The Impact of Open Source: Open Courses, Opening Doors!

       In exploring the world of open source courseware this week, I was excited by the prospect that I could actually be a student of ivy league professors and enter the classrooms of Yale and Stanford Universities!  This is, in my opinion, an incredible opportunity!  So I sought out the list of available open source courses from Stanford University on iTunes and Open Yale Courses.  I chose an Open Yale course named “Death” (Philosophy 178).  I was quite excited to enter into this icon of academia, Yale University.  So I must begin by acknowledging that open source courses bring the best and the brightest, the most exclusive and expensive, and the most brilliant minds of our times to the living room, office or classroom of anyone with internet access… 24/7 and free of charge! What a gift to those of us who cannot afford or perhaps are too academically average to ever hope to be educated by such legendary institutions.

     The course I chose was a Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, and was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Spring 2007. It was originally delivered synchronously in a face-to-face, classroom setting with a lecture style presentation. I found it profoundly interesting… perhaps because of the offbeat topic or the quirky nature of Dr. Shelly Kagan, the professor.

     The course included a syllabus which explained very simple expectations and requirements. They included the requirement of attending all sessions and participating in all discussion sections. Expectations were stated: “poor attendance or non-participation will lower one's grade”. Beyond that, three short papers would be due. Each would be 5 pages, double-spaced. There was no final exam or assessment. The filmed lecture/course did not have all of the components that I would design for in a distance learning environment. For example, there was no way for an online, asynchronous student to participate in discussions or be a part of a learning community. (Simonson, et. al., 2009; Beldarrain, 2006). That would have enhanced the experience greatly. However, that said, I am simply grateful that these kinds of courses are available to all!

     Another wonderful site for open courseware is Open Culture which acts as a clearinghouse, of sorts, for many of the free courses available from Stanford, Yale, MIT and other resources. I found a powerful video there, “Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats”. I mention this video because it is an exceptional demonstration of how a very complex topic, referencing over 100,000 statistics, can be presented in an engaging and entertaining way. This video is worth watching for two reasons: 1. It is fascinating to see how our global health and economic development has evolved over the last 200 years. 2. The way in which the content is presented. It is a compelling 4 minutes and I think all instructional designers could benefit from watching it.

     The beauty in all of this is the realization that education is available to all. We may be limited by accessibility, bandwidth, hardware, software and other challenges… but if you can get to it, it’s there. (Ng, 2010).

References

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2), 139–153.

Ng, K. (2010). Availability of technology does not ensure accessibility. Retrieved on 11/06/2010 from http://www.digitalopportunity.org/comments/availability-of-technology-does-not-ensure-accessibility

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Open Course Resources

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Open Courses. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

Open Courseware. http://www.openeducation.net/category/opencourseware/

Open Culture. www.openculture.com/

Open Yale Courses. http://oyc.yale.edu/

Stanford on iTunes U. http://itunes.stanford.edu/

YouTube. www.youtube.com/