Open Learning-Sharing and Openness

After attending a number of sessions in PBL15 with intensive discussion with other group members and facilitators about open learning-sharing and openness which is accompanied with the concept of Open educational resources, I real able to get the a new perspectives on why universities and scholars should support open access movement. Open learning is real applicable if education resources are openly available globally through a networked environment and can be freely accessible by the audience.

Technology is changing every day to improve life of a human being. This can be evident from the transformation of traditional open resources which was primarily composed of text-based materials but now scholarly community is able to produce vast amount of audios, videos contents and images (Souto- et al., 2016). Current computer based technologies enhanced the way scholarly outputs can be shared and collaboration in learning changed from teacher focused class room into student centred learning.

In implementing Open Education Resources (OER) I was able to identify one big challenge which is difficulties to deal with infringement of copyright issues. Some educationists are not will to share their resources such as lecture notes, video or audio. Here I realized that it is not always easy to share and collaborate in a way which is open and sustainable because there are some limitations in sharing like a lecture can limit only his or her students to have access to certain content and limit other communities in the global. Other challenges here may include infrastructural challenges such as reliable power supply and well networked systems.

Kurelovic, (2015) pointed out a number of merits associated with OER which may include but not limited to:

•  Development of self esteem
•  Institution enhancement and reputation
•  Increase quality of learning for regular students
• Encourages cooperation and exposure to and acceptance of cultural diversity

Building a Culture of Sharing 

Whiling tackling this topic I was a able to learn new tools to be applied in enhancing OER and general e-learning. These tools include MOODLE, MOOC, Coggle and many others. A lot of experience was harvested from the discussion and the group was able to enrich each other for future practices in our context.  

References

Kurelovic, E. K. (2015) ‘Advantages and Limitations of Usage of Open Educational Resources in Small Countries’, International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 2(1), p. 136. doi: 10.21890/ijres.92299.

Souto- et al. (2016) OpenCases: Case Studies on Openness in Education, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre, European Commission. EUR 27937 EN. doi: 10.2791/039825.