning (Picciano and Seaman, August 2010)
• Virtual K-12 Public School Programs and Students with Disabilities: Issues and Recommendations (Eve Muller, July 2010)
• Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and abroad. Dallas, TX: National Staff Development Council (2009)
• iNACOL Research Committee Issues Brief: An Exploration of At-Risk Learners and Online Education (April 2010)
• Wichita Public Schools' Learning Centers, Innosight Institute (March 2010)
• The Online Learning Imperative: A Solution to Three Looming Crises in Education, by Governor Bob Wise, Alliance for Excellent Education (February 2010)

To see all publications visit this link.

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Developing Online Learning Communities - Consider This!

Editor's note: This is part 2 in a look at effective online learning communities. Find out what it takes to be an effective community leader in part 1.


As more and more districts, give in and extend at least a little rope when it comes to the creation and participation of online learning communities (see the policy in NYC here), more and more educators will need to understand how to develop a successful online learning community. In her recent interview for the  USDOE-supported Connected Educators site, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach author of The Connected Educator explains how to develop effective online learning communities.  You can read the full interview here.  Here is her advice.

1. Ask essential questions for building community -Know your need. Why is this community necessary? What is the purpose? What is it that we’re trying to accomplish? “What do we want to avoid?”
2. Work to ensure you have the composition of a great team -Bring people together who have different ideologies, different geography, different purposes and challenges to enable them to each bring what they did well to the table and people could learn from that. For example in the field of education this could mean public, private, Catholic, and other kinds of schools; educators teaching well-to-do, middle-class, and poor kids; educators in different states and nations, at different grade levels, and in different content areas and roles.
3. Create an environment where relationships can be built -With the right pieces in place members can build significant relationships and spontaneous collaborations could come out of that where none had previously existed. For example, an independent school community developed which was unusual because, for the first time, instead of seeing each other as competitors (independent schools often compete for the same student “clients”), they began to see themselves as collaborators.
4. Balance privacy and community -A hub can bring various communities together into a virtual commons area while providing each community with a private space.
5. Organize for success -Provide private spaces with a community leader, while also providing an opportunity for members to be able to participate together in a wider and even more diverse network where they can leverage each other’s thinking.
6. Know that size matters but bigger isn’t always better.   -One of the biggest mistakes is to think that size is what matters most, and that we’ve got to grow this community fast. Size becomes the most important metric, and if we can’t show a large membership, our community isn’t successful. I’d caution developers to not become fixated on size and numbers. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar said that you really can’t have significant relationships with more than 100 to 200 people at a time. The most common value you see is 120 to 150. You need to think about quality and whether you have the right people on the bus, not necessarily the most people. New communities that develop a relatively small but highly engaged core group are more likely to scale, if sufficient attention is paid to the pace of growth and to recruitment and induction.
7. Know how you’re going to sustain your community -How are you going to grow and sustain your community? Do you have a dedicated funding stream, and if you don’t, how are you going to provide the funding? Are you willing to create a business model that will allow funding to come in from the people who are involved, or is that a compromise of your purpose or beliefs, and if it is, how are you going to provide the financial support for the community over the long haul? You have to have some way to compensate that incredible community leader you’re going to hire, as well as the great speakers / experts.
8. Replicate what is successful in the real world -Consider staging virtual events and celebrations, online conferences perhaps, and those things need “event staff” just like they do in the physical world. You may want to have great speakers and other experts come in, and you want a site that’s going to have the technology and engaging design to satisfy the community’s expectations just like you would in a physical environment.
9. Know your approach -What approach will you use for your online community. One approach that works is a three-pronged professional development model which included
• prong one is local learning communities;
• prong two is an online community of practice that’s both global and deep;
• a third prong is more personal—the idea of a personal learning network that each educator develops as a mega-resource for ideas and information about their particular interests and areas of practice.
10. Turn to membership for recruitment -Look to community members to attract more members. You gain a lot of built-in synergy that way. Another thing you might do is survey your core group and find out what components might be included in your community design that would constitute value-added elements for participants like themselves. When you’re responsive to their ideas, they gain a feeling of some ownership in the community and begin to act as agents to both draw other people in and help hold and engage new and less-committed participants. They help make your community a “sticky attractor,” you might say.
11. Build community -Mitch Resnick from the MIT Media Lab (who developed Scratch) said that co-created content is what builds community. And so if you have this artifact that people are going to be creating and constructing together, then they will come together for that purpose. And even get excited about it.
12. Measure success
• Meaningless measuresSome of the popular metrics for measuring success or impact are really pretty meaningless. We all have counted “likes” and looked at page views, and analyzed the time spent on pages, things like that—the typical website metrics. They might give us some crude indicators, but to really measure success takes a lot more brain sweat.
• Measuring meaningfullySuccess by anything other than the quality of what goes on in the community misses the point. The measuring piece needs to be about these kinds of indicators:
  (1) the quality of the conversations;
  (2) the alignment with purpose;
  (3) the willingness of community members to give and contribute, not just take;
  (4) helpfulness… of information, of the community itself, of designated support people;
  (5) the amount of substantive sharing that’s going on;
  (6) evidence of collaboration and how much;
  (7) the relationships that are being built among participants; and
  (8) how the existence of the community is impacting the world beyond the community.

