Week 9 - Is it really free?

 I'm in a unique position this semester to be enrolled in TWO courses with Dr. Bonk, and I was entertained and delighted to read the preface written by Dr. Bonk and Dr. Wiley, "Reflections on the Waves of Emerging Learning Technology."  After spending two nights a week with Dr. Bonk in class (virtually) for the past 9 weeks, I can imagine his surprise when students began asking about the topic of learning objects.  I can also see him seeking out the professor that the students in his course credited as being an expert, and him collaborating with him, and in turn, becoming an expert himself in the field.  

We've spent a lot of time looking at Open Educational Resources in both of his courses, and my perception of "free" has shifted from thinking that if it was free, it must be low quality, to recognizing that if it is valuable, it needs to be accessible and that our responsibility is larger than just a small audience who can/will/could pay for a text book. 

In the preface, they address the concerns of changing technology in education, especially related to the costs, but rather than simply identifying the problem, they also developed or discovered or promoted the solution.  The comments in the preface about the "monster syllabus" don't do it justice.  Even during our course this semester, the "monster" has grown and changed to allow students access to OER material on a variety of topics.  

One thing is for sure - educational technology will continue to evolve, and the open educational resources about it will continue to be available to ensure best practices are available for learners. 

Comments

  1. DreamCatApril 11, 2022 at 5:57 AM

    Katie,
    I love reading your blogs. Your thoughts are fresh and sincere.
    I agree with you that educational technology has evolved and being evolving and we are responsible for making it happen and delivering it to our next generation.
    I think education is not limited inside classroom and not private. There are tons of learning resources and we can't acquire and even touch some of them. Therefore, we need to work together to learn more. It brought up collaborative learning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Curt BonkMay 15, 2022 at 3:06 PM

    Glad you liked the preface Katie. It is interesting to see the field continue to grow. And it is extremely hard to keep up with the growth of R678 content.

    ReplyDelete

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