This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

OER: insights into a multilingual landscapeTita Beaven, Kate Borthwick, Linda Bradley,

Sylvi Vigmo, Katerina Zourou

EUROCALL 2014 Conference Symposium August 22, Groningen, 2014

About the LangOER network

European Comission funded network (2014-2016), 9 partners:

• Fryske Academy, The Netherlands

• Web2learn, Greece

• European Schoolnet, Belgium

• University of Gothenburg, Sweden

• Jan Dlugosz University, Poland

• Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania

• International Council for Open and Distance Education,

Norway

• European Foundation for Quality in E-learning, Belgium

• Rezekne Higher Education Institution, Latvia

Strands of activities

• State-of-the art of OER in less used languages• International policy makers capacity building• Teacher training• Regional and minority languages & OER• Challenges for language learning• Mainstream good practice at European policy making

level

Scope of the LangOER project

• Enhance the linguistic and cultural components of OER

• Foster sustainability through OER reuse• Address needs of policy makers and educators• Raise awareness of risk of exclusion of less used

languages from the OER landscape• Offer training to educators of less used languages,

face-to-face and online• Embrace stakeholders of regional and minority

languages in remotely located areas of Europe to gain knowledge, develop skills

Set-up of today’s workshop

• Which languages are represented in repositories of OER (ROER) and what kind of subjects do they cover?

• How do multilingual repositories cope with the management of OER in various languages? How is the management (upload, sharing, updates, monitoring) of these resources possible? How do language teachers and learners engage with OER in these repositories?

• Is OER uptake a far-fetched idea or current practice? What kind of evidence does exist of OER uptake in a language learning/teaching context?

• How plurilingualism can fit to Open Educational Practice? How OER can enact plurilingual varieties?

Keywords from UNESCO’s definition

Definition of OER -teaching, learning and research materials in the public domain -released under an open license -no-cost access -possible to adapt and redistribute

with no or limited restrictions

UNESCO, 2012, Paris OER Declaration

State-of-the-art investigation results

Diversified picture

Less used languages with considerable OER resourcesActive and vibrant; state-supported or grass-root initiatives

State-of-the-art investigation results

Less used languages with considerable OER resources

Active online communities

State-of-the-art investigation results

Languages with few or any OER resources–Dependent on international initiatives–Not really OER: rather ABOUT OER

Multilingual OER repositories

• Lemill as an example “Web community for finding, authoring and sharing learning resources for school teachers” http://lemill.net/

Multilingual OER repositories

OER: insights into a multilingual landscape – the case of LORO

Tita Beaven The Open University

Eurocall SymposiumEUROCALL 2014

GRONINGEN, 20-23 AUGUST 2014

Outline

• A brief introduction to LORO and the OU context• LORO as a multilingual repository• Some “translated” resources• Open Educational Practices in a multilingual

context

Languages at The Open University -UK

• English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Welsh & Chinese (beginners to advanced) to 7000+ language students

• Blended approach: independent study using mixed media and support inc. face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous online teaching

• Course materials produced centrally, teaching support provided locally

• Course developers and course directors: 50+ academics plus support staff

• Teaching staff: 320+ part-time teachers

What was the problem?

• Storing and managing resources for teaching (servers, the VLE…)

• Finding out what others are doing

• Avoid reinventing the wheel…(30-40 teachers might be delivering the same course in parallel)

• Sharing resources produced by all colleagues

Languages Open Resources Online (HEA/Jisc 2009) http://loro.open.ac.uk

LORO is about: • ...making all teaching materials for all levels and

languages available to all users• …making OU tutorial materials available to the wider

languages community• …allowing users to share their own materials with the

whole languages community • …starting a change in the way we work (OER, access,

transparency, quality)

LORO is about: • ...making all teaching materials for all levels and

languages available to all users• …making OU tutorial materials available to the wider

languages community• …allowing users to share their own materials with the

whole languages community • …starting a change in the way we work (OER, access,

transparency, quality)

• To find resources for their teaching“I often also check what other teachers

have done to teach the same topic or a similar structure”

• To find inspiration and ideas“even if I don’t find anything I can use, it

starts the ideas flowing in my head”• To standardise their practice and ensure

comparability of the student experience “to make sure the contents covered in

my own tutorial are similar to those used by the rest of the course team and tutors”

Teachers are using LORO…

A ‘‘collaborative, developmental activity in which professionals offer mutual support by observing each other teach; explaining and discussing what was observed; sharing ideas about teaching; gathering student feedback on teaching effectiveness; reflecting on understandings, feelings, actions and feedback and trying out new ideas’’.

