Information is everywhere and that can be challenging for me as a teacher but also for the students. During the course I have read that you can´t talk about education without talking about openness. And education is about sharing knowledge, which Cronin (2017) also describes. I really agree with that. For me as a teacher, it’s always about being open so that my students get to share the latest knowledge. I share my knowledge both in my teaching but also through the learning management system (LMS). At my university, we use CANVAS. By sharing information via LMS, students can read more and deleve in to the subject as well as watch material such as videos that I share in the LMS. For me, openness also involves being a teacher seeking new knowledge and information to update myself and learn more in specific subjects or linked to specific situations in my main area. I think I can be open without losing my material or the unique ones I want to share. In that case, I think about sharing my presentations that I created for a lecture. On the other hand, what I have been thinking a lot about during this topic is; Wondering If I´m just open to my students or those who I have a lecture for as I only share my power point and share links to articles, reports or videos for. Because I only share the material in the LMS. Only the people who have access to the course room in the LMS can access my material, Then I´m open in my role as a teacher with sharing my knowledge and material? No maybe not … Then comes the next thought; do I want to be more open than this? I´m satisfied with only sharing the material with, for example, the students in the course or do I want to reach out to more? Yes and no I´m not really clear on what I think about that because I probably want the students who take the course to get the unique knowledge because they have invested in an education and then as a professional occupational therapist I can share my knowledge with others in other ways. Right or wrong I don´t know. I think, for example, that I can, via social media, give them hints about books and other interesting literature and share links and videos, but then I do it as a private person and not as a teacher. When I think of those, I have previously written in the post, I think it can be called open in free which Cronin (2017) describes as one of interpretation for openness in education. This educational resource is free for anyone who is interesting in the resources and will use it. Therefore, I find openness a little bit tricky and I related that also to Cronin (2017) who describe Open education practice (OEP) as complex, personal, contextual, and continuously negotiated. If I related my situation as teacher to the 4R framework from Wiley (2009) which is described in Peter & Farrell (2013) I think that I in relation to this framework and openness keeps me in the first R: Reuse because I use often the material in the exact original form when I share it with the students. Because the material I share with the students are often material like government reports, videos from different scenarios, which they can take inspiration from and articles, which are published. I have also the opportunity as teacher at a university to share information from other teachers education if they have share their material at our common LMS. But what I can remember right now I have not used the other dimensions of recourses of openness; which is redistribute, that mean that I share copies of the content (or part of) with others; and the third R is revise and that means that I as for example take another teacher´s material and andalter, adapt the content to my for example teaching situation. The fourth and the last one is remix – combine the original or revised content with other content. I haven’t used that either.
Then another thing that I have also reflected on when it comes to openness and that is my openness as a researcher. It is really about disseminating and sharing their research results, both because you want to reach out as a researcher with their unique results and then an important part linked to the researcher role and openness is networking. By sharing and disseminating their research, I as a researcher hope that more people will take part in my work and implement it in the organization where they work, and that researchers who work at other universities will catch my eye on my research and contact me and want to cooperate. In the same way, I think that through openness I can learn about other researchers’ projects and seeking collaboration with them.
A summarize of openness
O = being open and sharing with others
P = People can cooperate and learn from each other through openness
E = Environment that allows you to cooperate despite not meeting each other physically or knowing each other since earlier
N = Network is facilitated through openness
N = New knowledge through openness. I can learn new things from new areas
E = Trough openness the engagement can be developed and improved
S = Sharing is something that both I as a teacher and the students get the opportunity to related to openness
S = Students’ learning environment can take new paths and give them new and different ways trough openness
I like this quote from Wheeler
Wheeler (2010) ‘…emphasises learning communities and learner engagement, supports development of skills needed for problem solving, creates opportunities for personal learning and allows students to create and share their content’.
I will end up with: Education will be accessible and flexible for all participants with openness.
References
Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning: IRRODL, 18(5), 15-34.
Peter, S., & Farrell, L. (2013). From learning in coffee houses to learning with open educational resources. E-Learning and Digital Media, 10(2), 174-189.
Wheeler, S. (2010). What so good about open educational resources (ppt).http://www.slideshare.net/timbuckteeth/whats-so-good-about-open-educational-resources
Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2009) Openness, Dynamic Specialization, and the Disaggregated Future of Higher Education, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(5). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/768/1414
