"Pencils are bringing down education"

2011 draws to a close and I would like to end with more light-hearted news that attracted my attention. Last weeks and months a highly entertaining ed-tech debate unfolded on Twitter. Topic of the debate was … the use of pencils. Thousands of tweets appeared with the hashtag #pencilchat and the debate moved from the U.S., to Australia and Europe. The tweets are funny, a bit surrealistic, contrasting computers with a very old piece of technology: ‘the pencil’. But exactly this is what makes this #pencilchat so interesting to me. The comparison between computers and pencils works incredibly well for ed-tech and causes a light-hearted and thought-provoking reflection on the use of technology in the classroom and the obstacles teachers and schools face with integrating technology. Replace the word ‘computers’ by ‘pencils’ and think about the pedagogical impact of integrating computers/pencils in the classroom. How will computers/pencils influence education? Think about the difficulties teachers can have with adopting computers/pencils in the classroom. Reflect on the fears over whether or not computers/pencils will replace teachers. And how do we deal with students knowing more about computers/pencils than teachers?

“Real men use slate! You won't catch me with one of those new fangled pencil things #pencilchat”

It started all with some tweets after having read the book Pencil me in, written by John Spencer. The book is kind of a reflection of Spencers’ blog Adventures in Pencil Integration and tells the story of a teacher in the 19^th century, struggling with the integration of pencils into the classroom.

I started exploring the #pencilchat after a friend have sent me the ‘Ode to #pencilchat’, a video compilation of the most memorable tweets in the edu-tech debate, earlier this week.

Ode to #Pencilchat: Technology Integration in the Classroom

by: MiddleLevelEd

This video highlights some of the controversies and concerns about integrating new tools (no matter if they are pencils or computers) into education. Teachers and schools are often concerned about the lack of professional development, the accessibility, the costs, … The analogy with the pencils also opens your eyes for some clichés and sometimes school-made problems: “pencils are too dangerous to use for students without supervision”, “impossible to teach students about appropriate pencil use, because the curriculum is so full already”, “students use pencils at home all the time, so they are probably experts already”, … Astonishing is that Dr. Seymour Papert already mentioned this in an article, published in the Washington Post in 1996. There he gives some examples of the fallacies schools manufacture to persuade themselves that the integration of technology is impossible. Even today schools sometimes use some organisational problems as “powerful objective reasons” to ban technology. In my school for example we have only since two years two good-working computer classrooms of 30 computers each plus a Smartboard in each of them for 300 people in total. Reason for this late adaption of infrastructure is that there was no money for it. Before that we had one classroom with 25 very old computers (and you were lucky when they were all working). And some teachers never use any technology in their courses because “pupils aren’t concentrated enough when they have to use a computer” or because “it doesn’t fit in their subject”.

And these fears sometimes lead to strange school policies: “In order to protect our children, we must ban pen and pencils”, says one of the tweets. Katie Stansberry also points out the absurdity of the policies banning technology (or … pencils) in here MindShift post 10 Reasons to Ban Pens and Pencils in the Class.

The metaphor of pencils to talk about technology in education is not a new one. Back in the eighties Dr. Seymour Papert already used the parable as a standard part of his speeches and testimony.

Imagine that writing has just been invented in Foobar, a country that has managed to develop a highly sophisticated culture of poetry, philosophy and science using entirely oral means of expression. It occurs to imaginative educators that the new technology of pencils, paper and printing could have a beneficial effect on the schools of the country. Many suggestions are made. The most radical is to provide all teachers and children with pencils, paper and books and suspend regular classes for six months while everyone learns the new art of reading and writing. The more cautious plans propose starting slowly and seeing how "pencil-learning" works on a small scale before doing anything really drastic. In the end, Foobarian politicians being what they are, a cautious plan is announced with radical fanfare: Within four years a pencil and a pad of paper will be placed in every single classroom of the country so that every child, rich or poor, will have access to the new knowledge technology. Meantime the educational psychologists stand by to measure the impact of pencils on learning.

Though the articles of Papert are quite old, his ideas still seem fresh and some of the issues he mentions are still present today. However, as we take this journey towards integrating technology in the classroom, could one day digital technology become as normal as pencils?

