Indian MOOCs

MOOCs

There has been much talk of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) over the past 2 years with the Open University arguably taking a lead role in the UK seeing the launch of its platform FutureLearn https://www.futurelearn.com/. For those that have not heard of MOOCs before they are courses, usually between 2 – 8 weeks long, offered for free and open to anyone, there is no entry requirement beyond having an internet connection. The term MOOC was coined around 2008 from the Open Education movement particularly those with an interest in OER, early pioneers from Canada include George Siemens and Stephen Downes. The real explosion of MOOCs in terms of significant uptake came about in 2011 when large Universities such as Stanford released MOOCs to the world, in particular Sebastian Thruns MOOC on Artificial Intelligence saw an enrolment of 160,000 students. Since then many Universities have released their own platforms including the aforementioned FutureLearn from the Open University UK and edX from Harvard and MIT, there are also very significant private companies such as Coursera and Udacity founded by academics.

Development perspective

The uptake of MOOCs within the HE sector has increased exponentially in the last 2 years with a belief that it will be of benefit to the issues around provision of education in an ever expanding world (Trucano, 2013). With the majority of MOOCs coming from and being aimed at the global north (ICDE, 2013) asking the question how do providers of MOOCs contextualise them for a local or global context and how does OER support this contextualisation? One answer was provided when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his independence day speech the launch of an Indian MOOC platform 'Swayam' http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/moocs-platform-swayam-narendra-modi-deen-dayal-upadhyaya-iit-bombay-princeton-university-hrd-ministry/1/376764.html Full details are yet to be released but there will be a launch on the 25^th September. This announcement has coincided with NCERT (National Council Of Educational Research And Training) and COL (Commonwealth of Learning) launching the ‘Teach Smarter with OER’ MOOC http://nroer.gov.in/CourseOnOER/ and a MOOC on MOOCs from IIT (Indian Institute of Technology)Kanpur http://mooconmooc.org/ which will have a focus on development issues in particular low bandwidth access. IIT Kanpur have already run one MOOC (http://m4d.colfinder.org/) and have created their own platform MOOKIT http://mookit.co/ to support these it will interesting to see the crossover with the government based platform.

TESS-India MOOC

The TESS-India project (www.TESS-India.edu.in)is developing a MOOC aimed at supporting Teacher Educators in developing pedagogies based around collaborative and open practices and the use of OER. Launching in May 2015 this MOOC will be developed around the use of already existing OER with very minimal content being originated in order to realise the potential of OER. OER used in the MOOC will not always have specific local context as it is dependent on available content, the contextualisation will come in the form of scaffolding and support that the MOOC structure offers.

The MOOC will be developed collaboratively with a series of developmental testing workshops and pilots within the focus states to gain an understanding of the contextualisation required in the  scaffolding. This approach will also support the development of the course to work more efficiently for those with bandwidth issues and seek to address alternative approaches that would be unique in MOOC development.

References

ICDE. (2013) ‘World Bank EduTech: MOOCs and developing countries’, http://www.icde.org/en/icde_news/news_archive/2013/2013_part_2/World+Bank+EduTech%3A+MOOCs+and+developing+countries.b7C_wJLG2t.ips  [online] last accessed 04/09/14

Trucano, T. (2013) ‘More about MOOCs and developing countries’, World Bank blog on ICT in Education. http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/moocs-developing-countries [online] last accessed 04/09/14

OER14 Building communities of open practice

So I have just returned from Newcastle in the UK after having attended OER14 conference. After being involved in the planning of both OER12 and OER13 I would like to congratulate the team on an excellent conference, not only was the organisation incredibly smooth and helpful as a delegate but the quality of the papers were particularly high this year. A full list of abstracts can be found here.

The theme this year was "Building communities of open practice" which saw presentations from Europe, Africa and the US. Catherine Ngugi Project Director for OERAfrica delivered the opening keynote and related themes of OER as a collaborative catalyst for open practice in the context of copyright in Africa where the cost of textbooks considerably limits access for teachers and students alike, potentially leading to more rote and didactic approaches. Something which is of course a particular interest in the work of TESS-India.

Catherine Ngugi Project Director for OER Africa - Photo CC BY OER14 

There were a lot of discussions this year around open practices and support for staff and academics in the development of these practices with presentations from Lindsay Jordan on Open Practices for teachers, Erin Nephin and Nick Sheppard from Leeds Met on linking communities of practice for digital literacy and an off the wall Blues Brothers inspired presentation from Rochelle Lockridge, Alan Levine and Dr Mariana Funes on how the corporate world is looking to open practices to create more collaborative and creative skills sets to support business.

