Tag Archives: OpenEdMOOC

Open Participants, Syndicated

Open Passage

This is my kind-of, mini-reflection on #OpenEd17. The conference is still going though, so I am jumping the gun a bit.

Last year at my 1st Open Ed conference, I didn’t know anyone. This year, I am lucky to have lots of friends here. But open educators are open people. It hasn’t been this easy to make friends since grade 3. I even broke the toot barrier with my roomie, Ken Bauer, who I met at last year’s conference. I’m sure he heard it… I’m sure he heard them. I didn’t hear any from him, for the record.

But those unlucky souls who do not yet know about Open Ed do not know how nice it can be in our community. So they won’t come in without a pull.

Now I know it’s probably obvious, but I want to say it anyway. #OpenEd17, the real work of this conference starts now. I know you do this already. This is really just a message from me to me. A reminder to take it from here and pass it along. Or try to pass it along more anyway.

We all got some great tips, and tricks. Some ideas for new things to try. New resources we didn’t know about that are slicker than snot. We’ve recharged our excitement for Open Education. But it’s a little bit of preaching to the choir after a while. What’s more important to do next than going out and trying to convince someone who doesn’t know anything about Open that it’s something important?

It’s a lovely group, but let’s go meet more new friends now and tell them about this stuff.

The most effective activity at the conference, for me, was the speed networking during the unconference (Thanks, Rolin Moe, for cajoling us into it). Not only because I met so many people, but also I worked my “who am I and what is open to me” spiel 5 or 6 times and now I feel much more ready to say it to anyone. I have my open passage more readily available at the tip of my tongue. Now I’m more likely to pass it along.

So how about this idea? Anyone who prepared and delivered a session here in Anaheim, try to deliver the same or similar talk at another conference. One full of not-yet Open Educators. Or write a post about your time here, but make sure to send it to places away from us to colleagues who don’t follow Open Ed (and towards us, too. We still want to read it!). Have your open passage at the tip of your tongue, ready for anyone.

Whatever you do with what you took from these days, pass it along more so than pass it back to us. Let’s not stand in a circle and say what we’re saying back to each other again and again. Turn around and say it to someone new. Talk to some students! It might be kind of uncomfortable, like making a sales pitch. Try. Make sure to listen to what they say in return, too. It’s not passing the baton, it’s passing the salt and pepper. You probably already do this but I want to say it.

Maybe someone new will break the toot barrier with you at next year’s conference. Fingers crossed.

image: “saltshaker showdown” flickr photo by athrasher https://flickr.com/photos/athrasher/15746721477 shared into the public domain using (CC0)

Open Participants, Syndicated

Longing for Openness

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In his Foreword to the recently published book, Open Education: International Perspectives in Higher Education, David Wiley stated, “When properly understood, openness is a value.”  This is intriguing.   In the eight years that have passed since I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Richard Baraniuk speak about the open education movement, I’ve been seeking to know more. And as my all too human brain often does, I’ve been trying to understand it by examining the parts.  But considering openness as a value has taken me to a new place, which has provided a glimpse of the whole.

Over the years, I’ve examined many elements of Openness in Education.  I’ve considered benefits and risks of open educational resources –  such as greater affordability and access versus the possible loss of incentives and quality assurance.  I’ve thought about opportunities and challenges of open pedagogy – the opportunities for increased agency and engagement against the challenges of meeting and assessing desired (or program mandated) outcomes.  I’ve studied the beauty of open licensing while wondering about the unintended consequences of disruption.  But I don’t believe I’ve ever thought about this subject in the philosophical terms introduced by the idea of openness as a value.

Through my analytical approach, I long ago decided that, in general, open is good and closed is bad.  I’m an advocate for opening up education. However, re-framing the picture to consider a value based perspective leads me to think about this in new ways.  It’s no longer a black and white view of open versus closed.  In value laden terms, “closed” no longer adequately describes the alternative.  Competing values, such as safety, security, convenience, and comfort now enter the conversation.

