The Impact of Open Source

The Impact of Open Source

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Course: URL-http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html

For my Application assignment this week, I had to select a course from a free open course site from the examples that were provided in this week's optional resources. The open source I selected came from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Course. The name of the course I selected to explore was in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology. The course I chose under this topic was A Clinical Approach to the Human Brain. The URL for this site is http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-22j-a-clinical-approach-to-the-human-brain-fall-2006/lecture-notes/. As I reviewed the course, the first thing I observed was the different modules. The modules that were listed under course home were the syllabus, calendar, readings, and lecture notes. Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2009) asserted that online instructors must make the calendar activities and expectations as clear and concise as possible. Therefore, I opened the calendar module to find out if the information presented in it could be clearly understood. I observed the topic listing and session numbers. These items were the only two listed in the calendar. Therefore, I would not consider this information to be as clear as possible, because it really does not provide much information. Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2009), also stated that when information is structured and detailed, it helps learners stay organized and on task. The information on the calendar did not provide detailed information on the topics on a week-by-week basis and it did not include dates and the learning outcome.

The next module I explored was the syllabus. Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2009), further mentioned that the syllabus should be used to provide more explicit information and instruction regarding the purpose of the course and the requirements. The syllabus in this course provided the learners with a great overview and purpose of the course. It also entailed brief information on how the grading for the course will be determined, but nothing that gives weekly or daily information for the learners to be able to work successfully with the information provided. It seems as thought a face –to – face lecture had been dumped on line. The next module I explored was reading. In the reading area the name of the reading books were listed, however when you click on them, you were taken to another page named Amazon.com in order to purchase the books for the class in which the open source earns 10% of each book purchased from the company. In addition, in the reading module, the learners were told they will not be reading the articles listed in the syllabus because they were too difficult to comprehend. I feel it was a waste of time to generate a list of articles for the syllabus that served no purpose to the learners. The last module in course was the lecture notes section. This module included pages and pages of lecture notes that the students would be quizzed on.

As I reviewed the course, I did feel that it had been carefully pre-planned, but I did not feel it was carefully pre-planned and designed as a distance learning course. Piskurich & Chauser, (2010), discussed that the ADDIE model should be used when planning online instruction. I could not really detect the components of the ADDIE model used in this course for distance education. Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2009), asserted that the ID must keep in mind that distance learning is not the same as a traditional classroom setting. They must consider ways to illustrate key concepts or topics such as: tables, figures, and visual presentations. They must plan activities that encourage interactivities. The information presented in this course appeared to have come from a traditional classroom setting and placed in an online environment. There were no visuals to represent key components and no discussion forums for communication between learners and instructors. Furthermore, I would have to say this course partially followed the recommendations for online instruction as listed in the course textbook. It provided a syllabus, calendar, lecture notes and reading area. However it does not incorporate detailed information or give a week by week breakdown of assignments and instruction. In addition, it does not make use of visual aids or discussion forums. In my exploring of the course, I did not observe any course activities that implemented maximum active learning from the learners. The deficiency occurred because there were no activities that actively engaged the students. I did not observe any technology embedded in the open source that allowed active engagement of the learner. However, I did see an RSS feed that could be used for other technology tools that were not embedded into the open source.

According to Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, (2007), the goal of instructional designers is to make learning more efficient and effective and less difficulty. The designer of the open source stated in the lecture module, that the reading assignments listed in the syllabus would not be used due to the difficulty of understanding it. Therefore, this information should not have been used in designing the course for the students.

In conclusion, I would have to say that this course was not carefully pre-planned for a distance learning environment. It did not incorporate the various technologies that would allow for active engagement and collaboration of the learners. Furthermore, it did not provide clear and detailed information on a daily or weekly basis.

Reference

Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., & Kemp, J. E. (2007). Designing effective instruction (5th ed.).

San Francisco: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Piskurich, G., & Chauser, j. (Directors). (2010). Planning and Designing Online Courses

[Motion Picture].

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning

at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.)Boston, MA: Pearson.