Modifying Simulations in OER

Stipulations for creating open classrooms include not only using Open Educational Resources (OER) in lesson activities, but also having students modify the OER in the learning process. In our current LINCS Open Science-Open Resources course, we are evaluating a few scientific simulations, from among the following:
 
Those of you who are techies here, how might you suggest having students modify the OER if they or their instructors are not familiar with the interactive simulation environment? Yes, the written instructions could be modified and students might design different simulation topics that relate to what they are learning. However, are there ways in which instructors and studenst could easily change the simulation itself? I would looooove to learn how to do that! Much appreciated in advance! Leecy

Comments

I tried to see if I could go in and find something and tweak it but a:   it was hard to find math at the level I wanted (either too low or too high) and b:   modifying it meant diving into the code, and tho' I spent some hours trying to figure out a way in b/c ... I can learn code... that's clearly not something they've planned for.  (I took our college class in Android App development instead... ) Now, I think they should put in (with two other organizations 'cause that's necessary) for doing that with the OER grant $$ that have recently been waved at us... 

 

Programs like Geogebra (also open source) are *somewhat* easier to work with but ... still a real challenge to navigate.   I love things like this one for making things visual https://www.geogebra.org/m/ua4yNy75#material/uUmKnBu6   

I think I would do the "open pedagogy" part w/ maybe having students create a quiz from that "rounding" exercise, and discuss what kinds of problems it would be important to include on the quiz.   

Susan, first, thanks a million for taking time to look into this challenge. I enjoyed looking into Geogebra, which has good resources for lower level math, as you said. Their Terms of Use were a bit confusing, but I believe that people are free to use and adapt content as long as they don't use it commercially. (I wish that developers would post the icon for CC licenses on OER sites to make it easier to find the terms...) 

Your idea of having a quiz to add to the resource would probably meet "open pedagogy" standards. I also thought that in addition to the sim, which I guess most students won't be able to change, an instructor could include an additional open resource in the same plan that could be modified. In fact, an instructor could post the quiz as an OER, and students could both take and modify the quiz! Hmmm...

Congrats on learning coding! I'm jealous! Leecy

Leecy