Tag Archives: twpweek1

The pic-a-mix of open education

Fabio Alessandro Locati

“Fale – Barcellona – 194” by Fabio Alessandro Locati CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fale_-_Barcellona_-_194.jpg

 

Week 1 thoughts:
An awesome and informative week learning about open pedagogy with details of the course right here:
http://blogs.ubc.ca/teachwordpress/week-1-discussion/

The webinar by Amanda Coolidge and Tracy Kelly was super and made me think about open pedagogy really for the first time really. I’ve been working on open educational resource (OER) projects for around ten years with rather a ‘bull in a china shop’ approach, and this week is really making me think through more of a structure that would be useful.

How do we define open?

The webinar started off assisting us in thinking about defining open pedagogy. I really have struggled recently with how on earth the open movement can move forward unless we start defining the ethical boundaries in which we operate? Open ultimately is a free-for-all on the web and we are all familiar with the more negative aspects of this. We need ethical common ground for sure. Hopefully his community will help define it. (Here is a pitch for funding that was unsuccessful but shares my thoughts…).

David Wiley’s definition of ‘open’ and the 5 Rs of openness

The 5 Rs of openness provide a useful framework for us to think of in terms of sharing learning materials openly – reuse, revise, remix, redistribute and retain (the control of the content produced). I would add a 6 category of course – to participate in the spirit of openness in an ethically appropriate manner.

(Just thinking the 6th R might be – responsibly or responsibility).

Back to the show – many of the definitions of open do focus on resources and as the webinar presenters highlighted there is a whole field of open practice, behaviour and activity that also apply. I know in my own institutions there are discussions about open data, open science and open research. We all increasingly operate a ‘pick-a-mix’ approach to education, dipping in and out of being open, although many learners and teachers find it more easy to just adopt a philosophical stance toward openly working, and apply it to all they do.

So how do I define open pedagogy?

Going back to some of the clearest thinking about education and what it is, Richard Peters’ describes the ‘matter’ and ‘manner’ of education, and discussions about open pedagogy for me cannot isolate the content from the learner-teacher relationship, and the manner in which we all engage on the web. His book “Ethics and Education” is a must-read. (R. S. Peters: Ethics and education. 5th edn, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London 1968).

Also, going back to the definitions of pedagogy (and andragogy) that are the science and practice of teaching, we absolutely do not want to lose sight of the need to evaluate what we do either to produce well informed approaches. I personally think we have all become a little lousy at that.

How can we reflect on our approaches now?

I really liked this next bit of the webinar. Amanda and Tracy have constructed a matrix to help us position our practice. I might challenge and say there could be a new row on co-creation. The matrix I think identifies a learning journey that we must encourage students along. Obviously, students new to university or anyone making the transition back to education are vulnerable and need support, so may start off in box 4. As they become accustomed to open licensing, use of technology, working openly on the web – as they may not have ever done before – we can gently nurture them toward box 1. It would be good if the journey to 2 and 1 were a quick one as we don’t want to dwell to long on dinosaur methods of education.

Open Pedagogy Matrix

Amanda Coolridge and Tracy Kelly. Open Pedagogy Matrix. CC BY. (BCU week 1 webinar screen grab).

Unfortunately we may be based in institutions that are non-open, and have no policy or inclination to work openly. We may therefore be firmly rooted in 4 and 3, using dinosaur methods, locking learning behind VLEs, and assessing student knowledge regurgitation in examinations, obsessing with providing them feedback, all of which does nothing to develop individuals.

Summary of week 1

  • So I have formed a definition of open pedagogy in my mind, embracing the pic-a-mix of open practices and approaches we all use these days.
  • I have reflected on my own practice and that we need to encourage students (and staff) through the matrix up to box 1 and perhaps beyond as co-producers.
  • I believe in the 5Rs of open plus a 6th category of embracing the spirit of openness in an ethical manner.
  • My question that I hope to explore through this course is – how can I work openly as an educator on the web – because I chose to do so outside of work hours – but operate ethically in terms of copyright (OK, using what is mine), in terms of privacy (OK, using the privacy terms that come with WP blogging) but also ethically in terms of the manner in which we conduct ourselves?

 

 

 

Open course design challenges (#TWP15)

  One of the questions for the weekly discussion for week 1 of Teaching with WordPress is: “What’s your biggest challenge in designing for open?” I have several course websites on WordPress, and one of the challenges I’ve faced in designing each of them is determining just where to put things and how to hierarchize […]

Open course design challenges (#TWP15)

  One of the questions for the weekly discussion for week 1 of Teaching with WordPress is: “What’s your biggest challenge in designing for open?” I have several course websites on WordPress, and one of the challenges I’ve faced in designing each of them is determining just where to put things and how to hierarchize […]

Getting Started With Open Pedagogy

So my summer course, “How the Web Works: Building Your Digital Identity, Literacy, and Network,” starts next week for a seven-week run at Austin College. Strictly speaking, it’s not an “online” course…we don’t do those at Austin College. And we don’t really do “hybrid” or “blended” courses, either. We’re a small liberal arts college, and one of our signature themes is a high-touch interactive relationship among faculty and students. So while I’m working with the new initiative in digital pedagogy, it’s not a matter of trading class time for screen time, but rather of augmenting f2f with digital resources. Right ... Read more

The post Getting Started With Open Pedagogy appeared first on How the Web Works.

