Connecting Practitioners to Lessons Learned: OER Case Study Tools

Christian Olson's picture
The ISKME presentation was of their recent project to create a way for instructional designers to self-evaluate their work. The used six case studies to create a toolkit that they hope will help others evaluate their work. It is open and they want it to be widely used. It was quite an intereting presentation.
 
The best part of this presentation, for me, was the actual case studies themselves. During my time in ITLS I've heard a lot about "meaningful evaluation" or "informative assesment," but these words are more static in my mind because I don't know what problems may occur--especially in open education (which, inconsequently, produces a lot of static in my mind since I'm so new to it). The case studies, however, were used by ISKME to find real-life problems with evaluating OCW projects and the evaluation toolkit in particular.
 
An example that was used frequently was a project called, "Free High School Science Texts" (FHSST). This was a group in South Africa that wanted to create free, localized textbooks that would be used in South African schools. Well, ISKME worked with this group in their evaluation project closely and decided that they wanted to record and demonstrate what they learned. How they did it was through video interviews hosted on Youtube.
 
So, this presentation had videos and live presenters who gave meaninful insight like this interview. I really enjoyed and I think the principles that were gathered in this project can have a huge inpact in instructional design if it starts being used. (That is a BIG if, since many people are somewhat resistent to use new techniques, no matter what the benefit may be).
 
Also, as an added benefit to my faithful blog readers (Hi Brian!), I'm going to list the "lessons learned" that the ISKME presenters gave:
 
  1. Match the technology to the author's need
  2. Support online and F2F interaction
  3. Establish interactive workflow process
  4. Keep assignments small
  5. Set up two-way communication channels
  6. Allow for peer pressure
I hope was able to make present their project and my thoughts clearly and effectively. If anyone has a question, contact me and I'll be glad to talk to you about it.
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Submitted by Christian Olson on Tue, 09/30/2008 - 10:40am

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Any opinions expressed here, except as specifically noted, are those of the individual authors or commenters and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the Department of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences, the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services, or Utah State University.