A presentation on the reuse of OER in languages at the Open University

1. Peer Observation of OER (Re-)Use
Tita Beaven and Anna Comas-Quinn,
The Open University, UK
CALICO, Open Education:
Resources and Design for Language Learning
University of Notre Dame, 12-16 June 2012

2. Outline
• A brief introduction to LORO and the OU
context
• Peer observation in a blended context
• OER use and re-use

3. Languages at The Open University
• English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Welsh &
Chinese (beginners to advanced) to 10000+ language
students
• Blended approach: independent study using mixed
media and support inc. face-to-face, synchronous
and asynchronous online teaching
• Course materials produced centrally, teaching
support provided locally
• Course developers and course directors: 45+
academics plus support staff
• Teaching staff: 300+ part-time teachers

4. A blended learning environment
©2012 Open University

5. What was the problem?
• Storing and managing resources for teaching
(servers, the VLE…)
• Finding out what others are doing
• Avoid reinventing the wheel…(30-40 teachers might
be delivering the same course in parallel)
• Sharing resources produced by all colleagues

6. Languages Open Resources Online
http://loro.open.ac.uk
LORO is about:
• ...making all teaching materials for all levels and
languages available to all users,
• …making OU tutorial materials available to the
wider languages community,
• …allowing users to share their own materials with
the whole languages community,
• …starting a change in the way we work
(OER, access, transparency, quality).

9. What are OER?
• Open educational resources are materials used to
support education that may be freely
accessed, reused, modified and shared by
anyone.(Stephen Downes 2011)
• The creator of the resource indicates that they
are for public use and reuse through a
Creative Commons license or similar

12. Teachers are using LORO…
• To find resources for their teaching
“I often also check what other teachers have done to
teach the same topic or a similar structure”
• To find inspiration and ideas
“even if I don’t find anything I can use, it starts the ideas
flowing in my head”
• To standardise their practice and ensure
comparability of the student experience
“to make sure the contents covered in my own
tutorial are similar to those used by the rest of the
course team and tutors”

13. Benefits of using LORO
• Increased confidence in one’s own practice
“Seeing other work enables you to judge your own, and
reassures you that you are doing the right thing”
• Freedom to develop other aspects of one’s
teaching practice
“It gives us time and space to create some individual
styles”
“I can concentrate on how I will teach culture or how to
teach through the asynchronous forum”

14. Benefits of using LORO
• Value of feedback on one’s work
“gives me an opportunity to gain useful feedback on the
work I do”
• … but there are constraints
“peer comment should be extended, but the restraints
of all our workloads make this a problem”
• Increase quality of teaching materials
“sharing the resources I have created with colleagues
stimulates me to write very good materials, test them
and improve them so that they can be used by
someone else. LORO really pushes me to produce
better materials”

15. Quantitative data
• 1.5 million page views to date
• 20,000 downloads in the last 6 months
• over 1100 registered users
• over 2500 resources
• 900+ visitors a month from around the world
(data from LORO inbuilt stats and Google analytics)

16. Success measures
LORO Project, Highly Commended in the
Learning Contexts category
OPAL Awards for Quality and Innovation
through Open Educational Practices.

17. “the open is the enemy of the
knowable” (Beetham, 2011)
http://www.slideshare.net/SCORE/oer-impact-study-marion-manton-
learning-from-oer-research-projects-19th-january-2012

18. Peer observation of teaching
A ‘‘collaborative, developmental activity in which
professionals offer mutual support by observing each other
teach; explaining and discussing what was observed; sharing
ideas about teaching; gathering student feedback on
teaching effectiveness; reflecting on
understandings, feelings, actions and feedback and trying out
new ideas’’.
(Bell, 2005, p. 3)

19. Used in different contexts
for different purposes
• as a developmental tool in the
training of new teachers or in
continuous professional
development;
• as a management tool for quality
monitoring or evaluation of
teachers by their line manager 
it can be felt to be
uncomfortable, intrusive or to
curtail academic freedom.
In the context of continuous
professional learning, then, some
warn that POT should be designed to
be “non-judgemental and
developmental rather than
evaluative and externally required”
(Lomas and
Nicholls, 2005, Hatzipanagos and
Lygo‐Baker, 2006)

20. The developmental nature of POT
For Cosh (1998)
observation is “an
invaluable form of staff
development”, which
can play an important
part in ensuring that
teachers don’t become
“isolated and
routinized”, enabling
teachers to gain
exposure to other
teaching styles and
approaches.

21. POT in the context of
blended teaching and learning?
• POT needs to be extended to other media where
teaching takes place
• It should cover areas such as curriculum
design, the creation of teaching materials, online
teaching , and the whole range of what teachers
do to support learners. (Hatzipanagos and Lygo-
Baker 2006, Bennett and Barp, 2008 Swinglehurst
et al, 2008).
• In the context of the OU? In the context of LORO?

22. The 4 Rs
• Reuse – make exact copies
• Revise – make adaptations
• Redistribute – share copies
• Remix – combinations / mashups
See http://creativecommons.org
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/tag/4rs
BUT: little visible evidence of this

23. Use and reuse
Use and reuse of resources from LORO in tutorials
Resource used as is
Additional wording before
tutorial(student support)
19
Additional wording during
25 tutorial(student support)
Added images/colours (slide design)
Almost identical resource but changes
to the activity
3
New resource based on existing OER in
1
LORO
3 New resource based on existing course
resource not in LORO
3
Totally new resource
16 Reuse of own resource from another
13
setting (1)
1
(1) These were all produced by the same teacher, although in the actual lesson she did not use most of them, and reflected afterwards that she had prepared too

24. Knowledge used by teachers when
(re)using OER
• subject knowledge
• knowledge about the course and the students
• technical knowledge, especially about
Elluminate
• pedagogic knowledge, both in language
teaching and in teaching online via an
audiographic system
• emotional/affective knowledge
• knowledge of other resources in LORO, etc.

32. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is
around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Newbiggin Hall Scouts http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fallen_tree_-_geograph.org.uk_-_495932.jpg

33. Tita Beaven
M.C.Beaven@open.ac.uk
Anna Comas-Quinn
A.Comas-Quinn@open.ac.uk