digital literacies
Kudos for using the plural — "literacies" — right off the bat, not only given the many literacies listed later (eg, data literacy, information literacy, visual literacy, media literacy, metaliteracy, etc), but also that there are multiple literacies even in a single category.
Within the study of digital literacies per se, one potential pitfall is focusing too closely on narrow dimensions, such as gaining new digital skills, at the expense of ensuring that learners develop the lifelong capac-ity needed to distinguish digital literacy from simple digital proficiency.
Amen! For example: proficiency in a specific software program (eg, MS Word) rather than broader literacies about how such software can be used generally (eg, word processing).
Digital literacies include data literacy, information literacy, visual literacy, media literacy, and metaliter-acy, as well as related capacities for assessing social and ethical issues in our digital world.
Some of the different kinds of digital literacies.
Administrators who are charged with the development of open education policy may not fully understand the opportunities inherent in OER and OEP, partic-ularly for learners.
The other key area of alignment: with learners.
Open Education: Policies
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They clearly align the open education policy with the university’s mission statement and strategic goals.
Institutional alignment is absolutely critical so the policies can be shaped for the institution and so leadership can provide aligned support.
Open Education: Practices
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While I think this post does a good job of summarizing OEP, I'm disheartened to see the piece shaped so clearly from the perspective that OER is the necessary heart or foundation of OEP. From my POV, OER and open-licensing is a key infrastructural component, but is neither necessary nor sufficient in the larger and more important project to "reconceptualize and improve pedagogy and advance authentic, participatory, engaged learning" that this work rightly champions. Why must OEP always rest so heavily on OER? It's as if we have mistaken tactics for goals.
Open Education: Content
Join other folks annotating the full PDFs of @EDUCAUSELI's other two related posts about practices and policies in open education:
7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Policies
Join other folks annotating the full PDFs of @EDUCAUSELI's three related posts about content, practices and policies in open education:
7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Content
Join other folks annotating the full PDFs of @EDUCAUSELI's three related posts about content, practices and policies in open education:
7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Practices
Join other folks annotating the full PDFs of @EDUCAUSELI's three related posts about content, practices and policies in open education:
a site of praxis, a place where theories about learning, teaching, technology, and social justice enter into a conversation with each other and inform the development of educational practices and structures.
Wonderful! I believe this expansive framing is a more useful way to explain the concept of OEP than OER-focused definitions.
importance of OER in making OEP possible
Like Nate's comment above, I suggest that OER is just one of the ways of making OEP possible. In practice, there are multiple entry points to, and avenues of, OEP. It may begin with use of social media to open conversations, use of open tools, even the preparatory work of creating digital identities, considering equity on the open web, etc. Use/creation/adaptation of OER is usually part of OEP, but not always, and it is not necessarily the starting point (particularly in contexts without any OER policies/support).
challenging and time-consuming
I'd agree with all of the challenges identified here. Understanding these is useful in designing ways to help support faculty and staff regarding OEP. An additional challenge that emerged in my recent research on OEP was faculty concerns regarding privacy and identity -- this included defining (and continually negotiating) personal/professional & teacher/student boundaries in their open practice. Exploring such tensions is an important part of supporting faculty and staff consideration/exploration of open practices.
Embodying a commitment to learner-driven education, OEP involves students in “active, constructive engagement with [open] content, tools and services in the learning process” in ways designed to help promote learners’ self-management, cre-ativity, and ability to work in teams.
The editorial addition of "[open]" in this quote betrays what seems like an underlying bias in this work: that open educational PRACTICES require and are always based on open educational RESOURCES. Hence the move to changing OEP to "OER-enabled pedagogy" below. I would argue that yes, there is a deep connection between OEP and OER, that OEP benefits from using OER, but that OEP is possible without OER. And unlike, Abruzzi's story, one might just as easily start from an OEP experience and eventually come to use OER as a part of it.
OEP provide the architecture and philosophical underpin-ning for fulfilling the promise of using OER to expand collabora-tive, inclusive, accessible, and active learning and related pedagogy.
Again, this makes it seem like OEP is solely an outgrowth of OER, when I would argue that "expanding collaborative, inclusive, accessible, and active learning" is a primary goal that may or may not engage OER.
A key tenet is the positioning of the learner as a central, active player in the learning experience.
Agreed. And this tenet is far more important that the copyright status of the materials involved.
Going forward, practitioners and researchers envision that the focus around OEP will evolve from a relatively narrow emphasis on development, revising, and distribution of OER to further development of related practices, architectures, principles, and policies
This imagines that current OEP activities are more focused on OER than may in fact be the case.
OER support the practice of open ed-ucation, an umbrella term for the mix of open content, practices, policies, and communities that, properly leveraged, can provide broad access to effective learning opportunities for everyone.
Great to see my earlier comment led to a fix here: "opportunities" now replaces "materials" and it all makes more sense.
Working in an open education envi-ronment might better prepare students for work in today’s in-creasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary workplaces.
This would be a great part of a "7 Things..." that focuses on open education in addition to open content.
Many practitioners argue that open education could be positioned as a core education prac-tice, with learners producing, evaluating, using, revising, and shar-ing OER
maybe add: "as one of the many practices enabled by open education."
Open Education: Content
I'm a little confused that the title of this work is "7 Things You Should Know About Open Education", but it seems to focus mostly on OER. Is this the first in a series of "7 Things..." works about open education and content is just the first topic?
OER support the practice of open ed-ucation, an umbrella term for the mix of open content, practices, policies, and communities that, properly leveraged, can provide broad access to effective learning materials for everyone.
Not to quibble, but this sentence makes it seem like the primary outcome of open education is to provide "effective learning materials", which I think unnecessarily limits what #OEP can generate.