During the OER project meetings I’ve been sitting and thinking.
In the olden days I used to make little resources – things like animations or spreadsheets that illustrated some abstruse aspect of analytical chemistry or simple web pages. At the time I thought these were really clever and I put them on my home space for students to access. I also, from time to time, did a vanity search to see who was linking to my resources. People did and I was chuffed. Then we got a VLE and all of these resources became available only to students who were logged in. Although I continue to develop little resources, and although my own students continue to like them, I have gradually lost my confidence and now I’d worry quite a lot about putting them out there. Are they as clever as I think? Are they pedagogically sound? Have I dropped any absolute clangers? If there are any problems my students haven’t noticed, but perhaps others would. As an older person I was more cautious so I kept my efforts hidden.
But I shouldn’t. I should share. After all, if people don’t like the resources they can always edit and adapt.
I was just on the point of doing the right thing when I read about the Khan backlash. If you don’t know about the Khan Academy and the way in which it has been pilloried recently then just type “khan academy backlash” into Google and read some stuff. So, what should I do? I know the Khan stuff isn’t perfect, and perhaps the claims of ‘hype’ have some basis, but do the benefits justify the risk?
Help. What should I do?
I can see why you are nervous but part of me thinks this is the risk any of us run when doing something different – it is scary – I am very scared that my homespun/rapidly developed videos – on a topic that is complex, individual and still evolving in practice – are being released as open source material but I also know I have benefited from similarly amateur productions/shared material and I value that. I suppose villification may not be that uncommon for those pioneers who question convention and go against the status quo -others potentially have a lot to lose plus critique is the lifeblood of academia after all. I haven’t looked at the detail so in terms of content some of the criticisms may be correct but there is no compulsion to use the material – as some commentators have noted – this is is a decision each individual must make. I suppose the other difference between the likes of the Kahn Academy and people like us sharing our resources is that – at least at this stage – we are very tiny fish in a large pond – although I guess Kahn thought the same when he first started – it seems to me it has only grown because others found it useful even if they didn’t necessarily agree with all of it – that in itself should say something?