OER at Melbourne University

After my post last week on the growing popularity of Open Education Resources, I was very much interested in the Saturday's Age article about how the number of people enrolled in free online subjects at Melbourne University has overtaken enrolments at its campuses.This is amazing as this service  was only launched in September! Since then, more than 52,000 students have enrolled in the University's MOOCS.This is 5,000 more than students enrolled in undergraduate and post graduate courses!

Melbourne  University has joined a host of institutions,like Harvard and Berkely  who are offering free online courses,partnering with online course provider,Coursera.
The courses mostly run for about seven weeks and include lectures, videos, quizzes and the opportunity to discuss ideas in chat rooms.Although classes are not-for-credit and no academic awards are granted,certificates are received at the completion of the courses.

The article also mentioned that La Trobe University  offers online lectures through the iTunes U service.

I was also alerted this week to the very interesting video below which is about the future of learning in a networked world.I hope you can find the time to watch it, as its ideas are very thought provoking,exciting and challenging.The video features well known eduational thinkers,Stephen Heppell,Sugata Mitra and Seth Godin who speak about how technology is impacting on learning. Also,the CEO of Coursera speaks about the growth of their online course platform.






For more information about MOOCS watch the video below

ABC Splash: Aunty Taking a Dive!

A brand new online resource  for K-12 students and teachers has just been launched called
ABC Splash. It is a partnership between the ABC and Education Services Australia and provides 100's of free video clips, infographics and  over 200 educational games.These have been  specially selected for Australian schools with links to the Australian Curriculum.
It is visually vey appealing,with large icons to help teachers and stuednts get around easily.You have the option of searching for content by learning area or by phase of schooling.The site acts as a media archive and the clips come from a range of ABC programs including BTN, Catalyst, The 7:30 Report and Four Corners.

An excellent feature is the information box that accompanies each resource.This helps students to correctly cite their work,whilst checking and adhering to copyright details, a great tool for teaching digital literacy.

The ABC promise significantly more content in the coming weeks and so this is the start of a very exciting journey for the ABC and its partner, Education Services Australia.