QUESTIONS: What do these representative open education projects have in common? What differentiates them? In the context of open education projects, what does "quality" mean?
These representative open education projects all offer online free materials for learners and instructors. All of them provide summaries or outlines for courses to help users get a quick picture of the whole contents. Creating free online materials is the goal for these projects, and their central idea is bring something good to human kinds. Those projects are all engaged in designing higher-quality materials to fit the needs of a variety of learners. In addition, helping users learn by their space and get the highest learning performance as learners expect would be the objectives for these projects.
Although all of the courses from different projects are offered through internet, they have different designed interfaces. As for the format of course cotents, most of the projects, such as Open U., Rice Connexions, Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative, MIT OCW, and NROC, provide web-based course content; that is, you can read the contents directly through the internet. UNESCO, instead of providing web-based contents, mainly offer pdf. documents for learners to download. Printable documents are also provided Rice Connexions and MIT. In addition, almost projects have their own uniform format for the layout of course except for the Rice Connexions. As we can observe, each project presents their courses in the same uniform. However, it seems courses in Rice Connexions don’t follow the same format sometimes. For instance, some of Rice Connexions courses, instead of presenting contents directly on the webpage, provide links to other websites designed by the instructors.
As for the online course number, MIT OCW and UNESCO have the most amounts of courses. MIT OCW provides about 1800 courses which are categorized by department. UNESCO has about 1243 courses which are categorized into 21 subjects. 306 courses are created by Open, and they are classified into 11 areas. Rice Connexions has about 244 courses from 6 subjects. It seems that Rice Connexions is focusing on providing science & technology related courses. More than half of the courses, 155 courses, are regarding the contents of science & technology. No education courses are found in Rice Connexions. Similarly, NROC also provides more science-related courses that are categorized by the level of college, advanced placement, and high school. Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative has 9 courses.
As for the search engine, most of projects provide this function except for CMU and NROC. Rice Connexions search engine allows learners to search by titles, courses, or authors. Basic search and advanced search which focus on the search of units are both provides in Open U. Most projects are English-based websites. Rice Connexions and UNESCO have some courses which are translated into different languages. Rice Connexions support for about 17 languages, but not for all courses. UNESCO has some printable pdf. learning materials for other languages, such as French, French, Spanish, Arabic, etc. MIT OCW materials have been translated into at least 10 languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, French, German, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian.
Learner-centered design can be observed in these websites. Rice Connexions also emphasizes on how to help instructors create an online material. It provides detailed directions for instructors. As for assessment mechanism for learners, most of their assessments are based on activities, quizzes, tests, etc. Assessment is found in each course in NROC. As for other courses in other 5 projects, not all of them include assessment.
Most of learning websites presented static learning materials, not filled with lots of interactive multimedia. Compared to other 5 projects, NROC provides more interactive multimedia learning environments which help students engage in learning processes. NROC provides audios/videos for each course. Similarly, CMU also provides some interactive learning tools to enable instructors or students without programming expertise to create simulation-based learning activities. Generally, all of these OER projects provides feedback or chances for discussion through discussion forum, email service, etc. Learner can find a ways to solve their problems by contacting course instructors or though collaborative discussion with learners around the world.
In the context of open education projects, I think the quality means the way in which those learning materials are presented through the internet, the depth of contents, the clearness of contents, etc. Basically, quality of open education projects can be spilt into two parts: 1. the content: profession, depth, clearness, abundance, correctness, feedback, interaction, etc. 2. The functionality of the course websites: user friendly interface, the arrangement of color, the way of presenting courses, search engine, the resolution of graphics or videos, etc. The quality of contents of OER can be assured by professionals in specific areas. The present of learning materials can be worked through the collaboration among course designers, professionals, instructors, and learners. Sometimes, professionals do not know how to present their learning contents appropriately to learners. Course designers can provide strategies to help professional to arrange course contents in the way by which learners can easily grasp the central. Learner can provide their learning experience to professionals or instructor to help them modify the description of contents which is more understandable to learners. To sum up, OER with good quality means not only having professional contents which meets the learning needs of learners, but also having an appropriate way to present the course contents.
