Reach Out! Exploring the Potential of OSS for Adult Education

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I gave this talk at Västra Götalandsregionen in Göteborg on June 14, 2012. In times when knowledge is becoming obsolete faster and faster a four years' university student enrolled for a technical degree might face that half of what has been learned during the first year will be out of date by the third year of study. Educational settings will need to adapt to new structures and models to keep the pace. Education at large struggles to update their courses within shorter and shorter cycles or to develop new ones, with lessons still being largely given like 100 years ago. Higher education – but also continuing education – should keep an eye on the learning opportunities the web provides, especially in contexts where practical experience is considered equally or even more important than “theoretical” education at school or university. Understanding web success cases like e.g. Open Source Software communities can help educational organizations to adapt themselves to the new realities. OSS relies on self-directed learning, and this kind of learning is increasingly important in times of rapid pace of change where most of our skills that we learn today will be obsolete within few years.

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Some Frequent Questions

How should online learning activities be designed to promote collaborative knowledge creation?

What skills do learners need to develop to participate in collaborative knowledge creation?

What role(s) teachers may play to promote those skills?

Marisa Ponti

NOW:

This is acceptable if we believe that the existing

model is the best there can be (Weller, 2009)

Marisa Ponti

BUT

There are many issues both in education and society

that the traditional classroom model struggles

to address

• Nnn

• Limited curricula

• Personalization of learning

• Need for modes of learning

alternative to higher

education

• Growing appreciation of

learning in informal and

nonformal settings

• Nnn

• Competitiveness require local ecosystems supporting innovation and productivity

• Need for educated workforce with competitive skills

• Ecosystems need to provide support for continuous learning

• Nnn

• Support for self-directed

learning driven by people’s

desire or need to

understand something

Marisa Ponti

Warning

It is unlikely that the current methods of

teaching and learning

will suffice to prepare

students for the lives that they will

lead in the twenty-first century

(Seely-Brown & Adler, 2008)

Source: http://www.internettime.com/2009/02/elearning-is-not-the-answer/

Push Learning vs. Pull Learning:

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0

Source: http://www.sizlopedia.com/2007/08/18/web-10-vs-web-20-the-visual-difference/

Marisa Ponti

An Example of Self-Directed

Learning

Open Source Software (OSS) communities, e.g.:

- Linux

- Apache

- Mozilla

Some Characteristics of OSS

Communities• Open source participants engage in personally meaningful activities

• Designing software helps create solutions to ill-structured problems

• Communities rely heavily on shared external representations

• Collaborative technologies are used extensively

• Contributions are incremental and continuously integrated

(Scharff, 2002)

Marisa Ponti

QUESTION

How applicable is this model to education?

OSS Outside Software Development: P2PU

http://vimeo.com/36737642

p2pu.mp4

Learning the Lesson from OSS

• All the materials are free and open

licensed

• Courses can be revised and remixed

• Volunteers can get involved in every

aspects of a learning project

• Participants are all learners and teachers

• Peer-learning instead of top-down

instruction

Source: http://awaytogarden.com/20-top-seed-and-seed-starting-faqs

Courses

as seeds

Source: alteration of http://www.moby.com/journal/2012-04-04/destroyed-remixed.html

A New Relation Between Teachers and

Learners

Warning: This Approach May not

Suit Everyone

References

• Scharff, E. (2002). Applying open source principles to collaborative

learning environments. In Proceedings of the Conference on

Computer Support for Collaborative Learning: Foundations for a

CSCL Community – CSCL 2002 (pp. 499-500), January 7-11,

Boulder CO.

• Seely-Brown, J. & Adler P. (2008). Minds on fire. EDUCAUSE

Review, 43(1), 16–32. Retrieved from

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0811.pdf

• Weller, M. (2009). Using learning environments as a metaphor for

educational change. On the Horizon, 17(3), 181–189.

License

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