The Impact of Open Source

http://www.openculture.com/

 

The Open Culture website is a combination of MOOC (Massive Open Online course) and online courses that highlights courses created by other educational venues.  The Open Culture website offers increased return on investment for other educational venues and provides increased access for students whenever and wherever as if they were face to face in a classroom, which relates to the equivalency theory (Laureate Education, 2012). Courses on the website appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment.  There are many topics in modules that are not placed in any particular sequence or order (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright & Zvacek, 2012). The design of this website is “learner-directed”and the learners decide in what order the topics are studied (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright & Zvacek, 2012). The website provides ways to organize courses which follows the recommendation for online instruction (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright & Zvacek, 2012). The courses are organized by the topic which explains, clarifies and supports the modules. The idea is to keep the website simple and in order for the student to easily navigate as well as provide increased access for students (Laureate Education, 2012).

 

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance. [vodcast]. “Theory and Distance Learning”. Boston, MA: Dr. Michael Simonson.ce

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and Learning at a Distance: foundations of Distance Education. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.