2007年9月29日 星期六
2007年9月23日 星期日
OpenEd: Week 4
QUESTIONS: What do these overviews of the field have in common? What do they emphasize differently? What are the aims of the authors of each report? Do you see a bias toward or against any ideas, organizations, or approaches in any of the reports? Which report spoke the most clearly to you, and why do you think it did? Based on where the field is now, and these initial ideas about where it might go, what part of the open education movement is most interesting to you? Why?
These overviews talk about open educational resources, and try to give readers an brief picture of OER based on descriptions from different areas, such as the basics concepts of open educational resources, the teaching and learning issue, technology availability, copyright, the model, etc. Those overviews bring readers a variety of sub-issues in relation to OER, and it seems OER is broken down to a variety of pieces. However, we may find that the central idea of these overviews is that doing something good to people, and OER was initiated based on this good idea at the beginning.
Based on the central idea, basically, each part of the overviews is trying to exploring new ways or methods to improve the development of OER, the availability of OER, and the sustainability of OER from the perspectives of education, society, technology, and humanity. In addition, how to overcome difficulties and challenge some tough things is also an important concern. In general, the central goal that how to continue OER and makes it sustainable and brings more benefits to human kinds is the common part for the overviews.
As for the different emphasizes, I think it will be the way that they talk about OER. OER is addressed from different perspectives. For instance, you will consider how OER would have an impact on instructors and learners, what functionality should be improved for technology, what is the role that the government should play, what kind of copy right issues that OER comes about, what the influence of OER for global learning, what is the impact of OER to science learning, etc. We can find that those reports are written in different ways which lead readers to a broaden views of OER. Each chapter that focuses on different topic is part the issue of OER. It talks about OER from the concerns of society, education, technology, humanity.
Week 2 reading entitled giving knowledge for free mainly talks about the emergence of OER, and bring readers to a brief overview of OER related issues. Week 3 reading talks more about OER. It pointed out the necessity for OER to move on, and the competences that OER can bring to us in the knowledge society, especially for life-long learners. In addition, it indicates some models of OER, and recommendations for learners, teachers, policy makers, etc. This week focus mainly on the challenges and new opportunities for the future.
What is interesting to me is about the influence of OER on life-long learning. The article indicated OER will be a future trend for life-learners. I am curious about this topic. I think OER will be a good benefit for life-long learners since it is free and most of them have high-quality. People who have left school or are in the workplace have more opportunities to get more free resources from OER based on their own needs. Self-directed learning will be dominant in this kind of learning situation. Learners can learn by their own steps, and it will be more flexible for them to learn something that they are interested in. However, I might wonder if there is enough feedback for learners since there are no instructors who need to answer your questions. Similarly, there are no instructors who will push you to finish some contents based on the schedule that has been arranged. So how can we adjust the learning performance from learners? I am wondering, but maybe it's not the main point. What we must concern is that how OER can bring more benefits to people.
These overviews talk about open educational resources, and try to give readers an brief picture of OER based on descriptions from different areas, such as the basics concepts of open educational resources, the teaching and learning issue, technology availability, copyright, the model, etc. Those overviews bring readers a variety of sub-issues in relation to OER, and it seems OER is broken down to a variety of pieces. However, we may find that the central idea of these overviews is that doing something good to people, and OER was initiated based on this good idea at the beginning.
Based on the central idea, basically, each part of the overviews is trying to exploring new ways or methods to improve the development of OER, the availability of OER, and the sustainability of OER from the perspectives of education, society, technology, and humanity. In addition, how to overcome difficulties and challenge some tough things is also an important concern. In general, the central goal that how to continue OER and makes it sustainable and brings more benefits to human kinds is the common part for the overviews.