(L-R) Dr Mariana Funes, Rochelle Lockridge and Alan Levine - Photo CC BY OER14 

The conference was finished as always with the announcement of next years conference which will be in Wales and hosted by co chairs Martin Weller, Professor of Educational Technology, The Open University  and Clive Mulholland, Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of South Wales.

You can read more about others views of the conference on the OER14 blog but would just like to leave this post with a mention of Sara Frank Bristow's Craigs List for OER http://oerexchange.org/ go and add your resources, projects and anything OER a new look at aggregating content, services and discussions.

Open Courseware Consortium Global Meeting 2014

This year the Open Courseware Consortiums Global meeting http://conference.ocwconsortium.org/2014/ was held in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, as always it was another great event and saw participants from multiple sectors including academia, government and commercial. The theme of the conference was “Open Education for a Multicultural World” and so was particularly relevant for the work of TESS-India working in multiple states within India and collaboratively with UK and Indian academics.

Union Hall in Ljubljana at OCWC 2014 

The conference keynote saw Slovenian Minister for education Jernej Pikalo launching new initiative ‘Opening up Slovenia’ introducing openness into Slovenia enabling teachers and students alike to gain access to new methods of teaching and learning.  The initiative is wider than just education and you can find out more here http://www.k4all.org/openingupslovenia/

TESS-India www.TESS-India.edu.in was represented by Alison Buckler, Leigh-Anne Perryman and myself and we presented a paper on the adaptation of TESS-India OER, the full paper can be viewed here http://conference.ocwconsortium.org/2014/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Paper_48-localisation.pdf  

Alison Buckler presenting on TESS-India

Leigh-Anne Perryman presenting on TESS-India

Finally it was great to see the OER research Hub win an award for excellence in open research http://oerresearchhub.org/2014/04/25/oer-research-hub-celebrates-open-research-award/

Mobile Learning Week 2014

Mobile phone technologies and ownership are advancing rapidly. Around 75% of people globally have access to a mobile and ownership in developing regions is matching this trend. The rapid growth in mobile use has the potential to open up access to learning, supporting teachers and students alike.

The theme, explored in this year’s mobile learning week (http://en.unesco.org/events/mobile-learning-week-2014 )at UNESCO  is teachers with an emphasis on using mobile to leverage effective use in education, deliver professional development to working teachers and support the training of new teachers.

The week began with a series of workshops including one from USTAD mobile, learning how mobile learning id benefiting police women in Afghanistan and enabling simple app development from basic feature phone to smart phones https://www.ustadmobile.com/

Mobile Learning Week 2014 - Opening Plenary

The following 2 days saw presentations from a varied range of participants including large NGOs, commercial providers, Universities and individual teachers on how mobile learning is benefiting their work in education and development. You can view the complete range of presentations here http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/unesco-mobile-learning-week-2014/symposium/breakout-sessions/

Technology is often assumed to incur significant costs to the learner, but this needn't be the case. In TESS-India the learning resources can be preloaded onto a micro SD card – teachers don’t need connectivity, simply slot the card into the side of their phone. VSO’s work in Papua New Guinea on English language teaching  http://www.vsointernational.org/Images/sms-story-impact-assessment-report_tcm76-41038.pdf uses SMS to deliver lesson plans and Cambridge University are looking at SMS to support professional development of school leaders http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/cce/initiatives/projects/leadership/index.html . Penn State University talked about using MOOCs for teacher development reducing distributed learning costs, if you are able to attend they are running a conference on MOOCs for development in April http://www.moocs4d.org/ .  There were also many apps presented to the delegates including the Keywords English language and literacy app, demonstrating how mobile pedagogy can address diverse learning needshttp://www.keywordsenglish.com/ .

Mobile learning presents a unique set of benefits and challenges. Complex learning needs to be adapted for the small screen. Mobile offers 24/7 access, yet it is also more likely to be associated with interruptions, necessitating bite sized learning. Users can engage with fellow learners at a distance, access rich educational content such as video and personalise their learning.

Low bandwidth services were a key topic at Mobile Learning Week with the continued presence of SMS as well as missed call technologies that have the potential to deliver micro-learning chunks, without costing even the price of connecting a call.

The range of discussions at mobile learning week sort to strengthen the rhetoric that rapidly changing technologies are hugely eye-catching, but equal emphasis must be placed on the academic value of mobile if we are to improve teaching and learning.

(written for TESS-India blog 24th Feb 2014 - www.TESS-India.ed.in)

Another year another BETT show

BETT ( http://www.bettshow.com/ ) now in its 30^th year opened yesterday and again was a packed affair with over 680 exhibitors and visitor numbers expected exceed last year. This year the show coincided with the Education World Forum http://www.ewf2014.org/ and delegates were invited to the opening with Michael Gove (UK Secretary of State for Education) delivering the keynote. He, as you would imagine, talked about the use of technology in schools and how students and teaching have been shaped with the advances in technology and will continue to be shaped as we prepare our students to tackle the ever changing world of technology. 

