Emerging
technologies have a big effect on teaching and learning environments. These
technologies have created their own materials that can be used in education:
Open content, Creative Commons, and eBooks. First, let’s talk about their
relevance to teaching and learning.
Web-based
technologies provide opportunities teachers and students a high quality
teaching-learning environment. These technologies are more than a tool. They
provide students to create different things, meet other people, explore the
world, compose things, express themselves, be a part of online content, find
different way to reach knowledge/ literacy and use different free online
applications created by people.
Creative
Commons is one of these materials. In the video form our class’s PB work page,
it is defined as “Creative Commons is design to save the world for failed
sharing.” It offers us sharing our creative works with other people’s in
control as much as using other people’s works. In the same video, speakers
state:
Creative
commons give us to ask these questions to other people: Can I reproduce it, can
I copy it, can I put it in my textbook, can I use that photo? Creative common
gives tools to creators to make a choice about copyright. I take your staff. Do
I have to offer to next person in the same terms?
It creates a culture to share with the all
people in the world by preserving identity of the things shared with others.
Everything might be mash up with other things there like flickers photo people
shared. To give another example, artists make music together thanks to creative
commons. It is actually an access to shared things in control. If there is not
creative commons, creative works/ things might be stolen easily. It is really
important to keep those from cheating. It gives us a chance to use these works
legally through its unique tools. The author states from creativecommons.org “The
combination of our tools and our users is a vast and
growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied,
distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the
boundaries of copyright law.” (“None
to Claim Their Bones,” 2013).
Electronic
books are also a rising interest on especially campuses. They provide students read required books and
even take notes in digital environment thanks to modern electronic readers. (Johnson,
Adams, and Haywood, 2011, p.9, para.2). Today’s textbooks paper based are not
enough for today’s students’ ability and talents. These paper based textbooks
cannot belong 21st Century. In the report, it is talked about e-books are not
just a text or just devices access with.
They include different things. The authors (2011) alleges that:
What
makes electronic books a potentially transformative technology is the new kinds
of reading experiences that they make possible. Publishers are beginning to
explore richly visual interfaces that include multimedia and collaborative
elements. (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, p.8, para.3).
Some e-books also include
featuring quizzes, note-taking, study cards and other features. They are really
worthy to be used for every subject and grade level. I would like to just say that
they are amazing to increase students' engagements because they provide
gorgeous full screen books, interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, fast,
fluid navigation, highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, lesson
reviews and study cards.
As
for open content, I can say it is a respond to existing expensive published
resources. They have also lots of other functions in teaching and learning. One
of them is providing different types of information like experience about it. Authors
(2011) from 2011 Horizon Report say “Information is everywhere; the challenge is
to make effective use of it. Open content embraces not only the sharing of
information, but the sharing of instructional practice and experiences as well.”
(Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, and Haywood, 2011, p.22, para.1). This report
also highlights open content as an affordable solution to textbook. Thanks to
them, different forms of information can be collected and shared among not only
students but also educators. Except these benefits, it is also updateable easily
compared with published resources. In summary, they are an answer for many
lacks of education system.
Despite
of these benefits of those technologies, there are some challenges facing
schools in using these materials. The writers in the 2009 Horizon Report say:
In
many grade schools, on the other hand, integrating these kinds of technologies
into teaching and learning has proven difficult because of barriers such as policy
constraints on using online tools, the fact that many students do not bring
laptops to school and policies that restrict internet access in many schools. (Levine,
Smith, and Smythe, 2009, p. 6, para.2).
For example, students can
read eBooks through their computer, smartphone, tablet or eReader device. However, using eBooks in education is not
affordable because all of textbooks are not free. Moreover, if they do not have
these devices, how can they be included to education system?
I
believe that these technologies will change the way of education in all context
because these technologies use will cause a big shift in how we teach the content
to students. For example, one day all classes will have an online content,
web-based learning management system and online/e-book required text-book. Some
of them might be just online classes. Because online classes materials should
be very high quality, educators do/will need to use open content, creative
commons and eBooks to reach different types of information.
References
Johnson,
L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC horizon report: 2001 K12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New
Media Consortium. Retrieved
from
Johnson,
L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K. (2011). The 2011 horizon report. Austin,
Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49357936/2011-Horizon-Report%282%29.pdf
Levine,
A., Smith, R., and Smythe, T. (2009). The 2009 horizon report: K12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media
Consortium. Retrieved
from
None
to claim their bones: About the Licenses. (2013, February). Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Hello Oylum,
ReplyDeleteYour summary of this week's lesson was highly detailed and very enlightening. As educators, we must be open minded to the concept of ethics, especially when working with on-line technology. Your reflection on Creative Commons has added to my understanding of this topic by simplifying some of the reasons why one would consider this option. I believe one of the biggest challenges is to share this information with our students and provide them with the knowledge they need when working on-line. In my specific field, it is not uncommon for a student to search the web for ideas that get them moving on their projects. Actually, this is one of the most common forms of brainstorming in multimedia development.
Electronic Books have been around for a few years now, yet I never relay thought of them as an advantage to education until I researched the topic for this week's assignment. I am an avid fan of interaction, yet I never thought about e-books as having the ability to add interaction to a basic reading document. Interaction is a great way to get students engaged in a topic, and if the basic reading material offered some interaction, it would most likely benefit a wider range of students. I also like the idea that e-books can be updated through the web, so you know you have the most current information.
As I think about the benefits, I realize however that technology in and of itself typically costs money to get started. In the long run, the cost levels out, but it is sometimes difficult to get an e-reader into every student's hand. Perhaps as times goes on, more e-reading equipment will lower in price and become a common device found in the classroom.
Finally, your thoughts on open content also reflect your understanding of the topic and the benefits of it to educators. The sharing of information and ideas can improve our world. I think of team work and collaboration. When multiple talents pull together their efforts, the work is most commonly found to be better then an individual's effort. Thanks for sharing your ideas on this week's topic and I hope you find my feedback helpful.
Tom Hoffman
Thomas, thank you for feedback. I strongly agree with you about "sharing of information and ideas can improve our world" because it will allow to increase quality of an individual's effort. Everybody will add something together to this single effort. Therefore, creative Commons and Open contents have a big importance not only to increase quality of education but also to develop our world. Thank you very much!
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