{"id":3122,"date":"2024-09-02T22:41:05","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T22:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jrdingwall.ca\/blogwall\/?p=3122"},"modified":"2024-09-15T23:04:15","modified_gmt":"2024-09-15T23:04:15","slug":"revisiting-open-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jrdingwall.ca\/blogwall\/revisiting-open-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting Open Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve sat down to really think or write about Open Education. I\u2019m not even sure if I\u2019ll post this, but perhaps writing will help.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a time when I might have been characterized as an active advocate for Open Education, particularly in higher education. I sat on committees, delivered workshops and presentations, participated in communities of practice, collaborated on a MOOC focused on developing OER for ABE contexts, and worked with staff and faculty to create all kinds of Open Educational Resources, including textbooks and learning objects. One project from my long journey as an instructional designer that I\u2019d say I\u2019m most proud of (or close to) is an open textbook I co-authored with a team assembled by Olds College. But I\u2019ve moved on from much of that in a way, I\u2019m much quieter about it all now, and working with things like Open Licenses, and OER is part of my toolkit but not the primary focus of my day-to-day work anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of that may be due to my shift in roles over the years. Some of it may be the opportunity. But a non-insignificant portion of it stems from needing to step back. I do still keep an eye on what\u2019s happening in communities I used to participate in more frequently, but I felt I had to take a break from active participation in certain groups within the larger open education community. Despite my efforts, my socials are overrun with buzz from the Open Education and OER arena. So here I am.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are conversations swirling around social media that seem to have been sparked by an upcoming presentation by David Wiley at the University of Regina titled, <\/span>Why Open Education Will Become Generative AI Education<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

For over 25 years, the primary goal of the open education movement has been increasing access to educational opportunity. And from the beginning of the movement the primary tactic for accomplishing this goal has been creating and sharing OER. However, using generative AI is a demonstrably more powerful and effective way to increase access to educational opportunity. Consequently, if we are to remain true to our overall goal, we must begin shifting our focus from OER to generative AI.URegina<\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n

That\u2019s a really short description, but I see it\u2019s ignited conversation across all the spaces I lurk. I\u2019m not too surprised that it is a provocative suggestion. The last time I saw Wiley speak was at OER18 in Bristol where he gave some talk (I can\u2019t remember if I published about it or not) where today the most memorable thing was Wiley opening with something along the lines of, \u201cI was asked to be provocative, so here I am\u201d. And yeah, that crowd had <\/span>feelings <\/span><\/i>(myself included). So what stands out from the debate this week? Well, if the intention was to be provocative, mission accomplished. Discussion channels have been overflowing, to the point where folks are also taking a step back.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time I\u2019ve seen mixed reactions to specific technologies or approaches in the open education space. I recall in 2015 a hot new topic dominated the conversation: open textbooks. Given the position open textbooks hold in many organizations, it may come as a surprise there was a contingent of attendees who expressed their discontent, loudly, about how open textbooks supported the status quo, are a limiting factor in the larger open education movement, etc. Nine years later, some are still celebrating, promoting, and using open textbooks despite the criticism in 2015. Conferences are where trends in disciplines are brought forward for debate. That\u2019s kind of the point.<\/span><\/p>\n

In debates I\u2019ve seen since 2015, some themes have tended to arise from segments of the broader <\/span>community<\/span><\/i> of open education practitioners, enthusiasts, advocates, etc. The underlying argument that creeps up every now and then might look like the following:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. there is a unified definition, set of values, and community of \u201cOpen\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. that it\u2019s useful to speak about \u201cOpen\u201d in an all-encompassing way rather than specific areas and activities thereof (e.g. Open Education, OER, Open Access, MOOCs, Open Source, Open Streets, Open Government, Open Banking, etc.), and<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. that all actors engaging in various open practices must meet all of the components of the definition to be accepted as legitimate participants in \u201cOpen\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Sometimes, the conversation focuses on narrower terms, such as OER; at other times, it expands to \u201cOpen\u201d as broadly as possible. However, attempting to capture any work area with the modifier \u201cOpen\u201d would be pretty well impossible. We could consider education-related ones such as open education, open educational resources, and massive open online courses, for example. Arguably, there is some common ground there. Then, we could expand to open access, open science, open data, etc. There may be some overlap there. However, Expanding to concepts like Open Streets shows that there may be a scent of similarity, but there is a limitation to how broadly a single idea of the term can be applied.<\/span><\/p>\n

    However, based on where the conversations are taking place, it may be safe to assume that by \u201copen,\u201d participants mean \u201copenness\u201d as it intersects with \u201ceducation.\u201d This leaves us with a few areas to consider, highlighted in <\/span>Openness and Education: A beginner\u2019s guide<\/span><\/a>. Based on a citation network analysis, Jordan & Weller identify clusters of related papers to illustrate the different ways of thinking about openness in education. They map these clusters to eight areas:<\/span><\/p>\n