As we all very well know, teaching has evolved tremendously over the years, especially due to technology advancements. This week’s readings signify these changes specifically due to shared works, from licensure and copyrights to electronic books and documents.
Throughout my education, I have encountered open content more times than I can fathom, though I did not realize what it involved. As noted in the report by Johnson, Adams and Haywood (2011), open content or open education is a concept that involves the efficient sharing of information, instructional practice, and experiences in a cost-effective way. Each of us has utilized open content through writings, research, movies and music. Open content in education has proven to be a distributable option for underserved communities who cannot afford state-of-the-art textbooks and learning materials—as long as they have internet access. This philosophy also allows faculty to customize articles in a way that can then be shared with the world.
Open content is a seemingly simple concept, but the copyrighting aspects of digital information are not to be forgotten. It is important to consider that when information is traditionally copyrighted, it cannot be modified by anyone (without permission or payment) but the copyright owner. Infringement of the sort is avoided through websites like that of Creative Commons. Licenses obtained through creative commons help the creators (called licensors) maintain their copyright but still allow others copy, distribute and make use of their work. Through use of Creative Commons, open content can be shared amongst educators to reach the overall goal of efficient and effective education.
In addition to the use of open content, electronic books are also gaining prevalence in today’s education. Most technology-savvy members of society own an iPad, smart phone, or other medium from which books can be read. The next logical step for the world of education is for text to be converted to these popular and portable devices. The 2011 Horizon Report states that despite the advantages of size and weight, obstacles have been in the way of general adoption among academic institutions: scarcity of academic titles, lack of necessary features in electronic readers to support scholarly work, a restrictive publishing model, and digital rights management (DRM) issues. Johnson et al. (2011) indicate that despite these issues, many of these constraints are now vanishing due to advancing reader technology, the uncoupling of print and electronic textbook sales and the use of course management systems like Blackboard.
As we continue to evolve as a society that utilizes technology, mobile technology will become the primary mode for the use of textbooks in the classroom. This will dramatically effect education as people will have the ability to download their textbooks remotely, not having to visit the book store or worry that their textbooks arrive in time for the first day of class. This is truly a digital generation of learners and educators alike.
References
Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon Report:
2011 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report.
Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
I could not agree with you more that we use open content in education more than we realize. Many schools cannot afford state of the art learning material. However, if they put the money for the resources that they can afford towards online learning they would get much more for their money. Schools spend so much money on textbooks that are reused year after year and get outdated. If these schools had the funds to go online the teachers could use open content or some of the fair use law to find material for free. I have a friend who works in an inner city school and their textbooks are about 10 years old and they are sharing one to every 2 to 3 students. She does not even use the textbooks because there is no way for her to let her students take them home or to do homework out of them. The information in the textbooks is also outdated by 10 years. Her school has one set of I-Pads that she can request for use in the classroom. However, I am sure you can guess with a large school and one set of 30 I-Pads there are not many days in which she can request them.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the way of the world is going into electronic copies of texts. The logical step would be to use the electronic copies in the classrooms. Yes the copies cannot be transferred from student to student but they are remarkably cheaper. I am not sure how school fees work but I know many times our fees at our school went towards our textbooks. Perhaps a percentage of this could go towards the electronic text book via an I-Pad. I as in my last Budget and Finance class for Higher Education had a discussion on electronic text. A new approach that publishers have started trying is to combine books. A student would purchase 1 book and it would follow them through a series of classes. Perhaps this idea could flow over into K-12? Maybe this idea could be that e-book could be contracted that for all of History courses for 900-1000 students though Pearson. If the schools system pays X amount of dollars a year each student gets an updated copy of their text based on the grade they were in. This could make it so that it is a predetermined amount and perhaps if the materials were purchased in bulk the publishers would offer the schools a gracious discount. The materials would also be always updating with new releases of the books.
As this discussion of technology and education continues with the new updates every day I am sure that all of this will continue to change. I believe that eventually everything will start to be digitalized as the millennial generation starts to move into the roles of administrators. In the Higher Education program we study how millennial students learn and the tools that they have used. I believe that right now the first round of millennial generation students are coming into those roles and you are already seeing this shift. As this shift continues education will drastically be different 10 years from now as it is drastically different now from 10 years ago.