Asking for advice about (Open Educational Resources)

[An He]

Whenever I finish my school work, I just head to our the library. Lately, I haven't been able to find any book that interests me or rather, having to read books with no supervision/direction from an experienced person is kind of...in-efficient?, confusing, and makes my head hurt a lot whenever I'm given a wide slection of books to pick from. I tried to looking for a mentor/instructor to no avail since everyone's busy.

 

Enter online - I tried looking for mediums similar to youtube "how-to"/"tutorial" videos and stumbled upon Online courses, OERs, OpenCourseWare various other things. So far I've picked the Saylor foundation and Rice's OpenStaxCollege since they seem to fit my needs however, I still lack a mentor/instructor or a knowledgable person willing to guide me.

 

Now my questions are:

1. I'm kind of worried about the quality provided by OERs since...they are Open (similar to wikias; are they prone to vandalism?) hence, will do you think the ones I picked are nice? (not lacking in quality; similar or equal to published books)

 

2. I love forums. Can I somehow ask people here to guide me or is this just a forum for discussion (just making sure since I don't want to be a bother)

 

3. What do you think about the future of Education? Though I haven't researched a lot yet, I can see (based on my initial readings) that there is a possibility that OpenEd may be the main source of Education in the Future.

 

[if that happens, wouldn't R&D be faster since everyone who wants to learn (provided that govts. will lead the initiative to make OER available) may be able to learn? and the more educated people the better right? also, wouldn't research be in a huge collective venue? (If the masses support it then it will progress right? linux, wikipedia, creativecommons, democracy...)]

 

Also, if you have better OER alternatives please do tell.

 

Sorry if I rambled with the brackets, it just kind of...flowed out?

 

Note: Summer, no school, really bored, finished my school books, games, activities etc... (I even got a little-tiny-bit bored with minecraft)

 

Thanks!

Edited May 6, 2015 by An He

[An He]

Another Question if anyone's reading this...

 

Would it be wise to learn C++ as my first programming language or should I pick an easier one to start with (python or java), so I can have a better foundation in programming?

Edited May 7, 2015 by An He

[nudibranche]

I am so pleased with the fact that open education is becoming more widespread - it should be free, and I am happy such amazing people are willing to share their knowledge online for free. Not sure if this answers your question but I always thought coursera was an invaluable resource (also free), and also Khan academy - it's just brilliant (you can find all the videos online, on youtube etc.). In general tutorial videos online are really helpful for me to grasp new concepts, more than books and articles. It's the visual aid that makes it stick.

[amine.ahd]

Another Question if anyone's reading this...

 

Would it be wise to learn C++ as my first programming language or should I pick an easier one to start with (python or java), so I can have a better foundation in programming?

In my experience in my school we started with Pascal since it is fairly simple and then in the university we studied C which by far is more difficult but more rewarding in the end. My advice is just learn and learn and everything will turn out to be good at the end.

Also if you have a specific orientation like web dev for example you may want to learn PHP for back-end for example since C and C++ would be useless for web dev/

[CharonY]

 

 

1. I'm kind of worried about the quality provided by OERs since...they are Open (similar to wikias; are they prone to vandalism?) hence, will do you think the ones I picked are nice? (not lacking in quality; similar or equal to published books)

 

2. I love forums. Can I somehow ask people here to guide me or is this just a forum for discussion (just making sure since I don't want to be a bother)

 

3. What do you think about the future of Education? Though I haven't researched a lot yet, I can see (based on my initial readings) that there is a possibility that OpenEd may be the main source of Education in the Future.

 

1) I guess it all depends on the source, there are good and bad textbooks, too. I am not familiar with the topic or source, so cannot comment on them. Whether they will benefit you depends also on the foundation you have. The further you are, the easier it becomes to learn yourself. But especially at the beginning guidance can save a lot of time.

 

2) If you have specific questions, I am sure that people here (provided they know that topic) are quite helpful in assisting along.

 

3) There are different models implemented in different countries which different levels of access. In Germany, for example, higher education is virtually free (i.e. paid for by taxes). There, OpenEd is less of a hot topic (from what I gather) than e.g. in the US, where financing college can be a major fiscal decision. That being said, there is still uncertainty how to properly implement these approaches. On the other hand, this is true for education in general, we hardly have any real new developments or methods when it comes to education.