Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The OER MOOC Reflection







* On the whole the OER program was really a positive learning experience for me. 

* The most engaging part of this course is using Twitter, the micro blogging tool to connect and interact with educators and researchers around the world.  

 * My favorite parts of this course are the learning tools and the instructional design models.
 

 * I would really like to find out more about OERs challenges.
 
* The POERUP webinar discussion is the one I appreciated most.
 
* The task that was most meaningful for me was resolving license issues.

 
* From developing a sample OER related to my field of expertise, I learnt to license my work under the Creative Commons.

* Developing lesson plans was the most beneficial.
 
* I can use the Metadata to easily access resources I need and save my time.

* I'm particularly delighted with peer review and user’s satisfaction to monitor and measure OER success and its relevance.

* I would like to try out mobile learning because it enhances student’s learning anywhere and anytime.

* I'm not sure if all the educational games I learnt about would work in my teaching context because of time restrictions in the curriculum.

* I am doubtful about having the time to read all the tutorials provided at the end of the OER program.

* One aspect of the course I want to follow up on is using digital games for assessment.


* I like the variety and engaging formula of the OER :

animations, audio books, lectures, videos, e-books, free templates, courses, free and interactive technology tools, podcasts, multimedia software, images, games, songs, online quizzes, self-assessment tools, etc.

* The flexibility, personalization and constructive feedback provided are what I liked the most about the OER MOOC


* In an ideal world, I would like my students to use tablets.

* One thing I’d recommend to improve this course is sharing the blog links of the participants. Blogs are powerful tools in fostering culture understanding.





Thanks for the golden OER opportunity!




 

Sunday, October 20, 2013

OER_Mobile Learning Lesson Plan





Tr’s name: Safaa Prince Ali Mohamed

Grade Level: intermediate or 2nd year secondary

 # of students per class: 35-40

 Duration: a forty-minute minute class

Content area: English language learning

Title: drama/novel through audio and e-books on a mobile phone

 Context: this lesson relates to the broad goals of teaching literature: drama, novel, and poetry for the advanced level students in an EFL context. The lesson improves students’ listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Using technology” also relates to one of the domains in the learner’s profile. By the end of the secondary stage students will be able to:

 1. Reflect on listening texts from a variety of media sources.

 2. Discuss a speaker’s purpose, main ideas and supporting details in a variety of media.

 3. Access age-appropriate information from various electronic sources.

 4. Use graphs, charts, and other visual presentations to communicate data accurately and appropriately.

 5. Develop power point presentations of appropriate length and complexity.

 6. Demonstrate awareness of the ethical use of ICT, including citing sources and respecting copyrights.

Materials:








 Other materials:

    * http://freeology.com/  graphic organizers

    * https://bubbl.us/ maps

    * Microsoft Office: Word, PowerPoint or Publisher

    * Vocaroo/Audacity software to create audio journals for reflection

    * A set of external speakers

    * Notebooks                                        * posters

 Objectives:

 By the end of the lesson students will be able to

    1. listen to a section of the audio book and complete reaction activities.

    2. listen/read a section of the book and summarize and sequence the main ideas, events and actions.

    3. listen/read a section of the book and map in a graphic organizer “who, where, when, what, how & why of the section’s plot.

    4. create a Venn diagram to compare characters.
 
Procedure:
 
1. Triggering prior knowledge: quiz/survey/puzzle/brainstorming for ideas about the author & his works/discussion questions/scavenger hunt game/anticipation guide (agree/disagree statements).
 2. Activities:
          * After listening to an audio section, students work in pairs or small groups to complete “reaction sheets”:
 1. Which character would you like the most/the least and why?
 2. What advice would you give to character X who is facing a problem?
 3. What would you do if you were ….?
 4. Mapping the scene visually “who, what, when, where, how and why” for the section’s plot.
              * Teacher brainstorms for character(s) comparison after students listen to or read a section with a lot of details about two or more characters: similarities & differences.
               * After listening to an audio section with a lot of actions, students summarize and reorder chronologically the main events, actions, etc.
              * Students role-play key incidents.
 3. Learning styles addressed: VAK
4. Technology alternative:  text messaging
5. Assessment & Homework: varied to meet students’ needs & levels
      * Online quiz                   * Project poster                           
      * Reading log/journal      * A written test                  
      * https://bubbl.us/ or http://popplet.com/ printed out maps
      * Self assessment questionnaire
      * Audio journals for reflections
      * Scrapbook about characters                   
      * A story timeline                
      * A book discussion guide/presentation
      * A http://padlet.com/ bulletin board      


The technology tool is used to facilitate learning and move students away from one size doesn't fit all.






