Teresa Connolly

Adapting and Sharing Open Educational Resources: A Social Networking Approach

Open educational resources (OER) have recently emerged as an answer to the need for open and reusable educational material, freely available online. This paper describes a social networking approach in adapting and sharing OER. This approach aims to address the needs of a variety of stakeholders, including educational institutions, private organisations, as well as individual learners and educators.

A Survey into the Teacher's Perception of Self-Regulated Learning

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is a term that describes an individuals ability to learn how to learn. New pedagogical theories encourage teachers to motivate and support their students into achieving a high level of self-regulation in their learning. This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a survey that was conducted with educators in the UK and abroad, regarding their perception of SRL. The results of this survey provide an insight into the challenges involved in teaching students with different SRL levels, as well as the instruments used by teachers to encourage SRL among their students.

Collaborative learning 2.0 : open educational resources

Current advances and convergence trends in Web 2.0 have changed the way we communicate and collaborate, and as a result, user-controlled communities and user-generated content through Web 2.0 are expected to play an important role for collaborative learning. Collaborative Learning 2.0: Open Educational Resources offers a collection of the latest research, trends, future development, and case studies within the field. Without solid theoretical foundation and precise guidelines on how to use OER and Web 2.0 for collaborative learning, it would certainly be very difficult to obtain all the benefits that these “user-generated content, resources and tools” promise. The purpose of this handbook is to understand how OERs and Web 2.0 can be deployed successfully to enrich the collaborative learning experience and ensure a positive outcome in terms of user generated knowledge and development of skills.

Self-regulated learning in formal education: perceptions, challenges and opportunities

Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) is a term that can be used to describe an individuals ability to develop a skill set allowing him or her to learn in a number of different ways. SRL can also relate to new pedagogical theories that encourage teachers in formal education to motivate and support their students into achieving a high level of self-regulation. This paper reports on the findings of a number of surveys conducted with a wide variety of teachers in different countries, regarding their perceptions of SRL. The results and analysis of these surveys help inform not only the perceptions of SRL amongst teachers but also examine the challenges and opportunities that arise from taking this approach.

Case Study 3: Exploring Open Educational Resources for Informal Learning

This chapter explores the potential of informal learning within a Personal Learning Environment (PLE), as well as the identified informal learning cultures that have evolved from the use of Open Educational Resources (OER). A variety of research instruments and strategies have been employed to promote the use of PLEs in this case study and capture a rich variety of feedback from Communities of Practice. In particular, there is a focus on the active use of a PLE and its integration with OER available from the OpenLearn project of the Open University. Additionally, this chapter describes the discovered necessary guidance conditions, emergent contrasting learning contexts and evolving different scenarios in use within the selected Communities of Practice. This research has led to the identification of valuable lessons as well as the documentation of challenges that are faced by those using PLEs in the context of informal learning scenarios.