Today is the last day of the Making Sense of Open Education Mini-MOOC hosted by Jenni Hayman. It has been a 15 day whirlwind tour of Openness! I wanted to go back to the beginning and review the Course Outcomes and see where I stand in relationship.
Course learning outcomes:
On completion of this open course participants will have expanded their ability to:
Describe the value of open educational practices (OEP) in their teaching and learning contexts
Give examples of appropriate open educational resources (OER) for their practice
Describe user permissions related to each of the Creative Commons license types
Find and curate high quality OER for a course or small project
Connect with other practitioners interested in exploring use of open educational resources and practices in their teaching
These were not numbered in the course, I added numbers to make giving my response easier.
My response:
One: Open educational practices add value to my teaching by allowing me the opportunity to tailor my teaching to the students in front of me now by broadening my awareness of OER sources that can better meet their needs in terms of accessibility and affordability. Beyond the choice of materials, OEP also leads me to consider how students can co-create materials and be curators of learning materials and how participating in this is a better assessment tool and holds more long-term value for student than disposable assignments. Digital Tools give me and my students the opportunity to be creators and give us the opportunity to share what we are learning with others. Because I see value in OEP, I am inspired to take action and advocate for greater openness in others and in my own institution.
Two: Can I give examples of appropriate OER for my practice? Why, yes, I can. I posted a prototype of a unit I am building for my students. It includes chapters from a OER textbook, open source images, and a CC video.
Three: Can I describe user permissions? Yup, let me do so with a Creative Commons licensed image:
Four: Can I curate OER resources for a small project? I did! I collected OER resources on Reflection into a padlet in a recent post.
Five: Have I connected with other practitioners of Open Education? Sure did and will continue to do so. I outlined my growing PLN in a post exploring what my connections look like. I also create a post outlining how I began to use twitter as a tool for connecting.
The Making Sense of Open Education has been a tremendously positive learning experience for me and I encourage you, my reader, to check it out soon as it will be set up as a self directed learning opportunity on Open University soon.
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It is vital that students focus on the active process of learning, not just on how to get good grades. The attitude of some students that grades are the end-all in academics has led many students to resort to academic dishonesty to try to get the best possible grades or handle the pressure of an academic program. Although you may be further tempted if you’ve heard people say, “Everybody does it,” or “It’s no big deal at my school,” you should be mindful of the consequences of cheating:
You don’t learn as much. Cheating may get you the right answer on a particular exam question, but it won’t teach you how to apply knowledge in the world after school, nor will it give you a foundation of knowledge for learning more advanced material. When you cheat, you cheat yourself out of opportunities.
You risk failing the course or even expulsion from school. Each institution has its own definitions of and penalties for academic dishonesty, but most include cheating, plagiarism, and fabrication or falsification. The exact details of what is allowed or not allowed vary somewhat among different colleges and even instructors, so you should be sure to check your school’s Web site and your instructor’s guidelines to see what rules apply. Ignorance of the rules is seldom considered a valid defense.
Cheating causes stress. Fear of getting caught will cause you stress and anxiety; this will get in the way of performing well with the information you do know.
You’re throwing away your money and time. Getting a college education is a big investment of money and effort. You’re simply not getting your full value when you cheat, because you don’t learn as much.
You are trashing your integrity. Cheating once and getting away with it makes it easier to cheat again, and the more you cheat, the more comfortable you will feel with giving up your integrity in other areas of life—with perhaps even more serious consequences.
Cheating lowers your self-esteem. If you cheat, you are telling yourself that you are simply not smart enough to handle learning. It also robs you of the feeling of satisfaction from genuine success.
Technology has made it easier to cheat. Your credit card and an Internet connection can procure a paper for you on just about any subject and length. You can copy and paste for free from various Web sites. Students have made creative use of texting and video on their cell phones to gain unauthorized access to material for exams. But be aware that technology has also created ways for instructors to easily detect these forms of academic dishonesty. Most colleges make these tools available to their instructors. Instructors are also modifying their testing approaches to reduce potential academic misconduct by using methods that are harder to cheat at (such as in-class essays that evaluate your thinking and oral presentations).
If you feel uneasy about doing something in your college work, trust your instincts. Confirm with the instructor that your intended form of research or use of material is acceptable. Cheating just doesn’t pay.
Video – this is a rough cut of my video. I plan to clean it up and add design elements, closed captioning and a transcript.
The Value of Academic Integrity
Video by Irene Stewart, January 10, 2018
Plagiarism—and How to Avoid It
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of material from a source. At the most obvious level, plagiarism involves using someone else’s words and ideas as if they were your own. There’s not much to say about copying another person’s work: it’s cheating, pure and simple. But plagiarism is not always so simple. Notice that our definition of plagiarism involves “words and ideas.” Let’s break that down a little further.
