Going open: the teachers’ perspective on openness in education

This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and

the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Going open? The teachers’ perspective on

openness in educationAnna SkowronMalgorzata KurekJan Długosz University

LangOER: enhancing teaching and learning of less used languages through OER/OEP

3-year network (January 2014- December 2016) supported by action KA2 Languages of the Lifelong Learning Programme, European Commission

Our Partners

• Fryske Akademy, The Netherlands (Project coordination)

• Web2learn, Greece (Project management)

• European Schoolnet, Belgium

• University of Gothenburg, Sweden

• Jan Dlugosz University, Poland

• Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania

• International Council for Open and Distance Education Belgium (ICDE), Norway

• European Foundation for Quality in E-learning,

• Rezekne Higher Education Institution, Latvia

To learn more: http://langoer.eun.org/

Project activities:

• A report into the current situation of OERs in less taught languages;

• Training materials and training courses for non-English speaking teachers;

• “To remain human and liveable, knowledge societies will have to be societies of shared knowledge.” (UNESCO 2005, p. 5)

Openness: The key concepts and controvercies:

• definitions (UNESCO 2002, 2012; Hewlett Foundation, 2007; Capetown Open Education Declaration, 2007; OECD, 2007);

• criteria (Mc Greal, 2013)

• (faculty) attitudes to opennes, sharing and borrowing; (Rolfe,2012)

• barriers to and drivers for opennes and sharing; ( Mc Greal, 2013)

• licensing;

• diffusion - The 4 RS: revise, reuse, re-distribute, remix,.(Hilton, Wiley,2010) .

Barriers recognized on personal level:

• staff feeling insecure,

• need for recognition

The strongest drivers for sharing and borrowing:

• belief in open education

• a reputation enhancer for both the institution and the individual

• economic factors (Mc Greal, 2013)

- “Activities of sharing and borrowing are entranched in both professional and personal feelings and attitudes” (Rolfe, 2012: 8)

The academic faculty were positive about “sharing resources locally, yet apprehensive about making resources more openly available” (Rolfe, 2012)

Teachers would benefit from: (a) having access to bestteaching practices, (b) sharing their teaching practices with other teachers and(c) reflecting on others’ teaching practices (Griffiths and Blat 2005; Conole 2008;Galley et al. 2010)

OUR RESEARCH

Aim: preparing ground for teacher trainingStages: Step 1 Desktop research – investigation of OERs in

Polish. Criteria: • licensing• access and availability• format• sharing, adapting and repurposing • qaulity indicators• Step 2: - Online questionnaire - 32 participants

Step 1 – desktop research

Guiding questions:

• What is the scope and character of national, regional and local OER initiatives in Poland ?

• What is the range, quality and characteristicsof OERs available in Polish ?

• What are the implications for prospective teacher training ?

Polish repositories – an overview

OPEN AGH COURSEWARESCHOLARISNAUCZYCIELSZTUKA24FREELEARNINGWLACZ POLSKECYFROWA WYPRAWKAEDUKACJA MEDIALNAWSZECHNICAE-GLOBALNABAZA NARZĘDZI DYDAKTYCZNYCHZABAWNIKŚCIŚLE FAJNA LEKCJAWOLNE LEKTURYHISTORIA W SIECI

OERs - Quality indicators:

• clear and concise content, • demonstrating the concepts to be learned, and integrating,

where appropriate, with prerequisites and instructions that are clearly indicated.

• the brand or reputation of the OER creator, • peer review, • user ratings, • use indicators, • validation• self-evaluation.• Other possible quality indicators: shareability, timeliness,

reach (number of users), usability (licence restrictions) and accessibility

(Mc Greal, 2013 )

Step 1 Conclusions:

• OERs - an umbrella covering various types of resources ( also paid ones);

• the most common types of OERs: digital libraries, repositories or content aggregators;

• many represent centralised, Web 1.0 approach (limited interaction, users as consumers , textual materials);

• address teachers;

