[Oer-community] Wrapping up the conversation

[Douglas Tedford]

Answering a few of Dr. Forward's questions re: OER for rural Guatemala (my
area of volunteerism)

Have your thoughts about the future of the movement changed over the past
few years?

1.  I realize OER should reach down to start with at least grade 10 of high
school, because in rural Guatemala, completing 9th grade is an end-goal
which can lead to (low-paid) employment as a public school teacher.

2.  OER needs to be widespread and in Spanish.  I thank Dr. Forward for
links she provided to OER coursework in Spanish, which I passed on to
colleagues.

3.  OER needs to address needs for vocational training (particularly tourism
and import/ export) including English language learning (due to rise of call
centers in Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and many other countries- requiring
full bilingual fluency in English and Spanish).

4.  Government, low-cost universities (in Guatemala the USAC, in Mexico the
UNAM and the IPN) require a level of tested, English fluency as part of
requirements for admission, so for OER to help improve entrance to higher
education, Online English Learning (my copyrighted term is OEL) should
become an essential component.

* Note:  OER is essential for fomenting the actualization of economic,
academic, intellectual potential in Latin Am's C and D (lower- and under-)
classes but seems to be a potential enemy to for-profit onsite and online
universities.  How will the two harmonize?  A major and complex question.

Douglas Tedford


On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 7:48 PM, Mary Lou Forward <
mlforward at ocwconsortium.org> wrote:

>
> Dear All,
>
>
> Thanks for the lively discussion over the past week. The dominant theme has
> been sustainability of the OER movement, primarily from an economic
> perspective, but also in light of different thoughts about how
> public/private sectors and market forces fit into the question of higher
> education. People have shared their beliefs as well as approaches to OER.
> Thanks to everyone who has contributed. We are going to leave this
> discussion group open for a couple more days, through Friday, for any
> additional questions or comments. We would certainly be happy to address any
> of the topics covered in our conference if you would like to investigate
> these more thoroughly. We're also happy to have off line discussions after
> this list closes if something comes to you later.
>
>
> Since high level questions about OER are of strong interest to this group,
> I'd be interested in hearing where you would like to see OCW and OER going,
> putting aside the question of financial sustainability. Have your thoughts
> about the future of the movement changed over the past few years? What
> contributions do you see the movement making? Where should we be
> concentrating efforts for maximum impact?
>
>
> Mary Lou
>
> --
> Mary Lou Forward
> OpenCourseWare Consortium
> www.ocwconsortium.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Oer-community mailing list
> Oer-community at athabascau.ca
> https://deimos.cs.athabascau.ca/mailman/listinfo/oer-community
>
>


-- 
Dr. Douglas Tedford
ELT Author - Editor - Teacher Trainer
Researcher - Online English for Rural Guatemala
Mexico City, Mexico
celular: (011 52 1) 55 1724 3738
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