I really believe that openness and sharing is the way to go! However, I think that group discussions may be private to facilitate more lively discussions and to respect student’s privacy/integrity if needed. It should also be ok to make errors that will not stay forever as a digital footprint. A “summary of the knowledge gained” should be published and available to a broader audience, i.e., similar to our discussions in our PBL groups and the posts on ONL181. If too much information (mixed with too many errors) will be published it is hard to retrieve the important points. Sharing is important but it might be less good to share everything without a quality check. Of course, the important points might be different for different people….
In open learning and when sharing information it is very important that the right person get the credit for his/her work and creativity. Although this is partly covered by creative commons (1), it might as a start feel like one put a lot of effort in and then another person can use it with just a reference. But if we start sharing you will do part of the work and you will also take “a free ride” on someone else’s effort and together we will learn. We all just need to start! When putting out your material online you can also get a quality control of your work and new input to improve it. I really think I need to share more. I always think that people do not need parts of my work but I have realized that even small things might be important for someone else.
I also think that the role of the teachers will always be important although the role might change a little as also discussed by David Wiley (2). The information might be available but it might still be hard to find it. You need a “guide” to help you find the information and evaluate it. In addition, these weeks I have in learnt that there are additional levels in learning in addition to making information available, as in cMOOCs vs xMOOCs (3), where xMOOCs are “just” a normal course online reaching a massive number of students while in a cMOOCs the students interact more to gain and generate new knowledge. There are grades of MOOCs and there are grades of openness (4). There is no such thing as “black or white”! The same goes with if openness are all good all the times…
References:
- Conceptualising OEP: A review of theoretical and empirical literature in Open Educational Practices; Catherine Cronin ; Iain Maclaren; Open Praxis, 01 April 2018, Vol.10(2), pp.127-143