• lack of user feedback/rating tools

Polish repositories – traffic

VISITS PER DAYPAGE/CONENT

VIEWS

CONTENT

DOWNLOADS

OPEN AGH COURSEWARE 2500

SCHOLARIS4511

1992

24

62

NAUCZYCIEL

SZTUKA24

FREELEARNING 1953*

WLACZPOLSKE

CYFROWA WYPRAWKA

EDUKACJA MEDIALNA

WSZECHNICA 1786

E-GLOBALNA

BAZA NARZĘDZI DYDAKTYCZNYCH

ZABAWNIK

ŚCIŚLE FAJNA LEKCJA

WOLNE LEKTURY22687

77834

1786

5499

HISTORIA W SIECI

Step 2:• Objective: investigating Polish teachers’

attitides and beliefs sorrounding borrowing

and sharing resources openly

• Participants: 32 teachers

• Tools: an online survey

• Research questions:

o What are teachers’ attitudes to opennes?

o How do teachers share and borrow materials?

o What forms of sharing and borrowing do they prefer in terms of:

ADAPTATION/PUBLISHING/AUTHORSHIP/CONTROL?

RESULTS

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

MEN

WOMEN

Chart Title

Types of schools

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

other secondary school junior high school upper primary school lower primary school kindergartens

Teaching experience

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

YEARS

> 20 > 10 6 - 10 yrs 3 -5 yrs 1 - 2 yrs

Adaptation and modification 1

• Repurposing - 78%

• Remixing – 82%

• Using online tools for materials creation – 92%

Adaptation and modification 2

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

IMAGES

LESSON PLANS

EXERCISES

TESTS

MUSIC CLIPS

VIDEO CLIPS

PRESENTATIONS

ADAPT DON'T CHANGE

Attitudes to SHARING and PUBLISHING

• using materials and adapting them - 96%

• borrowing materials from colleagues 98%

• willingness to publish 77%

• publishing if credited - 54%

• publishing ONLY if credited - 38%

CONTROL

• knowing when materials are being used 85%

• having control over who uses materials 89%

• having full control over the reuse (who ? when?, what?) 19%

Accessing materials

• search engines - 97%

• own resources - 80%

• other people’s resources - 79%

• repositories 88%

BUT

• Using CC search criteria - 22%

“Open educational resources will be easy to revise or remix technically if they are meaningfully editable (like a web page), access to the source file is provided (like an HTML file), can be edited by a wide range of free or affordable software programs (like an RTF file), and can be edited with software that is easy to use and is used by many people”

(Hilton,et.al.)

I like sharing my own materials because…

… I want to help other teachers.

… If I use them successfully, other teachers may use them as well.

… I am proud of my achievements – my materials are good so they should be shared with the world.

… teachers should cooperate for the sake of good education.

I don’t like sharing my own materials because…

… I don’t trust everyone.

… I know no one will thank me.

… not everyone will appreciate it

Implications for teacher training• Teachers understanding of openness is geared

towards adaptation, modification and creativity (textual materials);

• Need for promoting flexible manipulation and remixing of resources across modalities;

• raising awareness of CC licensing (practical aspects)

• A strong focus on task design – training teachers how to build materials into a lesson or how to design good tasks around them.

• Student perspective is neglected - Highlight the role of good quality repositories for homework and self-study.

http://langoer.eun.org/

Stay in touch

This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the

author and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Thank you very much for your attention!

References:

• Atkins, D.E., Brown, J.S., & Hammond, A.L. (2007). A review of the open educational resources (OER) movement achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. Retrieved June 1, 2014, http://www.hewlett.org/uploads/files/ReviewoftheOERMovement.pdf

• Cape Town Open Education Declaration. (2007). Unlocking the promise of open educational resources. Retrieved June 3, 2014, from http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declarationhttp://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/38654317.pdf

• Hylen, Jan OECD report: Giving Knowledge For Free: The Emergence Of Open Educational Resources. (2007). Retrieved May 31, 2014, from http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/38654317.pdf

• Hilton, J. Wiley, D. (2010). “The creation and use of Open Educational Resources in Christian higher education.” Christian Higher Education, Volume 9: No. 1: pp. 49-59.

• Hilton, J., Wiley, D., Stein, J., and Johnson, A. (2010) “The four R’s of openness and ALMS Analysis: Frameworks for Open Educational Resources.” Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning. 25 (1): 37-44. (Taylor & Francis Version, Open-Repository Version).

• Rolfe, V. ‘Open Educational Resources: Staff Attitudes and Awarness’, Reasearch in Learning Technology. Vol.20, 2012