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Tag: open education

Destination Open: weaving my own way and building my own place

Well, I’m glad to say I think I’m making progress on my quest to more fully understand the notion of open and the triad of open-related courses that I’m weaving my way through seems to be shaping up nicely as I undertake my ‘Grand Tour’.

In my previous post, I thought about what openness means to me because, like digital literacy, ‘open’ is another one of those unhelpful ambiguous terms: used across contexts, meaning different things to different people. For me, I said openness was a way of being, a way of being a learner on the open web. I’d heard openness being described as a way of being before but I was unable to attribute the phrase or elaborate on what was meant. Fortunately, my readings quickly remedied this and I became acquainted with Cameron Neylon who draws attention to ‘being open‘; that is, being open as opposed to simply making open resources. He goes on to say that being open is about embracing a particular form of humility; it’s about embracing the idea that as a creator despite being supremely knowledgeable about your work, you can’t predict the use and application to which your work might be put. Further still, it’s about accepting that by working openly vital contributions and insights may come from unexpected sources. I think being ‘open to unexpected uses’ is something that the field of open research is grappling with as it considers the ethics bound up in such a position. Well, that’s what I’m picking up as I dabble in the Open Research MOOC from the OER Research Hub.

Used across contexts, meaning different things to different people
Used across contexts, meaning different things to different people

Meanwhile, over in Stanford’s Open Knowledge MOOC I was reminded that open, or more specifically ‘open content’ is the

attempt to appropriately adapt the logic of “open source” software to the non-software world of cultural and scientific artifacts like music, literature, and image […and higher education?] (Wiley, 2009),

which links nicely back to Cameron Neylon’s piece where he explains that the Open Source community is not just amenable to encouraging the unlimited use of resources thus maximizing their potential use (and their unexpected use), but they’ve also gone further in developing mechanisms that support the ability of anyone to contribute to projects. He explains, and this is where it gets interesting,

you don’t just throw the code over the fence and expect a project to magically form around it, you invest in and support community creation with the aim of creating a sustainable project. Successful open source projects put community building, outreach, both reaching contributors and encouraging them, at their center.

This is where it gets interesting because that’s what seems to be happening over in Connected Courses. Here, the pre-course weeks were dedicated to ‘Blog Talk’ and the nuts and bolts of getting participants’ blog sites syndicated and connected to the course hub, such are the practicalities of this distributed mode of delivery. However, this group of educators,

a collaborative network of faculty in higher education developing online, open courses that embody the principles of connected learning and the values of the open web,

are keen to dig deeper and support others in the whole area of open/connected learning and the tools and infrastructure that’s required to run these types of courses. Consequently, they’re not only modelling this stuff, but they’ve made available a series of resources and are willing to support anyone willing to have a go at hosting their own site and developing their own course, or learning community. So that’s just what I’ve been prompted to do. I’ve signed up with Reclaim Hosting and I’m now, as Howard Rheingold puts it, well and truly ‘Under The Hood: Where Technology, Pedagogy, and Power Meet‘.

blog talk
Building and supporting the connected courses community.

I’ve posted links to the resources below and you can view my Storify “Creating a Learning Environment with Open Source Tools” to see how helpful these folks are and what it’s like working in the open and building a community. Incidentally, and just to underscore the reason why going down the self-hosted route and developing your own webs skills is a good idea, I actually wanted to embedded my Storify in this post, like I’ve done before, but discovered that WordPress.com and Storify no longer have the same arrangement, so I’m at their mercy in terms of what I can do and how much control I have on such platforms.

Links to resources:

Connected Courses Documentation Wiki
http://docs.connectedcourses.net/

Under The Hood: Where Technology, Pedagogy, and Power Meet – Howard Rheingold
http://connectedcourses.tumblr.com/post/97092652075/under-the-hood-where-technology-pedagogy-and-power

Building with Howard: How to Create a Learning Environment with Open Source Tools Pt 1
http://media.umw.edu/podcasts/reclaim-hosting/building-with-howard-how-to-create-a-learning-envi

Building with Howard: How to Create a Learning Environment with Open Source Tools Pt 2
http://media.umw.edu/podcasts/reclaim-hosting/building-with-howard-how-to-create-a-learning-en-2

Building with Howard: How to Create a Learning Environment with Open Source Tools Pt 3
http://media.umw.edu/podcasts/reclaim-hosting/reclaim_3mp4

