The first session of the Open Education track had an exciting and energetic start. After introductions, Heather Ford of iCommons briefly presented the rationale behind this track. The main premise relates to the importance of education and its critical role in development. Heather also talked about iCommons’ iCurriculum project, which aims to act as a model of successful Open Education projects. The Open Education track in the iSummit aspires to improve understanding and awareness of who is working in this field in order to form a network of Open Education activists. Such a network may later be utilized to develop a movement for advocating and developing Open Education on a global level.

An obvious question followed about the meaning of Open Education. Participants’ answers, although differing in perspective, generally agreed that Open Education aims at enhancing the educational experience and making it more effective. Tools such as Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) and Creative Commons could be exploited to create highly dynamic learning environments. These environments will be flexible enough to cater for technological and social developments.

Energy level was then boosted through an interactive *barometer* exercise. In this exercise, a claim would be made by the facilitator (Allen Gun) and participants are asked to scatter along a line according to their level of agreement (or disagreement) with that claim. In the first round, the facilitator asked participants opinions of whether or not Open Education will revolutionize education. Apart from the fun of doing it, the exercise proved to be an excellent thought provoking experience. More participants agreed with the statement, while several others took middle stands. During their deliberations, participants gave many interesting and insightful comments and explanations of their views. Issues raised include quality of educational content, the reductionism in perceiving the educational experience (which is reducing the whole experience to materials and content, so in focusing on the trees, the forest is lost!) and the disruptive generational change in attitudes and expectations towards learning and education.

In the second round, participants expressed their opinions about another claim: “will Open Education ever gain the same level of respect of traditional educational approaches?”. Distribution on the line was very different this time, with the majority of participants agreeing that it is only a matter of time until we see Open Education as highly perceived as traditional, closer approaches. However, few participants agreed half-heartedly. Those explained their reasons of not totally agreeing because educational institutes are very traditional organizations, and achieving a radical mindset change requires considerable work and effort. The policy aspect was also emphasized as an important enabler in the pursuit of this goal.

Participants then engaged in a group brainstorming session to formulate any questions they have about Open Education. Nine groups were formed and participants were asked to write down their questions and post them on a wall where they will be thematically clustered. That concluded the session, leaving the discussion of questions to the second session.

tags: Cardiff United Kingdom education summit07 open icurriculum

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