The UVU Blackboard server now allows designers to require Respondus Lockdown Browser (LDB) on assessments. This means that if an assessment is set to use LDB, the end-user (test-taker) computer must have the free LDB software installed (Bb should prompt the user to install it before the assessment can be accessed). UVU’s Testing Center has installed LDB on all its computers and is testing it before next semester. We presume this is pointless unless the Bb assessment has LDB selected, but are looking into it. In any case where LDB is used to take an assessment, “lock down” happens according to Respondus’s descriptions–even if the exam itself is not triggered to require Lockdown. I asked Respondus to clarify the “switch” in Bb, and they responded this afternoon:

The “switch” in Blackboard and other course management systems helps insure (sic) that the assessment can only be taken with the Respondus LockDown Browser. Without enabling the switch, students can take the assessment using any browser they want, including the secure browser.

For Distance Ed this means that if an instructor wishes to use LDB, we must ensure proctor locations have the LDB software installed. This may require adding wording to the proctoring info web page. For the UVU Testing Center, if they make LDB the only web browser installed on lab computers, all assessments have no option but to be “locked down”.

Brian Swaney has written a lengthy post on LDB, explaining why he thinks it’s an awful idea that only inhibits cheating in limited scenarios, and though Brian’s post gets a little bit out of hand, I do agree with most of his points. Here’s a summary of these, some of which John Krutsch, Marc Hugentobler, and I have brought up in our conference sessions, “How to Cheat Online” and “The Cheatability Factor“:

1. LDB may encourage institutions to take advantage of broadly accessible but ill-suited environments for testing, like open student computer labs.
2. Unless the physical environment is also “locked down” the LDB will do little to inhibit cheating (crib notes, use of a 2nd computer, mobile devices).
3. Unless student identities are verified, LDB does not prevent impersonation (note: LDB doesn’t claim to).
4. There is a line between securing assessments and respecting student privacy. I don’t think LDB crosses it by any means, but Brian raises some legitimate concerns about requiring software installation.
5. All technology, including LDB, can be hacked.
6. The kinds of assessment best protected by LDB may not be good at assessing important kinds of learning. But LDB may be alluring as a (false) panacea for measuring all kinds of learning.

This Wave was embedded with the wavr plugin for WordPress. In beta testing I was able to get my wave ID from the URI, and made the wave public by adding public@a.gwave.com.

Assumptions about online class size are often based on “traditional”, face-to-face (f2f) class experiences. Past studies suggest that the effectiveness of f2f classes is negatively tied to the number of students in the class, and that a range of 12-25 students may be an acceptable plateau for many classes. The ideal may in fact be a 1-to-1, mentor-like relationship between student and instructor–such as described by Bloom as the 2-sigma problem. We can also comfortably state that more students can equal more work for the instructor (more questions, more grading, more interaction)–potentially at the cost of instruction. At the very least we can assume that there are some class sizes at which learning will inevitably suffer (Drago & Peltier, 37), for all courses require some degree of student-instructor interaction, don’t they?

We therefore may be inclined to believe that there must be some correlation in online courses as there is in face-to-face courses. Indeed, a number of commentators on the issue recommend the same class sizes for online courses as have been recommended for traditional courses, even though there is still little research on the effect of class size in online courses. Toth & Montagna conclude that in ten years of research on the subject there is no consistent evidence of a predictable connection between student achievement and online class size. Why might that be? It may be that best practices in education are changing (informed by evolving learning theories and “21st Century” learner needs) such that student-instructor interaction is no longer critical. I think more likely that f2f and online courses are very different animals (though they are not always treated as such by instructors or students). Online courses have a number of specific dimensions of design and instruction that relate to their effectiveness. It may be that through careful course design and effective teaching strategies, online courses can reflect increased class size differently than face to face class size, reducing or even eliminating negative effects depending on the course.

