Open Educational Resources

        In my country, Taiwan, we have a website (http://www.myoops.org/twocw/mit/index.htm) for translating the MIT OpenCourseWare. All of the MIT programs are translated by volunteers. However, compared to America, there are fewer open educational resources for learners in Taiwan. Also, it seems to parents and teacher that the open educational resources are inferior to those paid educational materials. Some of them use “price” and “reputation” to judge the quality. I think that’s why the OER is not popular in my country.

The open educational resources are cool. For me, it means I can access knowledge or skills anytime anywhere once I have computer and network connection. I took a few courses through MIT OpenCourseWare. I thought it was cool that I can take the same courses as those geniuses take when I was an undergraduate student. However, after taking IST program at IU, I have deeper thought about open educational resources.

        The educational content is distributed to the public through internet for free. However, the essence seems not to be changed a lot. It seems just to convert a traditional class into a digital version. Tapscott told about that the profession, world, and technology etc. have been changed, but the model of pedagogy is basically unchanged. I think the portion of online learning will be increased day by day. Students will learn half knowledge or skills from internet and half from school after several years later. After that, knowledge or skills they learn from internet will dominate what they learn from the classroom. In the end, the physical classroom maybe disappears. However, there is a critical point for this transition. It is the new pedagogy pattern that we need to keep working on.

ASCD Express. (2010). Tapscott on Teaching the Net Generation. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol5/518-video.aspx. (2011, February 18)