"Open Educational Resources (OER) — teaching, learning and research materials that their owners make free for others to use, revise and share — offer a powerful means of expanding the reach and effectiveness of worldwide education. The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and UNESCO co-organised the W ... orld OER Congress in 2012 in Paris. That Congress resulted in the OER Paris Declaration: a statement that urged governments around the world to release, as OER, all teaching, learning and research materials developed with public funds. This book, drawing on 15 case studies contributed by 29 OER researchers and policy-makers from 15 countries across six continents, examines the implementation of the pivotal declaration through the thematic lenses of policy, costs and transformation. The case studies provide a detailed picture of OER policies and initiatives as they are unfolding in different country contexts and adopting a range of approaches, from bottom-up to top-down. The book illuminates the impacts of OER on the costs of producing, distributing and providing access to learning materials, and shows the way that OER can transform the teaching and learning methodology mindset." (Back cover) more

"This white paper takes a first look at the everyday world of digital tools and media in the lives of three- to five-year-old children, with a particular focus on non-intentional learning opportunities in developing and least-developed nations. It begins a discussion about how digital media learning ... opportunities, including non-intentional opportunities such as cell phones and video games, when combined with intentional learning opportunities such as educational television or computers, may be affecting emergent literacy skills development (Anderson & Pempek, 2005). An understanding of this phenom enon is important, because when new digital tools and media, as well as novel combinations of old and new media, become available and commonplace, “the media that children use and create [will be] integral to their growing sense of themselves, of the world, and of how they should interact with it” (Center for Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital, 2008, np). Digital media may be transforming the language and cultural practices that enable the development of emergent literacy skills. A new generation of young children is experiencing a new kind of interconnectedness in the language they see, hear, and use. For example, a young child may observe a sister talking with a friend, texting (writing) the friend, and then reading the text. Young children are increasingly surrounded by language sculpted by digital media, and this process has implications for the way their neural circuitry learns to speak, listen, read, and write (Small & Vorgan, 2008)." (Page 2) more