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Creative Destruction: An ‘Open Textbook’ disrupting personal and
institutional praxis
Dr Janice K Jones
School of Linguistics, Adult and Specialist Education, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
Acknowledgement of CountryI acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands where my teaching and research are conducted: the Gaibal, Jarowair, Ugarapul and Butchulla peoples of Queensland. I honour the wisdom of Elders past, present and future, seeking to walk together in the spirit of reconciliation
Image: Jada DENNISON/Untitled/2015/acrylic monoprint/60 x 42 cm
Outline
About the university - snapshot of a Regional Australian University
Its adoption of Open Approaches Current working practices – tensions between thinking
and practices About the ‘Open Textbook’ project A Textbook? Why? The proposal… The challenge – thinking – professional and personal
habitus, and institutional expectations What do we learn?
Snapshot: University of Southern Queensland
Regional university 3 campuses Excellent reputation: distance education- ‘print based’ delivery discontinued.14 years online/blended deliveryTeacher Education programs fully online with flexible study blended deliveryThe University of Southern Queensland Annual Report 2015 (p.85)
Staff:Academic: 768Professional: 1021
Students (headcount):Domestic 23798International 4405Undergraduate (load) 11519Postgraduate (load) 3207The University of Southern Queensland Annual Report 2015 (p.85)
University History - Open Approaches
2007:10 courses via MIT Open Courseware consortium (OEC)
Founder member, Open Educational Resources universitas (OERu)
Currently: Open access to
research (e-prints) Open-licensed
images, videos, textbooks, journal articles, music and data sets for learning and assessment
Pre -1998 – Early adoption - vision
Blackboard, WebCT, traditional didactic use of LMS as ‘classroom’
Book-like course content - introduction, assessment, modules
Discussion forums, recorded lectures (sage on the stage
Beyond the PDF – a move to web-based content
Intent: Metadata will allow user-selected ‘smart’ content for ‘on the fly’ and tailored learning environments
Use of a content object repository to allow repurposing
Technology ubiquity vs integration
‘In the wild’: Smartphone Social/integrating Health Travel Learning, verifying Planning/selecting Buying/Booking Corporate R&D
In the university: Moodle platform Mahara e-portfolio Legacy systems Peoplesoft – CMS Sustainable, robust,
scalable, secure Economically viable Constraining
So what is possible with such tools?
How do we move beyond the limits of our imagination and habitus
How can educators and learners use these tools to create rich learning?
2016 Courses and Pedagogies
PDF core content Recorded lectures Virtual classrooms Discussion forums Quizzes Exams Group assignments
and discussions All about ‘You’….?
‘Open Textbook’ Grants 2015 – 2016
March: Competitive 2015 Excellence in Learning and Teaching Grant $15K
To explore ways to create and share open content To provide recommendations to the university for
mainstreaming open textbook authoring Guidance and support for early adopters Expert panel of judges give feedback (August/September) Janice Jones, David Jones, Eric Kong, Kate Judith (with a team
of 8 from Open Access College) A ‘showcase’ of achievements – December 2015 Final report end January 2016 Reviewer feedback – April 2016
Horseless Carriage Thinking
Most use of OEP is designed not to “disrupt the smooth running routines” (Bigum, 2012, p. 35) of existing educational practices and institutions. Open textbooks are still textbooks. Open courses are still courses. David Jones (Blog) March 2016,
Our thinking is framed by habitus – professional and personal culture and experience
Hence – we ‘read’ possibilities and innovations in terms of the known and familiar
So…an ‘open textbook’??
My story – The Academic
This is my story – experience and learning in creating an ‘Open Book’
I had not expected this to be such a difficult but transformative experience
I had not expected my experience to highlight the need for institutional learning
Nor that it would spotlight the kinds of systems and supports that will be needed as universities shift from a ‘one size’ paradigm to embrace new ways of open working – Not just OER’s but Open Education Practices
Drivers and Discourses of ‘Openness’
Institutional: Competition ‘Reach’ into untapped
markets Social justice
agendas (and funding)
Economies of scale Reduced cost for
students
Scholarly: Innovation – rewards
– reputation, standing, funding
Space for individual and creative praxis
Testing boundaries Cross/institutional
sharing
The Australian Curriculum for the Arts
…all young Australians are entitled to engage with the five Arts subjects and should be given an opportunity to experience the special knowledge and skills base of each.