As for the different emphasizes, I think it will be the way that they talk about OER. OER is addressed from different perspectives. For instance, you will consider how OER would have an impact on instructors and learners, what functionality should be improved for technology, what is the role that the government should play, what kind of copy right issues that OER comes about, what the influence of OER for global learning, what is the impact of OER to science learning, etc. We can find that those reports are written in different ways which lead readers to a broaden views of OER. Each chapter that focuses on different topic is part the issue of OER. It talks about OER from the concerns of society, education, technology, humanity.
Week 2 reading entitled giving knowledge for free mainly talks about the emergence of OER, and bring readers to a brief overview of OER related issues. Week 3 reading talks more about OER. It pointed out the necessity for OER to move on, and the competences that OER can bring to us in the knowledge society, especially for life-long learners. In addition, it indicates some models of OER, and recommendations for learners, teachers, policy makers, etc. This week focus mainly on the challenges and new opportunities for the future.
What is interesting to me is about the influence of OER on life-long learning. The article indicated OER will be a future trend for life-learners. I am curious about this topic. I think OER will be a good benefit for life-long learners since it is free and most of them have high-quality. People who have left school or are in the workplace have more opportunities to get more free resources from OER based on their own needs. Self-directed learning will be dominant in this kind of learning situation. Learners can learn by their own steps, and it will be more flexible for them to learn something that they are interested in. However, I might wonder if there is enough feedback for learners since there are no instructors who need to answer your questions. Similarly, there are no instructors who will push you to finish some contents based on the schedule that has been arranged. So how can we adjust the learning performance from learners? I am wondering, but maybe it's not the main point. What we must concern is that how OER can bring more benefits to people.
2007年9月16日 星期日
OpenEd: Week 3
In this week reading, the content is focusing on how OER has an influence on teaching and learning, and provides a set of activities in the Open e-Learning Content Observatory Services (OLCOS) project to help readers understand what kind of role that OER should play in the knowledge economy and society. OER not only leverage education and life-long learning, but it also emphasizes the importance of promoting innovation and change in education practices.
Teacher-centered or subject-centered learning usually exists in the traditional learning environments. Generally, in such an environment, students often follow the teaching steps from instructors, and do what the instructors expect. As we can imagine, the opportunities of interaction between teachers and students are not noticeable. I have experienced lots of teacher-centered learning when I was in Taiwan. I remember that in high school, most often my classmates and I just paid attention to the address of the instructor, and kept on writing down or copying contents on the blackboard. We accepted what teachers taught without suspicion. That is, we seldom try to think some concepts deeply or understand what those concepts mean to us. Instead, we grabbed knowledge as soon as possible, and hoped to get high grades in the exam. I think that most Asian people may get used to this kind of passive learning environment.
Compared to teacher-centered learning, student-centered learning pays more attention to the needs of students. Students are viewed as main subjects during learning processes. Teachers will adjust their teaching styles and observe the actions of students during class. Usually, interactions and collaborative learning practices are the methods to bring students to engage in the learning processes. Through discussion, students express what they understand and listen to different opinions from a variety of people who have different ways of thinking. Teachers would be like facilitators for individuals, and provide proper assistance.
As indicated, the open learning environments would like to promote learning based on the concept of student-centered learning. Unlike the dominant concept of educational contents as canned products that are produced by a few educational providers, OER concentrate on content creation, sharing, and re-use among teachers and students. Collaborative ideas are deeply embedded in the creation of free contents. Although teachers are usually viewed as the main providers of editing, organizing contents, students’ participation in editing is also important because OER highly values the knowledge which is created and modified by teachers and learners.
Constructivism is inherent in the Open learning environment. Teachers and learners are participants of learning communities, and have an equal right to modify contents. Discussion is a way for those online users to construct new ideas or solve problems collaboratively. A constructivism environment gives lots of room for students to think deeply and construct their own learning schema through the interaction with other participants. Any ideas are welcome to share, and new comments will be provides by different persons to help idea creators to think things in a broaden way.