To reach a deeper understanding, I’ve been thinking of this idea in metaphorical terms.  I love to walk in the foothills that rise above my home.  A longing for the openness calls to me. When I climb out of the order and control of the city streets and up into the winding dirt trails, I find a sense of freedom, a feeling of independence, and a space of solitude that feeds my soul.  I value the openness of those foothills.  However, in my wanderings, I take Tanner, my fearless protector, and I stay on the trails.  Trails that have been mapped out and maintained.  Trails where I often pass other people.  I value the safety and convenience offered by the well worn shared spaces. I value the random encounters with others who share my love of the foothills. And after my adventures, when I’m exhausted, I also value the comfort and security of my home in the orderly and controlled city.

So now I’m thinking about open education in terms of these different, competing values.  Values are complex and situational. It’s important to balance the value of openness in education with other worthy values. Values such as safety, security, comfort, and convenience. To many, elements of the existing educational system may represent these or other values.  And from the view of competing values, some circumstances may place these above the value of openness.

I’m still an advocate for openness in education, openness matters.  And now, I may become a more critical advocate and consider openness in the context of other values.

 

Open Participants, Syndicated

Why Open Matters

A global network of social media and open resources, including Liberal, Radical and Conservative educational “canons.” Remix by MCW

A retired American scientific glassblower, I started on my career journey at a California community college after I graduated from high school. On a whim I signed up for a glass class, the teacher was a ceramicist and designer who wanted to experiment with glass so we built the equipment, made the glass and learned together how to play with this fascinating material. I soon left college to learn more about glass. It never occurred to me to go to Alfred University like my teacher had, I sought out working glassblowers and made myself useful. Eventually I ended up in Silicon Valley making high intensity lamps and LASERs. I have worked with researchers, engineers and artists and no one ever asked if I had a college degree.

In the History of the Open University Lord Perry of Walton, OU’s first Vice Chancellor is quoted on his motivation to take the job of creating the open University in 1969:

“It wasn’t that I had any deep-seated urge to mitigate the miseries of the depressed adult; it was that I was persuaded that the standard of teaching in conventional universities was pretty deplorable. It suddenly struck me that if you could use the media and devise course materials that would work for students all by themselves, then inevitably you were bound to affect – for good – the standard of teaching in conventional universities. I believed that to be so important that it overrode almost everything else.”

Returning to a California community college during the Great Recession, I found that little had changed regarding the standard of teaching and mitigating the miseries of workers was not even on the agenda. Protecting the institution during a time of budget cuts along with the jobs of the faculty and staff were the highest priorities. Despite the fact adult learners make up nearly two thirds of California’s two million community college students, there are no programs to support the taxpayers that need to retrain during capitalism’s down cycles. Night and distance students fare even worse with financial aid offices, libraries, advisors and technical support staff that all work bankers hours.

I managed to graduate even after falling into the “Community College Trap” and am now designing my Individualized Studies Bachelor’s degree. As a distance student, I’m finding the same structural problems a the University as the community colleges. Open matters to me because I’ve learned to use other institutions, social media and the world wide web to gather the resources I need to learn what I choose. I intend to create an Open Heutagogy anyone with an data connection can use to gather free and open resources to create their own learning program. I think as the world economy continues to limp along and higher education divides into training for the masses and private education for the children of the elites, self directed learning will help the working class and those left behind learn what they need to build a diverse, sustainable and cooperative local economies. While the elites will still run the Universities and reproduce the managerial class to run the global economic and military empires, perhaps openness will help the rest of us survive.

Open Participants, Syndicated

Looking at Stars

We grow up watching our stars and wanting to be like them. We can see them because they have to do their thing in the open. Because we can see them we can try to do it like them.

When I’m a pro skateboarder, I’m going to skate like Tony Hawk.

When I’m in a band, we’re going to sound like Tom Petty 🙁

When I’m a writer, I’m going to write like Margaret Atwood.

When I’m a teacher I’m going to teach like… I’m going to learn like… Umm, how can I know who to look up to?

When people teach and learn in the open we can see those heroes of learning. Of all shapes and sizes. I’m going to learn like Maha Bali. I’m going to teach like Jesse Stommel. I’m going to speak like Gardner Cambell or Rajiv Jhangiani. I’m going to experiment and share like Alan Levine. I’m going to care like Amy Collier. Well, I’m going to try to be more like all of them, anyway. And I’m going to do it in the open, too.

That’s why open matters to me. I can find and follow the people I look up to, try to emulate them and get better in whichever direction or area I think best.

photo: “STAR” flickr photo by jylcat https://flickr.com/photos/jylcat/120110649 shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license