Determining Optimal Class Size for Online Courses

Class size is not the sole predictor of teaching effectiveness in online environments; in “The Effects of Class Size on Effectiveness of Online Courses” Drago & Peltier cite five factors of teaching effectiveness: course structure, course content, instructor support and mentoring, instructor-student interaction, student-student interaction. Of these five they recognize only one as significantly and negatively impacted by class size: instructor-student interaction (31).

Though only one of five factors, instructor-student interacton is by no means a negligible dimension in online courses. Indeed, it may be more important to course effectiveness due to online learning’s larger transactional distance. The fact that students and teachers are rarely if ever in the same place at the same time may lead both to students and instructors to feel isolated, thereby reducing motivation. For students, transactional distance may have the added threat of making students feel unnoticed or unseen, a sense that may increase inclinations toward academic dishonesty. Transactional distance can be counteracted by increasing “presence” of instructor and students in the online environment.

The importance of presence and instructor-student interaction may vary from course to course. Every course is different, and courses and departments have different goals and outcomes to consider. Once we recognize this, we find questions that can help us determine optimal class size:

• Mentoring and feedback. Is learner success reliant on instructor-student interactions? Some courses thrive on learner interaction with informed and knowledgeable experts. If so, decreasing class size may increase instructor-student interaction.
• Teacher load. Do assessments require direct instructor review and feedback? Multiple-choice questions do not, but essay questions do. A course that can be accurately assessed with well-design multiple-choice questions may allow for a greater scale of students than one that needs one that requires more subjective review of individual assessments.
• Classroom community. Could an interdependent learner community support course objectives? If so, large class size may not be an obstacle, but a boon.
• Course curriculum. Are so-called “lower order” thinking skills (remembering, understanding) the focus of the course? This may allow for more objective assessments that can be automated, reducing instructor load.
• Course design. Is the course designed to provide rich, engaging content, relevant learning activities that help learners to take ownership of their learning? A well-designed course that encourages and supports learner independence is probably less reliant on class size for its effectiveness.
• Technology training. Is the instructor fluent with the technology? If s/he is capable of navigating the system rapidly and interacting with students using the best available tools, this may allow for more instructor-student interactions at less cost to their load.
• Course management. Has the instructor good online course management and time-saving strategies? Such strategies can reduce the load of online teaching, allowing instructors to facilitate more students.

Though these questions aim at the core issues of curriculum, course design, and teaching of online courses, they unfortunately are too subjective to predict real numbers for online class size. One must therefore base actual enrollment caps on experience, and it is here that we might as well look to f2f class size as a starting point. It is probably less harmful to students if class size starts as small as possible, increasing semester by semester as informed by both the student and the instructor experiences.

In doing so, here are some ideas to support student success in large online classes without overly taxing the instructor:

• Understand realistically how the online course impacts your faculty load.
• Do not write-off the students as “on their own” or think of Instead, build-in extensive support and maximize contact with students using discussion forums and mass e-mails.
• Invest in developing or implementing cohesive, dynamic, and engaging online course materials as a means of improving the online course overall.
• Train instructors to use the technology to their best benefit, thereby decreasing fear and frustration with the technology while reducing wasted time.
• Teach instructors course management strategies (Turoff & Hiltz) aimed at large courses.
• Shift responsibility for non-critical tasks (i.e. answering e-mail) from the instructor to graders or teaching assistants if possible.
• Leverage class size to the benefit of the students by growing communities of learners, e.g. through groups, peer assessments, etc.

I’m sure there are more ideas out there, and from folks with more experience with large class sizes than me. The real point of this posting is to foster the dialogue through which we might come to practical solutions.

