Gone fishing

Photo by Peter Scholten on Unsplash

Our ONL journey has started with the FISh document, which inspired me thinking of the experience as a sea journey – which actually is my favourite environment. So, let me continue with my cruise excursion which has suddenly grown into a two-months long voyage across the world. If we can just briefly embrace the picture above – on the left is a smaller boat – aka ‘tug boat’ (i.e. PBL group)  with a small but selected crew, and on the right is a huge cargo ship (with the outstanding ONL crew and goodies). You are surely getting the idea, what it takes.

We have been gradually unpacking the scenarios, resources, participating in webinars, PBL groups, and with our joint effort we have been getting the huge ship out of the departure harbour into the new destination, unloading the containers as we go. By working together both in our PBL groups, and communicating, interacting and exchanging ideas with our lecturers and facilitators (thank you Filip and Suzanna), meeting other crew members,  we are finally getting there to the other end. What awaits us there, on the other side?

Photo by Lee Lawson on Unsplash

Being part of a learning community is no easy task, but it is hugely rewarding. Especially, in the context of PBL group Take V, coming from different academic and cultural backgrounds, it is both somewhat challenging and hugely gratifying. By addressing the challenges, we create opportunities.

Photo by Estela Romero on Unsplash

Are these stairs going up or down? I think Take Ver’s could discuss that fiercely for a very long time. This is how we would approach our scenarios. You know the Six Thinking Hats of Eduard de Bono https://www.debonogroup.com/services/core-programs/six-thinking-hats/ , we have all of them and we even exchange them sometimes. The point I want to make here is that some key aspects regarding the topics we discuss may be obvious, clear-cut to one person, and completely vague to another. This can be a burden, but it is also a great opportunity! You learn about a different approach, you acquire a different skill, you try out a new collaboration tool, you get a lot of great research references from another academic field that you would hardly come across.

For Topic 3, we truly collaborated on the Mural, both synchronously and asynchronously. What I like about our approach is that we start with connecting the scenario to our personal experiences, then present a specific example from our professional practice to others and get into a discussion, with a specific purpose – to extract key points worth sharing with the big ship.

As Wlodkowski  (2004) points out, for adults to strive in collaboration and learning, respect, communication and sharing resources are needed in addition to the appreciation of cultural diversity. Culturally responsive teaching (Wlodkowski and Ginsberg 1995) creates the environment for inclusion and equity by enabling learners to engage in activities and deal with the topics they value and find relevant to their personal experiences, and connect them to the others. This approach has been implemented in our PBL group, which I have found greatly motivating.

Let me finish with a thought I have recently learnt from Prof. Darla K. Deardorff (https://sites.duke.edu/darladeardorff/publications/), one of the well-known specialists in intercutural communication, in her keynote speech – it is that we all belong to a ‘shared humanity’ no matter where we come from. The term has derived from the South African Zulu language saying ‘Ubuntu’ which most simply translates into ‘I am because you/we are’ referring to the interconnectedness of all humanity. Such a challenge in today’s world, and a chance, don’t you agree?

References:

Wlodkowski, R. J. (2004). Creating Motivating Learning Environments. In M. W. Galbraith (Ed.), Adult Learning Methods: A guide for Effective Instruction (3rd ed., pp. 141–164). Krieger Publishing Company.

Wlodkowski, R.J. and M.B. Ginsberg (1995). Diversity and Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

OPENNESS and SUPPORT

The second lap of our ONL  journey has got us thinking more about what it means to be open, and whether we can really keep our private and professional lives separate.  In my fantastic PBL group Take V, I think we have managed to establish an atmosphere of trust so that we can freely share our thoughts on all aspects of the topic. It is even more challenging and far more inspiring that we come from diverse backgrounds in terms of our geographical and academic contexts, as well as having different life experiences. If we want to enjoy the process and our ONL experience, we  need to be open to new people, views, challenges.

Being open and sharing requires trust, and also the acknowledgement of other people who inspired us create new content.  Open education calls for sharing resources in an ethical and democratic way, so that we carefully choose the material that we want to adapt or use, respect the copyright licences, always mention the authors and enable others to share the material further under the same or similar conditions that we used.

In order to be able to share our resources and to access open resources, we still need the support and guidance of our colleagues and institutions. This is why I found the webinars for this topic really useful even though they served quite a different purpose. Maha Bali  (http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.565) really encourage us to think about ourselves as people of the world and how we can all contribute to a more open, democratic and generous surroundings, both in our professional and private lives. The talk and the tasks were really inspiring, and it provided inspirational quotes and gave solid foundations for exploring the topic further. On the other hand, Jorg Pareigis (https://www.kau.se/en/researchers/jorg-pareigis) gave a fantastic workshop on creative commons licensing and presented great open educational resources we could use to create our own content. It actually inspired me so after the workshop I created materials for my students for that week. For me, his workshop was a great experience because we do not get this sort of institutional support, i.e. until now through participating in ONL via EUGLOH project.

CHALLENGES OF CREATING OPEN EDUCATION RESOURCES

The open education resources (OER ) are like a huge ocean you need to navigate, but you can’t do it on your own. You need to be open to contact and consult others, collaborate with your boat crew, but also communicate with other boats so that you don’t crash into each other, or prevent some of your crew members falling off the boat.

Namely, both using and creating OER brings a lot of challenges. Some of them can come from the availability of technology around the world, different copyright issues and ways of quality assurance. The other factors are more personal, i.e. individuals might be hesitant when it comes to changing their ways of delivering courses. Or they might not receive enough institutional support to implement the open course.

What can help is for the institutions to organise professional development, set clear guidelines, show best practices, foster community collaboration and get accessible technology. Easily said than done, right?

Although OER fosters accessibility to education and social justice, it is still not free of charge to establish it and it is available to a larger extent in well-developed countries. The institutions need to ensure that they have the necessary technology infrastructure, as well as support system for educators and learners, which all requires additional funding. However, if we take it step by step, we will get there eventually.

Resources:

https://telrp.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41039-022-00185-z

Petrides, L. Jimes, C., Middleton-Detzner, C., Walling, J. Weiss, S. (2011).  Open Textbook Adoption and Use: Implications for Teachers and Learners. Open Learning, v26 n1 p39-49