Back in 2001, MIT launched OpenCourseWare, a bold idea to put world-class MIT professors’ lectures, syllabi and resources online to the world for free. Today, Open Education Resources (OER) industry leaders are arguing that the free content is only the starting point. The next stage of the open education movement has evolved into Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) — the key word being “massive,” as in drawing tens or hundreds of thousands of students.
Even with all the OER in the world, the way people learn is by being excited about it, by making things (even if it is just a blog post) and working together. “The things I care most about is collaborative skills, are you a good communicator, can you get stuff done?” Focus on community, recognition and content because it is more important to discover successful learning techniques rather than merely sign up 100,000 students online. Promoting big-sized classes as a way to bring attention to the issue.
Learning Change 