References

• “Class Size – A Dangerous Discussion?” The TLT Group. Retrieved from http://www.tltgroup.org/ProFacDev/DangerousDiscussions/ClassSizeHome.htm
• Colwell, Joy. (2004). “The Upper Limit: The Issues for Faculty in Setting Class Size in Online Courses”. In Proceedings of Teaching Online in Higher Education 2004. Retrieved from http://www.ipfw.edu/tohe/Nov10.htm
• Drago, W & Peltier, J. (2004). The effects of class size on effectiveness of online courses”. Management Research News, 27(10) pp 27 – 41. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01409170410784310
• Online class size: Balancing quality and cost. (2000). Distance Education Report, 4(17), 3.
• Toth, L.S. (2002). “Class size and achievement in higher education: A summary of current research”. College Student Journal, 36(2) pp. 253-261.

The internet is a rebel and a bully, threatening to destroy the established system of education that dictates how we learn. Shocked? Well, this is a good thing any way you look at it. The internet will transform the way you and I learn. It will provide a customized and individual learning experience. Okay, maybe the “internet” alone won’t start the revolution, but it definitely facilitates it. Producers of educational media content already provide fully customizable websites that utilize learning management systems that let you choose what you learn, when you want to learn it. … this means that you get more bang for your buck. Which is more than you can say for the “established” educational institutions that just bark out education in hopes that you’ll keep returning. The future of education online is bright. The things we do with the internet can transform education. It can transform the world.

…

Here is one scenario:

UVU gets rid of the physical school except for one building used to house administration and an office for each teacher. Each teacher is provided with computers, webcams, microphones and other equipment. The teachers now have resources to teach lessons live, record them, and archive them for students to view at a later time. Teachers also have virtual office hours where they can chat with students, they all use email, and have personal LMS tracking their own progress. (customized and specific to the school; and better than Moodle or Blackboard) Students collaborate online.

For those of us in ed tech, nothing here is really new, but there is a palpable frustration re. the absence of teachers’ use of very basic networked technologies. This is the future he’s talking about; when I was an undergrad over 12 years ago I wanted many of the same things! Speaking of being frustrated with teachers, what he said next really grabbed me:

[I] don’t think that enough effort is being put into developing the tools that would empower us as students…

The implication here should have been obvious: if the teachers are not satisfying the students needs, at the very least students should be given tools they need to empower themselves.

(For those of you who have been in a coma for the last 13 years, MP3 is the most popular digital audio file format. It uses a lossy encoding and compression technique to ensure small file size while preserving audio quality.)

A lot of the “MP3″ legal concern is over MP3 encoding or decoding technology, but the patents also affect the distribution of the .mp3 file itself. Emusic.com is just one of many who pay a patent royalty for the distribution of it’s MP3s. But what about educational institutions? For instance, MIT OCW uses MP3 technology for compression of audio lectures; do they pay off Thomson for each file?

Not likely. Thompson’s web site declares…

A license is needed for commercial (i.e., revenue-generating) use of mp3/mp3PRO in broadcast systems (terrestrial, satellite, cable and/or other distribution channels), streaming applications (via Internet, intranets and/or other networks), other content distribution systems (pay-audio or audio-on-demand applications and the like) or for use of mp3/mp3PRO on physical media (compact discs, digital versatile discs, semiconductor chips, hard drives, memory cards and the like).

However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any kind or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00.

This appears to exempt non-profit educational usage, so I e-mailed Thompson directly. Reeder Grant of Thompson replied swiftly and courteously:

If you are not receiving, or you do not anticipate receiving more than $100,000 annually from mp3 distribution activities, you do not need a license. From your described use below (distribution of non-profit educational MP3s), it would seem that you would fall into this latter category of not needing the license.

Good news, right? Based on this information I suggest the following options for educational creation and distribution of .mp3 (which in no way should be considered legal advice):

1. Proceed. Create and distribute .mp3s without a license if they are clearly for non-profit educational purposes. But make sure you use a legally purchased and licensed, or, even better, an open source MP3 encoder like LAME (open source MP3 encoders have been specifically ignored by the legal actions). And consult a lawyer.
2. Contact the patent holder(s). I would go with Thompson for the above-stated reasons. Then consult a lawyer.
3. Break into the open. Use a different, widely supports audio compression format. OGG seems to be the most popular “open” lossy audio compression technology. OGG is not natively supported by iTunes or Windows Media Player (two of the most popular desktop media players), but plug-ins are available for both (make these available to users on the file download pages). No lawyer required.

