Open Educational Resources and Practices in Estonia

Hans Põldoja

Hans Põldoja

Lecturer of educational technology Tallinn University, Institute of Informatics

Doctoral student Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture

hans.poldoja@tlu.ee http://www.hanspoldoja.net

What is open education?

MIT OpenCourseWare

http://ocw.mit.edu

Creative Commons

https://creativecommons.org

Coursera

Open Badges

http://openbadges.org

Open educational resources in Estonia

Koolielu

http://koolielu.ee

Koolielu

HITSA repository

http://www.e-ope.ee/en/repository/

LeMill

http://lemill.net

University of Tartu repository

http://dspace.utlib.ee/dspace/handle/10062/8541

KAE Kool

http://www.kae.edu.ee

Digital course material for schools

http://www.etag.ee/teadpop/teame-programm/uued-oppematerjalid-gumnaasiumile/

Organic Chemistry

http://www.orgaanilinekeemia.ee

Biology II

http://www.biodigi.edu.ee

Computer-assisted inquiry

http://aku.opetaja.ee

OER's in Estonian repositories by licences (2015-09-22)

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

Koolielu e-ope.ee LeMill

2120

56

18811941

10082 883

3435

305

1202

103165

Attribution Attribution-ShareAlikeAttribution-NoDerivs Attribution-NonCommercialAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

Why Open Educational Resources?

For learners:

• Free access to learning resources in different schools and universities

• Alternative to expensive textbooks

For teachers:

• Legal way to adapt existing learning resources

• Saving time

• Getting recognition for good learning resources

Discussion: How would Palestinian education

benefit from OER?

Open online courses in Estonia

MOOCs in University of Tartu

http://www.ut.ee/en/current-students/moocs

EMMA project

http://europeanmoocs.eu

MOOCs in Tallinn University

Wikiversity

https://beta.wikiversity.org/wiki/Vikiülikooli_koolituspakkumised

Blog-based open online courses

Course blog

Learner blogs

Blog-based open online courses

Course blog

https://oppematerjalid.wordpress.com

Course format• Course blog + learner blogs

• Additional Web 2.0 and social media tools (Twitter, SlideShare, YouTube, …)

• Open enrollment

• Open educational resources

• Assignments through blog posts

• Feedback and discussion in comments

• Summary posts by the facilitators

Benefits of using blogs

• Supporting learners to develop and express their ideas

• Supporting collaboration and group work

• Getting feedback from others

• Enriching the learning environment

• Promoting new educational practices

• Motivating learners

Limitations of blog-based learning environments

• Lack of central coordination tools

• Lack of awareness

• Fragmented discussions

Blog-based course with EduFeedr

Course blog

Learner blogs

EduFeedr

Atom

AtomAtom

Atom

AtomAtom

Atom

Atom

Atom

Atom

EduFeedr

http://www.edufeedr.net

Pedagogical design challenges

Väljataga, T., Põldoja, H., Laanpere, M. (2011). Open Online Courses: Responding to Design Challenges. In H. Ruokamo, M. Eriksson, L. Pekkala, & H. Vuojärvi (Eds.), Proceedings of the 4th International Network-Based Education 2011 Conference The Social Media in the Middle of Nowhere (pp. 68-75). Rovaniemi: University of Lapland.

Proceedings of the NBE 2011

68

Open Online Courses: Responding to Design Challenges Terje Väljataga

terje.valjataga@tlu.ee http://terjevaljataga.eu

Hans Põldoja hans.poldoja@tlu.ee

http://www.hanspoldoja.net

Mart Laanpere mart.laanpere@tlu.ee

Tallinn University Centre for Educational Technology

Narva road 25, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia Tel: +372 6409 355, Fax: +372 6409 355

Open education and open educational resources movement as a recent trend in higher education focuses on providing free access to a wide range of educational resources and online courses. However, such a narrow approach fails to acknowledge the transformative and innovative opportunities openness can offer in higher education. The authors of the paper take a wider perspective to the concept of openness in formal higher education. In addition to open technology, content and knowledge sharing openness in course design is an important dimension to consider. Although open online course design solves many educational problems and challenges, at the same time it also creates new ones. This paper discusses about the re-occurring course design challenges that facilitators face while designing and running open courses. Through a multiple case study a variety of design responses to the design challenges is analyzed and demonstrated.

Keywords: open online course model, open educational resources, pedagogical design, multiple case study

1 Introduction The concept of openness has multiple interpretations and dimensions in the context of higher education. Among others, it has been used by proponents of open classroom approach in 1970-ties and by distance education enthusiasts while establishing open universities”. The purpose was to solve a number of educational problems and challenges, for instance, to improve access to existing study programmes and attract more (or better) students following Huijser, Bedford, and Bull’s (2008) claim that everyone has the right to education. In general, openness in education is attributed to a barrier-free access to education in terms of time, affordability and admission requirements being freely available through the Internet.

