Week 4 Open, Networked, and Participatory Communities

Week 4 has arrived and today I will be discussing my thoughts on Open, Networked, and Participatory Communities.

There is no doubt that open educational resources can have a massive positive effect on education but asking how we can capture the spirit of these communities in our learning environments is the right question.  OERs have the complete potential to increase the connection of students, increase the condition of education, and lessen the cost of education.  Part of this answer connects with what I spoke about last week: sharing.  Simply being proactive in distributing what you have learned in your own opinion or even forwarding content that has been provided to you, is the first step in effectively bringing OERs into our learning environments.  One aspect that is very important about this and that still connects with sharing is what to make open or what to share must always be asked before blasting the virtual community with any and all information. 

Open access can take many different forms in the classroom when talking about the positive effects it can bring and one perfect example that shows this is Open Education Matters: Why is it important to share content?, which is a video that was shown in my tech education course.  In the video, a teacher decides to make his class’ content available online.  This already has an effect on that specific class because now the students can take the classroom home with them.  Once this happens, there is a potential for a snowball effect to occur and by this I mean one student in the class shares the content with a friend in another state who is studying the same topic.  That friend may have connections across the globe and now you can see where the snowballing affect may take place.  This one class that before only was available to the students present now has the potential to reach, teach, and influence a number of students that before would have never been possible. 

Alec Couros, one of the veterans in the open learning experience, has a great interview that explains the possibilities of where open learning could be in the future. In my opinion, I believe that the possibilities are endless.  Providing education through open learning could very well be the new way to learn because it can reach those who before had no access.  For many of us, the in the classroom environment sprinkled with a variety of resources is the norm, but students that have not had this type experience could see open learning as the norm if educators, again are proactive, in not only sharing but also absorbing information.  I could also see many curricula adjust, develop, and advance.  The future could also bring new classes into education that are now much more important in this new age of technology and education. 

  Technology definitely has impacted the use of textbooks in the classroom simply by making the information that was in the textbook available online and free of charge.  If the information in that specific textbook isn’t available online, then through open learning similar information that could even be more beneficial could be found online through different communities.  I don’t think textbooks will be obsolete in our day and age because textbooks today are just the “snail mail” version of educational information provided online or in open learning communities.  The only way they would become obsolete is if educational communities stopped writing and creating material in the textbook version and opted to go completely online.  Unfortunately, down the road I could see books completely being replaced by computers and laptops.  Rather than bringing your books and laptop to class like we do today, one day it could just be, make sure you bring your laptop.  As long as educational communities reuse, redistribute, remix, and revise, open learning has a bright future. 

Until next week! #staytuned