You can also check the whole stream of #pencilchat-tweets on Twitter or you can read some on Storify.

iPad for educators

The large Multi-Touch iPad screen lets you use your fingertips- and your imagination – to do just about anything! Put together an HD video and soundtrack with a few taps in iMovie: use GarageBand to turn iPad into a guitar or a piano and record a song. Drag images into a Pages report and watch your text instantly wrap around them. Open the smart onscreen keyboard to enter data in numbers/ and show off Keynote slides with a flick of the finger. You can even print your projects right from iPad using AirPrint.

I find iPad quite useful , especially for the teachers. So if you’re a teacher, here are ten great iPad apps that you must try out:

 

1. QuickVoice Recorder: This is the perfect recording tool to record your classes and get feedback on your performance; you can see what you’re doing right and what you’re going about wrong and learn how you can improve your lectures.

2. Dropbox: If you’ve used Dropbox on your computer, you already know this is a must-have tool on your iPad. If not, it’s a file storage application that allows you to say goodbye to flash drives and portable hard disks for good. Just sign up to store your files online and then access them from any other computer, your iPad or your smartphone. Ideal for files you use at school and at home.   

3. Things for iPad: If you’re looking for the perfect task manager to keep track of all your appointments and prepare ahead, then Things it is.

4. Discover: There’s no need for encyclopedias today with Wikipedia and other instant sources of information. Discover joins this list as the go-to app for the iPad when you need information on just about anything in the world.

5. Evernote: There’s no need to carry around a notebook or diary in which to jot down your lesson plans or reminders – just use Evernote to enter your notes in text or voice format.

6. Pages for iPad: Use this nifty app to type out all your documents and include any kind of formatting you may need.

7. Numbers for iPad: For all your spreadsheet needs on your iPad, turn to Numbers. It’s easy to use, easy to access, and easy to import all your information from your Excel worksheets.

8. Goodreader for iPad: Use this app to access all your documents, PDF files, video and audio files, spreadsheets and many other kinds of files over a wireless network or via USB cable – it makes it dead easy to retrieve files from other systems.

9. Mobile Air Mouse: This is the perfect tool for hosting presentations and conducting lectures using an interactive whiteboard. It turns your iPad into an all-in-one remote control that you can use to manipulate the board without having to resort to using a wireless keyboard and a mouse.

10. WritePad: If you prefer to write rather than type, then this app converts your handwriting on the iPad into readable text – use your finger or a stylus to get your point across.

beVUB (project summary)

Our website has one aim and one aim only - to provide information about Belgium,Brussels and Vrije Universiteit Brussel to all international students. We rely on the helping hand of numerous international (and not only) students who have already experienced a lot in the country of frites, waffles, beer and hard studying.

Even though the four of us were somewhat technically disadvantaged, we managed to work on a small idea that hopefully can turn into a useful place. This project is very dear to us because all of us have teaching experience and we wanted to combine education with technology. The latter is represented by our use of open source materials.

15 steps to cultivate lifelong learning

Lifelong learning is the continuous building of skills and knowledge throughout the life of an individual. It occurs through experiences encountered in the course of a lifetime. These experiences could be formal (training, counseling, tutoring, mentorship, apprenticeship, higher education, etc.) or informal (experiences, situations, etc.)Lifelong learning, also known as LLL, is the "lifelong, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. As such, it not only enhances social inclusion, active citizenship and personal development, but also competitiveness and employability.

15 Steps to Cultivate Lifelong Learning

1) Always have a book.

It doesn’t matter if it takes you a year or a week to read a book. Always strive to have a book that you are reading through, and take it with you so you can read it when you have time. Just by shaving off a few minutes in-between activities in my day I can read about a book per week. That’s at least fifty each year.

2) Keep a “To-Learn” List

We all have to-do lists. These are the tasks we need to accomplish. Try to also have a “to-learn” list. On it you can write ideas for new areas of study. Maybe you would like to take up a new language, learn a skill or read the collective works of Shakespeare. Whatever motivates you, write it down.

3) Get More Intellectual Friends

Start spending more time with people who think. Not just people who are smart.But people who actually invest much of their time in learning new skills. Their habits will rub off on you. Even better, they will probably share some of their knowledge with you.

4) Guided Thinking

Albert Einstein once said, “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” Simply studying the wisdom of others isn’t enough; you have to think through ideas yourself. Spend time journaling, meditating or contemplating over ideas you have learned.