Words. Copying the words of another is clearly wrong. If you use another’s words, those words must be in quotation marks, and you must tell your reader where those words came from. But it is not enough to make a few surface changes in wording. You can’t just change some words and call the material yours; close, extended paraphrase is not acceptable.
Ideas. Ideas are also a form of intellectual property. You may this idea in a passage that summarizes the original, that is, it states the main idea in compressed form in language that does not come from the original. But it could still be seen as plagiarism if the source is not cited. This example probably makes you wonder if you can write anything without citing a source. To help you sort out what ideas need to be cited and what not, think about these principles:
Common knowledge. There is no need to cite common knowledge. Common knowledge does not mean knowledge everyone has. It means knowledge that everyone can easily access. If the information or idea can be found in multiple sources and the information or idea remains constant from source to source, it can be considered common knowledge. This is one reason so much research is usually done for college writing—the more sources you read, the more easily you can sort out what is common knowledge: if you see an uncited idea in multiple sources, then you can feel secure that idea is common knowledge.
Distinct contributions. One does need to cite ideas that are distinct contributions. A distinct contribution need not be a discovery from the work of one person. It need only be an insight that is not commonly expressed (not found in multiple sources) and not universally agreed upon.
Disputable figures. Always remember that numbers are only as good as the sources they come from. If you use numbers or any statistics always cite your source of those numbers. If your instructor does not know the source you used, you will not get much credit for the information you have collected.
Everything said previously about using sources applies to all forms of sources. Some students mistakenly believe that material from the Web, for example, need not be cited. Or that an idea from an instructor’s lecture is automatically common property. You must evaluate all sources in the same way and cite them as necessary.
You should generally check with your instructors about their preferred form of citation when you write papers for courses. No one standard is used in all academic papers. You can learn about the three major forms or styles used in most any college writing handbook and on many Web sites for college writers:
The Modern Language Association (MLA) system of citation is widely used but is most commonly adopted in humanities courses, particularly literature courses.
The American Psychological Association (APA) system of citation is most common in the social sciences.
The Chicago Manual of Style is widely used but perhaps most commonly in history courses.
Many college departments have their own style guides, which may be based on one of the above. Your instructor should refer you to his or her preferred guide, but be sure to ask if you have not been given explicit direction.
Unit would end with self-check or self-test questions to be developed.
This is my prototype of materials to remix into a new unit. I am considering combining these into one container although, I am not sure what technology would be best to put this together. I am also not sure if all these resources have creative commons licensing that can be combined. Finally, I am not sure that this would represent a complete picture of Academic Integrity or if I am missing content. If you would like to provide any feedback or suggestions, your ideas would be most welcome.
Making Sense of Open Education, Day 7 is all about the GLAM: Gallaries, Libraries, Archives and museums. At St. Clair College, we have a General Education Course about Western Film:
WESTERNS: FILM AS A LENS TO THE PRESENT
SSC 183G
This course will explore the film genre of Westerns. Major themes and ideas will be examined via the work of selected films, directors and actors. Subjects to be studied via discussion and reflective assignments include the Origins of the Western, Components of the Western, Landscape and Setting, Indigenous Peoples, Women, Directors, Actors, and Films. The course will conclude with a discussion of the place of the Western in contemporary culture: can it still ‘sit tall in the saddle’?
Here are a few Western Film Selections I would use in this course:
Today’s Ontario ExtendDaily Extend (193) asked us to imagine how students would react if we only provided feed back and no grades:
@ontarioextend#oext193 If a student received an assignment back with just feedback, would they know what to do unless they were aware of how to use the feedback – do we promote reflective practice in our classes? Photo by Olhar Angolano on Unsplash pic.twitter.com/WYLcS8OEUr
After completing the tweet, I turned to Day 4 of the MOOC Making Sense of Open Education which was to explore Open Education Resources (OER) online. I collected some OER into a Padlet, adding articles, photos, videos and learning resources around helping student use feedback and the concept of reflective practice building on the thought of whether student know how to use the feedback we give them.
https://padlet.com/istewart2/MakingSense18Day4
I selected one photo and one resource to try to make something new. I adapted a photo from Pixabay by stockpic and a four-page hand out from WestEd from their Formative Assessment Insight open course to create this graphic:
I am growing in both my knowledge and my skills through my professional development this spring but perhaps more importantly, I am becoming more naturally open by practice, practice, practice.
As I reflection on the history of open education, I think about my own progression to this point. I started learning in typical school settings deciding that I was done with traditional education in the early 2000s. For work purposes, I completed two post-grad certificates in Learning Disabilities Specialities through Cambrian College which was 90% online (and distances education for me) with two practicum requirements to be completed with a mentor.