All students study dance, drama, media arts, music and visual arts — from Foundation to the end of primary school. Schools will be best placed to determine how this will occur.
Lower secondary ‘experience some’ subjects in more depth. Upper years students specialise in one or more Arts subject(s) as part of their overall studies
The arts are…
…foundational to historical, social, cultural and aesthetic understandings and appreciation.
…a vital means of human expression, inquiry and meaning-making.
…a way to self understanding, aesthetic awareness, and sensitivity to other ways of seeing the world
To effectively engage diverse learners teachers must develop curriculum knowledge, skills, pedagogies and practices.
BUT….
Lines, boxes, borders, boundaries When pre-service educators begin their undergraduate
programs to become teachers, most have had minimal experience of the arts since primary school.
My research data captured over 3 years with future primary school educators confirms the majority are fearful of teaching the arts and most doubt their own creativity.
All want to know how to ‘tick the right box’ to get a HD
Limits to my/our thinking
The challenge – supporting learning
Primary: A single 10 week course with 2 week practicum – students’ sole experience of Drama, Dance, Media, Music, Visual Arts
Fully online
Secondary/MOLT: Single course to cater for specialist teachers years 7– 12
Lower school – 5 arts areas
Upper school – art subject specialist
Fully online
In the beginning…
A wordpress site with OER resources for the arts
An emphasis upon providing culturally varied arts examples
Invitations sent to colleagues world wide
Students curated CC BY SA resources
Created their own websites for the arts (assessment task)
Resources were peer reviewed/enhanced to provide useful arts content for teaching
Considerations – Quality and ‘Openness’
Artists’ reluctance to share original works
Creating a website was not an issue but securing it was
Spam became a problem
Student curated sites had value but were uninspiring
All included useful CC By SA resources
But content lacked connecting meaning/cultural or connecting narratives
Gales of Creative Destruction: August
The ‘Dance’ - Shiva: Creator/Destroyer
When things go wrong, when products break – this is a learning opportunity…
My website was hacked by ‘Hard Hitter’ ICT could not help – this was not a university computer.
The WordPress site was not a university site. Expert friends could not help. Keychain made it
impossible to open up any programs or to do any work Necessitated full re-install of the OS on my Macbook Air
and re-purchase of MS Office Apple back up technicians neglected one important
stage in walking me through re-install: settings and programs were lost…
Sleepless nights = new thinking
Mid point review…Beyond the ‘Book’?
With all content lost I sought quick solutions. The panel advised against creating a WikiBook
This forced me back to my earlier thinking but from a new angle
Akash Odedra is a dancer who has struggled to express ideas through the written word: In Murmur he repositions the centuries old dance vocabulary of the Kathak dance tradition in a modern and digital performance context.
Dance is another language: Odedra re-casts dyslexia – not as a failure to follow rules - but as a new language
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T49IjKho5y8 Metaphor – ‘beyond the book’ - from 5’.45”
The OER project transformed –
Why a book? Why ‘deliver’ Arts Curriculum content?
Disrupt boundaries Start from ancient
myths, mysteries, narratives, difference voices, ways of seeing, disonnances
http://janicekjones.com
A blogsite, pinterest, site stimulus for work by/with pre-service teachers
Linked Facebook site for artists
Starting from the earth, the elements, Indigenous peoples, stories, mysteries
The flow…
http://janicekjones.com/
The site: ArtsSpace
http://janicekjones.com/
Where next?
Continue to build the site
Engage local artists and societies to share and use works – value add
Grow Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest ‘flow’
Art exhibition linked to site in 2016
Possible link to USQ Makerspace – sharing of knowledge, skills, videos
Encourage sharing of creative writing and arts products and research– from USQ education courses
Encourage use by schools
Discussion….
ReferencesJones, D.T. (Blog, 2016, March) OEP and Initial Teacher Education: Moving on from the horsey, horseless carriage.https://davidtjones.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/oep-and-initial-teacher-education-moving-on-from-the-horsey-horseless-carriage/ Odedra A. (2014).Murmur, TedGlobal. https://www.ted.com/talks/aakash_odedra_a_dance_in_a_hurricane_of_paper_wind_and_light?language=en
Images: Fire close up texture by Titus Tscharntke (ND)https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fire_close_up_texture.jpg#/media/File:Fire_close_up_texture.jpg
Shiva Nataragja by Vassil (2007)https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AShiva_Nataraja_Mus%C3%A9e_Guimet_25971.jpg