Ruszkowski,+Barbara-Midterm

OER and Wikis at Padua Academy A Proposal for Padua Administors Barbara Ruszkowski, Librarian July 2011 For learners of the 21st century, print will no longer be the dominant medium of communication. To support student learning in our rapidly changing education environment, many educators have embraced a new way of providing instruction, the Open Education Resources Movement. Open Source resources are available online, free of copyright restrictions, and editable. Here is a definition from the //OER Handbook//: “The term ‘Open Educational Resource(s)’ (OER) refers to educational resources (lesson plans, quizzes, syllabi, instructional modules, simulations, etc.) that are freely available for use, reuse, adaptation, and sharing.” The //Handbook// states the purpose of OER this way: “The aim of OER is to improve access to learning opportunities by sharing knowledge and learning resources.” Unlike traditional educational materials, OER materials are open for use because they all fall under a less restrictive type of copyright than traditional materials do. This is called Creative Commons licensing. The six types of CC licensing all require attribution to the original source, but they allow use for a variety of purposes. One type of OER that would serve the needs of the students at Padua Academy is a wiki, a website in which content can be created and edited by a community of users. The most famous wiki is //Wikipedia//, but wikis can be used for small and large projects in both open and closed communities. My proposal is to introduce OER use at Padua with the creation and use of a wiki for National History Day. This wiki would be searchable, organized by categories, and available to students and families via the Internet. It would be easy for students to contribute to the content with their expertise and insight. The wiki would be reached through our closed-community Google apps platform, so it would be free of cost and safe from outsiders.
 * What are OER and wikis? **

We have discussed and acknowledged the need to make the library resources accessible beyond the restrictions of the school day. The proposed wiki would fit the needs of students embarking on the challenging, complicated, yet rewarding National History Day projects by creating a space for locating key reference resources, obtaining guides and answers to common questions, providing definitions of important terms, assisting with examples, keeping students aware of key benchmark dates, and allowing those working on the same or overlapping topics to share resources and discoveries for the benefit of all. The flexibility of the wiki format would allow me to respond in a timely way to students’ needs. For example, if a student sends a question in an email, I could respond not only in a reply email, but also by making the answer available to all students in a wiki entry or a link to more information. The answer would be easily accessed in the future.
 * How will the //Padua NHD Wiki// respond to our needs? **

Writing in the 21st century is not the same as writing in the previous times. In the past, students composed academic writing alone, in response to a specific assignment, usually with the teacher as the intended audience. An article in the //NCTE Journal// suggests that in the 21st century, the predominate impetus for student writing is “to participate”. Writing to add to or edit a wiki is a means to joining a community of writers and scholars. We know that for our population of adolescent girls, the social aspect of learning is primary. Participating in a wiki would give our students both an authentic audience and a sense of empowerment; their comments, insights, and achievements would be available to everyone in our Padua community. The //OER Handbook// suggest that participating in OER resources can help students to transform from being consumers to being producers by working with their teachers to co-design and co-create learning materials and activities. In the area of learning and lesson design, OER, such as the proposed wiki, will facilitate the logical trend towards backwards design in lesson planning. We can begin with the goals of a successful NHD project and then provide the tools to help students achieve that goal.
 * What evidence shows that the //Padua NHD Wiki// will support student learning? **

The largest foreseeable roadblocks are linked together. Staff members who are unfamiliar with these types of educational resources might not understand their value, or they might question the validity of allowing any student to edit or add to the wiki. Related to that, if teachers do not embrace the wiki, the tool will not be promoted to the students, so they may not use it. The answer to both difficulties is, of course, sharing. I would like time at a faculty meeting early in the year to preview the idea of the wiki and OER with the entire staff. After that, I will follow up by requesting time at a history department meeting to specifically share the wiki and invite members of the department to contribute or suggest changes and additions. The essential aspect of OER is an environment of respect and collaboration. It is my responsibility, along with the help of my administrators, to set and maintain that tone with both colleagues and students. Staff and students are already familiar with Google apps, and all have Gmail accounts, so there is no foreseeable difficulty with the technology aspect of the proposal. In addition, our Google apps are available to us at no cost, so the budget should be fine.
 * What are some possible roadblocks to the proposed wiki and how might they be overcome? **


 * Why should the Padua administrators approve this proposal? **
 * ** Make library resources more accessible **
 * ** Promote use of subscription library resources **
 * ** Teach research skills **
 * ** Content responsive to student needs **
 * ** Contribute to academic learning community **
 * ** Support collaboration **
 * ** INCREASE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT **

References

Boeninger, C. (2005, July 13). A wiki as a research guide [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://libraryvoice.com/​wikis/​a-wiki-as-a-research-guide

// OER handbook //. (n.d.). Retrieved July, 2011, from Center for Open and Sustainable Learning website: http://wikieducator.org/​OER_Handbook

Pink, D. (2008, December 4). Education and the changing world of work [Video file]. Retrieved from Discovery Education database.

Yancey, K. B. (2009, February). //Writing in the 21st century// (Monograph). Retrieved from NCTE website: [|http://www.ncte.org/​library/​NCTEFiles/]​ Press/​Yancey_final.pdf