Markus Deimann

Schlagwort: Open Education

  • Open Education at the crossroads at #OER24

    Open Education at the crossroads at #OER24

    It has been five years since I attended an international Open Educational Resources-(OER)-Conference, this time in Cork, Ireland and perfectly organized by Munster Technological University.

    Two days with a full-packed program including the GASTA-format. According to ChatGPT GASTA is

    „(…) an Irish (Gaelic) word that can have different meanings depending on the context. Generally, it is translated as „quick“ or „swift“. It can refer to the speed or haste of a movement or action. In some contexts, it could also be used as an adjective or adverb to describe something that is quick or swift.

    Without a specific context, it is difficult to give a more precise meaning, as the meaning can depend heavily on the context in which the word is used.

    ChatGPT

    In the context of #OER24, GASTA contained short presentations which were accompanied by some sort of collective battle cry to signal either the start of a new session or that the end of the current session is near (see for example at 30:27 in this video).

    There were also two inspiring keynotes by Rajiv Jhangiani and a collective one by Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz in which they shed light on the overall, mostly depressing picture of the current state of Higher Ed.

    Both keynotes decided to raise questions about the future destiny of Open Education, i.e. either going down the dystopian road of „crack-up capitalism“ or trying to revitalize the old promises of the original Internet (e.g. fediverse, i.e. a network of federated, independent social networks, microblogging services and websites for online publication or data hosting).

    Rajiv pointed out that the OER-community tends to tell themselves a hero story how OER can overcome the obstacles in Higher Ed and foster social justice, equity and inclusion. On the other hand there are the hard facts of realty such as this example shows: 25 Years Without a Raise. And of course the effects of the notoriously enormous tuition fees cannot be overstated. During lunch break, I talked to an attendee who is still paying for her Bachelor degree which she got back in 1999. Against this background, the efforts to provide such things as zero cost degrees are a success story for the Open-Education-community. Given the attempts of the publishing companies to spy on students using textbooks that read you, it should be clear that much more effort is needed.

    It is from this perspective that I was expecting stronger claims for a better future, in particular what the next concrete steps might be. Catherine and Laura urged us to re-think the goals of Open Education in the context of multiple crises and provided a helpful review of recent attempts.

    However, given all these crises and challenges for society and for Higher Ed in particular, I got the impression that the Open-Education-community might overstrain themselves because of a missing overall roadmap /agenda that can help guide the work on the various levels in the educational system. As one participant said, openness means different things for different people. This has also become apparent in some presentations because they contained little obvious connections to the overall Open-Education-movement (which could mean that as a community we should put more effort in agreeing on a common agenda). One step could be to establish a corpus of Open-Education-literature (if this already exists, please let me know).

    On an abstract, normative level, there is agreement that we should strive for more equity, social justice and inclusion in education. But concerning the means, there seems to be less agreement.

    Nevertheless, I greatly enjoyed the conference. Following are some personal highlights:

  • Inspirations from Cambridge 2012 #cam12

     
    This global conference took place during last week in the beautiful city of Cambridge. The venue was not so historic as it may be anticipated but it was a nice place to gather and chat with many people on the latest developments of OER. Just outside the building was the famous Mathematical Bridge.
    The conference theme was Innovation and Impact: Openly collaborating to enhance education and was organized jointly by the Support Center for Open Resources in Education and the Open Courseware Consortium.
    The conferences main topic open collaboration was also a big part of the first keynote: Developing the Open Education Ecosystem by Eko Indrajit from the ABFI Institute in Jakarta, Indonesia. It was an informative and entertaining speech also I am skeptical towards the overuse of the term „open“. Or do you know what an Open Professor might be or look like?
    Openness has certainly become a catchword not only in the realm of education (e.g. Open Innovation) and as long as it serves the purpose of education one should not bother.
    Collaboration was also the goal of other projects that have been presented such as „Bridge to Success“ which attempts to share open resources to help students acquire skills needed when entering a college. Materials are provided from the Open University UK and then modified to fit the context of community college.
    On the last day, I had the opportunity to present my ideas on sustaining Open Education with the help of the theory of Bildung. Before and during my presentation (see slides below) I was not quite sure how the participants who came all from countries not familiar with the specific notion of Bildung would react. So I was excited when Patrick McAndrew who chaired my sessions invited people to ask questions or make comments. The first reaction was: „Do you have anything written on this subject?“. Then, other people joined in and an inspiring discussion evolved.
    One of the things that emerged was the mismatch between the humanistic philosophy of Open Education and the current practices to convince, for instance, teachers to utilize OER. This is a transmission without acknowledging the person’s individual beliefs, motives and attitudes towards OER. In this regard, Bildung might step in as a reflective tool. Thus, questions such as how do OER change my teaching can be reconsidered.
    Overall I was impressed by the positive and encouraging feedback to my presentation. Please feel free to add any comments you have so we can keep this interesting discussion ongoing.
     

    Presentation m deimann_18042012 Cambridge [slideshare id=12588265&w=425&h=355&sc=no]

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