Since we are in a dynamic society where new knowledge is generated in any seconds, open contents provides us with more flexible way to develop competences, knowledge, and skills that are required in the modern society. What important is the collaborative learning processes which are constructed by active learners who maybe professionals, novices, etc. Those people from inter-disciplinary areas contribute new ideas to the same topic to make the whole contents more meaningful.
Teacher-centered or subject-centered learning usually exists in the traditional learning environments. Generally, in such an environment, students often follow the teaching steps from instructors, and do what the instructors expect. As we can imagine, the opportunities of interaction between teachers and students are not noticeable. I have experienced lots of teacher-centered learning when I was in Taiwan. I remember that in high school, most often my classmates and I just paid attention to the address of the instructor, and kept on writing down or copying contents on the blackboard. We accepted what teachers taught without suspicion. That is, we seldom try to think some concepts deeply or understand what those concepts mean to us. Instead, we grabbed knowledge as soon as possible, and hoped to get high grades in the exam. I think that most Asian people may get used to this kind of passive learning environment.
Compared to teacher-centered learning, student-centered learning pays more attention to the needs of students. Students are viewed as main subjects during learning processes. Teachers will adjust their teaching styles and observe the actions of students during class. Usually, interactions and collaborative learning practices are the methods to bring students to engage in the learning processes. Through discussion, students express what they understand and listen to different opinions from a variety of people who have different ways of thinking. Teachers would be like facilitators for individuals, and provide proper assistance.
As indicated, the open learning environments would like to promote learning based on the concept of student-centered learning. Unlike the dominant concept of educational contents as canned products that are produced by a few educational providers, OER concentrate on content creation, sharing, and re-use among teachers and students. Collaborative ideas are deeply embedded in the creation of free contents. Although teachers are usually viewed as the main providers of editing, organizing contents, students’ participation in editing is also important because OER highly values the knowledge which is created and modified by teachers and learners.
Constructivism is inherent in the Open learning environment. Teachers and learners are participants of learning communities, and have an equal right to modify contents. Discussion is a way for those online users to construct new ideas or solve problems collaboratively. A constructivism environment gives lots of room for students to think deeply and construct their own learning schema through the interaction with other participants. Any ideas are welcome to share, and new comments will be provides by different persons to help idea creators to think things in a broaden way.
Since we are in a dynamic society where new knowledge is generated in any seconds, open contents provides us with more flexible way to develop competences, knowledge, and skills that are required in the modern society. What important is the collaborative learning processes which are constructed by active learners who maybe professionals, novices, etc. Those people from inter-disciplinary areas contribute new ideas to the same topic to make the whole contents more meaningful.
2007年9月9日 星期日
OpenEd: Week 2
This week reading provides abundant related information about Open Educational Resources (OER). It brings me to a deeper understanding about the initiation, implementation, and current development of OER from a variety of angles. I am impressive with almost all the contents addressed in the reading.
Last week, I brought up a question about the quality of free educational materials, and was wondering about how we can promise high-quality free materials due to the lack of enough professional gatekeepers. I think that I find some answers from this week reading. Taking a look at the ongoing projects of OER, most of them are initiated by prestigious institutions, such as MIT, Open University, etc. Those professionals are viewed as a guarantee of high-quality materials. In addition, since those famous institutions are pioneers in some areas, the free materials from them are supposed to be more insightful or inspirational to learners. Hence, here I think as for the quality of contents will be less problematic. What we are concerned about the quality will be how to present those contents in a more readable way in the internet, and what kind of instructional design or arrangements of webpage will accommodate the needs of learners.
