Today Prof. Maznah has invited Dr. Al Saadi for a thought-provoking talk about open educational resources (OER). The UNISCO defined Open Educational Resources (OER) as teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

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Getting to know about open educational resources has open my horizons regarding knowledge sharing and production. The fact the needs of so many younger and older generations are heading towards materialism, the need to know truth facts and realities do help holding that materialism to a more balanced state. An urgent need that I strongly believe will broaden narrow thoughts and narrow mere materialistic greed.

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The UNESCO affirmed the target audience of OER with these words “You don’t have to be a teacher or a student to understand the importance of OERs. Free information is a fundamental human right, and OERs make it possible for people of all ages and backgrounds to learn more about the world around them and access the tools they need to improve their lives and livelihoods.”

Such a move, raising public awareness, reminds me with a famous Arabic saying “Law doesn’t protect ignorants.” It is such a good deed, a superb opportunity to address the whole community to high-quality knowledge with minimum costs. It is a real invitation to smash outdated boxes of fossilized knowledge and to open doors to up-dated and trusted streams of knowledge.

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Before now, I didn’t know that I have such a successful experience with OER that started with a thrive of knowledge on certain new areas of knowledge and old areas of interests. In 2015 I opt to apply for an international standardized test for a job application, that test required me to navigate the internet for further information and familiarization. I ended up with an OER platform that offers courses to train individuals who are interested in different areas and language was one of them. That platform is Future Learn. My endeavour ended up with learning about language, culture, business, media and many other things. What I like most about this platform is the planning and the encouragement to develop communities of practice out of each course. I still enjoy the use of Future learn because it is a personal choice, satisfies personal inquiries and offers high quality short courses, in-depth courses and online degrees.

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Another unique experience that I have been exposed to is American English E-Teacher Fall 2018 course conducted by Iowa State University and offered by the US Department of State and FHI360 on Using educational technology in the English language classroom. The course participants were nominated by MoE for each country. By the end of the eight-week course, I came to believe that I technology integration certainly satisfies students’ wants since technology dominates students’ interests and real-life practices. However, technology integration in general and particularly in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) should be a well-planned process that aims at adding value to the students’ learning experience not disturb it. I personally think that this can be achieved if the technology integrated is student-centered, meaningful to the curriculum and the students, encompasses comprehensible input, sufficiently simulates students’ cognition, behaviors, and affections, consider multiple modalities and interactive (Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 2018)[1]. 

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In conclusion, OER are a chance to it assist knowledge seekers meet intended expectations in a world that recognizes skills; it is a golden chance that should be embraced by the educated and promoted amongst those who were deprived to stand still against knowledge monopoly, ignorance and naive decisions.

           

 

Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2018, from    http://www2.nkfust.edu.tw/~emchen/CALL/unit1.htm