CK12.ORG- OPEN COURSE LEARNING FOR K-12 LEARNERS

Open Course Ware provides free, online learning through text materials, podcasts, activities, assessments, recorded lessons, and more.  CK-12 provides learning opportunities for elementary through high school level learners and integrates a number of multimedia components.   

When you access this site, use the following site link:

                Site: https://www.ck12.org

I selected a Physics Course, CK-12 Physical Science Concepts for Middle School.  Immediately, I was able to locate several texts and downloaded a Flex Book.  There is a reading area, including information and examples, embedded videos, exercises, questions that are scored electronically, quizzes, study guides, eFlash Cards, course objectives, and critical thinking questions. 

There are a multitude of subjects, topics, sub-topics for study within this Open Course resource.  Individuals may also select basic study or study at a level.  The text materials are high quality, the embedded videos are clearly provided by subject matter experts, and the automated scoring provides quick feedback.  Every aspect of this Open Course appears to be asynchronous.  

 This course does appear to be carefully preplanned and designed for a distance learning environment.  There are course objectives and different levels available, showing attention to Analysis.  Attention to design is also evident in the course layout, which is user-friendly and organized systematically and logically.  The instructional designers also developed numerous text-type materials, which can be downloaded in PDF, mobi, or ePub.  Implementation of  the course occurred when the course was shared online.  The inclusion of multimedia components, text, activities, assessments, provides critical learning opportunities and navigation control to the learners.   While I navigated through the learning objects, pop-ups would appear.  The pop-ups asked if I was finding the information I was looking for through yes or no questions and allows for short-entry explanations.  This is clearly part of the instructional designers’ evaluation process.  Through these observations, I would have to conclude that the instructional designers did follow the ADDIE process.

This course also follows many recommendations for online instruction.  Dr. Piskurich explained that planning is imperative and is often provided through a syllabus or instructional plan (2010).  Under the details tab within the course, the instructional designers list a description, course objectives, difficulty level (select level), categories, and national standards.  Dr. Piskurich specifically addressed the importance of identifying what students need to know through writing course objectives (2010).  I perused several courses besides the one I specified at CK-12 and found course objectives were evident in every instance.

The activities are clearly tied to the course objectives.  There are questions and quizzes that directly align with the instruction and the instruction closely follows the objects.  Some of these activities even include simulations.  The videos include experiments, which also follows the objectives and aligns with text materials.  Although there does not seem to be a forum to express student responses, the designers have also included over-arching questions to encourage higher-level thinking.

Dr. Piskurich also emphasize two main considerations when determining when to use technology, first ensuring that learners have access to the technology and then ensuring that learners know how to use technology (2010).  One instance that I observed this with CK-12 was with different choices for downloading materials.  Accessibility would be an issue for learners with no technology available, however learners can download via PDF to a computer (or most devices) with internet access, iPad, Android, and/or Kindles. The pop-up questions from CK-12 inquire about student’s ease of use, which would indicate that information is being gathered to improve usability.  

Margaret Turner explains that there is interconnectedness between ideas (2007, p.57), which the designers of CK-12 also have demonstrated in their use of “tags” to other related topics.  Turner also emphasizes that information changes (p.57) and CK-12 allows instructors to add content.  There is evidence within this Open Source that there are new developments in process and an effort given to providing updated information.

Turner outlines several major ways that writing habits change in preparing learning through technology.  To summarize, layout must be consistent with a computer screen versus printed page, utilize effective font, provide learner control, and approach each piece as its own entity which can be taken with consideration of other parts or on its own (2007, p.62-63).  CK-12 segments each lesson, which isolates key concepts and allows the learner to move on to the next idea at his or her own pace.  It also provides connections through tags and each lesson builds upon the prior, while also working independently.   Text is laid out in a manner that increases readability and follows a natural and logical sequence.  

Blogs with RSS feeds and Wikis are also described as powerful tools to increase collaboration and interactive learning (Beldarrain, 2006, p. 142-143).  As I have navigated through CK-12, I have not found evidence that either of these tools are utilized.  Since this Open Course is not facilitated by an instructor and the target audience are school aged children, there may be some concerns with using blogs and wikis without moderation.  However,  the addition of either or both would certainly enhance the experience for learners.  If the courses are being used by classroom teachers or homeschool families, then the teacher or learning coach can provide more interactivity and collaboration.  However, these are not present within the course or any that I have found from free sites.  

I am truly shocked by the highly engaging, relevant, and standards-based learning products provided by Open Source sites such as CK-12.  Learning independently online can be overwhelming because there is an abundance of information to choose from, however CK-12 provides an organized solution.  The major benefit of paid courses is the interactivity between peers and the instructor via discussions, blogs, and sometimes synchronous classrooms.  If CK-12 could provide monitored blogs with RSS feeds (filtering out inappropriate comments), interactivity would be greatly enhanced with minimal costs.  However, as an asynchronous learning course CK-12 embodies many qualities of effective instructional design.

References

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2), 139–153.

Laureate Education, Inc. (2010). Planning and Designing Online Courses [Video Presentation]. Baltimore, MD. Dr. George Piskurich and Jacqueline Chauser.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education. (5^th ed.).  Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Turner, M. (2007). Contemporary approach to writing non-linear online learning resources. Journal of Learning Design, 2(2), 56-69.