As was indicated in the reading, open educational resources are digitalized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students, and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research. With a central idea of bring people good things, the initiatives launch OER project. “Sharing” is the main concept which underpins all other related projects. Along with the rapid development of information technology, learning over the internet has become a mainstream. Many undergraduates utilize the internet to search for extending contents as a supplement to their course which is addressed in the traditional classroom. Given there are more free materials available online, more students can receive more knowledge without the limit of time and geographical constraints. Besides, what is attractive to most users is that you can get those valuable materials without any cost.
However, from another angle, it seems that sometimes it is hard to push more teachers to share their materials in the designed format of OER. As indicated, most of them point out that the lacks of time, rewards, skills, etc. are the factors that impede them from producing and then sharing them freely. Besides, enough funding is also necessary for those teachers to produce free materials. What can we do to improve the participation of teachers? I think if an institution is interested in OER, and would like to promote the idea of sharing materials with rewards and enough funding for professors, then there will be more valuable courses provided online.
America is the leader of OER related projects, and most projects are English-based. As for non-English speaking countries, language barriers and differences of cultures are two main issues which prohibit them from more active participation. This phenomenon will result in a less expansion of knowledge. As indicated in the reading, not just get translation from English versions of materials, non-English countries now are encouraged to provide their own materials in their languages. In this way, those materials can meet the needs of local people and the problem of culture difference will be solved. I can not deny the way of encouraging people to create their local materials. But if those local materials can also be translated to be English, it will draw more people around the world, and it will be more exciting to know what’s going on in different countries though it may take many efforts to make it possible.
So far, all OER are concentrated on providing the materials of higher education. I am wondering if this idea can be expanded to primary or secondary education. It will be also beneficial to both teachers and learners in primary or secondary schools. Maybe it could be a potential for future expansion of OER? I am not sure about it. Besides, learning from online free materials would be a trend for life-long learning. Yes, I think it is. Those free resources can help self-learners who are in a wide range of ages, no matter they are workers or retired people, to receive useful information that is helpful for their work or knowledge or sparing the time in their rest of life.
Last week, I brought up a question about the quality of free educational materials, and was wondering about how we can promise high-quality free materials due to the lack of enough professional gatekeepers. I think that I find some answers from this week reading. Taking a look at the ongoing projects of OER, most of them are initiated by prestigious institutions, such as MIT, Open University, etc. Those professionals are viewed as a guarantee of high-quality materials. In addition, since those famous institutions are pioneers in some areas, the free materials from them are supposed to be more insightful or inspirational to learners. Hence, here I think as for the quality of contents will be less problematic. What we are concerned about the quality will be how to present those contents in a more readable way in the internet, and what kind of instructional design or arrangements of webpage will accommodate the needs of learners.
As was indicated in the reading, open educational resources are digitalized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students, and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research. With a central idea of bring people good things, the initiatives launch OER project. “Sharing” is the main concept which underpins all other related projects. Along with the rapid development of information technology, learning over the internet has become a mainstream. Many undergraduates utilize the internet to search for extending contents as a supplement to their course which is addressed in the traditional classroom. Given there are more free materials available online, more students can receive more knowledge without the limit of time and geographical constraints. Besides, what is attractive to most users is that you can get those valuable materials without any cost.
However, from another angle, it seems that sometimes it is hard to push more teachers to share their materials in the designed format of OER. As indicated, most of them point out that the lacks of time, rewards, skills, etc. are the factors that impede them from producing and then sharing them freely. Besides, enough funding is also necessary for those teachers to produce free materials. What can we do to improve the participation of teachers? I think if an institution is interested in OER, and would like to promote the idea of sharing materials with rewards and enough funding for professors, then there will be more valuable courses provided online.
America is the leader of OER related projects, and most projects are English-based. As for non-English speaking countries, language barriers and differences of cultures are two main issues which prohibit them from more active participation. This phenomenon will result in a less expansion of knowledge. As indicated in the reading, not just get translation from English versions of materials, non-English countries now are encouraged to provide their own materials in their languages. In this way, those materials can meet the needs of local people and the problem of culture difference will be solved. I can not deny the way of encouraging people to create their local materials. But if those local materials can also be translated to be English, it will draw more people around the world, and it will be more exciting to know what’s going on in different countries though it may take many efforts to make it possible.
