[Oer-community] Using OCW/OER as a platform

Fri Oct 8 01:35:29 MDT 2010

Dear Mary Lou,

Thank you for mentioning the African Virtual University's Teacher Education Program in your message below. I would like to provide more information on this initiative.

-          73 modules  have been developed [ math, physics, chemistry, biology, teacher education professional courses, ICT basic skills and ICT integration in education] 

-          Modules are available in 3 languages (English, French, and Portuguese), so that we have 219 modules available

-          12 universities from 10 African countries, across the language divide-participated actively in designing and developing  the modules

-          The modules have been structured as 4  bachelor programs see http://www.avu.org/Consortium-Programs/consortium-programs.html , and as certificate programs 

-          Participating universities have adopted the above programs through their senate

-          - currently some 3000 students have registered in the programs,  in participating universities and in AVU  certificate programs ( ICT basic skills, and Integration of ICT in math and sciences see http://www.avu.org/Certificate/Diploma/certificate-diploma.html 

-          A quality assurance framework was developed and adopted by partners

-          We are currently finalizing the development of an online repository OER at AVU  that will host all 209 modules and additional learning objects. We hope to finalize within few weeks. So can see sample modules at http://www.avu.org/The-AVU-OER-Repository/oer-avu-repository.html

The process has generated lot of enthusiasm from the 12 participating universities who have requested AVU to form a Teacher Education Virtual Consortium www.avu.org/Teacher-Education-Virtual-Consortium/teacher-education-virtual-consortium.html  

This was not an easy task, it required funding from the African Development Bank and other partners, collaboration with Ministries of Education and universities.  For more information about the processes, outcome and challenges, see www.avu.org/Teacher-Education-Programme/teacher-education-programme.html 

You can view a video of this project, a presentation at MIT Linc Conference in Boston in May 2010 www.avu.org/News/avu-rector-makes-keynote-address-at-the-mit-linc-conference.html 

One key success factor of this initiative is ownership of the content by universities. We are planning to learn from this process and develop content in computer science, health science, food security and more.

Best regards, 

______________________

                  .

Bakary Diallo, Ph.D

Rector/ Recteur

African Virtual University/Université Virtuelle Africaine

Cape Office Park (opp. Yaya Center)
Ring Road, Kilimani
PO Box 25405 - 00603
Nairobi, Kenya.

Tel    : +254 20 2528333
          +254 20 3861458 / +254 20 3861459
          +254 722 205883 / +254 733 624412
Fax:    +254 20 3861460

Email: bdiallo at avu.org 

www.avu.org <http://www.avu.org/> 

________________________________

From: Mary Lou Forward [mailto:mlforward at ocwconsortium.org] 
Sent: 07 October 2010 23:27
To: oer-community at athabascau.ca
Subject: [Oer-community] Using OCW/OER as a platform

There have already been several comments about using OER as a platform to reach educational goals in different aspects of society. We wanted to focus today's discussion on Using OCW as a platform. Dr Bassem Khafagy urged us to think creatively about developing a model where OER is supported/maintained as a social good, valuable to many sectors. A few interesting examples to consider:

Governmental encouragement of OER for workforce training: The US Government hosted a White House Summit on Community Colleges on Tuesday of this week (http://www.whitehouse.gov/communitycollege). During the closing remarks, the Secretary of Labor talked about two billion dollars in grants that will be available over the next four years to support job skills updating and workforce training, primarily for US community colleges, and including materials developed/released as OER. 

Community-driven OpenCourseWare development: The town of Manor, Texas is planning to develop OpenCourseWare in open government and topics that meet needs identified by community members. To provide incentives for suggesting OCW topics, and for using OCW once developed, the town offers a certain number of "innobucks" that are granted virtually and can be exchanged for real goods and services offered by local businesses. www.manorlabs.org <http://www.manorlabs.org/> ; conference presentation at http://www.slideshare.net/OCWConsortium/opencourseware-meets-manorlabs

Collaborative approaches to OER: African Virtual University has an ambitious Teacher Education Program that brought together educators from 10 countries to co-create materials in a highly collaborative project. Materials created are usable and adaptable by any institution, and will soon become available to all through AVU's OER library. http://www.avu.org/Teacher-Education-Programme/teacher-education-programme.html.

Other ideas have been shared by colleagues on this list already. We would love to hear more of your thoughts on how OER and OCW can be used to meet educational goals such as lifelong learning, workforce development, curricular development, etc. What can be done now, and what might we have to do before we can realize other goals?

Mary Lou

-- 
Mary Lou Forward
OpenCourseWare Consortium
www.ocwconsortium.org

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