“Where do I even start?” This has become a very common question from the time Topic 2 was launched, to our first PBL group meeting for Topic 2, as i try to settle and prepare to work from home as my country (South Africa) went into 21 days of Lock down and yet again as i write my reflection the same question pops up. I asked myself where do I start?, how will I do his? can i do this?

Confusion confusion and yet more questions arise, sounds familiar to our scenario given for topic 2 right?

As my group and I sat to discuss this topic each of us had our own definition of what open learning is and what constituted as Open Learning. It was very interesting to discover some of the opportunities and barriers that exist with trying to go open, the impact it has to the receivers of information and the measures and efforts put in by teachers/Authors to have their work “freely” accessible for everyone on the internet.

As much as this topic has given us a broad overview, it has facilitated in giving me a better understanding of Open Learning and also encouraged a lot of unanswered questions/Gaps that still need answers. Through out the 2 weeks we have spent on this topic we still kept going back and forth on what to focus on when yet another question creeped up”is Open learning really Free”. Mmmmh what i topic to have, given the time and the global issues faced by many countries (COVID19) and many of us being pushed and encouraged to work on the online space. This has been a turning point for many of us as our online capabilities are being tested. However this has fostered my group into deciding to focus on”Why go Open” as our focus area for our presentation.

For the purpose of our presentation we decided to look at 5 different perspectives of why and why not to go open. These perspectives are: Teacher, Learner, Community, Institution and National perspective.

One last thing i would like to highlight in my reflection is the importance of having a collaborative group and ensuring that there is at at least 80% participation from each individual. This helps fill the gap when one or two members of the group fall short in a certain aspect and also helps the group to keep going even when feeling challenged and discouraged at times. Team work is very vital for this course.