Opening Up

I've just re-read an article by Catherine Cronin - Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education. I've reflected on Cronin's work on open educational practice before [Cronin Comes into Focus]. This is a piece that I will come back to from time to time since it feeds my research and SoTL directions - "critical approaches to openness are required".

I returned to this piece after a 'trigger' conversation from a hangout held recently. In this general discussion about educational technology in our teaching practice, there appears to be pushback from students who find it challenging to engage in multiple digital spaces within a course of study. The issue brought forward, that created a feeling of discomfort for me, was that of multiple sites for locating information about course content. Since this is exactly what I require and model in each of my courses, I paid particular attention to these comments. The issue appears to be the navigation from closed LMS spaces to open web spaces where similar but not identical information is presented. Conflicting information from one location (LMS) to another (web site) was challenging the students to make sense of what, where, when, and how to complete the course requirements. Mirroring the LMS into open web spaces with consistency and attention to detail is challenging at best, and a web designer or course creator's major concern. Ensuring that the due dates, assignment descriptions, and the specific requirements for each element of the course need to be consistently communicated in each location. With responsive and agile course design, this can be particularly challenging.

As I struggle with this issue - since I firmly believe that course content should live outside the LMS space. I struggle with the LMS requirements from the organizational standpoint. How can I continue to support student success with open course design when the students themselves are pushing back on the open nature of course design? Where can the shift for simplification be reversed to one where complexity and messiness, and an attitude of 'not-yetness' are accepted (Ross & Collier). I'm struggling with this negotiation of open learning while balancing student needs, learning success, and well being. My messy learning opportunities with open and emerging web technologies may not be what students want, need or welcome. How do I find out what students 'really' need? How do I balance that with what I really 'want' to see happen in my teaching practice? Tough questions for self reflection.... more opening up to come.

References:

Cronin, C. (2017, October 17). Open education, open questions. Educause Review. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/10/open-education-open-questions 

Cronin, C. (2017, August). Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (IRRODL), 18(5). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3096/4301

Ross, J. & Collier, A. (2016). Complexity, mess, and not-yetness. In G. Veletsianos (2012) Emergence and innovation in digital learning. AU Press. DOI: doi:10.15215/aupress/9781771991490.01 Retrieved from http://www.veletsianos.com/2016/06/14/complexity-mess-not-yetness/

Participatory Culture

This past week the focus for the classes I've taught has been on the concept of 'participatory culture' with resources from Henry Jenkins.
"Further to this, Jenkins, Purushotma, Weigel & Clinton (2009), in their book Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, outline the features of a participatory culture." MDL4000 - Winter Term 2.1 along with this image adapted from this work.

This now connects to some reading I'm doing from Catherine Cronin - Opening up Open Pedagogy, where she's defining open learning, open pedagogies. She mentions participatory culture which caught my attention. How do these defining characteristics connect to open pedagogies and assessments.

1. low barriers to artistic expression - educators can create and prepare creative lesson designs in a variety of contexts using video, audio, text and iconographic media. 
2. strong support for creating and sharing with others - in the open educational movement there are many others to reach out to when creating or conceptualizing teaching and learning. The most recognizable forum is in the OER textbook production area. The less active group creating and sharing areas are in syllabus creating and assessment designs, but my experience reaching out to Laura Gibbs for her open assessment design is one such example.
3. informal membership - Virtually Connecting is an example of how this works in the open
4. what is known is passed from experienced to novice - within the open educational communities, those who are working in open pedagogies are sharing their expertise with those who are shifting their teaching practice. Digital Pedagogy Lab is one such space where experienced and novice work together for a 3-5 day immersive learning experience.
5. members believe their contributions matter - for those who engage and support the VC community, they feel that their contributions provide opportunities for access to conference knowledge building conversations.
6. members feel socially connected - through the use of social media, members feel they know each other. When they do get to meet in physical contexts, the conversations pick up from those in digital spaces
7. not every member must contribute - within open educational communities, there is no pressure to participate, with invitations and opportunities provided where and when individuals are interested or ready to join. The OEORangers is one example of the invitational call which led to the OER Fellows to support and engage those who responded to the invitation to participate at a deeper level.

Are all open pedagogical advocates aware of participatory culture characteristics?

References
Cronin, C. (2017, April 24). Opening up open pedagogies. Retrieved from https://catherinecronin.net/research/opening-up-open-pedagogy/