Opening up Education - Hopes, Obstacles and Future Perspectives

Opening up Education: Hopes, Obstacles and Future Perspectives
Theo Hug & Petra Missomelius ECER 2014 The Past, the Present and Future of Educational Research in Europe Sept. 1-5, 2014 1
Theo Hug & Petra Missomelius
Network 6, 06 SES 13 JS Open Educational Resources and Informational Ecosystems: Impacts on Education
Joint Session NW 06 and NW 12

Overview

Introduction

OER - Claims, Hopes and Obstacles

Ecologies revisited – Intermediate Deliberations

Understandings of ‘Education’ in the OER Movement

Some Reflections on Assessment Criteria

Conclusion
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/ Global_Open_Educational_Resources_Logo.svg

Introduction

‘Opening up Education’ – traditional motives and new claims

technologically – access, interoperability, no cost

educational – for all, no requirements for qualification, no administration, free

societal – democratization, public-private-nexus, individual freedom

Tension between technological, educational and media cultural discourses

media technology = learning technology?

OER / OE, MOOCs, e-learning

relevance of media culture for education today - media ecology

Tension between media technology and meaningful learning and education

Media as…
“Enculturated media are consequently organic constituents of processes of education and self-formation, and they fulfill this role in two senses: they legitimate themselves by making themselves invisible, at the same time, they serve as the means by which cultural goods are received, understood and reproduced.” (Leschke & Friesen 2014, p. 3)

means of communication

technological instruments and devices

media offers, “ content”

institutions and organizations

symbolically generalized communication media

…

OE and OER – Concepts, Practices and Initiatives
http://www.openeducation.net/
http://nroer.in/home/

Reflecting ‘Openess’

Notions of 'openness' are constantly evolving in the OER movement

“sharing software source code, re-(using) content and open access to publications” (cf. Yuan et al. 2008, p. 2)

The term 'open' may refer to

free availability and accessibility of content

policies of reducing restrictions of all sorts as far as possible

avoidance of (significant) monetary costs for users

guidelines for building communities of use

modes of licensing

standards of interoperability

etc.
meanings of ‘open’ in OER (cf. Lane, 2009, p. 4) http://oro.open.ac.uk/24791/1/IRRODL_2009.pdf

Claims …
“Our claim is that Open Education provides a road to deeply modernize education to the challenges of tomorrow, to support complex skills and to adapt education better to the demands of a knowledge society.” (Meiszner & Squires 2013, p. 17)
… developmental, societal, educational, moral, political, economical, and social claims …
A typical example:

Hopes …
A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources:
“Benefit and impact, to the extent that they can be reliably measured at all, are more a function of how ICT is deployed than what technologies are used. Hopefully, as this knowledge becomes more widespread, it will help educational systems around the world – whatever their current resourcing constraints – to harness ICT over the coming years to improve educational delivery and reduce its cost, rather than creating additional expenses, exacerbating operational complexities and generating new problems.” (Butcher et al. 2011, p. 31)
Initiatives aiming at complementary developments by way of enrichment and enhancement of activities in formal education (cf. http://un.iversity.org) vs. initiatives launched
“in the hope that online learning environments might constitute an alternative to traditional classroom teaching by promoting greater student-content interaction and by providing students with greater and more frequent feedback on their performance and understanding.” (Yuan et al. (2008, p. 9)

Sceptical Voices and Obstacles
Critical considerations:
Underestimation of educational, pedagogical and didactical issues, terminological fuzziness and conceptual vagueness, lack of (meta-)theoretical foundation and clarification have been criticized and also affirmative attitudes towards economization of education and “the new work order” generally, elitist notions of education and cultural imperialism, and orientations towards market needs and financial capitalism (cf. Knox 2013; Hug 2014).
Various obstacles on different levels :

conceptual

institutional

learning

societal

economic

technological

‘Virtues’ of Media and ‘Impact’ on Education

Ecologies revisited 1/2

Mediality, Mediation, Mediazation, Mediatization, Medialization, Mediology, etc. – or „On the Mediation of Everything“ (Livingstone 2009).