Hardcore edupunk’s might lean toward option 3, but while nearly everyone is ready to play an MP3 in some form or another, few are ready to play an OGG, and less are comfortable with the change of file format.

(I will add that though I’ve never played with OGG, I am fascinated by the claim that OGG can “contain” lossless audio file information from other formats such as FLAC. FLAC is an open “lossless” audio compression codec, and I’ve always ripped my CDs as FLAC and MP3 simultaneously using EAC, Mareo, and LAME [FLAC for archive, MP3 for portability], but this FLAC + OGG marriage may be more suitable in the longterm.

(If you’re thinking of trying OGG, audiophiles recommend that you not “transcode”, that is, convert from MP3 –> OGG. Convert from CD, original WAV, or other “lossless” format.)

P.S. With respect to the original ITForum question, I should point out that Audacity is not a MP3 encoder as implied, nor does it contain an MP3 encoder, thus exempting it from the patent licensing bane. Audacity is an audio file editing software that uses it’s own file format. Audacity does, however, work with external MP3 encoding software (like LAME). Basically Audacity triggers the external encoder to compress the audio file.

Having some experience examining both projects prior to this review, I brought in the following generalized opinions:

• MIT: broad, but shallow -many courses with marginal amount of content and activities
• OLI: deep, but narrow – few courses with significant content and activities constructed for learning

The motivation for these directions seems clear: MIT OCW seeks to reinforce itself by providing semi-useful, translucent access to content from each and every existing course. OLI seeks to define itself as a provider of in-depth, quality, online learning experiences. UNESCO’s OER Wiki describes the two projects as follows:

• OLI “adds instructional design grounded in cognitive theory, formative evaluation for students and faculty, and iterative course improvement based on empirical evidence”
• MIT’s OCWs “convey the parameters of the course’s subject matter and pedagogy, ideally representing a substantially complete set of all the materials used in the course”

MIT’s French 1

French 1 from MIT OCW is comprised primarily of a syllabus, calendar, readings list, and assignments list based on the textbook Parallèles–a textbook that the syllabus almost fails to mention. the navigation is find and click, but simple enough to learn and use.

The syllabus reflects the fact that this is an existing course that has been “photocopied” for the MIT OCW project–instructions and expectations are restricted to registered students. For instance, it references the MIT Language Learning and Resource Center — a resource unavailable to distance students.

The course site provides PDFs of instructions for in-class activities. Otherwise assignments simply walk learner through textbook activities. Online resources are tacked on to the end almost decontextualized from real learning patterns.

As I opened separate pages for the materials, I wondered, why not combine assignments with readings into calendar as one big course guide? There seems to be no usability rationale for current architecture, except that it fits a single MIT OCW template.

You can download (presumably all) course materials; each index page of PDFs or other content features the CC By-NC-SA license.

OLI’s Elementary French 1 Online

OLI’s French 1 course’s subtitle, “Open and Free: Jan – Jun 09″, immediately reinforces OLI’s assertion that these are full courses to be taught by instructors, or taken by students. The content confirms that this is a complete online learning experience: the structure provides enhanced linear navigation using a combination of tabs and in-page hyperlinks. I found the navigation is somewhat similar to Moodle’s and I wondered if it may have been based on this LMS originally. Aside from a couple broken links, the content itself seems to be fully-fleshed out learning materials, richly media-enhanced with no textbook needed. The content pages include text, images, and video with inline Flash-based q&a activities for self-learning.

Like the MIT course, OLI’s French 1 included a number of external online learning resources, however these came in context at the beginning of the course, and thus I was more inclined to click on several to investigate how they might enhance what was to come.

