Final Guild Post

The end has come and the class is over. Here I am doing my final blog post for this course. Given that I haven't had any comments, and the class is already over, perhaps I should question my own sanity for taking the time to write this last post. I guess it's just that voice in my head that makes me seek closure.


Here is the link to the personal finance course we built:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pkEgScMtxs-CZCuPoe_3eaQ&inv=justinj@byu.edu&t=5055627048556804565&guest

It still has holes and needs more work, but we defined a way to go about building a resource pool for an OCW course and carried the ball most of the way. Even in its incomplete form, it should be useful to those who might use it to prepare to teach a Personal Finance course using open content.

This class was good for me. I learned a great deal. I gained a broad understanding of the past and future of the OCW movement, some great project and writing experience, an understanding of the copyright and legal issues around OCW, and more conviction that, while I don't believe OCW will replace traditional education, I do believe OCW will play an important role in advancing quality and accessibility.

I also picked up some good tools along the way. Learning to use the advanced features in Google and the code snipits from the Creative Commons site has already paid off many times and having a basic understanding of what OCW content is available has proven valuable on several occasions.

My classmates were great. Some of the most thoughtful and intelligent I've met. David Wiley is the finest instructor I've had at BYU.

On to other things now. Time to focus on finishing a dissertation. Thanks for the learning.

Justin

Guild Quest #4

Guild Quest #4 has been all about advancing our open Personal Finance course. There has been a great deal of discussion about whether the deliverable should be a complete course with assessments, instructions, and so forth.

While attending a meeting of the Open High School of Utah, I was able to talk with their curriculum developer. He made a rather convincing argument that he would prefer that we deliver a set of open resources aligned with Utah state curriculum standards. He said that instructors would want to individualize courses by implementing their own instructions, unique content, and assessments.

A resource pool aligned with state standards is certainly more efficient that a content complete course. Perhaps that should be the focus of the OCW community for some period of time. Creating resource pools, instead of complete courses, would build out the base of OCW content more quickly and could attract users more quickly, helping the OCW community reach the critical mass it will take to be sustainable long term.

Again, this blurs the line between OCW and OER. I've long felt that many "OCW" schools are actually publishing OER stuff. I guess it's an evolution and any progress toward "open" will benefit the masses.

Here's the link to our current list of resources. We are looking forward to presenting it tomorrow. Lot's of last minute changes tonight :)

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pkEgScMtxs-CZCuPoe_3eaQ&inv=justinj@byu.edu&t=5055627048556804565&guest

Guild Quest #3

For Quest #3 our project team went to work identifying open resources for the Personal Finance course we are working on. We developed a rubric to organize those resources and align them with Utah state curriculum standards. Most of our work for this week is in our Google spreadsheet. Here the link:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pkEgScMtxs-CZCuPoe_3eaQ&inv=justinj@byu.edu&t=5055627048556804565&guest

My two most meaningful thoughts for the week were:

1- I'm really surprised at the number of openly published resources.
2 - I'm glad Dr. Wiley taught us how to use the advanced search features of Google to identify open content. What a valuable tool!