In the years following, I became unsatisfied with the professional development opportunities offered to me and I began looking for my own. I completed some more distance courses for a fee and started hearing about MOOCs. I joined my first MOOC in 2012 and completed Gamification with Kevin Werbach @kwerb who also happens to be the first person I followed in Twitter. I have completed more MOOCs with Coursera and FutureLearn (my favorite platform) from education institutions in Canada, US and UK.
During the same period, I also pursued other learning online through blogs, websites and videos. I am also a gamer and began to create instructional videos for my fellow players in 2015. While I do not have many followers, my videos have been viewed in 122 countries. This and the experience of taking courses at universities in other countries through MOOCs opened my eyes to the idea of learning that can stretch over boundaries.
I am very new to Open Education. I began to study this in more depth just this year. Currently, through a MOOC on Open University called Making Sense of Open Education and through participating in OntarioExtend.
While I may not have all the definitions right, I see a connect between distance education, e-learning and MOOCs as having brought me to the point that I am interested in learning more about open learning for myself and that has started me thinking more about open education at my own institution and how I can contribute to that.
Making Sense of Open Education: Day 2 Building an Open Community – today’s learning centered on understanding a Community of Practice (CoP) and ways to find one. This connects neatly with my professional development efforts using OntarioExtend and my beginning development of a Professional Learning Network (PLN).
Let me begin by saying that I am very new at this. I have been working on my PLN for five weeks using Twitter. I am still sorting out what it is that I might be able to contribute.
In the readings, there were two aspects that struck a chord with me. In discussing the challenges of CoPs, Hayman pointed out that:
Photo by Elisabetta Foco on Unsplash
“If you are a marginalized person in your local context and/or workplace, if you feel like your opinions and voice are not valued, joining a new community can feel very risky.” Making Sense of Open Education Day 2 by Jenni Hayman is licensed with a CC BY 4.0 International license
I hesitate to admit that I am a marginalized person because there is a potential backlash for even saying so. I am a faculty member, as outlined in our Collective Agreement, but because I work in Student Services, I am often discounted by faculty who teach in the classroom. Part the reason is the structures we work under where faculty who teach are in the Academic Sector and faculty (generally counsellors and librarians) in the Student Services are in another sector. When surveys or registrations require you to “pick a school,” faculty like me who are school-less, cannot be heard or participate (unless you complain). When information is disseminated by schools, I don’t hear about it. Because faculty who teach are the majority, the professional development opportunities are geared to their needs. This and other experiences leave me feeling as an other.
I struggle to not feel like an other in Open Education professional development experiences as well because I don’t teach in a traditional sense. I do small-scale teaching with one time workshops, training tutors, seminars and other out-of-class experiences for students. I work on pilot projects that don’t fit anywhere else but this could mean that I have more opportunities to be open.
So yes, joining a new community feels very risky! I don’t know if I will be accepted or if I have something to offer and I don’t want to just take from the community. But at the same time, being new to this PLN building, I have found lurking to be a good strategy.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
“It’s also completely okay (you don’t need anyone’s permission) to observe the course and the behaviours and communication of others in the course as part of your learning. This is sometimes called “lurking” in the online teaching and learning environment, but it’s not a very positive term. Observing (as many new-to-something learners do) is a valuable activity in the learning process.” Making Sense of Open Education Day 2 by Jenni Hayman is licensed with a CC BY 4.0 International license
I am learning a lot by observing including how to participate, what kinds of things to post, how to respond to posts, and what the social norms are like in this online community. At the same time, I am finding thought leaders to follow, organizations of interest, technology I can use, sources of OER and lots of information about Open Education. Oh yea, and I am learning to blog too!
NOTE: I am participating in a 15 day MOOC on Open University called Making Sense of Open Education and will blog entries to fulfil the activity requirement.
I am participating in a 15 day MOOC on Open University called Making Sense of Open Education and part of the learning is an activity to complete for each day. This is my first discussion post entry, repeated here so that I can tweet it!
Happy Day 1 fellow Open Education Learners!
For my submission, I found a video about Open Education that explained how one might use OER to learn:
If this video does not play, please see Why Open Education Matters by Ope Bukola at https://youtu.be/cHQp33rbg5k
I still feel that I am very new to Open Education and I would like to learn more about finding OER as well as understanding Open licensing. I want to learn about adapting OER and especially how material with different licenses can and cannot work together.
AND if I can find a few new friends along that way, that would be good too!
Featured Image is Course logo by Jenni Hayman licensed with a CC BY 4.0 International license
