Quest 1
Carefully review the following sites that publish open educational resources, noting the types of media predominantly used by each site and any site characteristics that seem unique. Be certain to review a sufficient sample of courses per site to gain accurate insight into their practice. Write a substantive post with references on the variety of media used within the movement.
- MIT OCW
- Berkeley
- Yale
- Stanford
- Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
- Connexions
- Open University of the UK
Quest 2
Gather data from a variety of sources (e.g., FAQs, publications, email or phone interviews, &c.) to understand why the initiatives you scouted for the Level 1 Quest use the media they do. What factors and what types of considerations went into their decision-making process? What software and other tools are used in the production process (authoring, management, &c.)? Write a substantive post with references on why and how these sites publish and share the way they do.
Quest 3
Produce an open educational resource in the style of each of the initiatives you scouted for the Quest 1. The resources should each cover the same topic, in the spirit of Alan Levine’s 50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story. Share your resources and describe and defend your design and development decisions in a blog post.
Quest 4
Conduct an interview with three leaders in the field of open education. Learn about new or particularly interesting projects. Be sure to allow enough time for one or more of your interviews to be postponed and still complete the Quest on time. Write a substantive post with references about the state-of-the-art in the field.
Quest 5
Many BYU faculty already openly share their syllabi and other course materials on personal websites, through iTunesU, and through other mechanisms. Work with the Bard in your Guild, who will find as many of the open educational resources being shared by BYU faculty as they can, and evaluate the open education work being done at BYU in light of open education programs at other universities. Most open education programs have audiences outside the institution as their primary focus. What improvements would you recommend to BYU’s existing efforts if the primary goal of the open education program at BYU were improving undergraduate learning (and all social/external impacts were secondary)? Present your thoughts to a meeting of the Guilds. We will record your presentation and post it online.
Quest 6
Much of the open education movement resides in higher education. Work with the other members of your Guild to locate and organize a sufficient number of open educational resources to teach a semester-long high school course. Discuss the course you have selected with the game master before beginning this quest. Use the State of Utah Core Curriculum Standards as your guide to what needs to be included in the course. Present the course design and structure (specifically, the tools you will use in authoring, managing, and delivering the resources), materials you’ve aggregated, necessary adaptations, IP problems, and an estimate of time and effort spent to a meeting of the Guilds. We will record your presentation and post it online.