So far, all OER are concentrated on providing the materials of higher education. I am wondering if this idea can be expanded to primary or secondary education. It will be also beneficial to both teachers and learners in primary or secondary schools. Maybe it could be a potential for future expansion of OER? I am not sure about it. Besides, learning from online free materials would be a trend for life-long learning. Yes, I think it is. Those free resources can help self-learners who are in a wide range of ages, no matter they are workers or retired people, to receive useful information that is helpful for their work or knowledge or sparing the time in their rest of life.
2007年8月28日 星期二
OpenEd: Week 1
Part I: In your opinion, is the "right to education" a basic human right? Why or why not?
In my opinion, I think the “right to education” is a basic human right. There are many human rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), such as the right to life, the freedom of speech, the right to work, the right to rest and leisure, etc. Just as the reading indicates that many human rights can only be accessed through education, particularly rights associated with employment and social security, the right to education plays an important role to other human rights. The right to education is compatible with other human rights, and it can also be viewed as a foundation to other human rights.
To individuals, without education, they may fail to have a good quality of living standard. For instance, adult illiterates would find they have difficult in the present society in which words are used frequently to maintain their daily life. By knowing words, people can obey the traffic regulation, follow the directions to withdraw money, fill out the application forms, etc. Since illiterates may loose some ability to live in the society, not to speak of good jobs, they may also loose the potential to compete with other people to get a good job. They might have a chance to be employed to do some labor-based works with very little income. In general, most illiterates live at the bottom of the society, and may need more assistance from others to maintain their daily basic life, not to speak of being treated equally in some human rights, especially the right of employment because they are much less competitive than others due to their lack of a basic skill of recognizing words.
To our society, education is an investment of human capital, and it can supply qualified people to meet the economic demands and promote the progress of the society and the development of a country in many ways. The government is just like a mediator between individuals and society who can set up a well-organized educational system for individuals, such as compulsory education, to help them get the basic skills and knowledge necessary for maintaining basic life. The number of educated people can be a useful indicator to identify if a country is prosperous. In addition, people with education can be much easier to achieve other human rights inherent to each individual.
Human rights are for all the people regardless of race, sex, religion, etc., and people are born free and equal in dignity and rights. However, the right to education plays a critical factor to help people attain other human rights belonging to them. Educated people stand in the same criteria and have the basic skills to meet their needs of life. In other words, education provides us a basic understanding of freedom of thought and expression, the rights to cultural, health care, etc. which are indicated in other human rights. Hence, right to education not only can be viewed as a human right, but it also plays as a promoter role to arouse our attention to other human rights.
Part II: In your opinion, is open *access* to free, high-quality educational opportunity sufficient, or is it necessary to *mandate* education through a certain age or level?
I think it is still necessary to mandate education through a certain age or level although due to the advent of technology, we get lots of opportunities to get access to free educational materials.
For now, I don’t think free educational opportunities can completely replace the mandated education. The main reasons include:
1. How do we know if free educational opportunities have high-quality? What is the standard for high-quality free education?
2. Are there enough people who can be the gatekeepers to judge the quality of any free educational opportunities and let learners know what kind of level or learning background is necessary before you plan on learning through these free education by yourself?
3. Are free, high-quality free educational opportunities abundant enough and include a serious of contents with the level from kindergarten children to life-long learners?
4. Is there enough evaluation mechanism for learners to know their learning result, and what kind of level of courses that he or she should take after they are done with some free courses?
Compared to free educational opportunities, compulsory education sets up the timeline for children to receive the basic skills or knowledge necessary for their future life. Though the compulsory education may not consider much about the individual differences, it still provides a basic model for people to follow. At least, people can be sure that they can receive a certain amount of knowledge that is suggested or under evaluation by some experienced scholars who are responsible for the educational systems in a country.