A bit about designing for open…

Some great discussion during the Open Pedagogy webinar earlier today about learning, design (pedagogy) and open. As soon as we have a link to the archive, we’ll post it on our Week 1 schedule.

I thought this would be a good time to add to the discussion about designing open learning environments. If you managed to make it through the slideshow on this topic – bravo! If not, here’s a bit of an overview of the key ideas.

You are designing a web, not a website.

Stephen Downes, in his description of design elements in a personal learning environment, reminds us that a MOOC (for example) is a web not a website. This statement really resonates with me when I consider that the main focus in our work in developing this site (and other connectivist online learning spaces) focuses on the question “what can we do to support both the connections between participants and the sharing of what we are learning with one another?” And this is no easy task! The most challenging aspect is the careful consideration of the details that go into those interactions so that we can choose the approaches and technologies that best support them.

Here are some of Downes’ key considerations and our additions. Click to enlarge the images.
Open Design[2] images.002

Open Design[2] images.003

The concept of uncoverage is really just another perspective on inquiry – Mark Sample wrote a good piece about it in the Chronicle a couple of years ago: Teaching for Uncoverage Rather Than Coverage. And, while assessment for understanding may seem obvious, McTighe and Seif – explain why they think it is important to put understanding back into focus in our teaching and learning environments: Teaching for Understanding.

In thinking about your own context, is this a useful framework for thinking about the design of an open, online course? Are there other considerations that you would consider important?

Week 1: Launching TWP15!

Welcome to Teaching with WordPress! We are a small, but mighty group for our first run at this and we’re looking forward to learning with you! Here are a few things that we think you might find helpful:

Collaborative learning and lasting connections

This is an open, online course for anyone who wants to connect and share ideas about teaching and learning with WordPress, in any context. Whether you have no experience teaching with WordPress or quite a bit, we all have something to contribute and can all learn from each other.

Indeed, we expect that you will get as much or more out of your interactions with other participants than you do from what we have provided through the readings, videos and other resources. And we hope that your connections and discussions with other participants will last beyond the official end of the course. Ideally you would finish the course with a few people to add to your own learning network!

Find your own path through the course

For each week we have provided suggested readings and activities, but we would like to stress that you should feel free to read, discuss and do what you find most useful, even if it’s very different from what we have suggested. In fact, please contribute links to resources that you find useful, informative or provocative. You can share them in our Resources section.Focus on your learning goals and do what you need to fulfill them, and invite others to discuss and collaborate with you. We encourage you, therefore, to raise your own questions or topics for discussion on your blog posts and on Twitter if you feel that would be useful. Others might find it useful too!

Get help

We have put together a bit of a guide to help with setting up a blog on WordPress, with using Twitter if you’re new to it and want to start, and with creating videos (which you may want to do later in the course).

Check out the blog hub

We have set up a blog hub with all the posts participants are writing relevant to the course. We suggest you read through a few posts each week and comment on them! If you have an RSS reader, you can add all the posts from the blog hub to it just by adding our feed URL: https://blogs.ubc.ca/teachwordpress/category/blog-hub/feed/

More feeds…
You can keep up on the activity in the course, by adding any one of the course feeds to your reader. You’ll find them on the lower right column.

And if you don’t know what an RSS feed or reader are, and you want to, why, just ask, whether on Twitter (#TWP15) or on a comment on one of the “weeklies” (discussion pages), or reply back to this email!

Tweet with #TWP15

If you have a Twitter account and want to join us on Twitter, our course hashtag is #TWP15. We hope you’ll tweet at least one “big question” each week to engage all of us (including your own networks) in what your grappling with.

What’s Up in Week 1?

Join us for our kick-off webinar! Monday, June 1, 12:00-13:00 Pacific/ 15:00-16:00 Eastern/ 19:00-20:00 UTC. Amanda Coolidge, Mary Burgess and Tracy Kelly from BCcampus in Canada (http://bccampus.ca) will help us think through what open pedagogy is/isn’t and what it might look like in practice. See the week 1 schedule for a link to join when the session starts and for details about suggested readings, resources, and activities for the week as we focus on Open Pedagogy and Design.

What Is Connectivism?

George Siemens, is an educator and theorist in the field of digital learning and is the author of the article “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age” and the book “Knowing Knowledge“. He provides an overview of connectivism in this short interview for the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.

YouTube Preview Image

More on Connectivism:
Stephen Downes: Connectivism as a Learning Theory.