Reflections on openness

Martin Weller

By mag3737 http://www.flickr.com/photos/mag3737/1914076277/

The OU

The Open University is open to people, places, methods and ideas.

We got lucky!

By psd http://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/3717444865/

If you were starting an OU now…• Open source• Open educational

resources• Open teaching/courses• Open research• Open systems• Open technology

The Open Scholar

The traditional scholar, like the scholarship he or she produces, isn't open--open-minded, hopefully, but not "open" in a public way. No, a typical scholar is very exclusive, available only to students in specific academic programs or through toll-access scholarly publications that are essentially unavailable to all but the most privileged. In the digital age, the traditional barriers to accessing scholars or scholarship are unnecessary, but persist for institutional reasons.Gideon Burton – Academicevolution.com

By Gideon Burton http://www.flickr.com/photos/wakingtiger/3157622458/in/set-72157612021421472/

Sharing as default

embed

links

promotes

automatic

favourites

comments

subscribesdiscusses

retweets

The cost of sharing has disappeared

…but we act as if it hasn’t

Remember Cassette tapes? - http://www.flickr.com/photos/erica_marshall/2666112988/

How often do we use this type of sharing in our teaching or research?

Sharing by ryancr http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanr/142455033/

The lessons

① Sharing transforms practice② A new form of artefact is

created ③ Presentations are social objects④ The audience is distributed⑤ It’s a learning object/OER

A reciprocity economy

An everyday tale of openness

Blog use matrix

Translated, reformatted

Drag and drop Flash version

Reused for teaching

Wiki version

See more Amazing Stories of Openness athttp://cogdogblog.com/stuff/opened09/

5 Principles of social media learning

By Michael Ruiz http://www.flickr.com/photos/simax/3390895249/

1. <embed> is the universal acid of the web – we should build around it

2. Simple with reach trumps complex with small audience

3. Sharing is a motivation to participation

4. Start simple and let others build on top

5. Complexity comes from the network not the app

If true what does it mean?

How do we transform education to take advantage of these?

• In what aspects of your academic life are you not open? Why?

• Does your institution place obstacles to openness?

• What would it take to convince you to be more open?

• What are your concerns?