5) Put it Into Practice

Skill based learning is useless if it isn’t applied. Reading a book on C++ isn’t the same thing as writing a program. Studying painting isn’t the same as picking up a brush. If your knowledge can be applied, put it into practice.

6) Teach Others

You learn what you teach. If you have an outlet of communicating ideas to others, you are more likely to solidify that learning. Start a blog, mentor someone or even discuss ideas with a friend.

7) Clean Your Input

Some forms of learning are easy to digest, but often lack substance. I make a point of regularly cleaning out my feed reader for blogs I subscribe to. Great blogs can be a powerful source of new ideas. But every few months I realize I’m collecting posts from blogs that I am simply skimming. Every few months, purify your input to save time and focus on what counts.

8 ) Learn in Groups

Lifelong learning doesn’t mean condemning yourself to a stack of dusty textbooks. Join organizations that teach skills. Workshops and events can make educating yourself a fun, social experience.

9) Unlearn Assumptions

You can’t add water to a full cup. I always try to maintain a distance away from any idea. Too many convictions simply mean too few paths for new ideas. Actively seek out information that contradicts your worldview.

10) Find Jobs that Encourage Learning

Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a job that doesn’t have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to one that does. Don’t spend forty hours of your week in a job that doesn’t challenge you.

11) Start a Project

Set out to do something you don’t know how. Forced learning in this way can be fun and challenging. If you don’t know anything about computers, try building one. If you consider yourself a horrible artist, try a painting.

12) Follow Your Intuition

Lifelong learning is like wandering through the wilderness. You can’t be sure what to expect and there isn’t always an end goal in mind. Letting your intuition guide you can make self-education more enjoyable. Most of our lives have been broken down to completely logical decisions, that making choices on a whim has been stamped out.

13) The Morning Fifteen

Use the first fifteen minutes of your morning as a period for education. If you find yourself too groggy, you might want to wait a short time. Just don’t put it off later in the day where urgent activities will push it out of the way.

14) Reap the Rewards

Learn information you can use. Understanding the basics of programming allows me to handle projects that other people would require outside help. Meeting a situation that makes use of your educational efforts can be a source of pride.

15) Make it a Priority

Few external forces are going to persuade you to learn. The desire has to come from within. Once you decide you want to make lifelong learning a habit, it is up to you to make it a priority in your life.

African teenagers excited about reading Shakespeare on their mobile phone

In the school where I work as a teacher mobile phones are not allowed in the classroom. Teachers even take them away when they catch a student texting with their cell phone hidden under the table. So, every year students are looking at me with eyes filled of astonishment and suspicion when I ask them at the beginning of a poetry lesson to take out their mobile phones and to switch them on. Yes, I sometimes use mobile phones in the class for SMS poetry for example or for lessons on SMS text message language.

Last week I read the article Yoza Cellphone Stories – getting South African teenagers reading on the website of Unesco and I already could imagine my students reactions and unbelief when I would tell them that from now on we will use mobile phones for reading. Though, I’m pretty sure that they would love the mobiles for literacy-project, launched by the Nokia-UNESCO partnership.

As many developing countries, Africa is a “book-poor and mobile phone-rich” society. Steve Vosloo, founder of the mobiles for literacy-project, mentions on the blog Educational Technology Debate that 51% of households in South Africa don’t have a single book at home, while only 6% of households own 40 books or more. And – even more surprising – only 7% of schools have functioning libraries. While books are scarce, 90% of South Africa’s teenagers have their own cell phone and 70% of these phones have access to the internet. This makes the mobile phone an interesting tool to work on literacy.

The mobiles for literacy project

The m4Lit (mobiles for literacy) project was launched as an experiment to see if teenagers in South Africa would read on their mobile phone. One of the inspirations for the project was the m-novel phenomenon in Japan, where teenagers have been reading and writing novels on their mobile phones since almost 10 years now. But the success in Japan didn’t guarantee success in Africa. So, in a pilot phase two stories, called Kontax, were published on a mobisite and on MXit (Africa’s largest social network) in a period of almost a year (September 2009 and May 2010), both in English and in isiXhosa. The reading even was made interactive, since it was possible for the teens to discuss the plot, the reactions of the characters, … They could also vote in polls and leave comments, and in the end it was even possible to write a piece as part of a writing competition. The African youth was excited! The website of the project gives us the following facts:

In just seven months the two stories were read over 34,000 times on mobile phones. To put this in context, a book is considered a best seller in South Africa if 3,000 copies are sold. Over 4,000 entries were received in the writing competitions and over 4,000 comments were left by readers on individual chapters. Many of the readers asked for more stories and indifferent genres.

