Open Education and the Role of ICTMart Laanpere, head of the Centre for Educational Technology, Tallinn University

What is open education?

The role of ICT in open education

① Open content: Open Educational Resources

② Open practices: Open & Flexible Learning

③ Open environment: Online Learning Environments

1.1. Content before computers

Didactic triangleContent

Teacher Learner

CurriculumSchool subjects Textbook

1.2. Learning objects

The concept of “educational software” did not work (lockdown)

Learning objects: re-usable and searchable digital objects (e.g. texts, images, video clips) with pedagogical purpose and metadata (title, type, description, language, target group, difficulty…), separated from the software

metadata

LearningObjectPedagogical

scenario

InformationObjects (assets)

image

Course

video

1.3. Learning Object Repositories

Problems: teachers (re)create millions of digital learning resources every

year, few can be found or accessed by other teachers Quantities go up, quality goes down Difficult to reuse without adaptation

Solution: online databases for Learning Objects, standardisation of Learning objects, recommender systems

Examples: www.koolielu.ee, lre.eun.org, scientix.eu, merlot.org

1.4. Legal aspects: intellectual property

Technology makes it easy to steal content

Textbook publishers are protecting their content

Teachers are afraid to share their content

Black & white approach: copyright vs copyleft

In the middle: some rights reserved

Creative Commons license: BY: attribution SA: share-alike NC: non-commercial ND: no derivates

1.5. Open Educational Resources

Ideological movement: David Wiley, George Siemens, Stephen Downes, Graham Attwell

Intiatives: MIT OpenCourseware: ocw.mit.edu iTunesU: itunes.du.se Khan Academy: www.khanacademy.org Wikimedia Commons: commons.wikimedia.org LeMill.net: authoring tool, repository and teachers’ community

1.6. Content: conclusions

Towards the school of tomorrow, school without textbooks?

Learning resource as an output of learning process, not as an input?

2.1. Open & Flexible LearningCorrespondence studies1880

1920 Distance education

Mail

Radio

Open Universities1960

Audio &videotapes

Programmed learning

Tele--learning1990 Video/audio-conference

1980

1970 Computer-Based Learning

Computer-Assisted Learning

2000 E-learning

E-learning 2.02010

CSCL

Managing online courses

Learning with Social Media

Learning fromcomputers

Learning withcomputers

Learning withother people

2.2. CSCL: Content is not important

Project-Based Learning: www.espnet.eu

European Schoolnet’s eTwinning: www.etwinning.net

Simulation games, e.g. ICONS: www.icons.umd.edu

Simulation games in Estonia: math.ut.ee/simud

2.3. Informal learning with ICT

Communities of practice (J.Lave & E.Wenger): situated learning, learning as cultural immersion to a specific community, legitimate peripheral participation (AA, researchers)

Connectivism (G.Siemens): learning is making connections between nodes (information, data, feelings, images, persons); learning may reside in non-human appliances

Distributed cognition (E.Hutchins): social distribution, internal-external distribution, temporal distribution

2.4. Open courses

Wikiversity.org: Wiki-university

MOOC: Massive Open Online Courses, see change.mooc.ca

Agora courses in Tallinn University: anyone can join

2.5. Outcome-based education

Accreditation of prior learning and experience

Competencies: measurable learning outcomes

Acknowledging informal learning

Revival of apprenticeship learning

Three metaphors of learning: acquisition, participation, knowledge creation

2.6. Practices: conclusions

Towards convergence of on-distance and on-campus learning?

Towards convergence of informal and formal learning?

Balancing learning and knowledge building, learning in “belief mode” and in “design mode”?

3.1. Digital Learning Environments

The first generation of educational software: content-driven, vendor-lock, platform-lock

Early online environments: projections of traditional classroom

Learning Management System (e.g. Moodle, Fronter, Blackboard, ITSlearning): effective, hierarchical and closed environment

LMS as panopticon

3.2. Open Learning Environments

3D-worlds: Second Life, OpenSim

E-portfolio: collection of evidences of one’s competence

PLE: Personal Learning Environment (e.g. blog): lepress.net/martlaanpere, edufeedr.net

Outdoor Learning Environment: mobile learning (Environmental Detectives with GPS, smartphones, RFID, QR)

3.3. Learning Environments: conclusions

Towards digital learning ecosystems?

Highly personal learning environments, but integrated into various social platforms?

Tablet computers will change everything: from the architecture of schools to learning environments, educational practices and resources?