Active Learning and Sharing of Educational Resources

Recently I ran across this Native American proverb: "Tell me and I'll forget, show me and I may not remember, involve me, and I'll understand." This quote is a great demonstration of how the concept of active learning has been with us for many, many years. Definitions of what active learning is are somewhat loose, but they basically involve the idea of students "doing" something that will help them to reinforce their learning. The Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology at Illinois State has a wonderful web page with ideas for incorporating active learning into your course: Active Learning While these activities are all geared for the f2f environment, I was surprised at how many of them could be easily adapted for the online environment as well.

Where I ran across the proverb was at WikiEducator: WikiEducator Main Page. I'm currently participating in a workshop about creating open educational resources. These can be learning modules, tutorials, quizzes and other learning tools, any kind of resource that can be used to promote learning. There is a wonderful quote by George Bernard Shaw on their OER page: "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." WikiEducator is working to provide educational resources to those who need them, no matter where they are or how much money they have. The goal is to make a place where knowledge is available for everyone to share and participate in together. If you are interested in seeing what they are doing, or maybe sharing some of your own resources, I encourage you to check their site out.