Encouraged by the success of the experiment, the idea was further developed by Shuttleworth Foundation and resulted in August 2010 in a bigger m-novel with the name Yoza. The Yoza Cell Stories offer more Kontax-stories, a great selection of books from different genres and a Classics section. Books are written in English or isiXhosa and some even in Afrikaans (I love this language!). New chapters of a book are published on daily or monthly basis and under each chapter readers can leave a comment. Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet for example inspired to comments as: “Wow romeo is gud neh”, “Speeeakiiiin offf reeealll traaaageeedy. Shakespear was giftd damn”, “This story is the gud one cz most of us tenagers we gain lots of expiriance 4 the thing that we have jst read in that story”. Yes, Shakespeare is rocking in South Africa!

The ‘Calling all writers’ section offers the South African youth the opportunity to write a book review or a m-story. The stories are published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License (this means that anyone can freely copy, distribute, display and remix the content, as long as they credit the original and subsequent authors) and writers get exposure on the Yoza Cell Stories website, which is a very motivating for those young writers. Interesting as well is that a Yoza Manifesto on the website gives advice to writers how to write for a cell phone. It seems that a new style of writing is born.

Now the Yoza Project is available in all provinces of South Africa and in Kenya, but the goal is to reach whole Africa.

In the following video Steve Vosloo explains the development, goals and backgrounds of his project in more detail.

Unesco promotes integration of mobile phones in education

According to UNESCO departments of education in different countries start to consider the impact of mobile learning. To promote the potential contribution of mobile telephones to education UNESCO organised from 12 to 16 December its First Mobile Learning Week (MLW), in Paris. There an international group of experts explored the potential and challenges of mobile learning and when you read the reports of this meeting on the UNESCO website, it must have led to an interesting discovery and exchange of creative ideas about how to use mobile phones in education.

The UNESCO website shows some convincing examples of the use of mobile technologies: “They have been used to provide access to distance education for teachers in remote areas in Mozambique; to enable the development of literacy among girls in Pakistan; to motivate young learners in South Africa to read and nurture an interest in mathematics; to enable access to literacy among adult women in Niger; to reinforce communication systems between principals and teachers in Kenya; and to enhance administration systems in schools in Mongolia”.

I’ve never thought that cell phones could have such an impact on the educational development for developing countries. In a way I think I automatically combined the technological evolution in education to the well developed, rich world, but I totally agree with Steve Vosloo in his statement: “For the foreseeable future the cell phone, not the Kindle or iPad, is the eReader of Africa. Yoza aims to capitalize on that to get Africa’s teens reading and writing.”

E-burn the Christmas calories!

Christmas holidays traditionally are a time for delicious family dinners and nice presents, … and for putting on extra pounds by eating your weight in pies, turkey and chocolates. When you already started thinking of going to the fitness again in 2012 you can, just like me, test the ‘Fit for the future?’ e-learning tool as a preparation for the real physical workout after Christmas holidays … or for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Kineo, leader in innovative e-learning design, created together with the League Football Education and Sportiv8 an e-learning programme that incorporates the development of functional skills in a real sport context, namely the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012. Recently this project won a bronze award in the E-learning Age Awards 2011 for Excellence in the production of learning content - Not for Profit Sector.

The power of sport

The learners using the e-tool enter in the story (see ‘Get in the zone’ on the picture below) as a member of a team of young athletes, qualified to go to the Olympics in London. During the training period, the members are sharing a flat where they discuss their training schemes, where they try to help each other in taking decisions concerning their nutrition, fitness training levels, personal problems, … The scenarios are all based around the real 2012 Olympics and use contributions from promising and top athletes to make the game more authentic and engaging for the learners (see the part ‘Hear from the best’ in the e-tool).

The interesting thing of the kineo-creation is the re-usability of the core material for other e-learning resources on functional skills. Kineo is thinking of providing real sport contexts (such as the rugby world cup and the 2018 football world cup), scenarios and problems to all future models in order to attract a wide range of learners. Though, the founders of the tool especially want to attract apprentices, learners of technical and vocational programmes and all 14 to 19 year olds that have difficulties to stay motivated in class. Although I think that an e-learning programme can’t completely replace the traditional learning (with books), the tool certainly offers a nice learning support for pupils (with or without learning difficulties).