Building Connected Courses: Feed WordPress 101
http://cogdogblog.com/2014/07/14/feed-wordpress-101/

Feed WordPress 101: The Basics
http://cogdogblog.com/2014/07/14/feed-wordpress-101-the-basics/

Feed WordPress 101: Installing and Setting Up The Machine
http://cogdogblog.com/2014/07/16/feedwordpress-setting-up-machine/

Feed WordPress 101: Feeding The Machine
http://cogdogblog.com/2014/07/17/feeding-the-machine/

Feed WordPress 101: Some Feed Magic
http://cogdogblog.com/2014/07/24/wordpress-101-feed-magic/

Feed WordPress 101: A Few More Tricks For Your Site
http://cogdogblog.com/2014/07/28/feed-wordpress-101-more-tricks/

References:

Neylon, C. (2013) Open is a state of mind. Science in the Open. Available at: http://cameronneylon.net/blog/open-is-a-state-of-mind/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScienceInTheOpen+%28Science+in+the+open%29

Wiley, D. (2009) Defining “open”. Iterating toward openness. Available at: http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1123

Image source:

by Opensourceway  https://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/5009661706/sizes/o/

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Why Open: a Grand Tour

I know. It’s been a while. Any way, anyone who has followed this blog before the hiatus will know that it’s the place I use to chart and reflect upon my learning, learning that’s mostly occurred in online environments that have the label ‘open’. Indeed, I started this blog as a requirement for POTCert – an open online course. However, what I didn’t realize at the time was that open didn’t just refer to the course access but, to quote Jim Groom, is an ‘ethos’ and, not sure who I’m quoting here, is also ‘a way of being’ too. Because, you see, since agreeing to blog, agreeing in effect to ‘learn in the open’, that’s what I’ve steadily become, I’ve become an open learner, an open practitioner if you like.

why_open

The P2PU online course, Why Open, examines the question of openness, and starts by asking “what do you think ‘openness’ is”? There’s been many answers: access, re-use and re-purposing, sharing, collaboration and transparency etc. but, as I’ve already intimated, for me openness is a ‘way of being’; it’s a way to engage in learning, not just learning that’s visible on the open web, but a way to engage in learning that acknowledges the vulnerability and risk that’s inherent and asks the learner to recognize and embrace this. After all, in order to learn you’ve got to put something ‘out there’, thus exposing your ignorance, your difference, your half-baked understanding, your radical position – whatever. In this sense, openness is also about sharing; it’s about putting something out there for mutual benefit, for learning together.

OK, so seeing as I’ve been greatly shaped by these online open learning experiences, I now want to fully understand the whole notion of open, the range of notions. I’ve heard comments like “the battle for open has been won“. However, it wasn’t me that was doing battle; I’m just lucky enough, and able enough, to reap the spoils. I want to understand open more fully because if, as I’ve just read in Jenny Mackness’ blog, “open is going to become the ‘name of the game’ in education”, then I’d like to be more knowledgeable on the topic, more able to effectively engage in open practices, more able to support open learning and be a more assured and convincing advocate of openness, if open is the appropriate option in the given situation. After all, open is not easily going to be the default mode for everyone. It’s not exactly a walk in the park – learning in the open is complex, risky and emotional; good job it’s also rewarding and fun.

Coming up over the next few months are a raft of good courses that relate to open; I hope to sign up and take a “Grand Tour”.

Why Open? by School of Open on P2PU – Aug 10th to Sept 5th (open archive)

Open Knowledge: Changing the Course of Learning by Stanford Online – Sept 2nd to Dec 12th

Open Research by OER Research Hub on P2PU – Sept 15th to Oct 12th

Connected Courses. Active Co-Learning in Higher Ed. Sept 2nd to Dec 14th

Hopefully, I’ll be a good open learner and share my reflections here.

Image source:Project 365 #303: 301009 Blink And You’ll Miss It!

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The passionate affinity that’s PELeCON #pelc13

Tying into the topic of personal learning networks (PLNs), my previous post highlighted the fact that I was about to attend PELeCON, or rather the 8th Plymouth e-Learning Conference, where I was looking forward to meeting up with people whom I consider to be a significant part of my PLN. I attended the conference last year, where I’d experienced its friendly, energetic buzz so, in spite of a 9hr journey, there was never any question of me not returning again this year. And, I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed; not only did I meet familiar faces en route, Doug Belshaw and Steve Bunce, but I received a warm welcome from Catherine Cronin and Mary Loftus, part of the the Irish contingent who had sensibly travelled the evening before, and all of whom were congenial in making further introductions to what turned out to be another terrific conference. Equally, it seems that others who attended the conference share similar sentiments too.

