OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

I was not familiar with the term OER before but when I first heard it I imagined it to be first of all something open to public, something free of charge,   and truly speaking, something of a lower quality and not so much valuable. Maybe this is because it’s typical of most Armenians to think like I do (Թանկից էժանը չկա) it’s a saying which means the more you pay the cheaper the product becomes for you at the end. I was partially correct. The wrong thing was to doubt about the quality. During our technology class our instructor showed us an open Source animated video and it became clear that it was with  high quality graphics, visuals. Evidently great sums of money was invested on the program  so that now we could not only download and  use it but also edit. Yes, editing is one of the greatest advantages that OER has which “allows for the continuous evaluation, improvement and growth of courses and course materials”  http://oli.cmu.edu/get-to-know-oli/learn-more-about-oli/
I observed many educational resources, found many useful courses. For example I would surely participate in the course named “Communicating Across Cultures”  which was designed “to help you become more sensitive to intercultural communication differences, and to provide you with the knowledge and skills that will help you interact successfully with people from cultures other than your own.” 
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/foreign-languages-and-literatures/21f-019-communicating-across-cultures-spring-2005/
On the other hand, I have always dreamed of creating my own online training course to support learners who  have a great wish but lack opportunities  to attend face to face courses. I intend to realize my wish through the Capstone project. Before being acquainted with OER  I wasn’t sure that I could realize it because I thought it would either cost me much money or I would fail. But now with OER in my  hands I can surely say as a teacher that I will  do it successfully. And one of the resources that I think could be useful to me is http://odijoo.com/ through which instructors  can create, publish and share online courses.
The work in the field of Open Educational Resources in Armenia is at an initial stage (Danielyan & Alexandryan, 2010) and one of the main reasons for it is  the low level of information culture development.
During our class discussions our instructor strongly recommended to become really good educators  in future and  try to guide those teachers in Armenia who are more or less uninformed and encourage them to use  all these resources for the benefit of our schools. I agree that the suggestion would improve the situation and having resources at their hands our teachers would become more creative, although  I strongly doubt that some Armenian teachers of older generation would agree to learn anything from the younger ones.  Also, I have noticed that they are not so motivated to become creative and traditional classes based on  grammar-translation  is what they prefer. However, this doesn't mean that I have completely lost my hope. In my turn I'm  eager to invest all my efforts and  knowledge for the benefit of our nation and future generations.
Pictures retrieved from:
https://www.google.am/searchq=Photos+of+open+Educational+resources&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=eJ6cUIS8J-aQ4gSwuoDYAQ&ved=0CC0QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=665