(Bell, 2005, p. 3)

Peer observation of teaching

POT needs to be extended to other media where teaching takes place

It should cover areas such as curriculum design, the creation of teaching materials, online teaching, and the whole range of what teachers do to support learners. (Hatzipanagos and Lygo-Baker 2006, Bennett and Barp, 2008 Swinglehurst et al, 2008).

POT in the context of blended teaching and learning?

In the context of the OU? In the context of LORO? - Collaborative writing of resources- Professional conversations about the use of OER

Collaborative writing of OER

Translation…

And additional steps…

And additional steps…

Professional conversation: planning an Italian beginners’ tutorial

Looking for inspiration in LORO-French

“This is the kind of thing I didn’t want to do… I give them the language and they just repeat it… I don’t want to do this…. I might want to elicit it, but I want to come up with a more creative way of doing it, so I discarded this…”

LORO: Spanish resources…

“Now this is the thing that started me thinking….”

Sorting activity – learning strategies

Back to the Italian resources: more ideas and reflection on teaching practice

“It made me think that my colleagues are much more slow in how they present things…. Nice, slow, very simple explanations… I am impressed by how good my colleague is in doing this explanation – if I want to explain something, I want to do it as slowly as that…”

The final ingredient…

OER—as resources that lend themselves to collaboration, knowledge sharing about practices, adaptation and reuse—support conversations and practices that may not traditionally be available through professional development.

(Petrides et al, 2010)

OER: insights into a multilingual landscape

OEP: enabler and lifeline for multilingualism

Kate BorthwickModern Languages, University of SouthamptonEuroCALL 14, Groningen, August 2014

Outline

•Context•OEP/OERs as enabler of multilingualism•Challenges and issues•OEP/ OERs as lifelines for multilingualism•Closing remarks: how do we realise the potential of OEP?

Some context…

Community Café 2010-11FAVOR (Finding a Voice through Open Resources) 2011-12OpenLIVES (2011-13)• All funded by JISC (a UK organisation which supports technology in education)•All explored aspects of OER and OEP and involved creation of OERs•Worked with different communities of language teachers

OEP and OERs – enablers of multilingualism

Increased sharing – more resources, more collaboration, wider range of resources, esp. in LWULT languagesCommunities of open practice•Neutral, democratic, levelling space e.g. www.languagebox.ac.uk •Sharing cross-language•Focus on practitioner, not language itself

…but there are some challenges

•Management issues around an English-medium repository and other scripts/languages•Searching, discoverability and shareability•Copyright and quality•Concepts of the culture of OEP and reflective practice could be alien and novel to some groups•Teachers engaging with OEP need encouragement and support•For some teachers, resources are not be shared as they are ‘their stock-in-trade’

… Lifelines for multilingualism

•LWULT languages: increased resources offers potential to broaden learner group; collaboration and wider exposure•Undervalued and under-resourced•Engaging with OEP offers CPD for all teachers - especially useful for part-timers/CL teachers who have limited access to CPD opportunities

Closing remarks

•OEP has the POTENTIAL to be an enabler/lifeline…•Need to be proactive: promoting OERs, sharing work, collaborating…•Offer guidance and scaffolding (e.g. translations, guidance on use, examples of resources in use)•Consider how we reach new and wider audiences alongside increasing OERs available

Forthcoming activities

• Webinar, September 19: “OER for less used languages in an increasingly digital everyday culture”

• Teacher training activities in GR, LV, LT, PL, SE, NO in Spring 2015 and possibly also remotely through e-Twinning of European Schoolnet

Staying in touch

http://langoer.eun.org/

#langOER

LangOER

OER and languages

OER and languages

LangOER teachers’ group (in

preparation)