Muvaffak and others, I like your call to think big. For the purpose, please consider the notion of combinatorics for course design. It comes from the principle of individualized and localized instruction.
There are several dozen major "schools of economics" that want their "Economy 101" to be quite different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_of_economics Let us say, 30. Different career paths require different beginner courses. At the very least, people who go into social sciences, physical sciences, and mathematics and statistics want different approaches to their economics. Multiply 30*30=90 at the very least, though ideally, courses address much more narrow fields, such as "Economy 101 for freelance curriculum designers" :-) Then consider developmental stages of learners. Economy 101 at the level of elementary arithmetic is very different from Economy 101 for post-doctorates who never happened to look at economics before. Traditional levels are elementary, secondary, undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate, though this system is very crude - but let's take it for now, so we have 90*5=450 There are a lot of choices in course design by how it is taught. Each choice means significant course redesign. Individually paced or lock-step paced? 450*2=900 Individual learning, small group, or large group? 900*3=2700 Teacher-driven or peer-to-peer? 2700*2=5400 Project-based or exercise-based? 5400*2=108,000 There are dozens more such variables. Then there are choices by media (rich media vs. books vs. experiential), by country and language and culture, by the length and the depth of the course... I think I made the point that the number of Economy 101 courses it would be good to have in the world, if education is to be individualized and localized, is measured by millions, not tens. In practice, this means going for highly modular structures of curriculum design. Categories such as those I named above become tags for curricular activities. Then a learner or an educator can put together a course by computer-assisted search through the database of course activities. Every new activity added to the system multiplies the possibilities of course creation, just like each new type of Lego blocks multiplies the number of possible constructions. Returning to Muvaffak's call - let's think big! Modular, open and combinatorial ideas in course and platform design definitely support it. Cheers, Dr. Maria Droujkova http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com Make math your own, to make your own math. On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Muvaffak Gozaydin <mgozay...@hotmail.com>wrote: > Why people make fad of everthing. > Now OER is the new fashion . > OER, ONLINE, OCW are for billions. > They have to be managed by the government of the world. That is United > Nation. > Unfortunately they do not do their job well. > All efforts and funds are wasted by many organisation. > A very simple case > There are 5000 Introduction nto Economics 101 ONLINE course in the > world. > > Each one has cost about $ 100.000 may be more . This is waste of money. > And also out of 5000 courses may be 4900 of them just a garbage. > World needs only may be 50 or so Introduction to Economics 101 online > course. > Well but as always a good organiser is needed. > Unfortunately there is only one but also not a good one organisation UN. > Wake up gentelmen of the world. Have vision. > Do not involve in small matters. Think big, think great . > Muvaffak Gozaydin of Turkey mgozay...@hotmail.com > www.globalonlineuniversitiesconsortium.org for 7 billion people of the > world . At no cost . > make it bigger . That is only bunch of LINKS. But best in the world. > > > muvaffak gozaydin > > > > > ------------------------------ > From: a.ca...@unesco.org > Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 14:10:16 +0100 > Subject: [OERU] Re: [WikiEducator] UNESCO social networking platform for > the OER community -- Worth joining > To: mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com > CC: echer...@gmail.com; wikieducator@googlegroups.com; > wikieducator-teacher-collaboration-fo...@googlegroups.com; > oer-univers...@googlegroups.com > > > Hi Edward, Wayne, all members of the WikiEducator Community > > The UNESCO OER Programme is focused on: > 1. OER Policy Development - Education Sector > 2. a new, innovative OER Platform - Communication and Information (CI) > Sector > > I'm responsible for the OER Platform which will make selected UNESCO > publications available as fully-licensed OERs allowing our global > communities of practice to freely copy, adapt, and share. The Platform's in > development and should be launched by the end of this year. > > It's common-sense to directly link with your global OER community to > collect the best thoughts on developing the Platform so it was a pleasure to > resurrect the original OER Community that was maintained by Susan D'Antoni. > We didn't like the split between a Wiki and the SYMPA e-mail list and we > needed both standard and new, advanced features for community interaction. > > We'd been using the open-source Elgg social network system for a little > while for the WSIS Community and made the firm decision to go for it with > Elgg for the 'new' OER Community. As Elgg is open-source we've already > developed several new features and plugins and will be working on quite a > list of more advanced features including SSO. The original OER Wiki is still > available but we're cleaning it, putting up a big sign pointing to the 'new' > OER Community, then locking it, slowly moving the best stuff across to the > new Community Platform. > > We really like the OER university initiative and have persuaded Wayne to > completely host all online activities on the OER Community. We hope you will > join the OER Community and share your enthusiasm for the OERu. Very shortly, > Wayne will be issuing a personal invitation to all members of the OER > University Google Group to join the (UNESCO) OER Community. To respect the > rights of the WikiEducator Community, Wayne's asking all members to contact > him for an invitation. > > The new OER Community is for everyone. My OER colleagues in the Education > Sector who have