An authentic and cross curricular approach

The content offers the learners realistic scenarios and problems that:

- specify tasks that are relevant to the context;

- require application of knowledge, skills and understanding for a purpose;

- require problem solving;

- assess process skills and the outcome of their application in different contexts.

The users are confronted with all kind of (un)familiar situations, such as writing an e-mail to your trainer, writing a report, measuring your BMI, … The advantage of such a tool is that the authenticity and cross curricular character reach a higher value than possible in a normal class environment. Throughout the ‘game’ learners improve their functional skills and learn more in English (reading, grammar, formal and informal speech), Mathematics and Personal Social Development. You are only sent to the more theoretical part of the programme (the ‘learn it’-tool in the ‘kit bag’) when you made too much mistakes during the exercise. In the learning tool theory concerning good listening, efficient reading, decimals, … is explained in a very animated and clear way. Though, even when it is the purpose to learn in a functional context the theoretical part probably is too superficial for effective learning.

Have a look at the sample, to see what it looks like!

Offline support

E-learning has definite benefits over traditional classroom training, but it’s not the e-learning tool on itself that makes the learning experience effective and valuable. Therefore, the theoretical part or the real content of the tested tool is, as I mentioned before, too superficial. And even with this challenging sport context unmotivated students may fall behind. This doesn’t mean that you don’t learn anything from the e-learning tool. It certainly takes you through an adventure and the fact of being able to explore, try things out, succeed or fail makes a good training. But I see more benefit in an efficient combination of challenging e-learning tools and offline support and expansion, such as tutor (or teacher) guidance, supporting (offline) activities, reflection on the objectives and the results, … Exactly the combination of both makes the learning experience more valuable and profound and leads to increased retention and lifelong knowledge. So I’m glad that kineo provided a teachers guideline with quite some interesting offline activities, ways of assessment, etc. During the supported activities learners will have to create an Olympic Legacy website with information concerning the Olympic Games and the details of a self chosen Opening Ceremony Event. The following challenge is to create an Olympic Opening Event, to think about the financial considerations of such events, to develop promoting materials and to set up a detailed programme considering the organisational challenges of such an event.

Learning and Technology Exhibition

The e-learning programme ‘Fit for the Future?’ and the supporting activities put a lot of objectives together and chose an actual and interesting setting for it. Though, I think it’s very important that a tutor or teacher guides the learners, not in working with the programme, but in reflecting on the objectives and the results and in offering supporting offline activities to make the learning experience really valuable.

If you want to know more about the tools kineo is designing, have a look on their website. The company offers some free learning tools and presents the projects they realised with big companies such as BP, BBC, McDonald’s, … And when you are planning a visit to London in the end of January, maybe you can pass by the Learning and Technology Exhibition, where kineo will be present amongst other professionals in the e-learning sector.

But let’s go first to … the real fitness!

Gooru is a new free platform for 21st century teachers and students

Gooru is a free platform for students and teachers to access standards-based online resources in organized “playlists” for learning. Created by a Google employee, it’s run by a nonprofit group called Ednovo.

On their website http://www.goorulearning.org they write that their mission is to "make high quality education accessible and free to the world's one billion students within three years. Ednovo breaks down the barriers of access to education with a free web application, Gooru, that leverages technology, amplifies the effect of stellar teaching, and inspires students to learn. Gooru provides teachers with the ability to "search and teach" and students with the ability to "search and study" to find curriculum-appropriate web resources for any lesson. Teachers and students then share their lessons and notes with each other to enable learning in a truly social way.

The unlimited amount of web resources today has taken learning to a new level. However, students still struggle in school as society faces an educational crisis. We've developed Gooru, a platform for students and teachers to easily access online resources in organized playlists for learning. Instead of sorting through individual websites or poor content, our Classplans and Classbooks contain standards-aligned multimedia. In our world, a student can search a topic and learn everything he wants to know with just one click. Gooru provides the world-class education that everyone is entitled to for free."

In order to register at the site first you should request invitation. Within a week they promise to send it on your e-mail.

