Posts

Showing posts from January, 2013

Learning Openness is More Difficult Than I Thought

Image
Well....after four days of a public course (Leading CHristian Communities), I pulled its publicness. I realized that I include copyrighted material in my course, for which Western Theological Seminary seek permissions to use. Therefore, CC does not continue for me. I must, and rightly so, honor the permissions given to WTS and me. This means that the fair use of CC is void unless I pull all copyrighted material from my course (Which I am not willing to do since my students deserve access to articles). Anyway, realizing this, I sent the following to a guru of LMS and DL (Distance Learning) education: "Name, I just realized one issue of making my course public: I use articles that only WTS students have permission to access, so if these are available to the public, then I am breaking ccl rules and using copyright material in a public way.... in order to do this all of my internal posts/files/content must also be cc or public domain. Well, the process of trying true open

Open and Learning: Copyright, Creative Commons and Obstacles

Image
I eagerly celebrated that my spring semester course was public under the laws of Creative Commons . I read the details of the license and chose specifically attribution and non-commercial, meaning that I was willing to let anyone use the course and modify it (make derivatives) according to their need. I was willing to share - a lesson we are constantly teaching our children, and then I hit an obstacle. Though I am willing to share, I load content onto my page from other thinkers and teachers, for which I have acquired permission, yet their work is copyrighted material distributed to me for [formal] educational purposes. Therefore, my creative commons license is in violation of the borrowed copyrighted material. Copyright trumps creative commons, which I support, and creative commons holders must respect works that do not adopt open-policy. I have now removed my course from the Creative Commons domain, yet I have kept it public, albeit now with very limited access. This is the joy

Open and Learning: Open Content Beyond Fear

Image
**This post is affiliated with my current MOOC Course: Introduction to Openness in Education .  I am enlightened tonight as I switch back and forth between student in a MOOC and professor for a traditional in-residence class. The intersection of the topics is helpful, also. I am teaching Leading Christian Communities and am required to load the course on CANVAS (LMS). Normally, my online LMS is for student-eyes only, yet CANVAS has a built in feature where anyone can view my course by way of a Creative Commons License . There is fear in moving toward free and public work. Much like students feel about their own writing and assignments, I do not always want everyone looking at my stuff. I just want a few committed students to use-what-I-create. Yet my fear needs to be defeated, especially because I espouse to have a reflective drive to make my teaching and learning even better. Therefore, by persuasion of my MOOC and by possibility of Canvas, I am embodying my MOOC learning

I'm Open and Learning - Open Education

Image
I'm beginning my first MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) . This is a course offered through CANVAS , a LMS or Learning Management Software. Western Theological Seminary invested in Canvas, and as a teacher, I am impressed - it is built for teachers and students. Anyway, I'm taking this online-free-notforcredit-course to boost my pedagogical and scholarly practices. I'm interested in this course for several reasons: 1.   Adult learning is self-porpelled learning. Adult learning is an under-explored aspect of learning (especially in churches), yet is essential in the rise of higher education. Adult learners need the habits and skills of self-propelled learning. Digital learning is most easily self-propelled learning under a teacher's willingness to guide and a community's willingness to share understanding. 2. I am curious about open content . I live in-between wanting to control my publications and  openly distribute and share. I have written published articles