“Around 7,000 online students recently earned the first certificates awarded by MIT and Harvard through their Edx partnership. That’s more than twice the number of degrees that MIT awarded at this year’s commencement.

Another 147,596 observers signed up to marvel at what an MIT course is really like. Substantially greater numbers are expected for the spring course offerings.”

With a title like this, the blog post is a great overview of the infancy of online learning. Perhaps the information age is giving way to the learning age. Whatever the case, we no longer have silos of learning by location but rather, by connection. High speed Internet and self discipline will give you access to leading edge learning without having to leave an aging parent or move your family. A new age is certainly dawning.

Researchers and institutions should continue to take note that Open is really the way things are moving. You may want to look at Scholastica. I could see schools creating their own journals. Now that would be fascinating.

“With traditional journals suffering from rising costs and increased disinterest in print subscriptions, online open access is looking more appealing than ever. The team behind recently launched Scholastica is offering a new platform for those interested in joining the movement.”

It makes a great point that an academic paper is a poor discussion forum and gives you other options for creating your own open journal.

An open licensed question banking system that lets you add questions, create tests, create homework, create your own questions, and use resources that others are creating. This is a great option to the traditional test bank and is worth exploring as you look to save money and improve quality with new alignments. It is free.

This tool helps you evaluate Open education tools to see how they align to Common Core  state standards. By using this rubric, you can demonstrate how resources that are free can be integrated into your curriculum. There are 7 of the 8 already created. IF you want to save money while you align standards you must share this with your curriculum directors and administrators. Use this as an opportunity to increase quality AND save money (that is a win for everyone.)

Free open textbooks that are peer reviewed to be of higher calibre. Free online and low-cost in print. If you’re looking at options, this is where you should go (if you’re curriculum director or administrator.) Start here for free open textbooks.

Amazing tool being used by +Jonathan Zittrain  at +Harvard University to make connections around the content in his class. He says “text makes an excellent way to link students.” Good textbooks will connect people to each other around the content. Those publishers that do not connect around content will cease to exist.

If you’re following Open Education or ebooks or anything about publishing, you’ll want to look at this tool.

Excellent article by Justin Reich sums up much of conversation happening here at Harvard University this week about Open Education.

“The richest exchanges on day two of the Hewlett Open Educational Resources Grantee Meeting came from those who challenged the fundamental premises of the meeting. In designing the meeting, Berkman staff imagined three groups: Learners, Facilitators (teachers, librarians, coaches, educators, etc.), and Builders. They assumed a kind of “supply and demand” model of OER where builders create stuff and distribute it to learners, sometimes through the mediation of facilitators (wholesalers, I guess?). 

Schools should evaluate the opportunity for using OER resources as they align and create alignments for standards like common core: if you don’t you are missing the opportunity to integrate great content.

2012 World Open Educational Resources CongressWednesday 20 – Friday 22 June, 2012

The First World OER Congress will be held 20-22 June 2012 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. Organized in cooperation with the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), the Congress aims to influence educational planning worldwide and to encourage governments to support the development and use of open educational resources.

The specific objectives of the Congress are to:

• Showcase the world’s best practices in OER policies, initiatives, and experts

• Release a 2012 Paris OER Declaration calling on governments to support the development and use of OER

• Celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2002 UNESCO Forum that created the term OER

The Congress will bring together Ministers of Education/Human Resource Development, senior policy makers, expert practitioners, researchers and relevant stakeholders to discuss what works and what won’t work, and to agree on a Declaration with a set of targets for a 2015 World Conference.