open education
-
Voices in the open
I’ve been at an excellent OEGlobal conference in Edmonton for the past week. There was a lot of presentations about networks of open pedagogic practice, use of open textbooks to engage students, regional OER initiatives, and so on. It was impressive stuff and a significant advancement from the sort of solo-educator open textbook implementations we used to see. We were there with the GO-GN team, celebrating 10 years of that network. This was our largest gathering, with members from 15 different countries. Robert Schuwer gave a fascinating talk on the history of the network – tip to people setting on a project that may have legs, make sure you record…
-
Open as in pathway
Open education is a term that has many interpretations. We mapped eight areas in this work, based on citation analysis. A lot of our focus tends to be on the individual module, for example, open pedagogy, open textbooks, OER, MOOCs, all operate at the level of the individual course. Other aspects, such as the Open University’s open entry to degrees, and open access policies operate at the institutional level. We have macro and micro levels of openness, but perhaps an absence of meso- level ones. I’ve blogged about this before, but one aspect that I think is overlooked is openness at the curriculum level. On the open degree, we allow…
-
Distance ed lite
via GIPHY Now that we are into the second semester of this academic year, with nearly all higher ed teaching taking place completely online, and many students studying from home, we are in effect seeing a nation of distance learners. I know educators are working very hard to keep the process going, and don’t want to criticise anyone, but from things I’ve heard, I thought ‘d suggest some things that can be done fairly easily which will help students enormously. It is unrealistic to expect face to face providers to pivot online and to be operating with the same distance ed provision of a specialised provider like the OU. What…
-
Elitism is not innovation
via GIPHY Like a few of you I exercised my eye rolling technique at this Guardian feature on Minerva, breathlessly titled: “The future of education or just hype? The rise of Minerva, the world’s most selective university“. I’m not going to talk about their model (it looks ok, but isn’t nearly as innovative as they think), but rather the futility of any model that is based in exclusivity. The article states that: This year Minerva received 25,000 applications from 180 countries for undergraduate entry in 2020 and admitted just 2% of them, making it the most selective degree programme in the developed world. This is portrayed as good thing. But…
-
Open ed as the anti-disruption
I keynoted at the Research and Innovation in Distance Education Conference , which has the theme “Examining Disruptive Innovations in Distance Education”. I didn’t actually attend in the end, because I had a (completely normal for this time of year) cough, and didn’t want people panicking if I had a coughing fit on stage. My apologies to anyone who was hoping to see me there (I know, it’d be a select group) and thanks to the organisers for letting me give my keynote remotely. Now, you’ll know that disruption is not my thing. Initially I was asked to talk about how open ed (in different forms) may be disrupting higher…
-
Flexibility as a key benefit of open
I was at a posh event in London last week, hosted by the Open University (I even wore a tie, people!). It was launching an OU report “Bridging the Digital Divide” which looks at some of the skills gaps in employment and how education can address these. It’s a good report, which avoids the trite “60% of jobs haven’t been invented yet” type statement and builds on some solid evidence. As I chatted to Dames and Lords and fiddled with my tie, I reflected on that what is needed for many of these future employment scenarios is flexibility. This comes in various forms, and people often talk about personalisation but…
-
Open Unis & Open Ed
Sometimes you read a post that encapsulates something you’ve been worrying at for a while. I had such an experience the other day when I read Tannis Morgan’s account of my own inaugural. In it, Tannis asks “But here’s the thing: how many people in the OER community in North America even know that Canada has three open universities, all of which were modelled after the UK Open University? And to what extent are open universities in Canada visibly inserting themselves into the broader open movement?” The first part of her question is something I have asked more broadly on this blog. Or moaned about anyway, that the open ed…
-
Open as in choice
(Made with Bryan’s lovely remixer) I’ve recently taken on a new role at the Open University, as the Chair of the Open Board of Studies. This means I’ve got responsibility for our Open Degree. When the OU was founded you could only get a BA(Open) – there were no named degrees. This was an explicit attempt by the OU’s founders to make an OU degree different not just in mode of study but in substance. Students constructed their own degree profiles, meaning our modules were truly modular, you could pick and mix as you saw fit. My colleagues Helen Cooke, Andy Lane and Peter Taylor give an excellent overview of…
-
It’s all about me
(This is a picture of a fish. I don’t know why it’s here either) Like many of you, I get asked to do bits of ‘scholarship on the side” – webinars, interviews, podcasts etc. These seem to have come in a burst recently, after not much in the preceding six months. Some of them are parts of interesting series, so partly because you may find these interesting, and also as a means of collecting them for my own purposes, here is a list of recent ‘other stuff’: Open Education: What Now? – This was a webinar for part of European Distance Learning Week, along with Catherine Cronin. Although we didn’t…
-
Models of online & flexible learning
I mentioned in a previous post that I have been doing some work with Dominic Orr and Rob Farrow in behalf of the ICDE, looking at various models of open, online and flexible technology enhanced learning (what we labelled OOFAT). The full report is out now, and I humbly suggest it is the best (OOFAT) report you will ever read. When ICDE set out this work they were very clear about two principles: it should address the range of how open, online and flexible models are being used, and every institution should be able to recognise themselves in the model. So, in contrast to many types of ed tech analysis…
