After finishing studying an open educational resource, I felt that open educational resource is a very flexible, convenient and good way to learn things. For example, as an international student with 6 courses in one semester, it is very hard to devote all the time to one subject or concentrate on one subject for a long period of time. But with an online course perhaps I call it open educational resources, no matter how much content it has, I am able to split the content into many parts and disgust them at any time I want. There is no time limitation, unlike the other classes which require attendance at a fixed time. If I miss the class, I will miss the “broadcasting” from my professors. Online learning (open educational resource) relieves my heavy burden giving me more time and energy to slowly disgust the new knowledge.
The open educational resource is a “broadcasting” for me. It is a one-way media that requires critical thinking skills. It needs plenty of time to understand the materials in order to fully get the gist of the content. That is also the disadvantage of open educational resource(one-way) that has no way to ask for questions, but as we join some group discussion, for example, Hypothes.is provides us with this convenient and friendly platform for us to communicate and ask for questions. Also, the help from EDCI professor through email also improves the one-way media to a two-way media, communicative media. Any questions can be solved right after I finish reading the materials alone by either discussion or help from the professor.
I think most people would think OER is asynchronous. People can access it at any time freely. But sometimes it also could be synchronous when we add a time limitation on it. For example, if an assignment is going to be due in a week, somehow it becomes synchronous because everyone shares the same due date and has to read the materials within the 7 days. Compare to a shorter time-fixed class, the online course just has a longer time-fixed class. Especially, many people have the habit to leave the assignment to the last minute which also means many people are reading the OER at the same time but with different rates of progress.
The richness of media is very broad. It can be performed in many ways, video, audio, context and more. So far, the richness of OER is already very broad, I have seen many versions, videos, voice over, context and maybe a picture. It is important to have different forms of teaching because it would not be monotonous and stimulate learners’ interests and thinking. My experience is that after reading a long context, it is better to have a picture or short video to conclude or demonstrate what the article or paragraph is trying to tell the audience. There are always pictures attached between paragraphs while I was reading the context on the open educational resource. It is very helpful to have the richness of media to effectively teach the learners. OER is a very good example.