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Description
Session Description
Are you interested in a joint reflective practice presentation regarding graduate students’ learning about OER and openness? What this learning process is like from the point of view of an instructor – the observations, concerns, and celebrations that unfolds individually and collectively each time a student or class, synchronically or idiosyncratically learns about openness – whether face to face, blended or completely online environments?
This presentation will provide the point of view of such perspectives from three instructors who teach graduate students ranging from instructional designers to K-12 teachers. Because of who these graduate students are, the presentation is also about how these educators, personally and professionally, currently experience openness and participatory technologies, their perceptions of the barriers, and their hope in meeting the challenges of open education. The presenters will consider how making explicit open educational practices (OEP) enable graduate students to name what they do and how it fits within their developing digital literacies and pedagogy. The presentation offers an informal pulse-taking of what graduate students currently experience through their study of OEP (Cronin, 2017) and related research. These students will be able to share out their knowledge with colleagues and their own students, and thus support the growth of OEP with a sense of criticality and tempered optimism (Weller, 2010).
Despite the numerous benefits of OER (McGreal, 2017) and the inroads of BC Campus, ABOER and eCampus Ontario, there remains significant work to be done. Pockets of educators, at all levels, have yet to make a substantial difference affecting the awareness, use, and advocacy for OER. Vague understandings of OER textbooks is not enough.
To capture audience thoughts and reactions, a google document will be created for the presentation. This document will allow for synchronous collaborative input during the presentation and will remain open after the conference. Prior to the presentation, past students ( i.e. not presently enrolled) will be asked to voluntarily contribute to the document which will be projected as part of the presentation and support an ongoing collection tool of the thinking of both the students and the audience members.
References
Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distributed Learning, 18(5). doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096
McGreal, R. (2017). Special Report on the Role of Open Educational Resources in Supporting the Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education Challenges and Opportunities. The International Review Of Research In Open And Distributed Learning, 18(7). doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i7.3541
Weller, Martin (2010). Big and Little OER. In Open Ed 2010 Proceedings. Barcelona: UOC, OU,
BYU. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10609/4851
