Have you ever visited/used any Open Educational Resources? What did you think? Were they useful to you?

I personally have not used an OER however my friend is currently taking a free online class at Coursera, I believe. She is working towards a B.A. but is taking an introduction course in evolutionary science and absolutely loves it. Because she cannot really take a course like this in her B.A. program, the online course allows her to expand her knowledge and learn about things she otherwise would not have with her formal education. OER gives students the opportunity to learn about new things in a fun and interactive way rather than just maybe reading about it from a book. In addition, the course offers a certificate at the end so this would look great on a resume to illustrate that you can handle a variety of courses and not just the ones she takes for her B.A. It also shows interest in various fields. From what my friend tells me, I am considering doing a free online course in the future!

Have you ever visited/used any Open Educational Resources? What did you think? Were they useful to you?

Some students suggested they have not visited any OER here. However, in my point of view, the utsc online lecture videos is a good example. To my knowledge, though a lot of them are only accessable only for course takers, a few of the lecture videos are released as an OER and are available for accessing from the other educational websites。
I have experienced OER when the last time one of my chinese friends sent me a video link, which is on the official website of his university. Mainly that is about a research report presentation, presented by some bio-chemistry graduate students in his University. The video was free to access. Though I could not understand all of it, I learnt something new from it.
Once again, I used the online programming code sharing websites as well. (I am currently studying computer science major), thousands of code scripts on the websites are free to download. These helped a lot when I was doing assignments in utsc computer science courses.
Maybe some of the above are not known as a kind of OER, but all of them are openly licensed study materials.

Gaining knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a worthwhile task in itself. In this case, Keats and Schmidt's vision of Education 3.0 would be valuable. But if you intend to use the knowledge you gain from OER in today's society to be employed, you inevitably need to prove that you've obtained it. I believe the evaluation component of learning is one aspect of the learning process that Keats and Schmidt neglect. I've used an OER before when I studied HTML/CSS through a website called Codecamedy (http://www.codecademy.com/), which provides a series of courses for people to use to teach themselves coding languages. It was useful for me, as it has given me the resources to learn the basics of HTML/CSS and practice on my own. It does not, however, provide any proof that I have gone through the courses. So I'm curious to hear more about how OERs might assess student learning and provide credentials that can be used to prove what skill sets a person has developed. When OERs are usually designed to be undertaken at the convenience of the student, it would be difficult to determine their progress without the use of standardized testing. The badge system described in the lecture video does not seem like a viable alternative to traditional modes of evaluation to me. After all, how do you determine the requirements needed to obtain a badge? Wouldn't it be necessary for a student to complete certain tasks or show their aptitude in the subject in order to receive a badge? If so, then how does a "badge" differ from more traditional credentials such as certificates?

Have you ever visited/used any Open Educational Resources? What did you think? Were they useful to you?

Open Educational Resources can be related to something that is easily accessible to people living in the Western world, as the limitations are not present as they are in the developing world. I have visited the MIT Open Courseware before and have thought about enrolling and trying it out, but I decided not to due to the amount of work I have already committed to in physical school at University of Toronto. I am not able to rate the OER and deem it to be useful or not useful to me as I have not accessed its resources, but have simply visited the website and saw what it has to offer.
Other than that, I have enrolled in the TDSB Virtual School as well before. Reading materials and "class material" was put on the site and there were weekly assignments due, but students were able to learn at their own pace, just as we are doing so in IDSB10 right now.
This content is available to anyone who has access to the website, as the information is put out on the internet. The only thing that is restricted is that non-users are not able to comment on the page.
Not all of the information is put up on the site as well, since it all depends on Leslie to post the information for us to access. So the learning materials and other resources are restricted and readily available.
A lot of other video sharing or audio sharing sites are open to downloads and use as well, although they may not be educational. The website hitRECord.org, by Joseph Gordon-Levitt is something I would consider to be an open resource as it allows people to add and collaborate to previous projects (and projects that make money, are shared with contributors based on the amount they contributed!). I find this to be representative of open resources, although not necessarily with open educational resources, as the website is used for commercial purposes.

In light of this topic, my sister recently introduced me to OER Commons, a website providing a formal database to help educators, students, and any open learners find Open Educational Resources that were already made available on the internet. I found this site very beneficial, as it covers all levels and variations of material allowing anyone to learn about subjects of their interest, also giving users the opportunity to submit or suggest available OER. My sister who is studying dentistry at Melbourne University, finds the database resourceful when wanting to further her understanding on course content she is learning in her classes. The site mentions that many educators in countries such as South Africa are tapping into OER Commons as it is their only source for textbooks. Therefore, in these cases it is a great tool in providing available open resources; however my concern, as Mathias Hatakka outlines is the need for systems in developing countries that are designed to promote and encourage access to these OER.

Does the developing world really need more people who have formal education, or is this belief just a form of "credentialism"?

