1. Trends in E-Learning: Sharing Resources and Adapting Web 2.0 Culture Norm Friesen Sept. 9, 2009 nfriesen@tru.ca

2. Overview Finding ways to share resources over the Internet – Learning Objects – Open Educational Resources Adapting Web 2.0 technologies for educational purposes: – Wiki technology, blogs, RSS feeds, etc. – How this fits with sharing…

3. Sharing Resources for Learning & Teaching "stand-alone applications are incompatible with typical production, distribution, and usage patterns for educational software." J. Roschelle, et.al. Learning objects: any digital resource (on the Internet) that can be used and adapted for learning education and training purposes. Learning objects are smaller than a course, and larger than a decontextualized resource (e.g. a photo)

4. What resources need to be like to be shared Need some way of understanding resources for education as: – Findable (needs to be described in ways that a teacher will understand or search) – Re-usable: can be used, “as-is” across a variety of contexts, both technical and legal – Adaptable: optimally, can be changed and adapted for different educational contexts – Combinable: different resources can be brought together in order to create a complete lesson or course

5. The Copyright Problem Material is automatically subject to copyright Most means of reference and quotation for multimedia are not allowed or problematic All rights reserved: – Re-distribute – share, disseminate, pass on – Re-package – for commercial gain, for public good – Edit, augment, pare down, adapt in any way – Expressed through software designs (pdfs, video formats, locked audio formats)

6. The problem will probably get worse… USA has digital millenium copyright act (DCMA): forbids technologies that “liberate” content Makes many conventional uses of online content illegal USA has fair use; also has TEACH Act for digital resources/online teaching Canada may adopt an even stricter “DCMA” (e.g. destroy copies for class made 2 weeks after final exam)

7. Open Educational Resources Educational goals can’t be achieved if resources are subject to copyright law and convention Open source law and convention can address this directly Creative Commons: licenses for use of copyright material under particular conditions: – Attribution, no commercial use, no modifications, sharing alike

8. Power of Creative Commons & Openness 130,000,000 CC-licensed photos on Flickr.com All of Wikipedia available through a CC BY-SA license MERLOT: 21,000 resources online; shared, peer-reviewed, available via CC BY-SA MIT Open Courseware: 1900 courses, available via a CC BY-SA OER Commons: 12,000 resources for K-12, different CC licenses

9. Adapting Web 2.0 for Education Question: What is Web 2.0? 1.Web 2.0 - technologies that: – Are open source (not locked down, being improved) – Let users write on the Web – Emphasize end-user communication 2.Web 2.0 - communities & projects that: – Share similar everyday interests – create online resources collaboratively – Are making these resources available for free*

10. What is Web 2.0 3.Web 2.0 –ways to share information: – That can transmit, aggregate and add value to it – That cut out the publishers or “middle-man” – That involve licenses that are alternatives to © 4.Web 2.0 –a politics and a lifestyle: – That celebrates the value of D I Y – That is opposed to traditional copyright regimes – That is against corporate control of knowledge and culture (and anything else?)

11. Examples of Web 2.0 Wikipedia: 50 million articles organized and produced for free Flickr: 130 million photos with alternative licensing; tagging of photos with meta-tags RSS feeds & Twitter: ways of letting people know what’s new or happening in ways that users can follow and “aggregate” easily Blogs: you can write and post content, others can write back

12. Web 1.0 

13. Web 2.0 

14. E.g., WikiEducator course Photos and Diagrams from Flickr or Wikimedia commons Interactive exercise from MERLOT or OER Commons Wiziq used to have live online seminar Users create content as a part of completing course More users attracted to project via blogging, twitter, etc.