Within this post, I will be discussing what I have learned in regards to the 5R freedoms in open education, how teachers are currently moving towards more open educational practices, and the importance of technology in order to make these practices possible. Bronwyn Hegartyâs article states that âIf the platform [âŠ..] somehow prevents users from exercising their 5R freedoms, then it is difficult to consider the material to be truly open.â From what I have learned, the 5R freedoms give any public user the âability to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute online materialâ. With this knowledge at hand, I find myself contemplating how far an educator is willing to proceed with open education, depending on the context of the educational setting. As an individual who teaches elementary school children, I see the attributes of open pedagogy being used almost every day by elementary school teachers. The attributes that I have found to be most prevalent in this context include, but are not limited to, sharing ideas and resources, being open, innovative, and reflective. Despite the continuous use of these attributes, I can say for certain that most educators would not be adhering to a truly open platform within the context of a classroom setting. The platform would likely be seen as a danger to children due to public presence, and the ability for users to have access to and edit the information that children also have access to. However, I am curious as to whether or not an elementary school educator has ever used a completely open platform to teach their students, and if it was successful. One educational context where the 5R freedoms are being enacted is when teachers are learning from each other. For example, elementary educators are using online platforms such as teachers-pay-teachers to provide online educational resources for other educators to use for free. These free resources can be âreused, revised, remixed, and redistributedâ.
Although I have only seen teachers truly using an open education platform in a teacher-to-teacher related context, there are some re-occurring themes within Bronwynâs article that are directly related to what teachers are facilitating within their classrooms in order to move towards 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 significant 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 would be even more feasible in this setting. The current drawbacks to incorporating more 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 âdo it allâ themselves in order to save face.
Bronwyn Hegartyâs article also discusses the importance of participating in the technological world in order to enhance the learning experience for students. Such participation can allow for more peer-to-peer mentoring during a task, as well as helping students to build on their collaboration skills. Roy, from our EDD 339 course, made a good point when he argued that âthe educational system should branch out into other forms of materials, such as digital media, online discussions, and interactive media platformsâ. Due to the fact that I have just completed a digital literacy course, I see the value in incorporating a variety of technological formats into a course because it can cater to different learning styles, in addition to giving educators more opportunities to differentiate their instruction. After doing the readings and learning some new information about open education, I would like to know if elementary school teachers are aware of what open-education means and if they are currently making informed steps towards using it as a platform.
Article Link:
https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/44430383?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Picture Link:
https://pitt.libguides.com/openeducation