Whether you currently run an online community, are considering it, or support one that is existing, these are 12 thought-provoking considerations to keep in mind when doing so.  Now that you’ve read these considerations, what do you think? What’s missing? What’s right about this? How’s your group doing?

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Traits of an effective online community leader

In her recent interview for the  USDOE-supported Connected Educators site, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach author of The Connected Educator explains, among other things, what it takes to be an effective online community leader.  You can read the full interview here.  


Here is her advice. 

1. Be a social artist - This person needs to be someone who is, in researcher Etienne Wenger’s words, a “social artist.” It needs to be somebody who really understands how to pull out and weave conversations, how to build relationships in virtual space, how to connect with people “behind the scenes” and use them as bonding agents inside the community.
2. Have a go-to core - Many times those people charged with growing a community don’t make the effort (and a considerable effort is required) to make sure you have a core group of members—really diverse members, not just a clique—who are the go-to people. These are the people a community leader can e-mail and say, “Hey, did you see Dana’s post on so-and-so? Nobody’s responded and that’s one of your areas of expertise. Will you go and ask some good questions and give her some useful feedback?” Having core members who really understand how this kind of responsiveness can grow and sustain a dynamic community is huge.
3. Be humble - Be a humble person—what Robert K. Greenleaf called “servant leadership”—someone who doesn’t have to be in the spotlight to find satisfaction. This is a person who understands that his or her job is to build the sense of belonging within the community—the sense that there is something so valuable here that I’m not only willing, but also eager, to give some time to this.
4. Have strong interpersonal skills - Have the interpersonal skills to reach out to folks who are not participating actively and find out what subjects will engage them, and where their own expertise might be shared with community members. It’s someone who can find the balance between too much and not enough hand-holding for any and every participant.
5. Make adequate time commitment - Doing this job well is very time-intensive. In a sizeable community with significant goals, it approaches a full-time job.
6. Support new members - New participants enter into the community space but may have trouble gaining traction—they’re not sure what’s going on. While you may post plenty of information, they may not read/watch everything (imagine that). You’ve got to have some way to scaffold the beginner’s experience so they locate the basic information and activities you need them to engage in. Creating multiple entry points into a community site can help address this.
   
