My experience of online open education has consisted of the following
The Open University (this unit and E891)
The International Baccalaureate online workshops (www.ibo.org)
Cambridge English Teacher online professional development (http://www.cambridgeenglishteacher.org/)
I have found them all to be a little different, my current OU module is much more collaborative than my previous one and is much more directed by our tutor (which I like)
The IBO has quite specific deadlines as it is only 6 weeks in length sometimes shorter and has short targetted tasks, which must be completed in order to pass the course
The Cambridge course is relatively open ended as can be completed within one year, it is still graded via online tests so in my opinion valid and I receive a certificate from it also
I dislike courses that are vague, non-directed by tutors, relatively open ended and free as I feel they are then invalid in the eyes of many institutions and do not contribute towards accredited professional development
Comments
New comment
Your last paragraph really strikes a chord with me and is something that I struggled with whilst completing H800. It is all well and good having all these open resources but if these are not valued by educational establishments, employers, really, what is the point.
I very much believe in learning for its own sake but, when we are asked about open education and we take the definition of education to be a more formal definition, in the sense that it leads to valued learning, I don't know that even the best do this. I love OpenLearn and would recommend it to anyone, but the badges have little transferable meaning - I am pretty sure that even the OU would not accept these as credit points towards a degree!
If you don't mind I may well lend from this post for my second assignment when I consider the risks of open education.
New comment
I was thinking about this too, that the 'open learning' paradigm seems to me to be most relevant for people who are learning just out of 'idle curiosity'. I am hoping that in my dotage I will have enough brain cells and time to be able to do that, but for the moment I find that I'm very task oriented in doing any formal learning, which I take to mean also 'signing up' for an endeavour even if it's accepted that one receives no consequences for dropping out.
New comment
As with the other comments, I also agree on the issue of badges. I'm currently working with a company who award badges as part of the gamification of the learning experience. They really want a university to validate these badges to a CEFR level - but that is so diffcult to do. Without this though, how transferable are the badges/qualifications. I've registered with credly to see how the badge thing works - but is it just going to be another gimmick in a course already crowded with apps, external websites etc.