Waste is potential unrealised, untapped, unexplored.
Potential is..."inherent capacity".
I really liked Jacob Kestner’s blog post about Potential. He hits the nail on the head, that only by "providing the most motivating circumstances" can we truly help people achieve their potential.
Empowerment and social inclusion are tremendous motivating circumstances.
Read about LASSIE. The Libraries and Social Software in Education project (March 2008) was funded by the University of London Centre for Distance Education to explore the role of information literacy in lifelong learning and social inclusion.
It's key message is that there is an imperative to seriously develop information literacy in order to enable lifelong learners to find and access the magnificent resources available to education today. Without information literacy there can be no lifelong learning.
In my last post, I suggested a reading of Michael Feldstein’s discussion on the History of OE. In case you didn’t click the link, this comment about MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative really got the gongs sounding for me: "….enormous, multi-million-dollar effort has made large quantities of high quality educational materials from one of the world’s most elite technical institutes available to anyone with a web browser. Ironically, by doing so MIT made clear the distinction between OER and open education. They could afford to make all course content available for free, they argued, because the MIT course materials (even the lectures themselves!) are not the same thing as an MIT education. The locus of value from an MIT education comes from gathering smart people, teachers and students, to discuss those materials. It is in the free exchange of ideas in the classroom..."
Today, social networking technologies have dissolved the territorial boundaries of the classroom. There is much to be gained from global exchange. And Open Education cannot be just about parking mountains of resources on the Web. It is also about building communities of learners and developing routes for win-win exchanges. I can't see how global discussion and inclusion can diminish the worth of brick and mortar institutions.
Some institutions have already recognised this and are seriously launching initiatives through blogs, on Facebook and through whispers on Twitter. Here is just one example.
LASSIE found that librarians have become keen bloggers and in the US (and to a lesser extent in the UK) libraries are using blogs and RSS feeds to reach out to their users. They are also allowing ‘user generated content’ (such as ratings, book reviews and user comments) to enrich their catalogues.
Social networks are also the key mechanism for peer driven learning. Read more about this phenomenon here.
We are however in the very early part of our journey to realising the true potential of Open Education. And until many more people come onto the bandwagon, we risk serious waste. Remember, waste is potential unrealised, untapped, unexplored. It is a global issue.
Wednesday 18 February 2009
Sunday 8 February 2009
Empower and Include
It's been a busy time. I finally did manage to pass my driving test (a very kind examiner, the winter chill and empty roads helped me overcome my mind numbing fear of tests!). Tremendously liberating. Still don't have a car, but it's nice knowing that there is now no other bar to mobility. So Empowering!
So, today, I focus on Empowerment.
And if and how global learning assets and open source education can be used to foster empowerment.
"The idea of empowerment is that those who have little or no influence, such as excluded people, are able to develop informed opinions, to take initiative, make independent choices and influence change...
It also means that those with influence actively change their attitudes and rules and change the way decisions are made through involving excluded people."
Source: The EQUAL Community Initiative (whose activities have now been completed).
Empowerment is the opposite of Powerlessness, which is described in the Voices of the Poor: Crying out for Change as "the core of the bad life", manifesting in "the inability to control what happens, the inability to plan for the future, and the imperative of focusing on the present". Read this global study by the World Bank published as a three part series "Voices of the Poor".
Powerlessness is a serious constraint on the ability to pursue happiness. Its antidote, true empowerment, must be preceded by a recognition of the need for some degree of equality. And for that there must be a change in attitudes and a fundamental shift in how education and learning is offered and made available, accessible and inclusive. It means turning things upside down and inside out. It means Open Education.
As a launch pad into the study of this immensely exciting arena, read Michaeil Feldstein's primer on The History of Open Education here.
Today, every institution that offers education must seriously assess their responsibility to the marginalised and the excluded and think about how they can empower the powerless. And how they can share their assets and benefit from the amazing possibilities for exchange.
So, today, I focus on Empowerment.
And if and how global learning assets and open source education can be used to foster empowerment.
"The idea of empowerment is that those who have little or no influence, such as excluded people, are able to develop informed opinions, to take initiative, make independent choices and influence change...
It also means that those with influence actively change their attitudes and rules and change the way decisions are made through involving excluded people."
Source: The EQUAL Community Initiative (whose activities have now been completed).
Empowerment is the opposite of Powerlessness, which is described in the Voices of the Poor: Crying out for Change as "the core of the bad life", manifesting in "the inability to control what happens, the inability to plan for the future, and the imperative of focusing on the present". Read this global study by the World Bank published as a three part series "Voices of the Poor".
Powerlessness is a serious constraint on the ability to pursue happiness. Its antidote, true empowerment, must be preceded by a recognition of the need for some degree of equality. And for that there must be a change in attitudes and a fundamental shift in how education and learning is offered and made available, accessible and inclusive. It means turning things upside down and inside out. It means Open Education.
As a launch pad into the study of this immensely exciting arena, read Michaeil Feldstein's primer on The History of Open Education here.
Today, every institution that offers education must seriously assess their responsibility to the marginalised and the excluded and think about how they can empower the powerless. And how they can share their assets and benefit from the amazing possibilities for exchange.
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