The Impact of Open Source

The Impact of Open Source


Living in a world where there is the opportunity for people to take courses for free in open source software is amazing. Open sources provides the opportunity for students that may not be interested in earning credits but are interested in learning a specific subject.  Even though the licensing software for open sources is free there are still costs involved in offering an open course website (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009). This week I decided to explore the open source website for Yale University. Yale is a very prestigious university and I was curious to explore what their open source courses looked like. The course I selected to review is SPAN 300: Cervantes' Don Quixote. This is the link to the website: http://oyc.yale.edu/spanish-and-portuguese/cervantes-don-quixote/content/syllabus.

The website clearly explains that the classes are non credit and are for educational purposes online. The first thing we can see when we access the course is the name of the class, a description about the course and  information about the professor teaching the course with a picture of him. On the left side of the page there are six different tabs, one with the about the course information, professor information, syllabus, class session, downloads, survey and books.

Pre-planning and design for a distance learning environment

In trying to determine if this course was effective in the pre planning and design for an online learning environment, I took into consideration if the course was based on an instructor centered model or learner centered model. The course text explains that an online course should promote a student learning mode and there should be active learning and collaboration involved (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009).The content of the class is delivered via video lectures of the live class.

The course text explains that we should avoid dumping a face to face course onto the web, and that is what this course is. The course would be perfect for a face- to -face course where the instructor provides this website as a technology tool, for students to refer back to. There is no instructor to lead the course and there are no options for collaboration or discussions. This course clearly was not planned thinking about the distance learner's needs. As I viewed the session videos with the content of the class, I realized that the videos were extremely long and boring. The professor stayed in the same position during the entire class and continued the lecture without pausing or asking questions. When planning an online class it is important to consider the length of the video. Students may lose interest quickly and it is very important to solely teach the most essential parts of the content.

Recommendations for online instruction:

On a positive note, this course offered excellent options for learners that have different type of internet access and different tools to access videos streaming. The course provides the lectures in Flash and QuickTime, someone that has DSL, cable, high or low bandwidth would still have the opportunity to view the lecture. The course also follows online ADA compliance in the sense that they provided a transcript and CC captions to the videos.

There is audio streaming available for the learners that cannot access video or prefer to hear the lecture instead of viewing it. The course text recommends providing reliable technology for distance learners. Offering different options to ensure that the technology the course is using is compatible with the students technology is key to ensuring that even students from other countries that may have slower bandwidth can access the course material (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009)

The syllabus contained the instructor information, class description, texts, requirements and the grading system. All of these aspects are recommended for an online course. However in the syllabus there is no mention of a schedule or a topic list with the organization concept map, as our course text outlines that it would be important to incorporate them into the syllabus (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009).

An important aspect that was left out from the syllabus were the course objectives and goals. The course provides all the required readings and offers plenty of additional resources . Another recommendation for online classes are class evaluations, this course provides a survey requesting information regarding the student's learning experience with the course.

Course activities that maximize active learning for the students:

The course did not incorporate any type of activities into this classroom. If there would have been an area for a discussion topic for each session, the course would have probably maximized learning. The only requirements in this course are the regarding reading the required text. The syllabus mentions a test but there is no area where the student can go and take an assessment or quiz. Tests or some type of assignment must be incorporated into the classroom in order to measure if the student has learned the material (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009).

The course could have provided a group project to encourage collaboration. The course provides some of the basics of an online area but the course itself was not designed for an online student in today's world.


Reference:

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson