{"id":1159,"date":"2013-03-07T20:37:05","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T03:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/chendricks\/?p=1159"},"modified":"2013-03-07T20:40:22","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T03:40:22","slug":"openness-panopticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/chendricks\/2013\/03\/07\/openness-panopticism\/","title":{"rendered":"(etmooc) On openness and panopticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“Panopticon,” cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo<\/a> shared by chad_k<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

A year or two ago a student came into my office and told me about some podcasts he had been listening to, which consisted of some lectures by a well-known philosopher as part of one of his university courses. The student then asked me why I didn’t put my lectures out on podcasts, or make them public in some other way.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t remember what I said. But I do remember what I felt: apprehension. And some fear. I couldn’t imagine, at the time, doing such a thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I can, and largely through my experience in<\/span> ETMOOC<\/a><\/span> <\/span>I’ve become very interested in the idea of “openness” in education and want to start doing some of this myself. Of course, “open” means different things in different contexts <\/span> (here’s a nice post<\/a><\/span> <\/span>explaining some of them, and here’s an even larger list<\/a><\/span> of various “opens”) , but I’m considering things such as posting and licensing many of my course materials for re-use, as well as possibly opening up a course to outside participants the way<\/span> Bryan Jackson<\/a><\/span> did with his<\/span> high school Philosophy course.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The value of open education<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are plenty of good things about opening up your teaching and learning materials, space, interactions, etc. Bryan Jackson explains something good that happened as a result of having an open Philosophy course,<\/span> in this video<\/a><\/span>. <\/span>Barbara Ganley<\/a><\/span> had an interesting experience from a writing assignment in her class posted publicly on a blog (see “A Writing Assignment Gets Personal,”<\/span> on this site<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n

David Wiley, in<\/span> a presentation on open education<\/a><\/span> called “Openness, Disaggregation, and the Future of Education” (the keynote for the 2009 Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning) gave several examples of things he had done recently in his courses to make them more open. Among them:<\/span><\/p>\n