We have been asked to build on our previous activities and readings in Block 2 of H817 and create a table recommending OER where possible for a 5-week course.
This has been one of my favourite activities so far and I didn’t expect it to be. As a visual learner (if you buy that learning style is ‘a thing’) the layout in the lesson is really important to me and the old school style of our module really turns me off. I realised I am a bit of a design snob and if things aren’t well crafted I throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. (Just saying )
I am a mature student returning to education after 25 years in work as an IT helpdesk person. Knowing my way around technology, I assumed I would be able to “just do it” and it is not so. However, as a motivated grown-up I push on…. my motto starting the MAODE (Master in Online Distance Education) was/is “I will try everything and learn” and I am constantly surprised and rewarded.
My focus continuously comes back to the skills needed to study online effectively when you don’t have a ‘traditional sitting at your desk’ habit. I wrote about in my first marked assignment, that the so-called ‘Google Generation’ or ‘Millenials’ are not prepared for deep learning online; organising digital resources and hardware, time management etc.
Assignment
- Devise a broad outline of the topics to be covered every week. Don’t deliberate too much on this; it should be a coherent set of topics but you don’t actually have to deliver it.
- Create a table similar to the one below for your evaluation. In the final column judge whether the resources are good, medium or bad in terms of suiting your needs. REPOSITORIES ARE LISTED BELOW TABLE
| Week | Topic | Resources | Suitability (G/M/B) |
| 1 | Digital Literacy | OpenLearn | Excellent activities and online Journal |
| 2 | Study online at OU | OpenLearn | Good – while currently OU specific the contents could be remixed and adapter as an study online course |
| 3 | Mobile study Guide | MERLOT – my open SWAY | I created this guide in Sway in 2017 and I propose having students adapt it in a collaboration activity in small teams to update it and explore new apps they recommend |
| 4 | Web 2.0 and Community Building | Solvonauts | “…these lessons explain the concepts of community and social presence and their importance
In online learning” includes 5 stage by G.Salmon and these Subjects building an online learning community | rovais factors | salmons 5-stage model | community of inquiry framework | EDUCATION / TRAINING / TEACHING | G |
| 5 | Students’ choice | MIT | These are bit dense for one week of a 5 week course however I recommend an exploration and blog activity be placed at the end of the module to encourage future learning and resource awareness. Students would choose one or two options they like and write a brief blog about them to share with their cohort. This would serve several goals: a. as ‘a taster’ or introduction to the resources in open courseware to include others such as Stanford, Carnegie Melon b. writing practice by blogging a review c. encourage commitment and life long learning beyond this module According to Ferguson et. al. (2019) Innovation report 2019 providing the freedom |
If you got this far, thank you for sticking with me! I am so pleased I didn’t actually find it difficult to accomplish with all open sources and I would be really keen to try it out. These are the repositories recommended to us:
o Solvonauts (this is a search engine that searches across repositories)
o Merlot
o MIT
o OpenStax
o Saylor
denise mcdonough 
Thanks for the shout out! And an interesting post. Great to see what resources you found, I hope to get stuck into this soon and see what resources I can find.
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