Posts made by Valerie Taylor

As much as I love eBooks (Kindle, iPad, iPhone, laptop), I have to wonder how these will hold up to the test of time. We visited a wonderful library in Switzerland and viewed books written in the 800's.

Having worked in IT for many years, I have seen data lost forever because technologies changed or destroyed the media rendering this information useless or unreadable - paper tape, magnetic tape in all formats, floppy discs... Just thinking.

Having worked in science, engineering and information technology, where it is essential to understand and use the work of others, it continues to concern me that so much of academic "training" focuses on plagiarism and eradicating it. In order to get anything new accomplished in STEM fields, one must be ready, willing and able to use the work of others. Not using other known work because it was "Not invented here" is considered remarkably short-sighted. There seems to be a serious disconnect between academic practice and life after academia.
I would like to see some credentialing for OER-based teaching and learning - perhaps a Masters of Education, that addresses OER creation, use, reuse, assessment, evaluation, pedagogy concerns... Lots of people in this group are clearly demonstrating that they have a good grasp on many of the elements of competence that would be assessed.

These are a bit dated, but they are still useful. The checklist items are guided by Chickering & Gamson's perspective that the goal of a proper undergraduate education should be active, cooperative, and challenging.

The specific items were adapted from Instruction and technology: Designs for everyday learning Mehlenbacher, © 2007 Research-based recommendations for practice in online teaching and learning across five dimensions

http://wikieducator.org/Technology_Supported_Learning/Course_Evaluation_Checklist