Friday Review

It's been another great week. Some of the highlights are as follows...

Distance Education: I woke up at 3:00 AM Wednesday morning thinking about my research project in this class. I'm really interested in learning about simple technologies for publishing one's research/classroom materials at a distance for others to take advantage of. What drives some faculty members to do so? What are prevents others from doing it? What are technologies that most easily facilitate the distribution of such materials? These are questions I am interested in exploring further.

Open Education: A question was asked about the usefulness of OERS: "If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear it?" --If I openly publish something, will anyone notice? David's response was, "If Google hears the tree fall, then yes, others will hear it." Profound. Also it was interesting to hear Dr. Osguthorpe's observation on how licensing ChemLab to Pearson had led to much wider distribution than it would have received had it just been "open." If one is interested in disseminating ideas it needs to remember that openness is one tool, but not necessarily the best tool for every situation. I believe it is often a good tool, just not one that is considered as often as it should be.

Assessment: We got the results of our test back, and I proved once again that I need to worry less about the grade and more about the learning. As I have said, "I don't care what grade I get, as long as it is an A." I have resolved to just focus on what I am learning and not stress about grades. I believe my learning goals are sufficiently high that they should meet the required bar.

Research: Spent some valuable time in the library learning about research tools. I look forward to meeting with Rachel, the education research librarian on Monday to learn more. I'm in the process of refinining my questionairre on scripture study.