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<\/a>Donald Clark<\/p><\/div>As the founder of Epic Group, a board member of Interactive University, an award-winning designer of e-learning tools and author of numerous articles on the topic, Donald Clark has \u201cseen it all\u201d in the field of online education and shares his observations frequently on his blog http:\/\/donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com<\/a>. Clark will be one of the keynote speakers at OEB 2009. In the following interview, he shares his excitement about the latest open learning trends.<\/strong><\/p>\n OEB: Mr Clark, you are an old hand in the field of e-learning and have been a member of OEB\u2019s Steering Committee since 2008. Now in the run-up to this year\u2019s conference, what have you found to be the biggest news in the past year?<\/strong> OEB: What developments have excited you the most this year?<\/strong> Then there\u2019s also the rise of free teacher-created content that really took off in 2009. Now that lectures are being recorded and distributed \u2013 often for free \u2013 through YouTube EDU, iTunes U, Open Learn, MIT Courseware and others, anyone can have access to this level of instruction. In fact, these recorded lectures are better than their live originals in many ways, supported by the psychology of learning. The future is increasingly free.<\/p>\n OEB: At the ONLINE EDUCA debate you will be one of our four experts discussing the pros and cons of the Social Web. What is your personal opinion about sites and services such as Facebook? How can these resources be best used to foster the learning process?<\/strong> First, YouTube EDU<\/a>. The concept is simple enough: video lectures are posted with ratings and details of download statistics, from over 320 universities. Compare this with the once a year lecture from a typical living academic \u2013 let\u2019s say 100 students once a year for 15 years (and that\u2019s the absolute maximum). You\u2019re effectively extending the life of a good physics lecturer by thousands of years! Then there\u2019s Open Learn, the Open University\u2019s Moodle-based system is much more sophisticated on support for learners with its learning tools, knowledge maps, shared activities and activity reports. All you need to do is to register with a personal profile. The content and forums are then available for group discussions. You can do the self-assessment, where you answer questions, then compare your answers with model answers. You can rate and review units, create a learning journal and use Learning Space to organise your study. It is pretty impressive. <\/p>\n MITOpenCourseware<\/a> has an annual running cost of $ 3.6 million (10% lower than last year) and they\u2019re constantly lowering their cost base, with over 1900 courses \u2013 some translated \u2013 at both undergraduate and graduate level. This is an astonishingly rich resource of free lecture notes, videos and exams from MIT\u2019s actual courses. There are translations in Chinese, Thai and Persian. The stats are astounding: 40 million visits by 31 million people from almost every country in the world. The majority view this stuff for personal learning (62%). Overall the breakdown is 49% self-learners, 32% students and 16% educators.<\/p>\n The \u2018free\u2019 University of the People<\/a>, (yes free!) has just started this year but puts forward a model that may be ideal for the developing world.<\/p>\n Lastly, Wikibooks<\/a>, Project Gutenberg<\/a> (2.5 million downloads a month), and the whole Open Education movement has changed gear into a real resource that challenges the old model.<\/p>\n OEB: What will you personally investigate at this year\u2019s OEB?<\/strong> OEB: Mr Clark, thank you very much for your time.<\/p>\n At OEB 2009, Donald Clark will argue his case in the ONLINE EDUCA Debate on December 3rd from 17:45 \u2013 19:00. On Friday, December 4th, Clark will chair the session \u201cEU 3D: Ctl+Alt+Delete\u201d from 11:45 \u2013 13:00 and join the \u201cBattle of the Bloggers\u201d from 14:15 \u2013 16:00.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the founder of Epic Group, a board member of Interactive University, an award-winning designer of e-learning tools and author of numerous articles on the topic, Donald Clark has \u201cseen it all\u201d in the field of online education and shares his observations frequently on his blog http:\/\/donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com. Clark will be one of the keynote speakers […]<\/p>\n
\nMr Clark: The biggest news is bad news: Education and training will be forced to do \u2018more for less\u2019 over the next decade. The party is over. This means pushing faster towards the use of technology. Mobile technology such as Android, iPhone, Blackberry, etc. has come of age. They are essentially handheld computers and offer lots to learning. Games have matured out of their \u2018shoot \u2018em up\u2019 niche \u2013 although Modern Warfare is a masterpiece \u2013 offering much in performance simulation. Laptops, notebooks and memory sticks are cheaper than ever before. Then there is Google Wave and the promise of cloud computing. As usual, technology leads the way. Educators are fond of saying \u201cit is not about the technology\u201d. Sorry, but it has everything to do with the technology!<\/p>\n
\nMr Clark: The most interesting general trend is the drift towards the FREE, as described in Chris Anderson\u2019s book FREE \u2013 The Future of a Radical Price. Knowledge is already free. In 1991 the encyclopaedia industry was worth an astonishing $ 1.2 billion: it\u2019s now worth next to nothing. Wikipedia means that the cost to the learner is ZERO. A free, encyclopaedic knowledge base, that is bigger, better, broader and available in more languages than ever before has naturally won the day. The really interesting economic point is that the real money that would previously have been spent on expensive sets of rarely used encyclopaedias can be spent elsewhere. It can be redistributed. We as customers get to keep our money, as well as getting a better product.<\/p>\n
\nMr Clark: Social networking is far more than Facebook. It is Twitter, blogs, YouTube, iTunes, it is every discussion about every article on Wikipedia, forums, chat, e-mail and so on. The truly \u2018social\u2019 stuff works fine as many people link, follow up, suggest and distribute useful knowledge and contacts. I am not really convinced that professional educators should be messing up this dynamic.
\nThe real action, however, is in the media sharing phenomenon, which is part of the social networking world:<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m also impressed by iTunes U<\/a>. Like YouTube EDU, iTunes U is all free content, currently at 200,000 audio and video items from major universities. You can download one or all the tracks on a specific topic. One distinct advantage is that you can play audio or video on your iPod, iTouch, iPhone, MP3 player, Mac or PC. <\/p>\n
\nMr Clark: I suppose I will go to ONLINE EDUCA to be surprised, so rather than attend things I would naturally choose, I would like to pop into things I do not know much about. It is the new, fresh and innovative things I am most keen to see.<\/p>\n