The second session from the e-Exemplars: exciting developments in e-learning mini-conference, titled “Educational Development and Otago Polytechnic NZ”, was from Leigh Blackall of Otago Polytechnic. This was a really interesting talk about Otago Polytechnic’s adoption of Web2.0 technologies and attitudes to learning.
Below is a summary of the points that I recorded:
- The use of Web2.0 technologies (blogs, wikis, socially networked media, creative commons licensing) is embedded into staff professional development.
- All staff are encouraged to blog
- Developing digital literacy amongst staff is very important
- Staff are being encouraged to become nationally and internationally known as e-learning innovators within their subject specialisation. This has raised the profile and reputation of Otago Polytechnic around the world
- Staff are encouraged to know what each other is doing (this touches on knowledge management)
- Copyright has been turned 180 degrees so that Teachers now retain the IP for products they develop. This has given them the freedom to confidently and freely share their resources on the web (i.e uploading resources into YouTube, Flickr, etc.)
- Organisational resources are licensed under CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution, which lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation).
- Courses are being created and delivered in WikiEducator (see here for details), which saves them hosting and support costs and gives greater global exposure of their courses and their institute, and facilitates networking, collaboration and sharing of resources with other professionals. It also allows them to help develop the software in a direction that serves their needs.
- WikiEducator courses are offered free, with students given the option to formally register in the course in order to gain a recognised qualification (which is happening)
- WikiEducator allows teachers to see each other’s content, facilitating greater sharing of resources and providing a natural peer-pressure regulated form of quality control
- Money has been saved through using free resources
- Using online services saves money for servers and bandwidth
- Putting courses on WikiEducator has been goog marketing – lots of hits on company website
- Less focus on selling content and more on selling support services for that content
Tags: AFLF, Leigh Blackall, NZ, web2.0
June 18, 2008 at 11:09 pm |
Hi Ken, pretty good notes. The only thing I would say is that there is a stronger link between staff owning their IP and the organisational use of CC By licensing. Basically, staff are encouraged to also use that license when presenting their IP through the Polytechnic or in their name. Here is a link to the IP Policy
June 19, 2008 at 10:58 pm |
Hi Leigh. Thanks for the comment. I wasn’t clear from your presentation about the connection between staff owning the IP and the organisational CC BY licence so thanks for providing the link. I’ll check it out.
Ken