A recent trend is the open educational resources (OER) movement (Atkins, Brown & Hammond, 2007), which provides free access to a wide range of educational resources and online courses. OER and its importance has been widely documented and demonstrated (Downes, 2007). The key tenet of open education is that “education can be improved by making educational assets visible and accessible and by harnessing the collective wisdom of a community of practice and reflection” (p. 2) (Iiyoshi & Kumar, 2008).

The notion of openness in education is clearly triggered by the opportunities technological development offers. In addition to growing access to Internet, the latest evolution of digital technology and Web has fostered a new culture of creating and sharing open content in online communities. It has been possible due to the blurred line between producers and consumers of content allowing shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people (Iiyoshi & Kumar, 2008). In the light of ongoing technological development, there are educators who are exploring ways to expand the notion of openness in education beyond public sharing of educational content. Iiyoshi & Kumar (2008) point out that with the concept of openness we might tend to grow our collections of educational tools and resources and miss the transformative and innovative opportunities “openness” can offer. One of the emerging practices in this direction is the open online course model.

Creating and sustaining community gravity

• How to design sustainable community gravity?

• What are the mechanisms for bringing and keeping together distributed groups?

• What are the tools and techniques that facilitate and support the emergence of strong community gravity?

Monitoring participation and content flows

• What are the possible technological solutions for both students and facilitators to monitor participation, observe content flows and comprehend the overall course progress?

• How a course design can contribute to support monitoring heterogeneous landscapes of tools and services, student created content and their flows?

Designing materials and activities

• To what extent the material and activities are pre-defined before the course starts?

• To what extent students’ created and recommended activities should be included into this emergent course design?

Providing feedback

• What type of feedback is realistic and required in open courses?

• Who should provide feedback and how often?

• How to increase the quality of feedback given by facilitators and participants?

Why open online courses?

For participants:

• Free access to courses in different universities

• Becoming a part of the learning community

• Learning from the course design

For the institution:

• Promoting the institution

• Getting new students

Discussion: How would Palestinian education benefit from open online courses?

Experiments with open assessment

adfa, p. 1, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

Exploring the Potential of Open Badges in Blog-Based University Courses

Hans Põldoja and Mart Laanpere

Tallinn University, Institute of Informatics, Tallinn, Estonia {hans.poldoja, mart.laanpere}@gmail.com

Abstract. Recent developments with personal learning environments and open online courses have led educators to experiment with opening up their formal higher education courses. In these courses, the online learning activities take place in open learning environments based on various Web 2.0 tools such as blogs. Although this type of courses have a number of pedagogical benefits, they also raise issues related to private grading of students’ works and recogniz-ing the learning of informal participants. This paper presents our exploratory study on addressing these issues by introducing open badges to master’s level course that takes place in a blog-based learning environment. Students’ perspec-tives on using open badges were evaluated through focus group interviews. The results of the study indicate, that badges could have a potential in formal higher education, if they are used more widely and provide an explicit choice of per-sonal learning paths for learners.

Keywords: open badges, assessment, blog-based courses.

1 Introduction

One of the recent trends in education is the blending of formal and informal learning. This is supported by introducing social media, personal learning environments and various open educational practices to formal higher education [1, 2]. Students can enrich their learning experience by using open educational resources from other uni-versities and taking part in Massive Open Online Courses.

In many cases, such developments have led university lecturers and professors to increase the degree of openness in their courses. One approach is to move online learning activities to open learning environments that are based on social media and Web 2.0 tools such as blogs. The use of blogs in online courses provides a number of pedagogical benefits such as motivating learners, enhancing the development and expression of ideas, fostering interaction, collaboration and group work, inviting feedback from other learners, and enriching the learning environment [3]. The use of blog-based learning environments also allows educators to open up their course for informal participants or members of professional communities who are not officially enrolled to the course.

Põldoja, H., & Laanpere, M. (2014). Exploring the Potential of Open Badges in Blog-Based University Courses. In Y. Cao, T. Väljataga, J. K. T. Tang, H. Leung, & M. Laanpere (Eds.), New Horizons in Web Based Learning: ICWL 2014 International Workshops, SPeL, PRASAE, IWMPL, OBIE, and KMEL, FET, Tallinn, Estonia, August 14-17, 2014, Revised Selected Papers (Vol. 8699, pp. 172–178). Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-13296-9_19

(Open Badges, 2013)

(Open Badges, 2013)

(Open Badges, 2013)

(Open Badges, 2013)

Assessment issues in blog-based courses

• Private grading in open learning environment

• Recognizing the learning outcomes of informal participants

Badge design patterns?

