I’d like to open this reflection with the following quote:
“The use of open practices by learners and educators is complex, personal, and contextual; it is also continually negotiated.” ~ Catherine Cronin
I am going to be open and transparent and say that this topic led me through my first deep dive into open education. I found this topic vast and vague at times with many facets to explore. Two weeks was not long enough to fully explore this cavern of potential, but I am going to share what I have grasped, the concerns and questions I have as well as my relationship with open resources in my teaching experience.
But first, what is meant by openness in the first place? As Bonnie Stewart notes: “The word ‘open’ signals a broad, de-centralized constellation of practices that skirt the institutional structures and roles by which formal learning has been organized for generations.” According to the Open Education Consortium “Open Education combines the traditions of knowledge sharing and creation with 21st century technology to create a vast pool of openly shared educational resources, while harnessing today’s collaborative spirit to develop educational approaches that are more responsive to learner’s needs.”
One of the aspects of open education that I do have experience with as a graphic designer is open resources, or resources under a Creative Commons license. Copyrighting has become an increasing issue in the art community as social media has made it easy for people to share and use the works of artists freely and often without giving any credit to the artist. Proper graphic design practice involves using images that are licensed for commercial use. This is a practice I highly emphasise with my students and constantly direct them to sites like Splashbase, Pexels and Pixabay to find their required images for projects.
Now, you won’t find your desired images as easily as you would by just doing a google image search. You need to use very specific terms and often scroll through multiple pages to find that picture that is exactly right. Sometimes you even have to compromise and settle for the second best. That is the nature of CC images. This practice requires more patience, but is the more moral approach to image sourcing.
I have also found so much value in finding YouTube videos that perfectly explain design principles and other design topic for my lectures. YouTube offers so many well-animated and well-articulated videos that form a priceless asset to my lecturer toolbelt. As Maha Bali said in out webinar for this topic: Why make a video yourself if you can find an already existing video that perfectly explains your topic already? Sure, I can create animations, but the open resources on YouTube save me so much time and, honestly, are better composed than I would’ve been able to in the little amount of time I would have to create such videos.
Staying on the topic of YouTube as an open resource, I would like to discuss the diminishing role of lecturers in open education. Especially in graphic design. One can easily learn everything there is to know about graphic design on YouTube. There are countless tutorials and well-animated videos that demonstrate and explain any design principle, technique and software. YouTube, along with multiple open-sourced digital libraries, has made it possible to become a self-taught graphic designer, which makes it financially viable for students who cannot afford to join an institution-led course.
But if this is true for most subject matters, and open education is what we are aiming for, what is the role of a lecturer? Do I still add value to a more open system?
Our institution has moved to a blended learning model with the development of Covid and the restrictions it has placed on education. In my practical course, theory is taught online and practical software tutorials are hosted on campus. Even with the blended model, my students crave more face-to-face lessons and find themselves struggling with the decreased amount of lecture presence. Is this due to a lack of self-discipline? Maybe it’s an inability to drive themselves through their education. Maybe there is a gap in teaching them how to move from a more traditional education model to a blended model. As stated in my previous blog, we can’t just assume that they will adapt well. They need still need some guidance and confidence.
I’d like to propose an idea:
Instead of making higher education programs completely open and student-driven from the start, formulate a curriculum than gradually moves towards higher levels of openness. Coming straight out of high school that follows a traditional structure, students will need time and guidance to adapt to the open philosophy, and lecturers can help them with that. In the beginning stages of the course, a more traditional approach will be uphelp, but time will be spent teaching the students how to effectively use open online resources and how to conduct themselves in open education platforms. They can be shown different ways to interact with their content and the value one gains from these different approaches. I think this will give them the confidence to continue their self-driven learning journey even after graduating.
As open education and all its related platforms and approaches stand now, I think it is more suited for individuals who have already graduated from higher education institutions and want to further their learning journey. These individuals are more likely to have the self-discipline to stay dedicated to their chosen subject matter and to have the intellectual confidence to collaborate on open platforms as they have already had experience with this in some form during their graduate programs. These individuals will be the ones who choose open education as they know they will be comfortable in that environment.
I don’t believe that every student will thrive in an open education setup as many still require the guidance and direction offered by a present lecturer. But I do see the potential of the practice and I see a place for it in every course to some degree. However, I do feel that there is still a lot of fine tuning to do, a lot of questions to answer and a lot of uncertainty to be put at ease.
References
Cronin, C., 2017. Open Education, Open Questions. [Online]
Available at: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/10/open-education-open-questions
[Accessed December 2021].
Open Education Consortium, 2020. About The Open Education Consortium. [Online]
Available at: https://www.oeconsortium.org/about-oec/
[Accessed December 2021].