Michael Gove addressing BETT 2014 delegates

He highlighted the government looking to industry and shows like BETT to understand the ways in which the educational technology landscape is changing and how the government can support these changes within schools and the education sector in general.

Of particular interest to TESS-India http://www.tess-india.edu.in and other international visitors was the success of other global BETT events and the announcement that BETT South East Asia will be launched in 2015, will people as far afield as Hanoi tweeting their approval.

As with all “trade” shows there seems to be one key thing that dominates most stands, a few years ago it was 3D technology in televisions this year it was 3D technology in printers with almost 10% of exhibitors bringing some kind of 3D technology onto their stands. This is of course very impressive and the opportunities this brings to schools in integrating this technology into their curriculum is boundless but I am not sure how many more unusually shaped plastic vases and pots the BETT show needs.

There was of course the usual “big players” Microsoft, Intel, Dell, hp etc; showcasing some very impressive tech but one of the most important pieces in my opinion was to see the representation of open badging being brought into the classroom and the amazing popularity this had with students and teachers alike. 

Open badging is the idea that you can gain credit for the learning you do outside of more formal structures http://openbadges.org  my experience has really been in the realm of HE, further and adult education so to see the implementation of this in the classroom was very inspiring. It also brought to mind the potential importance for some students of “bridging” their learning between secondary and higher education and how recognition for this could be gained even if they don’t continue to more formal credit in that particular area. It was great to see that the Openness agenda is alive and kicking in education at all levels (as perhaps some might argue it always has been).

Stand on Open Badges at BETT 2014

You can find many bloggers commenting on negative aspects of any show and yes in some respects you could say there was nothing new there but then this may only be the case if you are already engaged in the ed tech space so good for you. Just having an event like this means that there are people talking and thinking about how best to use some of these technologies and for the naysayers how not to, either way the outcome for me is positive. All in all it was another great show and I always find something that is of interest personally and in respect to the advancement of technology in education but the most impressive thing that there is every year is the enthusiasm of the thousands of teachers and students that are leading the way in implementing, supporting and enhancing technologies in education.

Thoughts and notes on the implications of adopting different perspectives on development for education-related policies and decision making.

This post is part of a commentary diary for review on ET821 Education for Development.

Thomas, A. (2000) ‘Meanings and Views of Development’ in Allen, T and Thomas, A. Poverty and Development into the 21st Century, Oxford, OUP and The Open University, pp. 23–48.

This is an interesting article and really demonstrates the complexity of development and the differing views there of.

I think the main highlight for me is looking at development from a purely capitalist perspective, i found it difficult to relate to this without the social / humanitarian being an integrated part.

Relating the economic impacts when they reflect directly on the individual / community is where i see my personal focus. I guess this could be described as a "grass roots" approach to economic development, if we think about education we can say that the individual is the smallest component part and that the effect of the education within development has a subversive impact on the community socially and economically.

Notes:

What kind of education for What kind of development?

Development as a description of a desirable society (who says what is desirable?)

Purely capitalistic view of development or vision for education could see the development of education related policies and decision making fulfilling a very small and immediate need without the wider implications of social impact taken into consideration.

Immanent development - let things happen is unbounded

Intentional development - has an end point is bounded

• Interventionists
• Direct influence on managing markets
• indirect influence on markets through social and humanitarian aims

Human-needs  centred development

Three main senses in which the term 'development' is used:

1 as a vision, description or measure of the state of being of a desirable society;

2 as an historical process of social change in which societies are transformed over long periods;

3 as consisting of deliberate efforts aimed at improvement on the part of various agencies, including governments, all kinds of organizations and social movements.

UNESCO OER World Congress

So I have just returned from the UNESCO OER (Open Educational Resources) World Congress. It was 10 years since the term OER was conceived at the UNESCO Global Forum 2002. The purpose of the Congress was twofold; to adopt the 2012 Paris OER Declaration and to showcase some of the best OER projects and initiatives from across the globe.

CC BY Willem Van Valkenburg

It was great to meet so many people doing positive things in OER and there was general feeling that we had moved from a state of "Why should we do this?" to "Why aren't we doing this?"

Another theme that arose was around the contextualisation of OER. A lot of institutions were moving from consumer to producer and in that process started to think about context, how to re-contextualise OER.  A lot of this projects talked solely about translation but some went further into re-representing the content from a cultural point of view. Just to re-enforce this the declaration itself was translated into Spanish by the delegates before the end of the congress.