Reflection 2
a. Discuss the difference between online education content and openly licensed educational content.
Openly licensed educational content in my opinion is a sub strand of online education since open education are materials in public domain under open licenses that offer free access with limited restrictions. All of this are accessed online though the internet meaning open licensed educational content is a form of online education. According to me online education has been made useful in many ways, for instance, most tertiary institution utilizes portals that contain vast learning materials accessible by students of a particular institution. Education involves variety of activities like resource sharing, submitting assignments, administering assignments, discussions and feedback. There is interaction between instructors and tutors together with learners in online education. Online education content is accessible by every individual as long as an access code or registration is available.
Openly licensed educational content are teaching and learning materials that are available to learners in public domains or released under a license that allows for free access of educational content, modification, and sharing. Most of Open Educational Resources do not fall under this category of open licensed educational content since some content is only modified under subscription. This makes open educational resources non-profit, but not totally. OERs according to my research are educational materials that have been made available to the public or introduced online under a permit. Nature of this resources mean that they are free and legal to copy, use, and share those resources. Online education content incorporates all learning resources that are accessed through the internet either free or by subscription.
b. Find an open educational resource (OER) and present it on your portfolio, either by linking, embedding, or by including a screenshot.
An example of an open educational resource is the Khan Academy organization offering open educational resources, and offers supplementary content to normal education. This is a platform that offers students with opportunities to replace some school lectures with Khan’s videos. This is important to learners since students have opportunities to focus on working on certain problem sets. Normal education rhythms of schools have been inverted. Lectures can be viewed on student’s own time as well as receiving feedback from instructors when a student gets stuck. I think this is an important aspect of education since it fulfills basic principles of teaching and learning where interactions are built between instructors and learners. Specific information pinpointed to learner needs and specifications are provided in this open education resource.
Kahn Academy according to me is the best open educational resource since there are a variety of subjects and topic covered and students can move in their own pace, depending on their speed. This Open Educational Resource has been made to be user friendly inclusive of how it can help students by automatically suggesting new topics. It is evident form my findings that students are improving on subjects like algebra etc. as well as in their tests. This open educational resources caters for students needs especially fast learners who easily get bored and tuned out in learning environments reducing concentration levels. Khan’s learning materials have some level of sophistication and people have come to believe it is solving problems in some education levels.
c. Review the OER using the evaluation guide found in the tutorial, provide a brief comment on this process on your post.
After some time using Khan Academy, there are certain aspects that I have come up concerning this Open Education Resource. Some of this aspects are accuracy, relevance, quality, accessibility, and interactivity. All these are important aspects to education as they improve on quality of intellect a learner has. It provides quality more than what I ever received in a classroom setting, with interactions improving content acquisition. All information is relevant since they are applicable to specified fields.
According to the evaluation guide, the calculas teaching videos have a high relevance. The content of the videos highly fit my calculus course, they directly address many learning objectives in the course. And the video content were all accurate, the instructors in the videos are experienced teachers, students can watch the videos without worries about typos or major errors. Also, I think the quality of the resources is high, instructors usually show a very clear problem-solving procedure. Most of the teaching videos include subtitles, and some of them even offer different language options for non-native English speakers, which also show a high accessibility. Furthermore, the Khan academy videos have some interactivity. Viewers can leave comments under the videos, and the instructors encourage viewers to discuss any problems about the topics. After every chapter, there was a little quiz to check viewers’ understanding about the topics. In addition, about the licensing, most of materials in this website are allowed for educational reuse.
d. Discuss how you might use OER in your own life or professional work.
Economic is a field of study that requires much of explanation and this OER will benefit me since I have all resources to explain to me what I need to have any time I need it. This is important since some content might be missed during normal lectures, but I can get the same information with additional content. It will also help me in my professional work since I get all resources at my exposure to tackle all fields necessary.