The topic for the last two weeks has been really interesting. Openness in education is so important both for learners and teachers. It makes education accessible for more people, and the sharing of good Open Educational Resources is a great way to do this. According to the Hewlett Foundation (https://hewlett.org/strategy/open-educational-resources/) OERs are “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaption and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.”

The practices where OERs are being used is according to Wiley & Hilton (2018) “open pedagogy”. According to Hegarty open education consist of eight attributes, these are:

• Connected
  community – participate in connected community of professionals.
• Participatory
  technology- use for interacting via web, social networks and mobile apps.
• People,
  openness, trust- develop trust, confidence and openness for working with
  others.
• Sharing
  ideas and resources – share ideas and resources freely to disseminate
  knowledge.
• Innovation
  and creativity – encourage spontaneous innovation and creativity.
• Learner-generated
  – facilitate learner`s contributions to OER.
• Peer
  review – contribute to open critique of other`s scholarship.
• Reflective
  practice – engage in opportunities for reflective practice.

With these points in mind, I have reflected on my own
participation in ONL- an open network-learning course. I think a have
encountered many of the attributes that makes out open pedagogy.

The openness within the course is definitely a
connected community of professionals from all over the world through the usage
of participatory technology, both in the course as a whole, and within the PBL group,
I am a part of. It is a great way to connected and share with all these new acquaintances.
I experience the culture within the group to be one of trust and confidence,
where everyone is a leader for at least one topic, and the group is small
enough for everyone to participate actively. Both the fact that the culture within
the group is one of trust and confidence, and that we are from different parts
of the world and educations provides a good foundation for sharing of both
ideas and resources. The point of innovations and creativity is also met, as
the cases we get to work with are open, and the means to get to the finale result
are up to the group to decide. As we create OERs in the form of our group work
and blog posts for everyone to see, and are expected to comment on each other’s
work, the peer review attribute is important here. These OERs in addition to
the connected community gives great opportunities for reflective practices. It definitely
seems like this open network learning course consist of all the eight
attributes that makes out open education.  

Hegarty,
B. 2015. Attributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational
Resources. Educational Technology, 4.

Wiley, D. & Hilton,
J. (2018). Defining
OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4). http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601