There does not seem to be a way to easily download all course materials at once, though they are clearly marked CC By-NC-SA on each page. This brought me to a question re. the Flash files: if I download the SWFs and crack them, essentially converting them to FLAs, is that acceptable use under the applied CC By-NC-SA license? Presumably yes, as the source code is inseparable from the finished product.

MIT’s Logic 1

MIT OCW’s Logic 1 course utilizes a web site architecture that is very similar to French 1, ensuring that user learnability of the web system is high. In addition to the basics of syllabus, calendar, and readings this course provides PDFs of lecture notes, which provide surprisingly good, text-book like information and examples. Indeed, I read through several of these and got at least the “feel” for the course.

OLI’s Logic and Proofs

As a user trained to recognize shifts in my scent of information, the first thing I noticed in Logic and Proofs is that this course site’s navigation system was inconsistent with the French 1 navigation system. This is not to say that the alternative navigation is illogical, only that the change hurts my head.

This course features introductory movies that orient the learners to the subject, with a media-enhanced transcript for alternate learning styles. A note on my personal preference: for a subject like this, I prefer text with images over video.

The main content of the course is primarily text, but notably enhanced with relevant learning comprehension and self-assessment questions that open in new window (they didn’t in French) with a separate look. Because of this, Logic seems to be quilted together from 2 different systems.

I have to say that symbolic logic has always captivated me, and while the MIT OCW Logic course intrigued me, the completeness and linearity of the content in the OLI course kept me interested and engaged. As I was indulging in one activity I thought, “I should be getting college credit for this!” Upon investigating this impulse I found that not only does OLI provide instructions for instructors and learners, it provides a means by which students can use the OLI web site to receive credit through their home institution. Talk about mashing up your education. Brilliant!

MIT’s Paradox and Infinity

Similar structure to previous MIT OCW courses–enough so that I see a very predictable pattern here. Readings refer to a standard textbook and (usually “closed”–few available online) articles, as well as problem sets — PDF available for self-challenge (however, notably absent is any electronically mediated method of receiving feedback–automated, community-based, or otherwise).

Interestingly, the course site provides hyperlinks to (discounted) purchase via Amazon.com; does MIT get a cut as a way to offset production costs?

OLI’s Physics With the Andes Workbench

OLI Physics features similar navigation and structure to Logic 1, which is unfortunate as I believe OLI’s French 1 had the most modern and intuitive nav system so far. This OLI course is highly activity-based; lesson information (primarily text, but some video) is immediately taken up into “Learn by Doing” activities use Andes tutor software, available for download and installation on Windows (I couldn’t get it running on Ubuntu through WINE).

Again, I found elements of other OLI courses: complete content, linear construction, self-learning activities and assessments. I am not overstating my impression when for a fleeting moment I thought about quitting my job and returning to student life; I am envious of this and future generation of students who can make their own schedules with flexibility provided by the Internet, and I regret to admit I probably got away with a lot simply by exchanging seat time for credit. If personal responsibility is adhered to, the accountability and outcomes of online learning may be higher, and achieved more efficiently.

Aircraft Systems Engineering

MIT OCW’s Aircraft Systems Engineering course site follows the structural pattern of the other MIT OCW courses (syllabus, calendar, readings, etc), with one notable enhancement: video of class lectures. Listed under lecture notes, the video components make this the most compelling MIT OCW course reviewed so far. Fairly rough Real Media video of in-class guest lectures by experts in the field are provided with PDFs of lecture slides, and MP3s. On Ubuntu I couldn’t locate the RM codec I needed to view the video, but did give the audio files a listen, and these were high enough quality to download and bring on bus rides or road trips. Combined with the slides this makes an interesting, remixable OER.

Prior to embarking on this particular task I had generalized these two OCW projects as being about shallow breadth (MIT OCW) or narrow depth (OLI). My reviews supported this earlier generalization if the primary quality objective is prêt-à-porter OER. With respect to learner value I considered an additional analogy: these 3 MIT OCW are like Polaroid snapshots of authentic MIT courses, scanned in and uploaded to bear the MIT brand; these 3 Carnegie Mellon OLI are more akin to planned, staged, shot, enhanced, and sequenced for online learning, and specifically created to define the OLI project (not the other way around).