Free, high-quality educational opportunities can be the assistant roles and provide lots of learning resources for the normal education. People can take advantage of these free educational opportunities and lead themselves to any advanced level of the knowledge that they are really interested in. However, I can not deny that if the mechanism of running free educational resources is mature enough someday, then it probably can replace the normal educational systems which is mandated by the Ministry of education.
In my opinion, I think the “right to education” is a basic human right. There are many human rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), such as the right to life, the freedom of speech, the right to work, the right to rest and leisure, etc. Just as the reading indicates that many human rights can only be accessed through education, particularly rights associated with employment and social security, the right to education plays an important role to other human rights. The right to education is compatible with other human rights, and it can also be viewed as a foundation to other human rights.
To individuals, without education, they may fail to have a good quality of living standard. For instance, adult illiterates would find they have difficult in the present society in which words are used frequently to maintain their daily life. By knowing words, people can obey the traffic regulation, follow the directions to withdraw money, fill out the application forms, etc. Since illiterates may loose some ability to live in the society, not to speak of good jobs, they may also loose the potential to compete with other people to get a good job. They might have a chance to be employed to do some labor-based works with very little income. In general, most illiterates live at the bottom of the society, and may need more assistance from others to maintain their daily basic life, not to speak of being treated equally in some human rights, especially the right of employment because they are much less competitive than others due to their lack of a basic skill of recognizing words.
To our society, education is an investment of human capital, and it can supply qualified people to meet the economic demands and promote the progress of the society and the development of a country in many ways. The government is just like a mediator between individuals and society who can set up a well-organized educational system for individuals, such as compulsory education, to help them get the basic skills and knowledge necessary for maintaining basic life. The number of educated people can be a useful indicator to identify if a country is prosperous. In addition, people with education can be much easier to achieve other human rights inherent to each individual.
Human rights are for all the people regardless of race, sex, religion, etc., and people are born free and equal in dignity and rights. However, the right to education plays a critical factor to help people attain other human rights belonging to them. Educated people stand in the same criteria and have the basic skills to meet their needs of life. In other words, education provides us a basic understanding of freedom of thought and expression, the rights to cultural, health care, etc. which are indicated in other human rights. Hence, right to education not only can be viewed as a human right, but it also plays as a promoter role to arouse our attention to other human rights.
Part II: In your opinion, is open *access* to free, high-quality educational opportunity sufficient, or is it necessary to *mandate* education through a certain age or level?
I think it is still necessary to mandate education through a certain age or level although due to the advent of technology, we get lots of opportunities to get access to free educational materials.
For now, I don’t think free educational opportunities can completely replace the mandated education. The main reasons include:
1. How do we know if free educational opportunities have high-quality? What is the standard for high-quality free education?
2. Are there enough people who can be the gatekeepers to judge the quality of any free educational opportunities and let learners know what kind of level or learning background is necessary before you plan on learning through these free education by yourself?
3. Are free, high-quality free educational opportunities abundant enough and include a serious of contents with the level from kindergarten children to life-long learners?
4. Is there enough evaluation mechanism for learners to know their learning result, and what kind of level of courses that he or she should take after they are done with some free courses?
Compared to free educational opportunities, compulsory education sets up the timeline for children to receive the basic skills or knowledge necessary for their future life. Though the compulsory education may not consider much about the individual differences, it still provides a basic model for people to follow. At least, people can be sure that they can receive a certain amount of knowledge that is suggested or under evaluation by some experienced scholars who are responsible for the educational systems in a country.
Free, high-quality educational opportunities can be the assistant roles and provide lots of learning resources for the normal education. People can take advantage of these free educational opportunities and lead themselves to any advanced level of the knowledge that they are really interested in. However, I can not deny that if the mechanism of running free educational resources is mature enough someday, then it probably can replace the normal educational systems which is mandated by the Ministry of education.
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