Reflections on Topic 2 ONL162 ”open learning – sharing and openness”

I don’t do regular courses, but me and my colleagues do interprofessional student activities that we really want to be more open. In the best of worlds we would like to have all our activities open for all students and co-workers to make it possible for them to get in on the activity independent on where they are.. It is however not as easy as one might think. Since we provide activities for students in health care, from different universities and university colleges we don’t share the same digital platforms. My experience is that the tradition of being open is limited in the Stockholm county council were we work, which seems to be related to the managements who refers to regulations but I suspect that they lack knowledge in the field. So when I found a policy European Commission document named ”Open up education”  I was glad. Although the aim of the policy document is to provide tools for openness in  education institutions, the authors suggest that it can be beneficial to other types of educational institutions, which the Stockholm County Council absolutely is. The document is part of the Europe 2020 initiative , that aims prepare the EU states to deliver high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion. I hope that the policy document will make it easier for us to ”open activities” in the near future. 

Swedish right of public access = openness Storhogna, Jämtland, Sweden. CC by Kaisa

There are to my surprise several openly licensed resources available and applicable for education. Before the course I only knew about one (but never used), the Creative common resources , which is a way of showing others the degree of openness of your own work. 

 this is the highest degree of openness were you aloud others to use, spread, alter, modify and build on even for commercial use. The user is, however, obliged to report that it is your work by writing CC by ……. 

 this is the lowest degree of openness were you are aloud others only to spread the work but not for commercial use. The user is obliged to report that it is your work by writing CC by…..

Although I knew about Creative Commons  before the course I didn’t knew exactly what it was and I didn’t think of the fact that I can use the symbols on my own work. I will definitely try to do that on my own material.

In addition I will definitely use some of the  openly resources available, such as Wikimedia commons which is a database with more than 34 million freely usable media files, PLOS – a non-profit open access publisher and Skills commons – an open online library and not the least but last youtube. This is a new knowledge that I definitely will use  in the future.

For me who’s  a fan of openness in education it’s much easier to see the advantages of open technologies than the disadvantages. However, the disadvantages related to my experience is the outsourced technology that Martin Weller discuss in ”The battle for open”. My experience is that it often results in digital platforms that are not compatible with other digital programs used and that the support often lacks. I agree with Weller that the Universities should be the ”driving force behind” the digital technology. This course also made me think about the quality of produced ”open material”. I think that it could be dangerous if the management of the Universities don’t understand ”digital literacy” and that using digital platforms in education needs eduction and training. The Chapter 7 in ”Teaching in a digital age” by Bates explains very well the pedagogical differences between media e.g. when to use (depending on level of learning) audio, video, texts and so forth. That chapter will definitely be my guidebook when putting up our planned student activities on the digital platform. 

This is my first open course and I hardly knew what MOOC was before I joined the course. So my experience of open courses are limited. For me the challenge is to get the time to interact with others in the ONL162 community or to know what to comment on, or what to say. I still feel busy by reading the course literature, check all links, youtube clips, check the twitter account and do the blogging. It is in a way overwhelming and I hope that I will feel more at ease to interact and network later on during the course. 

References:

JRC Science for Policy Report. Open up education. A support framework for higher education institutions. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc. [Online 29 oct 2016].

Om Creative Common Licenserna. http://www.creativecommons.se/om-cc/creative. [Online 29 oct 2016].

Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main-Page. [Online 29 oct 2016].

PLOS. http://www.plos.org [Online 29 oct 2016].

Skills Commons, open for learning. http://www.skillscommon.org. [Online 29 oct 2016].

Weller M. The battle for open. 

Bates T. Teaching in a digital age. Guidelines for designing teaching and learning.