In the article by Bronwyn Hegarty, a definition was included to describe how “Open Educational Practices constitute the range of practices around creation, use, and management of open educational resources with the intent to improve quality and innovate education (p. 4). I also noticed certain themes continued to arise in regards to open education. These themes included the importance of collaboration, communication, community, and the willingness to share ideas. All of these themes seem to play a tremendous role in creating a space where open education can work effectively. I think that as an individual who has experience working with elementary school teachers and students, I would argue that elementary school teachers are becoming more aware of the importance of incorporating all of these themes into their classroom. Personalized learning and inquiry have recently become the new hot topic in elementary education, and both require a tremendous amount of collaboration, communication, community, and a willingness to share ideas in order to be successful in a classroom setting. Although it is clear to me that we are moving towards using more open educational practices at the elementary level, I would like to know how we could create a space where open education was even more feasible in this setting. The current drawbacks to incorporating open educational practices would include but are not limited to, teachers not having the time available to collaborate with other educators, in addition to feeling as though they need to “do it all themselves.
Another theme that I mentioned earlier in this post was the willingness to share ideas. The article states that “Resources need to be freely accessed and shared so that they can be reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed (p.5). In my experience, elementary educators are willing to provide resources to other educators for free, but I’m curious about the educators that are teaching in a high school or post-secondary institution. What is their opinion in regards to open educational practices? Are they willing to share their resources for free?
Picture Link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+of+students+collaboration&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=GC1lzoId7JASbM%253A%252C6MGqdgNwLHxsuM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTW86ZqGJz1t1-RFc6_O5bjIUkg7w&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjczbbg_O7jAhXhIDQIHfHRDR8Q9QEwAnoECAYQDA#imgrc=B57Stuxoww77TM:&vet=1
Article Link:
https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/44430383?seq=6#metadata_info_tab_contents