With its global reach and growing broadband connectivity, the Internet continues to enable the development of collaborative communities for project development and the sharing of information. The most prominent example of these clusters of innovation is the open source movement in computing, with Linux and Mozilla Firefox being among the best known products of the open source software model, within which the core product is free. However the open source ethos has been extended to other realms than software, from biotechnology to ecology to journalism to these examples of applications in the field of education.  

Moodle

While Blackboard is the dominant commercial learning management (LMS) for the creation and management of online courses, one of its main competitors is Moodle. Moodle is a free, open source LMS for creating and managing online courses that is currently in use from the classroom level to the university level. It can be used for completely online courses or to augment classroom instruction. While it has forums and wikis to create communities around courses, it can also be used with assignments and quizzes to teach in a more traditional format.  

How widespread is Moodle used in education? Currently, there are 51,900 registered and validated Moodle sites hosting some 2.7 million courses for 30 million users in 206 countries worldwide. It was designed to promote the use of a social constructivist model wherein “groups construct knowledge for one another, collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared meanings. When one is immersed within a culture like this, one is learning all the time about how to be a part of that culture, on many levels.” Moodle doesn’t have to be used with this pedagogical model, but its orientation is towards the community-based development structure (here, learning) of the Web.  

Connexions

 “Connexions is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web.” It is not simply a Web site that hosts textbooks, articles, and courses. A non-profit run by Rice University, Connexions calls each individual piece of content a “module” thereby redefining textbooks.  

 “Most textbooks are a mass of information in linear format: one topic follows after another. However, our brains are not linear - we learn by making connections between new concepts and things we already know. Connexions mimics this by breaking down content into smaller chunks, called modules, that can be linked together and arranged in different ways. This lets students see the relationships both within and between topics and helps demonstrate that knowledge is naturally interconnected, not isolated into separate classes or books.”  

Connexions identifies itself as part of the open education movement and as inspired by the open source software movement. Their modules, be they a textbook, an article, or a course, are open education resources, which are “teaching and learning materials that are free to use and also re-use in new ways around the world.” Connexions sees itself as part of both a global and a grassroots community. Currently, 500,000+ unique visitors a month visit their Web site.  

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW)

MIT OCW is the result of MIT’s desire to use the Internet to pursue its mission of advancing knowledge and educating students. Announced in 2001 and launched in 2002, MIT OCW has now published 1,890 courses online for free use. OCW is a “Web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.” These courses are educational resources and do not lead to course credit, certificates or degrees, nor do they involve contact with faculty.  

MIT OCW’s largest group of its one million monthly visits are self-learners though students and teachers are larger subgroups of what is a global audience. It is a major gift of knowledge to the open education movement from one of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions.

There are many other open education resources to explore, for example, the Open Education Resources Commons or even iTunes U, You Tube, or TeacherTube. The commercial sector undoubtedly has much to offer education, but the open education movement will continue to bring its own change just as Linux and Firefox continue to do so today.

What experience have you had with educational tools and resources on the Web? Contact us and share your experiences.

   

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Tags: Technology  Teaching Styles/Philosophies