Composite badges

Blog posts on each of the 13 course topics

OpenEd Overview

Badge

In-depth blog posts on 3 selected course topics

OpenEd Researcher

Badge

(Wiley, 2013)

Activity-based badges

N blog posts or tweetsActivity Badge

N received comments or retweets

Quality Badge

Completed milestone or assignment

Result Badge

(Santos, Charleer, Parra, Klerkx, Duval, & Verbert, 2013)

Grade-based badges

95% of points or more Gold Badge

85% of points or moreSilver Badge

75% of points or moreBronze Badge

(Rughiniș & Matei, 2013)

Hierarchical badges

Course Level Badge

Project Level Badge

Lower Level Badge

Lower Level Badge

Lower Level Badge

Project Level Badge

Lower Level Badge

Lower Level Badge

Lower Level Badge

(Randall, Harrison, & West, 2013)

Our proposal: outcome-based badges

Basic knowledge badges

Basic knowledge on

learning objects and repositories

Basic knowledge on authoring tools

Basic knowledge on

computer-based

assessment

Basic knowledge on

new technologies

Basic knowledge on copyright of

digital learning

resources

Basic knowledge on

quality of digital

learning resources

Content package author

Assessment test author

e-Textbook author

Advanced knowledge on

learning objects and repositories

Advanced knowledge on authoring tools

Advanced knowledge on

computer-based assessment

Advanced knowledge on

new technologies

Advanced knowledge on copyright of

digital learning resources

Advanced knowledge on

quality of digital learning

resources

Blogging assignment 1 Blogging assignment 2 Blogging assignment 3 Blogging assignment 4 Blogging assignment 5Group assignment on developing a digital learning resource

Blogging assignment 6 Literature review

Describing the advantages and

disadvantages of learning objects approach

Searching for learning objects from learning object repositories by metadata and licenses

Creating simple content packages, tests and e-

textbooks, and describing these with metadata

Following copyright principles for digital learning resources

Evaluating the quality of a learning resources using an evaluation framework

Using one authoring tool to create a more

comprehensive digital learning resource

Analyzing the current issues, research studies and trends in one sub-topic related to digital

learning resources

Learning outcomes

Assignments

Advanced knowledge badges

Skills badges

Students' perspectives on Open Badges

• Main benefits: feeling of recognition and confirmation about accepted assignments

• Badges would become more valuable, if they are used in several courses, not as a one time experiment

• Students are interested in recognizing prior learning with badges

Recommendations from students

• Offer at least two levels of badges for each assignment

• Provide more choice of different badges / learning paths

• Visual aesthetics of badges is also important for learners

Additional ideas

• Combining outcome-based badges with other types of badges

• Student-designed and student-awarded badges for peer-assessment

• Combing personal learning contracts and badges

Open source software for education

Open Source projects in Tallinn University

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

LMS's and lightweight

VLE's

Experiments with weblogs

Digital learning

ecosystems

LePress

VIKO

http://htk.tlu.ee/viko/

Krihvel

http://krihvel.opetaja.ee

Krihvel

http://krihvel.opetaja.ee

EduFeedr

http://www.edufeedr.net

LePress

http://lepress.net

eDidaktikum

http://edidaktikum.ee

LePlanner

http://leplanner-beta.romil.ee/#/scenario/55e1e1e756b62c1b4e88a19b

http://leplanner-beta.romil.ee/#/scenario/55dc4e9a9a0d005e59de1f76

http://leplanner-beta.romil.ee/#/scenario/55dad944fe8023ba550fa208

References• Wiley, D.: Assignments: Introduction to Openness in Education, https://

learn.canvas.net/courses/4/assignments

• Santos, J.L., Charleer, S., Parra, G., Klerkx, J., Duval, E., Verbert, K.: Evaluating the Use of Open Badges in an Open Learning Environment. In: Hernández-Leo, D., Ley, T., Klamma, R., Harrer, A. (eds) EC-TEL 2013. LNCS, vol. 8095, pp. 314–327. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg (2013)

• Rughiniș, R., Matei, S.: Digital Badges: Signposts and Claims of Achievement. In: Stephanidis, S. (ed) HCI International 2013 - Posters’ Extended Abstracts, pp. 84–88. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg (2013)

• Randall, D.L., Harrison, J.B., West, R.E.: Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: Designing Open Badges for a Technology Integration Course. TechTrends. 57, 88–95 (2013)

Used images• Jonathas Mello, Global OER logo: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/

communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources/global-oer-logo/

• Mathieu Plourde, MOOC Poster (no border): https://www.flickr.com/photos/mathplourde/10425003764/

• Class Hack, Open Badge Anatomy (Updated): http://classhack.com/post/45364649211/open-badge-anatomy-updated

• Open Badges, http://openbadges.org/about/

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Hans Põldoja Lecturer School of Digital Technologies Tallinn University Estonia

hans.poldoja@tlu.ee @hanspoldoja

http://www.hanspoldoja.net http://www.slideshare.net/hanspoldoja