   For many novice participants in a virtual community, posting is an act of bravery. We need to nurture and celebrate those acts, and do it in substantive ways. It’s not done with a smiley and a “Good job!” It can only be done by having lots of people involved in responding thoughtfully. You need more than the single voice of the leader or facilitator recognizing meaningful participation or drawing out deeper thinking. You need a strong core.
7. Build culture. Lose ego. Transition from leader to instigator to background facilitator - At the dawn of any online community, participants will naturally look to the community leader for structure and advice, and it can be very tempting to assert a dominant leader persona, complete with opinions on every topic. But the effective community leader will resist that temptation and move quickly from “leader” in the traditional sense to “instigator.” And in those communities that have a long life expectancy, the community leader will gradually move to “background facilitator” and let the natural leaders within the community rise up. And they will. All the research points to that.
8. Promote conversation around the community not around yourself - The job of the community leader is to promote conversation about what other people are interested in rather than conversations that revolve around the leader herself. The job requires someone who has the gift of pulling the best ideas out of participants and helping them grow as thinkers and doers
9. Foster natural leadership in the group - The sign that you’ve done your job well as a community leader is when a natural leadership group emerges, participants start instigating topics and agendas, and people begin shaping and assuming ownership of community norms. In a robust community, participants will start finding their niches.
1. Community roles
1. Nurturers who will always be seen greeting new people.
2. Responders who have the urge to comment and make sure everyone’s posts and ideas and contributions are recognized.
3. Pushers who can deepen the dialogue with their probing questions
4. Sharers who are always finding a good outside resource to enrich a conversation.
2. You may encourage these kinds of roles in the early going, but beyond the online community tipping point you rarely have to ask for it. On a slow day you may call on their help, but now you know WHO to call on for a welcome or a comment or a push. The niche people appear and you just recognize and validate their contributions as appropriate.
10. Celebrate the efforts of participants, both in and outside the community - The best online community facilitators ask for and share news of personal accomplishments—they’re tuned in to what’s going on in the professional world that surrounds this particular community. When members publish books, post widely read blog entries, garner awards and recognition, the community leader knows and makes sure the community knows.
    
    This, by the way, is something to really consider during the planning stage of community development. How are we going to celebrate what’s happening in the lives of the people who are engaged in the community? One strategy I’ve seen had the community facilitator creating a biweekly “community news” post that also invited participants to add their own news via comments. This was highly successful, in part because people who might be shy about “bragging” on themselves (a not uncommon trait, especially among teachers) felt comfortable adding to a “news blast” that already bragged on other community participants. It was a deliberate community-building and bonding technique that really worked.
11. Amplify community voice - How are we going to raise the voices of our community members in the outside world? This is particularly important in private or “walled garden” communities, but the principle applies across the board. How do we help communities and their members become adept at communicating what they know? And how can we call the world’s attention to the ideas being generated by the community and its members?
1. Possibilities
1. Publishing summaries of action research projects
2. Curating a group blog
3. Support members in publishing their work
12. Value the sociability factor and sense of belonging - Don’t overlook or devalue the sociability factor. Encouraging sociability and a sense of belonging makes for a sticky community. One easy way to begin is to offer participants symbols of their membership. This often manifests itself at physical conferences where your members like to have a way to find each other or meet up. Consider having group stickers or charms that you can display at conferences for you, your laptop, or your cell phone to wear. Plan meet-ups and gatherings that are as much social as they are PD experiences. One example is our Pecha Kucha Smackdown. where people use the Pecha Kucha format to talk about something cool that’s going on in their world as it relates to the group topic.

Whether you’re an online community member who wants to know how well your community is being run or you’re a community leader who is wondering how well you run your community, these are 12 traits to consider about the leader of the online community in which you participate. Now that you’ve read these traits, what do you think? What’s missing? How’s your group doing?

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You can never replace the teacher. Or can you? 10 ways to learn without teachers.

I learned nothing in school that was meaningful to me or that I used for success in life. All that just-in-case stuff was a 12-year-sentence that was wasted on me. Instead of being introduced to subjects in which I might be interested, I was turned off from them and was left without the opportunity to discover, develop, or enjoy my passions. Not only that, although I was at the top of my class, I never learned anything I was tested on. After I was forced to memorize and regurgitate onto the paper, the uninteresting, disconnected facts, stayed on the test. 


It is an embarrassment that I graduated high school retaining nothing I learned from my classes in science, social studies, English, math, or having the ability to speak a foreign language. I don’t blame myself though. I did as I was told and I excelled in the game of school. I graduated high school with honors at age 16 and graduated college with honors at 19. I was left on the other side of my diploma and degree with little knowledge, completely unprepared for a successful career, and no idea what I was truly passionate about.  


