Educator as Learner
The point I was trying to make here was: Collaborate for Quality.
So, could we revise:
- Educator as Learner
- OER can be a valuable source for professional development. Ask among members of the OER community regarding trusted resources. As you begin learning from an OER, its quality should become more apparent. Be aware that some topics may not be covered sufficiently by OER (though that may change over time) and you have to look for other sources.
to
- Collaborate for Quality
- Whether you are composing OER for learners, for fellow educators, or for personal growth, developing OER is a learning experience in itself.
- Opportunities for social construction and peer production[1] abound. Being part of a community of educators can greatly enhance your work.
- Engage with the community in all phases of the OER development cycle, even the early phases of composition. There will certainly be peers with common interests facing the same sorts of challenges.
- The result will be improved quality of the OER you produce, improving the overall quality of the global pool of OER.
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Originally (circa February or so) I titled the page "Creating a curriculum" and someone added "including for oneself as a learner" or something along these lines. So the first part of the page deals with an educator planning for learners and the last subheading is related to the educator composing an OER for their benefit (professional development).
You could argue that since the page has become less about curriculum and more about quality generically, that the professional development part is out of place.
There have been a few issues with the edits made on this page.
- Use of "we." I know it seems only natural, since we're using "you" throughout the document. But it is not used elsewhere in the document, so I would prefer it not be used.
- Paragraph structure. The revisions made to this page tend to be single sentences spaced out as individual paragraphs. This style is not consistent with the rest of the handbook.
- References to alternate OER life cycle diagrams. Currently we have one prevailing model for OER development. Even though the current outline can be improved upon, we need to have the document stabilized for a print version. Referencing alternate diagrams will result in confusion.
- References to socio-constructivist teaching. It's true that teaching using OER lends itself to socio-constructivist methods; however, given how large large of a topic socio-constructivist methods are, it should be largely left out. Any mention of socio-constructivist should take place in the Use OER chapter.
Given what I've mentioned above I believe the section should be reverted to my last version (and I'm open to revisions from there).
EDIT: I've added the Benkler pieces to the "Additional Reading" section in the Conclusion.
Ok, I updated the suggested alternate Quality page in accordance with points 1 - 4 in case you change your mind. Thanks for the comments.
