Abstract:

When analyzing the new trends in the Higher Education Area one of the new challenges for the universities is to link the traditional learning and teaching methodologies to the newest didactical innovations. Nowadays, in the age of technology, the rethinking of education takes place (Colons, Halverson, 2009) where the new ICT and mobile communication determined (based?) learning environment gives a chance to reshape methodologies of the higher education (Grenfield, 2009; Benedek, Molnar 2014). Interdisciplinary approaches are increasingly acknowledged; however, we should note that fast changing methodology results in the continuous restructuring of educational content. As learning recently expanded into a worldwide classroom (Breslow, Pritchard, DeBoer, J.; Stump, Ho, and Seaton, 2013) these developments may be foreseen as a new potentials way to activate students in terms of moving from the traditional curricula focusing on quantity to a new a contribution based approach.

The presentation is analyzing the implementation of network concepts that encouraged higher education institutions to learn in an open environment. As part of our university’s teacher education framework we have created an IT device based network facilitated by a learning frame system. The sensitive point of this concept is the participation of students According to this approach; the focus should be shifted to anactive contribution of the students. The didactics development is the creation of an open curricula where those actively participating in learning contribute to the development process constructively. This approach could most innovatively applied in higher education (using OERs in MOOC); however, the high number of students in higher education as well as their increasing age and spread across various professions urge the methodological adaptation of these solutions.

Our research activities focused on the differentiated management of the in-class activities of part-time students (N=150) related to efficient learning methods and procedures. The development of learning environment is dominated by the spread of ICT tools and their potentials that affect learning at its different forms and methods. These dynamic changes are phenomenon’s of atypical (less regulated) learning, in adult, part-time, and online learning processes related to working life. The slow change of institutionalized education is determined by complex social and financial mechanisms where these interrelations could be investigated from different aspects.

This network concept, as feature of active student’s contribution encouraged the new educational content development. The result of these activities integrated an original model of OCD (open content development) to formulate a real open environment where information exchange is organized into an informal network. The presentation demonstrates the tested concept of students’ participation in the network and access to the microlearning content packages that help interpreting information in various contexts. Micro content may be understood as information available to the public which briefly describes one important topic within the physical and technical boundaries of the software and hardware employed.

Keywords:

Open Education, e-learning, Higher Education, Teaching, Learning network, Open E-content, microcontent, ICT.