several major Policy activities with the Commonwealth of > Learning will also be hosting 1 or 2 online events on the Community. The > EC-funded Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL) will be hosting 3 > online activities. > > We invite any organization who'd like to hold online activities with a > rapidly growing global OER Community to work with UNESCO to achieve this. We > look forward to seeing you in the Community. > > Regards, > Abel > > OER Programme > UNESCO > > > > On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 7:26 AM, Wayne Mackintosh < > mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com> wrote: > > HI Edward, > > You're right -- there is not much discussion on the site yet -- its new. > > Abel Caine, from the OER Programme from the Communication and Information > (CI) Sector at UNESCO is taking the lead in setting up an international OER > discussion community with a number of sub-community discussions. It appears > that international OER discussions now have a committed home within UNESCO > system and that the CI sector is serious about supporting ongoing OER > discussions. > > Previously IIPE at UNESCO hosted a number of email-based OER forums, but > they closed the discussions after each session :-(. The IIPE at UNESCO, who > hosted these email discussion lists, were reluctant to migrate to a > web-based platform. The old OER wiki hosted by IIPE at UNESCO has also been > neglected (http://oerwiki.iiep.unesco.org) and sadly, it has been getting > a fair share of spam with little community support to help monitor the > problem. > > I'm pleased to see that UNESCO are using an OSS platform (elgg) for this > new initiative. They are also committing code improvements back to the elgg > community and great to see an international agency getting involved in > supporting FOSS developments. > > The OER Foundation is keen to help and support UNESCO in building a > representative international discussion place for OER. I think UNESCO is a > good place to host these kinds of discussions because this avoids the issues > associated with institution-based projects. > > We're planning to host the OER university planning discussions on the > platform and will give this a try. > > At the moment the site doesn't support self-registration -- but the OER > Foundation will assist anyone from our community who would like to > participate in our relevant groups. I understand that the UNESCO team are > looking at an OpenID / self-registration solution. > > So let's keep the pressure on UNESCO to get self-registration sorted ;-) > > Cheers > Wayne > > > > > On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 6:18 PM, Edward Cherlin <echer...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Is anybody using this site? I went to look again, and I don't see any > discussion. > > On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 01:01, Wayne Mackintosh > <mackintosh.wa...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > > > UNESCO have established a social networking platform for OER community > > discussions with particular emphasis on building policy for sustainable > OER > > futures. > > > > I must compliment Abel Caine and the team at the UNESCO's Communication > and > > Information sector because: > > > > This fills an important gap in the burgeoning field of OER -- namely > focused > > international discussions on policy development for open education. > > UNESCO have listened to the feedback and comments from many OER > > practitioners around the world for a web-based environment for these open > > discussions - preferably a list which remains open and not "closed down" > > after each scheduled discussion. > > Running the platform using the popular open source elgg environement. I > > understand that UNESCO have contributed code improvements back to the > > community. Well done UNESCO! > > > > I encourage all WikiEducators with an interest in helping form and > co-design > > international policy around OERs to join the community. > > > > See: > > > > > http://www.wsis-community.org/pg/groups/14358/open-educational-resources-oer/ > > > > I look forward to sharing ideas with international colleagues via this > great > > community resource. > > > > Cheers > > Wayne > > > > > > -- > > Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. > > Director OER Foundation > > Director, International Centre for Open Education, > > Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. > > Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator > > Mobile +64 21 2436 380 > > Skype: WGMNZ1 > > Twitter | identi.ca > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "WikiEducator" group. > > To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org > > To visit the discussion forum: > http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator > > To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > > > > -- > Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin > Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. > The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. > http://www.earthtreasury.org/ > > > > > -- > Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. > Director OER Foundation > Director, International Centre for Open Education, > Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. > Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator > Mobile +64 21 2436 380 > Skype: WGMNZ1 > Twitter | identi.ca > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "OER university" group. > To post to this group, send email to oer-univers...@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > oer-university+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/oer-university?hl=en?hl=en > Visit the OER univeristy page on http://wikieducator.org/OER_university > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "OER university" group. > To post to this group, send email to oer-univers...@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > oer-university+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/oer-university?hl=en?hl=en > Visit the OER univeristy page on http://wikieducator.org/OER_university > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. 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