Saturday, February 15, 2014

What a journey

The past couple of weeks have been rather hectic trying to keep up with work and the OCL4Ed course work. I have learnt a lot about Copyright but more importantly Creative Commons. It is not as simple as I first thought. The growing culture of Creative Commons through the OERu is fantastic. I will continue to follow their philosophy in my own world knowing that I am on the right track.
Education should be free to all. Resources for education should be free to all. I will do my best to be a part of that to the best of my ability. Thank you OERu for allowing me to have this opportunity to expand my learning and appreciate where you are heading.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Free to Reuse, Remix, Rework, Redistribute

Today I have learnt more about the meaning of OER and Creative Commons. I have been sharing a lot before now and had read the quotes on Creative Commons but hadn't quite put it into place.
I can now see more of the importance of creating resources to share with others and how the growth of knowledge can be impacted both to educators and students. In an increasing, what is supposed to be heading towards a, paperless society there is a wealth of resources and knowledge out there waiting for us to grab and adapt it to suit the needs of our own students and subsequently share on to others.
I am looking forward to what is in store for me this year, the help I will provide to others, and my own learning curve. I can see potential for a rewording and valuable venue to share with students (and educators), finding relevant resources and creating courses that hopefully will be exciting for the students to take to where they want to be.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Reflection on e-Learning and Creative Commons

This blog is to support my learning in the OCL4Ed course which is open from 5 February to 25 February 2014. From this course I hope to be able to understand more about online learning and how I can then support my students in their own journeys.
Having worked through the first session I have found my thoughts and ideals re-enforced. What can people use freely? Yes we are moving to 24/7 learning society and this is great. Educators can communicate with their students in more engaging and innovative ways which results in students being more engaged, enthused, interested in what they are learning. Educators have the ability to share their work easily with their own communities or globally. However, the concept that everything should be freely available for educational purposes is wrong. What happened to the basic principles of earn your rights you have responsibilities associated with them.
I think that people still have the right to post/upload information/images etc to the internet for others to look at so that the owner can create more sales/promote their business etc. This is not freely available, that was not the purpose it was put there. There is plenty of resources available that is freely available now under Creative Commons that students and educators do not need to revert to using copyrighted material in class activities without permission. As an educator I feel it is important that we work to changing the mind set of those around us who persist in using any image they want etc. Just my little band wagon :)