I do think it necessary to have formal education no matter how developed the country is. However, as Prof. Chan mentioned in his video, nowadays people perceive education as investment, which refers to the human capital theory (2012). With the development of economy, people start to realize how competitive the market is out there. And academic credentials are widely used as a shortcut when employers make their decisions. As a result, a growing number of students decide to fulfill higher education after high school. People in developing countries like China, perceive higher education very significant so that 9.15 million students applied for higher education examination in 2012, and 75% of total student population was admitted (National Higher Education Entrance Examination, 2012). Nevertheless, university education in China is totally different from western countries. The quality of university is fairly low, and students generally graduate after four years even if they do not work hard. Obviously, students in China did not gain much knowledge as they expected, but the reason of going to universities for majority people is to get the academic credential. The large demand of university education leads to degree inflation, which means undergraduate degree is not enough for job opportunities. Teachers in my high school need to at least have a master degree, and employment rate of undergraduate students is not high as well. Instead of valuing academic credentials, people might start to think about what the real meaning of education is.

Does the developing world really need more people who have formal education, or is this belief just a form of "credentialism"?

Education is very important for increasing labour productivity and developing new technologies, which are the two important factors for economic development. Thus, in order to achieve economic development , developing countries do need more specialized people. However, the increasing need of educated people also lead to a new phenomenon "credentialism", which refers to crazy love for "licenses" in the labour market of developing countries. This new phenomenon which only focus on the licenses and diploma of the labour fails to care about the "real quality" of the labour that is more important for the productivity. This preference will alos lead to an insuffient education system that may only focus on how to past the exam to go to higher levels but not paying much attention on how to use the knowledge. Developing countries need educated people, but not people just have a proof of their education background.

Does the developing world really need more people who have formal education, or is this belief just a form of "credentialism"?

I believe that yes, the developing world really does need more people who have a formal education. As stated by Prof. Chan government is focusing on education as an investment: the more knowledge there is the better it will pay off. This means that the more educated people are, the better productivity there is and there will be more new innovations in society that will create a spurt of growth in the economy. Economic growth is very important for a high standard of living in any country, so if education is a form of investment that will do this then yes, the developing world really should get more of their citizens educated as it will increase their economy and provide more jobs and the standard of living in the country. I don't believe that this a form of credentialism, a fact that employers will hire on the basis of whether the prospective employee has a diploma or degree or what not. Of course, it feels nice to say that I have been educated in the science degree of Psychology, but I believe this is a more individual thing. The government really cares more about growth in the economy than to what what their individual citizens self esteem feels like. Therefore, the developing country just really needs to have more people formally educated to have an increase in their economy.

Can Open Educational Resources support locally appropriate, high quality education in developing countries, or is it another form of neo-colonial way of spreading Western ideas?

I think that OERs can support locally appropriate, high quality education in developing countries, but it would depend on what type of “high quality” education is being taught. As noted by Dave Cormier in his blog post, “OERs shining light, new textbook model, or harbinger of a new imperialism,” there are two types of knowledge: straight (e.g. instructions on how to build an airplane or a bridge that won’t collapse), and curvy (e.g people’s histories, the way their brain works, decisions on how to make a community its most successful, etc.). Straight knowledge is objective and would be the same no matter where you go, and in that respect, OERs would be a great support to locally appropriate, high quality education in developing countries. However, in terms of curvy knowledge which is more subjective and dependent on the person and the context, OERs coming from the West would only be imposing a set of ideals that work in “developed”/Western contexts, which may not apply in the context of a developing country. I can even see examples of this within Canadian societies as well.

As a component for one of my courses this semester, I completed a service-learning placement with a community-based organization (CBO) with a focus on youth in, what the city of Toronto has identified as, a “priority” area. While I was there, I learned that initially, the CBO largely followed the suggestions based off of theory and made by policy makers and within government - this would be an example of a top-down approach. They realized however that those suggestions weren’t quite working on the ground level; there was a disconnect between what was happening in these “priority” areas and ideas of the policy makers at city hall. ....

(cont.)
... As a CBO with a focus on younger people, their priority is to serve the community and its youth - so organizers decided to use tools such as asset mapping to identify community needs (especially as it pertained to the youth). Through consultations with young community members themselves, the CBO developed their own initiatives to meet the needs of the community. This is an example of a bottom-up approach, which until now, I had very little experience with.

In this example, we see a type of “curvy” knowledge being passed on/down to other communities, but because it was out of context, it didn’t work. I think that If these ideas for fixing the “priority” areas were made available via OERs, and people from those “priority” areas took that knowledge and applied it to their neighbourhoods, as we can see from my example, it wouldn’t work either. However, building a bridge is building a bridge, no matter which community within Toronto that you happen to be building the bridge in. So to reiterate, OERs can be beneficial to education in developing countries, provided that the knowledge being shared is “straight” rather than “curvy.”

Have you ever visited/used any Open Educational Resources? What did you think? Were they useful to you?
I have once heard from my homestay host about a website that offers language learning course. I forgot the name of the website, since it is really long time ago. It is a really wonderful website that offers several popular languages' learning couse, very easy to use and available for every level of learners. I have tried using it to learn franch, it contains oral, listening and writing, three parts which is very thoughtful. I have not used very often later on, but I have recommanded to several of my friend who wanna to learn English or other countries' language. I think it is a great choice of learn format. Since people can learn without get out of the house and just sit before the computer, even can have a coffee or dessert beside.