Saturday, October 12, 2013

POERUP_EGYPT



 

Open Access Logo

 


 

|  As Egypt has a strong ICT backbone, it seeks to


           * broaden the on-the-go access to drive internet uptake in all walks of life.

         * improve the education system by increasing access in early childhood to care and education and by including ICT at all levels of education, especially at the tertiary level.

 
         * embrace Open Access (OA) initiatives and establish a positive response towards Open Access among the different stakeholders and many institutional repositories.
 
         * archive digitaly to render library services throughout Egypt and the Arab World.

         * offer e-learning opportunities through universities and create (DAR), Digital Assets Repositories:
 
 
         * open ICT projects to improve educational facilities: Smart Schools (labs & library).

         * improve teaching and learning methods using computers as a means to learn school subjects.

         * foster creativity, intellectual property (IP)-respect, sharing and collaboration. 

         * provide distance-training national net (video conference).

    
         * Provide ICT services in a manner which meets the educational objectives in schools and the society around them.

         * Outreach to students in the disadvantaged areas.


http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/portals-and-platforms/goap/access-by-region/arab-states/egypt/

 
 
 
|  To focus on Quality Assurance & Accreditation:

     * several university web sites are reviewed in order to ascertain whether they have ICT and e-learning policies or whether they offer an e-learning component and regularly update the e-learning strategy:

 

 

 
     * the Supreme Council of Universities (SCU) and the National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education-Egypt (NAQAAE) created in 2004 has mandate over 26 public and private HEIs for QA and accreditation.

 
     * with the help of the World Bank, Ministry of Higher Education in Egypt initiated a Quality Assurance and Accreditation Project (QAAP) to support the reform process in HE.

 

            
 
            * the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), the centre for knowledge dissemination & its Access to Knowledge (A2K) initiative, is the most active community for Creative Commons in Egypt and its licenses use as a tool to promote IPR, sharing and collaboration in many areas and among many groups: formal/informal education, research institutions & researchers, arts, publishing, online/print publishers, young artists, and school/university students: CC Egypt website, FB group, CC Salon, School/universities workshops, feedback from online surveys and polls, and frequent newsletter.            
 


 
             * to claim copyright for resources, HindawiPublishing Corporation has been distributing all its articles in the OA journals under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which is unrestrictive in use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, once the user cites the original work properly. Peer review is used to decide which articles should be published in the journals.
  
             * users normally identify metadata to facilitate their search for open access articles and ensure relevance.
  
          * most websites use internal quality checks, and refer to the number of the downloads for each resource on the website.
  
        * users rate or comment on the resource they use. 





 
Happy OA, DAR, CC, IPR & QA







 

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

“Monitoring the impact of OER on a course and measuring its success"






|  To measure success for EFL learners who are using OER content, I’ll suggest two ways:

 
              1. Asking my peers for reviewing the quality and relevance of the resources.

 
              2. Students themselves rate or express their satisfaction of the learning resources they have made use of, self-assess their own learning and the way these resources have met their needs.

 
A microblogging tool such as “TWITTER” or “FACEBOOK” can be used to give their feedback. They can also collaborate to convey messages or write notes using any of these technology tools, POPPLET, PADLET or LINO.


|  For my EFL learners and for the English courses I teach, I say OER will positively impact upon maximizing students’ learning potentials and making their studying count. The biggest advantage to these resources is that they are adapted to fit the VAKs and satisfy their digital needs.
 
 
 Students have the right formula to engage in learning and train their brains: animations, audio books, lectures, videos, e-books, free templates, courses, free and interactive technology tools to show what they know, podcasts, multimedia software, images, games, songs, online quizzes, self-assessment tools, etc.

 
All that helps to integrate the four language skills, move students toward their autonomy and offer an opportunity for debating about copyright and licensing issues and hence raise awareness.





Happy free access to high quality educational resources on global scale.



 

Sunday, October 6, 2013

#OER: Resolving Licencing issues_Activities


Activity 1:
 
 is the license I would choose if I created an OER for my students and wanted to share it with the rest of their academic community to use and adapt.
This Attribution-Non Commercial license is suitable because it allows my students to share and build upon the OER content I’ve created as long as they give me credit, abide by not using it for commercial purposes.
 
Also under the CC BY –NC license, students neededn’t license their new derivative work on the same terms.

Activity 2:


The Attribution-NoDerivs     license is the most appropriate when releasing original OER content in my subject matter.
 
The No Derivates license allows others to redistribute the original work without creating a new version of it.
 
According to the Publicity Rights included in this license terms,  the licensees may need to get permission from the original author before using the work commercially.   


Generally we can license our work using one of the options in the image below:






         
The image source is:


http://23thingsrhul.wordpress.com/tag/creative-commons/



Happy OER sharing and creating!