Open Educational Resources Still Have Obstacles to Overcome

OER is still a new kid on the block and there are many roadblocks that institutions are working to overcome. Companies like Knewton have tied adaptive learning into their OER material. Knewton recently launched Alta, a fully integrated adaptive learning courseware for higher education.

Alta boasts higher student mastery because it ties all assignments to the learning objectives in a course as designed by the instructor. When a student struggles, Alta’s technology diagnoses the issues and delivers instructional content to bridge the student’s knowledge gap.

More than likely, many educational eyes will be on Thille’s work at Amazon to see how she applies adaptive technology to an ever-changing workforce learning system. How will she use adaptive and learning technology to train Amazon’s employees? How long before this technology reaches the educational sector? That remains to be seen.