The 2007 Cape Town Open Education Declaration more specifically harkens back to the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“Everyone has the right to education.” Article 26.1), declaring a shared goal…

[to create] a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.

This has been interpreted by a number of major educational institutes to motivate providing their educational resources to poor or disadvantaged peoples, especially in the third-world. A current example is Rice University’s Connexions program, which publishes resources for K-12 target audiences in Africa.

In a word, the primary motivation is philanthropic.

But it’s also clear that there are strategic motivations as well, the most prominent being tied to the changing information culture, driven by the accessibility of the Internet. In Good intentions: improving the evidence base in support of sharing learning materials Lou McGill, Sarah Currier, Charles Duncan, and Peter Douglas note, “The rise of social networking tools, such as flickr, Facebook and blogs has caused a revolution in approach for both individuals and institutions as they have begun to embrace a more open approach to sharing information, practice and resources”(8). In David Wiley puts it to the US Secretary of Education, “With significant changes occurring in its societal context and participant base, higher education must innovate in teaching and learning, as well as other areas, to hope to
remain relevant.” (4)

This is echoed in the UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education produced Final report of the discussion on Free and Open Source Software
(FOSS) for Open Educational Resources, in which it describes a desire to do for education what FOSS has done for software: “FOSS and OER share a common conviction that access to resources, whether software code or learning materials, should be free and open for use, modification and sharing” (1; my emphases).

The implication of this statement highlights additional motivations: accesibility and (perhaps more importantly) cost-savings, both to the end-user and the educational institute.

Another motivation, though more subtle, is to improve the quality of an institution’s educational products and pedagogy. David Wiley notes, open education “exposes teaching to the quality-increasing pressures of peer review.”

In summary motivations for open education can be described as:

• Philanthropic: Sharing and providing education to people all over the world, with special attention to those in third-world countries or without access to high-quality local education.
• Strategic: Adapting educational practices to the changing world culture may increase viability of educational institutions. (Additional motivations exist here as well, but are perhaps more subtle or less overarching).
• Pedagogic: The act of sharing may increase attention to quality; the act of adapting or remixing may increase quality; the utlization of new technologies may enhance educational engagement amongst learners.
• Economic: Cost-savings to the institution by digitally archiving their own materials, and then sharing and reusing within the institution and amongst peers.

Later this week I’ll look at how these motivations are realized through the “open education” efforts of several institutions/organizations.

So what is the open education movement, and what defines it? The closest thing to an open education manifesto may be the Cape Town Open Education Declaration (September 2007), a product of a convening of the Open Society Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation. It states that open education “is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint.” It implicitly seeks to free education from copyright constraints, and its rhetoric echoes the argument that education is a right, not a privilege, recalling the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, in Article 26.1, states, “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. … Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit” (my emphases). It should be no surprise, then, that the open educational resources movement is credited as having been born of UNESCO in it’s 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education. Though both the UNESCO forum and Cape Town declaration were preceded by others’ efforts to open content, knowledge, and courseware, these two documents provide the fundamentals of a definition of open education.

What may be surprising is how long it took UNESCO to get around to promoting the idea of open educational resources, but that can be attributed to the lack of technology by which information can be easily published, reproduced, and accessed by consumers from around the world–it’s clear that the Internet provides the key solution here, though it’s less clear what role evolving cultural attitudes, particularly in the west, to “free” or “open” products or content may have played.

