Open Educational Resources
However,
OER has disadvantages as well. From my point of view, the first challenge is
the quality issues. Since users can create an account and post materials, the
resources may not be so accurate, and this is a big issue I guess. Secondly,
there is no much interaction between a student and a teacher.
This time I
am going to talk about Open Educational Resources (OER). It is not a secret
that in this 21st century the world is changing very rapidly, and the need for
continuous learning and demand for new ideas and skills becomes higher and
higher. Furthermore, as written in the article “Open Education, the Long Tail,
and Learning2.0 “(Brown &Alder, 2008), the minority of us have one specific
career, instead we try to learn and master as many professions as possible. I
would like to bring my own example. Now I am learning In TEFL, but I am very
interested in Public Administration. This is the field in which I am really
involved, and I would like to go deep and deep. Here OER is a great help to me,
as it provides free teaching, learning and research resources. To be honest, I
was very shocked and fascinated when I came across with one of the websites,
posted by our professor. It is very useful tool which will help you do become a
mater in the field you want. It allows you to sign up, choose your desired
subject and study even from home, by downloading all the modules of that
specific course. The most important thing is that it’s free of charge and you
shouldn’t pay any money for that.
So, I think that this is one advantage of OER.
It’s to say, there are many online courses which you could chose and learn, and
there is no any limitation. Secondly,
OER develops collaborative learning. For example, learners can share ideas,
discuss various topics with each other etc. , and according to Richard J. Light,
students who study in groups, even only once a week, are more engaged in their
studies, are better prepared for class, and learn significantly more than
students who work on their own.
However,
OER has disadvantages as well. From my point of view, the first challenge is
the quality issues. Since users can create an account and post materials, the
resources may not be so accurate, and this is a big issue I guess. Secondly,
there is no much interaction between a student and a teacher.
To
conclude, I would like to say that OER is a relatively new movement in
education which provides an alternative to the rising costs of education.
Should we use it in Armenia? Well, I would like to say it depends. However, I
sounds to me that Armenian students need a teacher/facilitator, othetrwise they
will not learn.
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