As an academic librarian, I am often driven to see issues like OER in a very localized context, so I appreciated reading about “openness” in education from a less restricted perspective.
The Almeida article and Pomerantz video really hit on some of things I worry about in regards to OER and its future success. “OER do have value….In a vacuum, OER are impotent and so is abstract, decontextualized rhetoric about the promise of the OER movement.” (Almeida, P. 15). In my particular professional setting, I feel there is a real opportunity for “openness” to make a positive impact in the educational experience of students and faculty, but how do you effectively and incrementally change your local culture so that OER and openness begin to take root?
I don’t have the magic answer, but I am working with other campus true believers so that we can (hopefully) make a difference.
This week in OpenLearning18, I was reminded of how important it is to clearly indicate the meaning of “open.” I was also reminded that if open education and OERs are truly going to be transformative, then we must also continue to ask ourselves some important questions—what does it take to make courses and resources “open”? open to whom? accessible to whom? open in what way? accessible in what way? These and other questions are integral to ensuring the responsible implementation of OERs.
This week we peeked into the world of open and flew into a worm hole. There is sooo much that can be read into one word, and so many uses of the concept that it gets difficult for me to see the multidimensionality of it. I have a tendency to stay on the surface because that’s what I understand.
On the surface, open education is teaching through a free means. Open educational resources are the items used in the teaching that are also free. I’m good here, this is easy to understand. No cost to teachers or students for textbooks, articles, or any materials the instructor wants to use.
“Kal-toh is to chess as chess is to tic-tac-toe.” (Tuvok: VOY: “Alter Ego”)
But let’s talk about free. Free starts to get complicated because free should just be that, but it isn’t. Just like free from a library isn’t free if you can’t get to the library or you live outside the service area, free on the internet isn’t free if you can’t get onto the internet. You need a computer and access to get to the free. So what exactly is free? and how do we provide it to ALL to create real openness? Also, is free, free when we make students pay to be taught? And here is when I stop playing kal-toh and go back to tic-tac-toe.
So how does this relate to my own idea of open education? I’m not sure I have an idea about open education… yet. I do know that in my practice I want to save the student from having to purchase material to learn something when practical application and discussion can accomplish the same thing. But the materials we use are the library databases that are not free since they are licensed via the library budget. So even though they don’t have a textbook, their tuition pays for the subscriptions, so in all technicality that is not free or open.
Can I create assignments that are completely open? The easy answer is yes, by using open access articles to do information literacy objectives, I could use all free materials. But again… this is not truly free for the student who doesn’t have a computer or the internet at home, because they would not be able to access the material anyway. To further complicate this, they have already paid for my class. I’m not sharing my expertise free of charge, which again technically would not be completely open or free. I keep getting stuck in the free aspect of open. Because really, nothing in our society is free.
I keep thinking about Star Trek. The open society where you explore your passions for self-improvement, self-enrichment, and the betterment of all humanity. There is no money. Everyone (supposedly) has the same opportunities for learning and working. In this world open education is open and free. In our world, there are too many facets to “open” and “free” to truly be either.
So until we can live in the Star Trek world, we do the best we can and cut cost to the student where it is feasible. To me that means, finding ways to provide open educational resources to the faculty to use, finding ways to integrate what the library already owns into an easier medium for the faculty and student to use, and to explore whatever options present themselves to make the life of the student easier. As a librarian, I am a facilitator of access.
I was talking the other day to a fairly senior administrator in academic affairs about OpenLearning18. This administrator has been very supportive of our institution’s open initiative, and so I was just bringing him/her up to date on things open.
I made a comment about his/her boss only seeming interested in OER, but not the other “opens.” The admin looked chagrinned and said, “I’m not sure I understand any of the opens besides OER.” I was, in a word, surprised. I have been talking with this admin for years about the various aspects of open that I’ve been involved with, and I just assumed he/she understood what I was talking about. Though in retrospect, I guess most of what I’d talked about in detail was OER.
I wonder how many academic leaders, that each of us interact with, do we think understand the various dimensions of open, but who really don’t. Could that be a reason it’s been difficult to get traction? How can we best address these wrong expectations, or more precisely, how can we better educate our leaders on the range of opens?
I participated in OpenLearning17 and am back for OpenLearning18. Why you ask? Because I learned enough last year to articulate better questions this year. Last year, I went in somewhat blind. (There might be something we can learn as teachers here
about the experience of our students.) This year, I have a much better sense of what’s in store for me and how to get the most out of it.
To prepare for Week 1, I read the excerpts from Doug Englebart, “Augmenting Human Intellect“. When I’ve read it before, I found it to be powerful but abstract. This time around, though, I saw it as a conceptual framework for OpenLearning18. Which is to say, my experience last year helped me understand what Englebart was saying in 1962. And what Englebart said, has informed me about what we will be doing starting tomorrow.
This week for Open Learning ’18, I’m to expound on these two questions…
What do you hope to get from Open Learning ’18?