The reason for such enthusiastic bonhomie, it seems to me, is that PELeCON is not just a conference. By combining networked and online presence with an annual physical event, PELeCON is more akin to what James Paul Gee would call a “passionate affinity space” than a common-or-garden conference.

A passionate affinity space, and the learning that goes on in it, requires some people associated with the space to have a deep passion for the common shared endeavour. It does not require everyone to have such a deep passion, but it does require them to recognize the value of that passion and respect it, in some sense.

Quite right. I’d like to think that not only have I developed a valuable personal learning network, but through PELeCON, I’ve found a great “passionate affinity space” in which to learn as well. The satisfied smiles on the journey back to Ireland would suggest that I’m not the only one who thinks this way.

Being Social PELeCON 13 Back: Steve Warburton, Doug Belshaw, Zak Mensah, Mark Smithers Front: Mary Loftus, Helen Crump, Catherine Cronin, Pamela O'Brien
Being Social PELeCON 13
Back: Steve Warburton, Doug Belshaw, Zak Mensah, Mark Smithers
Front: Mary Loftus, Helen Crump, Catherine Cronin, Pamela O’Brien

Ok, but what did I learn?

After, attending a delightful first session in which Steve Bunce engagingly got everyone finger knitting in order to demonstrate possible approaches to involve children in computer programming, I made my way to listen Mike John’s presentation, “Talking with lecturers: What happened to Web 2.0?”. I was especially keen to hear of his observations in relation to the uptake of Web 2.0 amongst university lecturers as this chimes with my own interests and recent research. The thrust of the presentation was in terms of the gap that exists between the hype surrounding Web 2.0 and the actual take-up of such networked and participatory practices amongst lecturers. Citing examples of activity levels in everyday applications, he pointed out that Web 2.0 gets few ticks from lecturers in their professional practice, and concluded that within higher education, Web 2.0 “is a minority sport; it’s not a mainstream activity”. All very interesting observations, but as Donald Clark noted, the presentation relied largely on the presenter’s observations and not on actual data.

In her excellent presentation entitled “Enacting Digital Identity”, Catherine Cronin called attention to the fact that “different contexts have different legitimacy practices” and highlighted the dis-joint between academic learning practices and networked learning practices (see slide 44).

The theme of digital identity, or online presence, or personal online branding even, re-occurred on the final day of the conference in Joyce Seitzinger’s practical keynote, in which she referred to the term “cloud academics” and talked about her emerging role, akin to a “personal digital coach”, with its focus on instilling networked practice for personal learning, teaching and research amongst lecturers.

Then, giving the final keynote of the conference, Donald H Taylor, with his insight from industry, painted the big picture. Flagging the enormity of impending disruption and change soon to be wrought upon higher education as venture capital seeks optimum return, he plotted pace of change axes to locate those either too tardy, or just plain unwilling, to change and to mark them as being somewhere on the road to “comfortable extinction”. A memorable phrase indeed, and one that made me think back to the lecturers that Mike John observes on the other side of the gap, to the different identities that must be enacted within academic and networked practice and to the “cloud academics” that Joyce Seitzinger’s presentation brought forth.

All of the PELeCON keynotes captured something of this air of change, but more importantly, they all went some way to laying out ways in which education might effectively meet these future challenges, be it Grainne Conole’s advocacy of learning design, Doug Belshaw’s belief in open badges as a “trojan horse”, Steve Bunce’s knitting hypotheses or Karin George‘s hands-on leadership.

Finally though, the air of change came to PELeCON itself when Steve Wheeler announced in the closing session that the “passionate affinity space” that has become PELeCON will no longer be found in Plymouth, as the conference is looking for a handier location and is to henceforth become the Professional Enhanced Learning Conference. All of which can only be a good thing, if it allows more people to access the event and to share the passion. And I’m sure that wherever PELeCON lands, it will still be a unique friendly event with excellent keynotes speakers and ever topical presentations. 🙂

References:

Gee, J. P. and Hayes, E. R. (2011). Language and Learning in the Digital Age. Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition.

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