Eve Gray had a great post this week about the launch of the Capetown Declaration this week where she calls for “opening the gates of education”. She makes some great points that are worth repeating. Open education initiatives, like MIT’s Open CourseWare Initiative, aren’t just about people having access to course materials. It’s about participation. It’s allowing people to use, adapt and build on these resources. How you license matters. The format of the resources matters.
One more point, unfortunately Canada is a bit behind in the open education movement. Capilano College in British Columbia is the only Canadian member of the Open CourseWare Consortium. All of us who work in educational institutions here in Canada need to think about how we can contribute. We talk about connecting to communities and service learning, yet the enormous opportunity of open education seems to be passing us by. Let’s step up.
I think it would be wise to differentiate ‘participation’ and ‘potential for participation’.
I think I know what you mean, but how do you see them differently?
If it’s “potential for participation” then what do we need to do as educators to change that to “participation”. I think it’s all about engagement, collaboration, mobility, and openness (ECMO) – these are the points that will lead to participation – meet the learners where they are – give them collaborative spaces to learn in, be mobile about learning and the mobile tools used for learning and be open about the whole process – engage learners in the process – that will go a long way to ensuring participation.
Make learning transparent, engaging, collaborative, and open (this doesn’t necessarily mean free either) and learners WILL participate no matter where they are…