Goal #1 Webinar on Open Access and Affordable Learning

Webinar #1

My first goal 1-14-14 was to watch a webinar entitled: Faculty Development Online presentation, Affordable Textbook Solutions in the USG: E, Free and Open with the Affordable Learning Georgia committee. This can be viewed through http://itunes.usg.edu  or through www.affordablelearninggeorgia.org. This webinar provided statistics related to student's use of textbooks: 26% of college tuition is spent of textbooks and 30% of the students do not even purchase a textbook. This webinar was designed to generate awareness of open access resources. UWG supports the use of Lib-guides which help create reading lists to support learning. This is a one stop open access for faculty and students. The main goal of this webinar was to develop a collaborative effort to encourage dialogue and the use of affordable learning. Yes it will create some opportunities for the bookstores on campus that is why there should be an open discussion. The use of Open Textbooks was discussed and emphasis was place on that fact that theses were free to use. OER: Open Education Resources has a variety of tools other instructors may use in their course: syllabus, assignments, quizzes, and tutorials. The concept was for faculty to rethink the design of their course and not to design a course around the textbook. Many of these textbooks being utilized were actually written by USG faculty. In the courses that have been piloted in the use of open access it showed an increase in retention and progression. The next concept for 1-21-14 will be a continuation of this concept using MERLOT.  I found that these resources have benefits for both faculty and students and will plan on exploring in more detail.