Learning reflection for session 2

Session 2 was without doubt a good learning experience, where the focus was on "Open Educational Resources" (OER). I was very impressed with the concept of 4R's which is reuse, revise, remix and re-distribute. For educators, making use of educational resources online will enhance the learning of students. Therefore if we educator has the freedom to reuse online educational resources in our classes, modify and adapt them to suit our lesson, merge them with other educational resources to create new resources, and share them with our fellow colleagues and also students, them according to me the literacy rate across the world will definitely increase.

Being an Design and Technology educator, I can say that I have already started to use the concept of 4R's in my teaching. The syllabus of Design and Technology at Higher level is very vast and there is not a comprehensive book on the market which cover the whole syllabus. As I don't want my students to buy several books for one class, I decided to research resources and tutorials online that would be helpful. Sometimes I use the resources in its original state, sometimes I modify and simplify it so that my students understand better, sometimes create a new resources by merging two or several resources in order to teach a topic better. Lastly each student is given a hard copy of the educational resources. Eventually at the end of each semester, each students have their notes stapled together forming their own textbook. I even share my notes with other Design and Technology teachers.

So this practice of 4R's is already present in education although there exist several OER which are protected by copyright and not accessible to common people. All these restriction will only limit creativity in learning. According to me OER is the key to be more creative in learning and to educate the population worldwide.

However the question that still need to be ask is how to make all these resources 'open'? What will be the future of universities and other learning institutions once OER is achieved? Will the creator of knowledge still be keen to share his work freely on the net?

We still have to determine how to adapt OER in our community and make it beneficial  to all stakeholders involved!!!