Ecologies revisited 2/2

ecologies - descriptive and normative aspects

For example: media as socio-ecological disturbing factors which are to be redressed (cf. Postman 1985) vs. socio-ecological zones referring to the ecological systems theory (cf. Baacke et al. 1990)

McLuhan and on the idea of media ecologies (1964) and its educational application in the City as Classroom (cf. McLuhan et al. 1977)

“Educational Media Ecologies” (cf. Meister et al. 2014)

focussing mediated learning configurations which attempt to integrate digital media in the media-system of the school and to rethink the educational system which for ages was based on values and paradigms of the printed book

media ecologies, information ecologies, knowledge ecologies or communication ecologies open up different perspectives – metaphorical analysis could provide important insights

Understandings of ‘Education’ in the OER Movement

obliviousness to history

"no specific type", "any kind of education"

professional formation and qualification

open access web-based learning and training

self-learning
How about chances for education (Bildung)?
Shift of the focus of attention from content to the learning activities and human interactions (Seely Brown & Adler 2008, p. 18) – but:
the process of appropriating knowledge from distributed educational material is in the responsibility of the learners.
Rather a transformation of the learning subject than of the educational system

Some Reflections on Assessment Criteria

Further development of existing concepts for evaluation and assessment (cf. Chelimsky & Shadish 1997; Schenkel et al. 2000; Keil-Slawik & Kerres 2003; Bohnsack & Nentwich-Gesemann 2010) in order to and specifiy and adapt models, methods and criteria for OE- and OER-contexts

Contextualist approaches sensu Heyting (2001) and van Goor et al. (2004) - that means reflection on the (1) meaning context (2) personal context and (3) discourse context (cf. van Goor et al. 2004, p. 176)
Such contextual analysis would be helpful and revealing with regard to explicit or implicit understandings of openness, the (background) work of algorithms and the role of proprietary software as well as FLOSS, and forms of capital and interests involved.

Conclusion 1/2

Well-founded support for the learning process and, if appropriate, educational coaching, seams indispensable if learners are to be enabled to cope with the challenging demands placed on them.

A change of focus is thus needed away from educational systems toward consideration of individual educational biographies.

Changes in media culture are translating into changes of meaning- making and challenge the discourse order of the pedagogies.

Conclusion 2/2

Will OER in the future define “a sui generis (media)pedagogical standard of education”? (cf. Bergamin & Filk 2009, p. 11)

How are self-directed education and group-learning as well as personalized learning in formal, non-formal, and informal contexts possibly fostered by OER?

On the one hand, one could say “that Bildung could be seen as being supported by OER to achieve its goals of characteristics such as self-determination, maturity, and autonomy” (Deimann 2013, p. 193)

One the other hand, sceptical appraisals may point out hegemonic tendencies, for example, in the sense that OER facilitates re-governmentalization in the name of de-governmentalization of the educational mainstream, or criticize euphoric promotion of half-realized education (Halbbildung).

So far, developments seem to have characteristics of a “tightrope walk” with some media theoretically informed prospects for educational transformation in mediated lifeworlds, but also with risks of falling into traps of empty technological promises or facing a need of entering disenchantments based on media expectations in the books.

Missomelius, Petra; Sützl, Wolfgang; Hug, Theo; Grell, Petra & Kammerl, Rudolf (Eds.) (2014): Medien – Wissen – Bildung: Freie Bildungsmedien und Digitale Archive :: Media, Knowledge & Education: Open Educational Resources and Digital Archives. Innsbruck: innsbruck university press • iup. Online available at http://www.uibk.ac.at/iup/buch_pdfs/freie-bildungsmedien_web.pdf
Thank you!

Opening up Education - Hopes, Obstacles and Future Perspectives

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