Reflective Blog on Topic 2 - Open Learning – Sharing and Openness
First of all, I would
like to state, for the record, that I am a key believer of sharing educational
materials for the benefit of students. However, I feel that there are still challenges that need to be addressed with regards to open learning.
As mentioned in my
first reflective blog, Ministry of Education (MOE), Singapore, introduced the Masterplans
for ICT in Education since 1997. In the Education Technology Plan, teachers are
envisioned to be designers and facilitators of meaningful tech-mediated
learning. They should be able to:
- Be designers of learning experiences;
- Be skillful practitioners who facilitates active learning by leveraging on technology and learning data, and;
- Be digital learners who develop themselves professionally to learn and share digitally and keep abreast with educational technology.
Hence, the path and
platform for Singapore educators for sharing and openness are already there.
There is also support for teachers and learning
resources are shared centrally via the Singapore Student Learning Space (SLS)
online. There is also professional development programmes where teachers can
build new capabilities through sharing and collaboration.
While MOE provides
support and platform for sharing, collaboration and openness for primary,
secondary and junior college level, in my opinion, more could have been done
for Singapore universities to adopt open learning. There are efforts such as
the UK-Singapore Alliance for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, The
Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA), and The
Singapore-Hebrew University Alliance for Research and Enterprise (SHARE). However, these are
alliances between top-tier universities where there are mutual benefits for
sharing and openness. There could be more openness for greater inclusion and
social diversity in education to benefit not only students, but the whole
population in general.
From there, my next
question is, how willing are educational institutions in sharing their materials
especially when they still need the revenue from their content and materials in
order to be sustainable? Why are educational institutions reluctant to fully
embrace open learning?
According to Hylen,
(2006), although Open Educational Resources (OER) is popular at the moment,
there are three challenges that may suppress the growth of OER. They are; lack
of awareness of copyright issues, quality assurance and sustainability of OER
initiatives. Stacey (2013) stated that there are lack of policies, strategies
and resources in open education.
Lacking of awareness
in copyright issues and unfamiliarity with open licenses can pose a challenge.
Open learning caused educators and researchers to interrelate with licensing
like never before and therefore they are either unprepared or unwilling to engage
with troublesome licensing procedures.
The lack of quality
assurance is an issue because there can be a difference in quality as well as
non-standardized credit systems and recognition. Some institutions only use
branded or reputable institution’s materials. As such, this will lead to
another problem, which is the validation of students’ competencies and the
recognition of certifications. Will employers be more accepting of open
learning certification as compared to diplomas and degrees from traditional
universities? How do we set the recognition of competencies through open
learning?
Institution launching
OER programme might also need to look into different models for the long-term
stability of the programme. Dholakia (2006) proposes the replacement model; the
foundation donation or endowment model; government support model, the
segmentation model, conversion model, voluntary support and the contributor-pay
model to generate revenue for the programme to be sustainable.
With all the
challenges stated, is it still worthwhile for educational institution to fully
embrace open learning. In my opinion, it is a definite yes. There are steps
that can be put in place to make it a success.
Moving forward &
concluding remarks
Rome wasn’t built in a
day, so are the efforts to build a successful open learning framework. Ministry
of Education (Singapore), Education Technology journey, for example, took more
than twenty years, a few phases and constant improvements to the process before
it became an established Educational Technology Plan.
As stated by Bachmaier
(2021), open education resources can increase visibility, better quality
teaching through collaboration and provision of equal access to knowledge.
Given time, proper
planning, training, good IT infrastructure, in addition to positive
collaborations between educational institutions, government bodies, employers and
stakeholders, I believe there are boundless possibilities that be achieved from open learning.
References
Dholakia, U., King,
J., Baraniuk, R.: (2006) ”What makes and Open education Program Sustainable?
The Case of Connexions” from http://www.oecd.org/document/32/0,2340,en_2649_33723_36224352_1_1_1_1,00.html
Stacey, P. (2013). Government support for open
educational resources: Policy, funding, and strategies. International Review of
Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 14(2), 67-80
Vorschlag zur Zitation des Blogbeitrags: Regine Bachmaier
(11. October 2021). Creating and Sharing Open Educational Resources In: Lehrblick - Center for
University and Academic Teaching Excellence, https://lehrblick.de/en/creating-and-sharing-open-educational-resources/.
Inspirational Materials
Educational
Technology Journey: https://www.moe.gov.sg/education-in-sg/educational-technology-journey
Educational Technology
Plan: https://www.moe.gov.sg/education-in-sg/educational-technology-journey/edtech-plan
Policy paper:
Singapore-UK joint statement 2021: a partnership for the future: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/singapore-uk-joint-statement-2021-a-partnership-for-the-future/singapore-uk-joint-statement-2021-a-partnership-for-the-future
Singapore-MIT
Alliance: https://web.mit.edu/sma/about/overview/index.htm
Support for teachers: https://www.moe.gov.sg/news/parliamentary-replies/20211101-support-for-teachers
16
UK and Singapore Universities Form an Alliance to Accelerate Entrepreneurship
and Innovation Collaboration: https://www.singaporetech.edu.sg/digitalnewsroom/16-uk-and-singapore-universities-form-an-alliance-to-accelerate-entrepreneurship-and-innovation-collaboration/
Thanks for some insights to the Singaporian challenges. I think it is important to look at how a seemless joining of educational structures and learning processes can be maintained. OER refers to educational structures and an idea of that this will benefit learning through increased access to resources. This can be seen on different levels, where a crucial one is when teachers share experiences and ideas, like in ONL, for how to make education more of a learning journey than a certificate hunt. Learning is not a quest of being certified, learning is life, and along that path certificates are earned, if so wished.
ReplyDeleteFor an educational body this can be a tough nut to crack as it's "business model" is based on monopolised certification. Perhaps :-)!
Thank you for your comments.
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