On the first day of Dr. David Wiley’s Intro to Open Education course he answered a student’s question about the challenges that now face open education as including, first and foremost, sustainability. I have on a few occasions suggested that as we continue to move from the “traditional” classroom with chalk and photocopies to “hybird” and even fully online classrooms, the opportunities for publishing open educational resources will expand, and engaging in open education will be facilitated. In fact, not only can the practice of open education become a part of the normal process of creating and publishing educational resources, I believe it must for two reasons: first, I don’t believe open education will ever be widely adopted if it is reliant on millions of dollars in grant moneys (though those grant moneys were clearly important for kick-starting the open education movement, as demonstrated by the pioneering work of MIT OpenCourseWare, USU OpenCourseWare, et c.). Second, if the open education movement is not owned by the day-to-day practicing educators, instructional technologists, and designers, if its banner is not carried by both students and teacher, I believe it has a hard chance of sticking. Brian Lamb, recently spun off a blog post in which he voices his grassrooty motivation, and, spinning off of an article by fellow Canadian Michael Geist, suggests that the key problem is lack of leadership, not funding.

I agree that much of the work of perpetuating and enlarging the open education movement must and will come from the “grassroots”, and it can be a natural step in the digitization and technological enhancement of education that I have had the joy of being involved in for nearly a dozen years. Hook them gradually. Use freely available OER as a gateway drug. Use blogs and wikis and the power of the reputation economy to develop the drive. Through small steps we might take the learning materials and activities that are masked behind the opaque walls of the classroom into a translucent, and sometimes transparent setting of the public internet.

P.S.
(It’s possible that open education may be moved forward not first by educators, but first by administrators; to this end so far we’ve seen institutions use the carrot of financial compensation; I wonder what might happen if they chose to use a stick instead. At my institution, Utah Valley University, most of the content that would be considered for open educational resources is already owned by the institution, as it was produced under work-for-hire or with significant enough institutional resources to justify ownership. UVU could very well say, “We are doing OER, we are going to publish these faculty-created materials, and you can pound sand if you don’t like it.” If any of you know of institutions who have taken this approach–especially if you work at such an institution–let me know.)

An hour after trying to work around various bugs in the awful 1.9 Moodle gradebook I found myself in need of this formula again, and the only place I could find it was in my own post on the old WebCT forums. I’m posting it here for my future reference only, but maybe it will be useful to other Bb Vista or Moodle users:

Drop the Lowest Score of a Series

For this example we need to know the labels (Bb/WebCT) or ids (Moodle) of the columns to be included. Here I use A1, A2, A3.

In this example we want to drop the lowest assignment score for our total, first in Blackboard Visa and then in Moodle:

This calculates the sum total of of the 3 assignments then subtracts the minimum score of the same series.

Drop the Lowest Two Scores of a Series

In this example we want to drop the lowest 2 assignment scores from our total. I’m using 5 assignments to illustrate this in practice.This can get pretty hairy, but once you’ve studied this example it should make sense:

This calculates the sum total of of the 5 assignments then subtracts the lowest possible combination of two scores found in the same series.

The aforementioned example will work for dropping lowest 3 and more using the same principles, but obviously it gets exponentially longer.

Coincidentally, I watched 49 Up last night, and took particular notice when Nick, a physics professor at UW Madison, commented on how his job in the classroom is to (misquoting, surely) “show the students why they should care about this stuff” and to “make the books more interesting”.

It sounds like such a simple thing, and teachers have been doing it since textbooks and formal schooling began. But it’s a thing most textbooks (and perhaps most packaged, static content) are inept at. Why? Perhaps because teaching provides a human-to-human interaction wherein participants can, on-the-fly, read and respond to each other appropriately, strategically building interest and engagement. These human-to-human interaction can trigger affective responses that enlarge perspective, enhance interest, or increase retention.

Live classroom teaching also allows the teacher to follow tangents, abandoning pre-planned curriculum entirely and ending up a places not originally intended, but nonetheless valuable for the divergence. I have experienced the pleasure of such tangents many times as a teacher; indeed, I usually end up learning about the subject myself, learning about student needs, and learning how to teach better the next time.

So that’s my initial thought. What’s yours? What is not replaceable in teaching? What do we risk losing as we move more and more instruction online, as we realize grand dreams of opencourseware, self-directed learning communities, etc?