I read myself into what open education is…

So an open learning source is supposed to be allowed to be transformed, modified, update, improved by others… what if they ruin it all together? If seen as a product it means giving up the intellectual properties…

One thing that I created and published was my PhD thesis. How would it be like if other people would come and add to it, change, improve it… hmmm, doesn’t feel ok. My thesis was kind of my third baby. It might be imperfect, but it compiled all I had discovered, read, worked, all the combinations in my mind at that moment of my life and career. It is very technical but I put my soul in it (like all PhD students do). It is my gift to the world.

The problem is it that my thesis might be an unnecessary gift. An established course or other teaching activity on the other hand must really be something needed, very much required (and by more than one person, an anxious supervisor).

Only after taking my pedagogy course last year I understood why in some countries (France if I remember well) a doctoral thesis’ final version is published only after the public discussion (defense) with the evaluation committee (opponents) had taken place. That is pure learning, when the feedback is there for you, you are allowed to process it and add use it for your work, your masterpiece.

The same source mentions the debate on peer-review articles. My career was also very affected by this in the beginning (I should have simply changed the journal I sent my first article). Now I get to be the one that comments submitted articles and I always write long and very detailed comments full of valuable indications, advice from my lab experiments. This is my form of (incomplete) openness. It is for free but the authors do not know who I am. (How would they react if they would know?)

Conferences are all open and I always enjoy them but  no one gives such a detailed feedback, looking after the slightest mistake and what can be improved as in a review.

And here is today’s dilemma: is the concept of openness somehow opposed to that of financial balance? I mean the following: when you work, you put time and effort and ideally you are supposed to receive a payment for those hours. What happens further on with your “teaching product” is that you can distribute it not only once and not only to your own classes. (It would be interesting to have a contract with one’s institution for each and every course one comes out with). The payment for creating the work was already done by the university if you are an academic. But a course nowadays, even online, does not include only the teaching material, ant not only lecturing, although it is very important. Thinking about the discussion in our group and also about constructive alignment and the new wave of student centered learning and the satisfaction it brings, an ideal teaching-learning activity is based on a balance between the activities of the students and those of the teacher.

Even online, the organization and participation (whether you are called a teacher or a facilitator) of synchronous meetings would require time and dedication. I think this would be the moment when the balance would be disrupted if the teacher is not paid for this activity as well. Who can afford to be a free “scaffolder” for an entire serial of online meeting in a course, participating and farther on giving feedback to reflections or support mini-projects?

Most MOOCs are only delivering the information. Let’s assume again the time spent for putting together the MOOC and publishing was already paid. Let’s say there is place established for an online community (writing-reading) where participants communicate with each others. As soon as the teacher interferes in the discussions, in the written dialogues, there is an investment of time and effort and the effort-payment balanced is disrupted (btw we discussed in our PBL groups that such intervation are not always favourable to learning, but that’s anotehr issue)

I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable with going open with my course because I don’t see myself teaching the classical way: Only me delivering 100% data while someone absorbs it as a purely cognitive process. Even online I would like to build opportunities for challenging  simultaneously all the three domaines of Bloom’s pyramid: cognitive, affective and psychomotor.

I was very impressed when I understood on Norma’s blog the impact of online teaching and open courses in her country. I have these high expectations for my future virtual complex course while for many students and learners in the world this “one directioned” type of teaching (when information only flows towards them, such as lectures published youtube or an MOOC with a certificat)  it can mean the world, it can mean the chance to sustain one’s living, to survive. It is very valuable and as long as used and being useful, these stagnated sources are as alive as those fantastic sources that change morphology any time when someone freely comes in to improve them.

References:
1. https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-education
2. Kurczek, J., & Johnson, J. (2014). The student as teacher: reflections on collaborative learning in a senior seminar. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 12(2), A93.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy
4. https://normaliete.wordpress.com/2018/10/08/self-managed-e-learning-the-way-forward/