How Literature is Identifying Gaps and Opportunities in Open Education Concept and Practices
Wednesday, 10 Apr 2019, 14:55
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Tabitha Naisiko, Wednesday, 30 Oct 2019, 14:40
I have enjoyed the video of Malala Yousafzai (UN Messenger of Peace) conversation about girls' education. From the young lady’s talk, I see open education as a solution to the impediments thwarting the education for all goal. Among these are wars, displacements, and cultural limitations. However, in here, it still requires some financial resources to get the materials, the personnel and gadgets required in transmission. Malala talks confidently about social media here in what we have covered so far, I see the connectivism theory in practice through the use of Web. 2.0 on mobile devices such as phones. To me, this implies that open education solves problems of educational barriers but requires a lot of finances to implement it because it requires specifically technological devices. However in the long run, as Bates (2015), ‘What do we mean by open in education?’ observe, it can be cost effective. For instance, in real face-to-face university, I doubt if a university can serve 200,000 registered students and remain in a high ranking like OU. This, however, implies that all is possible, although the more the world becomes advanced technologically, the more expensive the costs of operation and living become.
Furthermore, open education as literary perceived remains more of a myth than a reality. It is on this note that Bates (2015) observes that
“Although in themselves OER and MOOCs are important developments, they tend to cloud other developments in open education that are likely have even more impact on education as a whole. It is, therefore, necessary to step back a little to get a broader understanding of open education. This will help us better understand the significance of these and other developments in open education, and their likely impact on teaching and learning now and in the future.”
It is one the above note that practitioners in open education and the relevant stakeholder such as ministries of education, donors, and teachers streamlined the open education system weight the cost-benefit analysis and other impacts. This perhaps can come up with more design strategies to make it effective and efficient.
Tait (2008), Open universities: the next phase, concurs with the fact above that in a dynamic and different society all the time, the concept and practices of open education become elusive within time. He thus calls for ongoing research and benchmarks to update the system in order to address challenges, meet current opportunities in the world as it changes. Giving an example of OU starting in 1969, 50 years services gives a vast but also complicated lessons to the open education approach and practices. These certainly require revisiting the aspects of the original design in terms of vision and mission, innovations in learning and teaching, innovation in technologies for learning, innovations for educational logistics and significant scale.
In the two articles, I can argue that the concept and practices of open education are open-ended in themselves for they are dependant on how society is changing and developing. Based on this, there is no need to hurry to announce open education as the sole solution to the limitations of education for all. This is because it is a versatile experience and practice that may perhaps be more expensive than we think especially in developing countries with minimal infrastructural development in terms of electricity, internet, and educational technologies. In developed countries, the reality is still challenging in terms of the rate of production which rather at times seem too rapid to allow concentration; which is very basic in education and learning.
How Literature is Identifying Gaps and Opportunities in Open Education Concept and Practices
Furthermore, open education as literary perceived remains more of a myth than a reality. It is on this note that Bates (2015) observes that
“Although in themselves OER and MOOCs are important developments, they tend to cloud other developments in open education that are likely have even more impact on education as a whole. It is, therefore, necessary to step back a little to get a broader understanding of open education. This will help us better understand the significance of these and other developments in open education, and their likely impact on teaching and learning now and in the future.”
It is one the above note that practitioners in open education and the relevant stakeholder such as ministries of education, donors, and teachers streamlined the open education system weight the cost-benefit analysis and other impacts. This perhaps can come up with more design strategies to make it effective and efficient.
Tait (2008), Open universities: the next phase, concurs with the fact above that in a dynamic and different society all the time, the concept and practices of open education become elusive within time. He thus calls for ongoing research and benchmarks to update the system in order to address challenges, meet current opportunities in the world as it changes. Giving an example of OU starting in 1969, 50 years services gives a vast but also complicated lessons to the open education approach and practices. These certainly require revisiting the aspects of the original design in terms of vision and mission, innovations in learning and teaching, innovation in technologies for learning, innovations for educational logistics and significant scale.
In the two articles, I can argue that the concept and practices of open education are open-ended in themselves for they are dependant on how society is changing and developing. Based on this, there is no need to hurry to announce open education as the sole solution to the limitations of education for all. This is because it is a versatile experience and practice that may perhaps be more expensive than we think especially in developing countries with minimal infrastructural development in terms of electricity, internet, and educational technologies. In developed countries, the reality is still challenging in terms of the rate of production which rather at times seem too rapid to allow concentration; which is very basic in education and learning.