Open Teaching

In August 2008, David Perry, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, announced that anyone could take his class for free. People from outside the course could access lecture materials, listen to the class sessions, and participate in the online discussions. The only drawback was that no credit would be given unless you enrolled in the course (i.e., paid the course fees). According to Perry, “The knowledge is free, the degree will cost you money.” Experimenting with technology is not new to Perry. In February 2008, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that this professor was using Twitter in his "Introduction to Computer-Mediated Communication" course.

Today's issue of The Chronicle outlines three new courses to add to the open teaching experiment. They include:

1. "Connectivism and Connective Knowledge" taught by Stephen Downes and George Siemens.
2. "Open, Connected, Social" taught by Alec Couros, information and communication technology coordinator for the School of Education at the University of Regina, in Saskatchewan
3. An open-education course taught last fall by David Wiley, then a professor at Utah State University and now at Brigham Young University

Jeffery R. Young is the author of this article, and posts his thoughts on the open teaching experiment here.