What do you hope to contribute to Open Learning ’18?
Well shoot, if I knew that I probably wouldn’t be here. Okay… breathe… Just be honest…
What do I want to “get” from OL18? Well… everything. Am I asking too much? Of course I am, but it’s what I want.
I have found myself in a unique situation on my current campus. I’m leading the Open Education Task Force for the administration and trying to generate discussion to see where we want to go as a campus. While I know the basics of OER and how it functions, I have no real experience with it beyond my own teaching where I have “borrowed” ideas, activities, and in class materials for my own use. I have had the great pleasure to work with some fabulous people who were always willing to collaborate and talk though how they did things so peers could benefit and adapt their idea for their own use. When I started this is what you did as a good colleague, but I don’t think any of us saw it as OER, although essentially it was, it’s just moved online. I know nothing about how librarians fit in, how web components fit in, how to generate excitement for OER, or how to garner support. I’m essentially hoping to get some great ideas I can take forward on my campus in an area where I feel inept.
Contribution? LOTS of questions. I essentially feel brand new to this and I have quite a bit to learn. I want to be effective on my campus, but I need more information, guidance, and expertise to feel comfortable in this arena. So I’m going to be leaning on the MOOC to help me learn. What I will give you, is a new voice to question how you got to where you are, what is good or bad about OER, and general inquisitiveness about anything you bring up. I’m looking forward to the discussion.
By participating in Open Learning 2018, I guess I have two major goals. One: To learn more about the overall trends, forces, and possibilities surrounding the OER movement, Two: To learn creative strategies for promoting the active use of OER at my particular institution.
I’m lucky enough to work with Steve Greenlaw (who is teaching Week 5), so I hope to leverage is campus gravitas to persuade others to get involved in using OER materials in the classroom.
As a contributor to Open Learning 2018? That’s a tougher question to answer because I see myself as a novice with a lot to learn.
What am I looking forward to for OpenLearning18? Connections and conversations! These OpenLearning experiences are designed for network expansion, so participants can connect with each other and see their networks expand (Twitter followers, synched blogs and such). The connections provide opportunities to engage in critical conversations about open education: open in what way, open for whom, what are the benefits, what are the challenges, what are the implications, etc. These conversations can lead to more thoughtful engagement with and implementation of open educational resources (and open learning practices). I am looking forward to continuing to facilitate and participate in those exchanges!
“what is learning but expanding boundaries, finding limits and going beyond them.”. I think you are spot on with this, Matt! Glad you are getting out of the box.
Ok I’m in. Open Learning ’18 a cMooc that will have me “explore all the opens:” Open Access, Open Educational Resources, Open Pedagogical Practices, and Open & Participatory Cultures. I’m excited but I also admit I hesitate a bit. It’s the whole cMooc thing. A cMooc is about communicating and learning by being a part of an online community. (Very different from the more traditional xMooc with an instructor, set of readings, video lectures and assignments.) Open Learning ’18 will like other cMooc’s use blogs and twitter and other social media to communicate and I am often more guarded in how I participate online. But what is learning but expanding boundaries, finding limits and going beyond them.
What are boxes for except for us to open them.
Open and climb out of.
So, Ok I’m in
I got my information about Moocs from this excellent article by Stephen Downes
In the morning I played along with #DigitalGaurdiansEg Twitter Scavenger Hunt and that wasn’t so bad. People posted pictures and other people guessed what the pictures were. I didn’t get to the party until late, so for me the asynchronousity of it was an easy way for me to learn the ins and outs of replying and loving something. I also got to learn the “tabs” for keeping up with content.
Then came the afternoon live tweeting with the #OpenLearning18 group… Oh my… I’m so out of my depth. I felt unsure of what to do in the beginning and as we progressed I felt that I couldn’t keep up. Understand… there were only like 8 of us, but it felt like 80 to this novice. I muddled through and think I did well enough in the end. I didn’t try an original post, but I did lots of replying and (to my mind) supportive commentary.
After the chat was over, I went back to the pre-syllabus, and remembered seeing Sue Erickson’s post about surviving and thriving. I re-read it and bullet 4 struck like lighting. I don’t have to be on every post, comment, or blog. I get to choose, I’m not supposed to do everyting… Wow.
I know for some of you this will sound crazy, but for me this concept is profound. It was recently commented by my co-worker that I don’t say no to anything I’m asked to do. As a librarian and contentious employee, why would I say no to a request? If it’s in my power to help, I help. If it’s not, I find someone who can. I have always been this way and it works for me.
So for me this translates to… As a student why would I not do all the work? I have always been an overachiever who read the syllabus and some of the material before the first day of class. I tried to get assignments, readings, and homework done early. I was that student in class that had the orderly binder of all the materials annotated a week before it was discussed.
In this setting, I have to teach myself not to do it all. I need to remain flexible but focused so I don’t overwhelm myself. I have to choose my path which may be the through the woods and not on the road everyone else is on. And I have to learn that that’s okay.
Photo from pixabay.com