What’s worse, it took years for me to re/discover the joy of reading (about topics "I" cared about), writing (for a "real" audience), public speaking (My teacher told me I sucked), sports (The coaches said I was too small) and getting in touch with my creativity (there'd be none of that in school). Anything that I learned that was meaningful, I did not learn via someone who was paid to teach me. Instead, I learned outside of school by watching others do it, doing it, reading about it, and connecting with my personal learning network. The reality for me is that I would have been much better off without the teachers in my life weighing me down and wasting my time.  

I’m not saying no one likes or learns well in traditional school.  Ed leadership professor and blogger Jon Becker loved it. My good friend Carla loved school too. She genuinely loved tests and couldn’t wait to get to school on testing days. She loved showing off her grades and couldn’t understand why others did poorly. She enjoys reading textbooks and is a trivia wiz (she holds a Cash Cab win to her list of accolades). This method of learning works for her. Ironically this school-loving superstar earns her living today as a supermodel.  

Unlike Jon and my friend though, many of us learn more effectively without teachers and there are more and more ways to do just that. If learning was customized to allow the Jons and Carlas of the world to learn in a traditional environment and gave students like me the freedom to learn in the way that works best for us, we could certainly better allocate resources for students. So how would we learn if there were no teachers? Here are some of the ways I’ve come across recently that students are, or could be, learning without school or teachers.


TEN WAYS TO LEARN WITHOUT TEACHERS

1) The hologram that is playing to sold out audiences of thousands in Japan.
Could rock-star teachers be turned into holograms scheduled to come to a livingroom or classroom near you?
2) Five Ways to Give Yourself an Education That Kicks the Crap Out of the One You Got in School
We live in a world where knowledge and information are at our finger tips like never before.  Technology has leveled the playing field so that anybody with an interest and an internet connection can receive a world class education. Read about how people everywhere are learning through books, blogs, videos, podcasts, and quality online curricula.

3) M.I.T. Expands Its Free Online Courses
MIT will be allowing anyone anywhere to take M.I.T. courses online free of charge — and for the first time earn official certificates for demonstrating mastery of the subjects taught.

4) Opening Learning Initiative
The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is an open educational resources project uses knowledge from learning science and the affordances of the web to transform instruction, significantly improve learning outcomes and to achieve significant increases in productivity in post secondary education.

5) Twelve Dozen Places to Learn Online for Free
If you’re interested in learning something new, this article is for you.  Broken down by subject and/or category, there are several top-notch self-education resources bookmarked.

6) Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves
In this provocative video Sugata Mitra challenges the notion that children need adults to learn. He suggests rather than a schooling system of indoctrination, when we accept the truth that children are quite capable of learning on their own we can focus on providing a culture of outdoctrination.
7) Educators Can Save Time When They Stop Reinventing the Wheel with OER
OER which stands for Open Educational Resources is the name of a movement working toward a common goal of providing quality courses for learning for free. At the heart of the movement toward Open Educational Resources is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general, and the Worldwide Web in particular, provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and re-use knowledge. This knowledge provides links to many OER materials.


8) e-Learning for Kids
e-Learning for Kids is a global, nonprofit foundation dedicated to fun and free learning on the Internet for children ages 5 - 12. They offer free, best-in-class courseware in math, science, reading and keyboarding; and they’re building a community for parents and educators to share innovations and insights in childhood education.


9) Life Hacker University
A list of courses available from schools like Yale, MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley that will inspire, challenge, open doors, and give you the tools to improve your life. 


10) Parents explain how their children learn on their own free of schools or teachers
Here are some excerpts:

• My son learned to read completely on his own without me sitting there telling him what to do or how to do it. He learned to read by doing the things he loves.
• Replicating science experiments that she watched on YouTube, writing stories on textnovel, and staying home from school to do these things became my second grade daughter's answer to her own learning needs (when her public school situation was boring her to tears). She felt she just wasted all day at school waiting to get home and start learning.

Note: You can join the conversation at our group on Facebook where we discuss learning without school here.

What Next?
As hard as it might be for some to acknowledge, when it comes to learning, teachers are not for everyone. If we are not afraid to accept this as a fact, how might we change the learning environments we provide for 21st century students?

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