The site itself is colorful and interesting. I am sure that children will study with pleasure with the help of this free platform.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/12/22/new-online-learning-platform-gooru-aims-to-make-learning-sociall/

Implementation of the ‘Computers for Pupils Programme’ in a Birmingham Secondary School

In the article from “Journal of Information Technology Education” Jonathan Morris charts and evaluates the implementation of the Computers for Pupils (CfP) programme and its extension, the Universal Home Access programme, in a Birmingham secondary school.

The author states that ICT has become increasingly important for learning, pupils of low social status risk being put at a significant disadvantage when compared to those of higher social status. (British Educational Communications and Technology Agency [BECTA], 2003). This inequality, which has become known as the Digital Divide, is defined by Livingstone & Helper (2007, p.672) as divisions “within and across societies according to those that have access to digital technologies (including the internet) and those that do not.”

It is mentioned that attempts to bridge the Digital Divide have seen vast investment in Information Communication Technology in schools. In the United Kingdom, the Computers for Pupils initiative has invested £60 million of funds to help some of the most disadvantaged secondary school pupils by putting a computer in their home.

This case study employs a complementary mixed-method approach—the questionnaire method with a year 9 cohort of pupils and interviews with their ICT teachers.

Findings from this research, which are divided into four themes:

laptop use and support

provision of connectivity

decisions on software and hardware

technical support and repair

These themes found several issues with the implementation of the programme. As a consequence, several recommendations for improvement are offered.

Results

ICT teachers were not informed of the pupils on the CfP programme and many pupils are primarily using the laptops for leisure rather than for education purposes. The lack of involvement of the ICT teachers may explain why there is no laptop support in ICT lessons and why the use of laptops has not been educationally based.

Recommendations

The nature of school support for laptops offered by the CfP programme should include dedicated funding. Specifically, in terms of school staff involvement; it should be made clear to the school leadership team how the programme should be facilitated.

Results

The funding of connectivity has not reached its intended target and has either not been used or has been reallocated elsewhere.

Recommendations

The funding of connectivity should be real- located – for instance to facilitate school and staff involvement in the laptop deployment in a school.

Results

A small number of pupils’ laptops do not contain all the software as specified by RM; the ICT teachers are aware of compatibility issues between school and laptop systems. Many of the ICT teachers felt that there had been little thought put into the choices of software for the laptops.

Recommendations

Choice of software should be decided upon a school-by-school basis or a uniform Virtual Learning Environment setup to facilitate laptop use (specifically in terms of file transfer) both in and outside school.

Results

Over half of pupils noted that a CD/DVD drive would most help them to complete their school- work or homework. The lack of CD/DVD drive contradicts the Home-School agreement which asks pupils to backup work (for instance on a CD).

Recommendation

Deployment of new models of laptops in schools should include a CD/DVD drive for the purpose of data backup, as outlined in the CfP.

Results

Not including accidental damage, almost two thirds of CfP pupils indicated that they experienced problems with the hardware or software on their laptop. In terms of correcting problems, ICT teachers reported that many would bring their laptops to the school’s ICT technicians to be repaired, when this was not considered to fall within their responsibility. A reason for this may lie with the CfP Home-School Agreement that indicates that laptops may need to be returned to school and/or RM for repair.

Recommendations

Home-School Agreement should be modified to indicate where responsibility of the laptops lies, specifically in terms of repair. Due to the distribution of laptops being through schools, funding could be supplied to the school’s technicians in return for responsibility for laptop repair.

Results

Laptop support does not last for the duration of the child in school and laptop software often suffers from becoming obsolete.

Recommendations

Laptop support should last for the duration of the child in school. Some funding might be achieved for this by reinitiating laptop provision through a more focused approach instead of across year group

References

Jonathan Padraig Morris (2011).Digital Bridge or Digital Divide? A Case Study Review of the Implementation of the ‘Computers for Pupils Programme’ in a Birmingham Secondary School. Journal of Information Technology Education

Towards openness in 2012

Mexico’s largest University, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), announced in November it will make virtually all its publications, databases, and course materials freely available on the internet over the next few years. This is only one of the many developments in open educational resources of fall 2011. Further UNESCO launched a new OER platform with significant UNESCO publications open for use. And the most remarkable developments probably are the formation of the MITx and the Open Educational University (OERu), that attempt to combine open access to learning materials to institutional accreditation. The idea of sharing gains ground in education. This is a least what I could notice during my follow-up of the educational news and my research for our group work that dealt with the openness of a learning platform (see earlier on this blog).

