LORO, an OER repository for language teachers:

Does it make a difference?

Anna Comas-Quinn, SCORE Fellow

Impact of OER on teaching and learning

23 March 2011

Languages Open Resources Online

LORO is about: • ...making all teaching materials for all levels

and languages available to all users,• …making OU tutorial materials available to the

wider languages community,• …allowing users to share their own materials

with the whole languages community,

• …starting a change in the way we work (OER, access, transparency, quality).

How do we measure impact?

• Metrics (eprints inbuilt + google analytics)

• Surveys (questionnaires + usage polls)

• Data from forums

• Focus groups

• Narrative frames (Barkhuizen, G. and Wette, R. (2008) ‘Narrative frames for investigating the experiences of language teachers’, System, 36, 372–387)

Online surveys

• Department of Languages ALs only (~320)• June 2009 (129 respondents)• July 2010 (73 respondents)• March 2010 (173 respondents)• March 2011…

March 2010 usage survey

March 2010 usage survey

Data from forums

• I guess what might have stopped me in my early days with the OU would have been anxiety about peer critique.  When you're just developing online resources as a new tutor, there's every reason not to feel too confident about them. Now I have no pride and scatter my resources all over the place. (9:25 am)

• I think the fact that not many tutors do share resources is a problem. On a course where tutors are cooperative it works really well. On one where they are not it can seem very one sided. (9:35 am)

• Yes, but it IS about confidence, most of the time, isn't it?  We all think (most of us?) that our stuff is very basic and no-one would want it. But they do, if only to make them feel good about their own stuff  :-) (9:38 am)

(Talking Point, ‘Elluminate on Elluminate’, 11 December 2010)

Focus groups

• Conducted on Elluminate

• Personas

• Impact on your teaching practice

• Followed by ‘narrative frames’

LORO in your professional practice: a framework for reflection

Instructions: (1) Read the whole page BEFORE starting to write.(2) Write a coherent narrative; i.e. link each idea to the next like you would in a story.

The way I use LORO in preparation for a tutorial is that…

The main reason for this is that…

For instance, I remember a particular case when I was teaching…. and I

decided to…. It would have been very helpful if….

In terms of my own teaching practice, I think that sharing the resources I

have created with colleagues…

In relation to my own teaching practice, what I think about LORO is that...

The way I would like LORO to address this is…

A major constraint, though, might be that…

Jakob Nielsen (2006) “Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute”

Jakob Nielsen (2006) “Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute”

Any questions?

Contact FELS-Repository@open.ac.uk

or

Anna Comas-Quinn

SCORE Fellow

A.Comas-Quinn@open.ac.uk