The philosophy of sharing in education, mostly discussed in terms of Open Educational Resources (OER), allow institutions to use and adapt materials that have been created by other academic staff. The idea of sharing and reusing educational materials is spread for more than 10 years now (OER are celebrating their 10^th anniversary in 2012) by an increasing amount of institutions worldwide. But despite all the good intentions and the great potential of OER, the implementation of the philosophy of OER misses adoption on a large scale (in all countries and in all educational institutions). So, when OER are the future, why are educational institutions moving so slowly in the direction of openness and how can they be encouraged?

Learning is changing, but what about education?

On her blog Catherine Cronin, lecturer and elearning facilitator at the National University of Ireland, is reflecting on the innovation in learning she and her colleagues noticed this year. She concludes: “Boundaries between informal and formal education are blurring. Open, participatory and social media are not just enabling new forms of communication, they are transforming learning.” And indeed, social media play a major role in the innovation in learning, in that sense that they are increasing the transfer of information and open as such opportunities to create and share OER. The increased access to OER promotes the individual and online learning. So, OER are part of the innovation in learning.

The innovative way of learning and the potential of OER have created unique opportunities and challenges for education. According to Catherine educators have to “refer students to excellent, relevant, online open educational resources.” Therefore educators must learn how to “create and share material in new ways, learn to use different tools, and stay abreast of online learning developments.” But the challenge of educational institutions includes also the investment in systematic development of course materials, the time for finding appropriate OER, adapting existing OER, negotiating the copyright licenses, openness to a more learner-centered way of teaching or openness to the use of different materials … And an efficient use of OER also requires critical and technological skills of both teachers and students.

So, while learning seems to change almost ‘naturally’ on the waves of our changing environment and the increasing possibilities of ICT, the adaptation of education requires a lot more investments and seems to discourage educational institutions in their adoption of OER. A response on Catherines blog makes clear that teachers often have difficulties to find and integrate OER: “I sometimes feel so overwhelmed by the exponential growth in tools and apps and other resources”. Another problem in dealing with the innovation of learning and the use of OER is probably the fact that there is no culture of sharing knowledge in education. Based on my own experiences, I notice very often that teachers are not willing to share learning materials they created themselves, in some cases because it took them so much time to create the materials and they don’t want another take advantage of it, or because they are afraid of being judged by others. Further the adaptation to innovative learning faces the difficulty of educators being so attached to their course book, that the use of OER or another approach of the content (a more learner-based) don’t even appear in their mind. Javiera Atenas even goes further and notices “a deep cultural issue in avoiding sharing resources.” He claims there is a” fear of being plagiarised and [a] fear to look as someone that is plagiarising somebody else”, when respectively sharing own resources and using someone else's resources.

Guidelines for higher education

The use of OER in education is more than putting some learning materials on the internet. Taking effective advantage of it requires more investments and changes (in attitudes) in education. To help educational institutions with these challenges UNESCO and COL recently published a set of Guidelines for Open Educational Resources in Higher Education, that give stakeholders in separate sections (government, higher educational institutions, academic staff, student bodies, quality assurance/accreditation bodies) suggestions for efficiently integrating and using OER. With these guidelines UNESCO and COL want to encourage decision makers in governments and institutions to invest in OER. The guidelines are written in a very clear way, explain the advantages of OER (for example “Experiences show that, when institutions make good quality courses and materials publicly available online, they can attract new students, expand their institutional reputation and advance their public service role”) and show for example how government support for openness in education can happen at the policy and guidelines level without any additional funding. Openness clearly brings forth social and economic benefits. So why wouldn’t a government or educational institution implement open policies? It should be nice to see these policies adopted all over the world, and applied in all educational institutions. But, the adoption of the open movement and especially of an efficient use of OER will not just rely on a document of UNESCO and COL. Promotion of the endless possibilities of OER will be needed and therefore I hope that the 10^th anniversary world conference, organized by the UNESCO OER Programme, will be a first step into the direction of a real breakthrough of OER.

Towards openness in 2012?

The culture of open knowledge is growing, the attitude towards sharing is improving significantly, but there is a need to encourage and support governments, educational institutions, … to embrace this culture of openness where intellectual property is important and to consider the opportunities the innovation in learning is offering. The UNESCO-COL-guidelines for the use of OER in higher education and especially a promotion of OER can help to unfold openness on a larger scale and in an efficient way in 2012.