Today we are talking about open access learning and promoting an open access environment in the classroom. I really like the open access movement and think that it is the future of our education and society as a whole. In the age of internet, social media and infinite sharing possibilities, it doesn't really make sense for things like text books and learning activities to be propriety knowledge, owned and distributed by million dollar businesses. In the age of the internet, where our children are learning how to skateboard, tie a tie, braid, cook and drive on YouTube, it feel unnatural for knowledge to be limited to a classroom and a text book.
Now I understand why text books are proprietary, it takes a lot of time and effort to publish these learning materials! Someone deserves to be paid for making these things? Right? I guess the argument here is that we should be moving away from a society that sees educational techniques as objects to be sold, and more towards a society that sees these things as essential to our own human growth! Our K-12 education is provided for by the government. If education is seen as an valuable entity that needs to be distributed for free, why then can't the materials be seen in the same light? I really like the open ed program provided here, and think that the 11-state OER initiative referenced here is at the forefront of this issue.The problem is, it takes time to compile good education techniques, sometimes lifetimes! People should be paid for their lifetime of work, right? If so, who should pay them? The government?
This is a tough question. As a teacher and an artist myself, I am very aware of these kinds of debates. There was a huge ordeal when the sharing of music first became available on the internet via websites like Limewire and Napster. Many artists were outraged that their lifetime of work was available online for free with no proceeds going to themselves, the rightful owner of the material! How is that fair? In order for this open access philosophy to work, many people need to participate, and everyone has to have the same mindset. We as educators all need to be equally participating in the sharing of our own material, as well as the taking from others. If all educators share their work and take from others simultaneously, then we should be able to foster a community that is very successful.
An extremely underutilized resource in the field of education, in my opinion, is YouTube. Kids learn how to do everything on YouTube, why can't their educational resources be there as well? Imagine if all the textbook companies spent their time translating their curriculum oriented textbooks into video productions and playlists for youtube? If their videos were to be used by classrooms around the country and around the world, they may be able to make good money off of YouTube ad revenue. Good educational resources on YouTube have thousands and thousands of views. Someone could potentially make content that would be excellent for classrooms, and then still make money through YouTube ad revenue. I think that our society is heading towards this kind of learning material model, and I expect textbooks, in the traditional sense, to be obsolete relatively soon.
As an educator, we can capture the spirit of open and participatory communities in our learning environments by being transparent about our learning techniques. When completing a project borrowed from an open source, we can view other results from that environment as a class, and even share our own learning experiences with the world at large via the internet. Another thing that you can do in the classroom is to create a class or school blog that is kept by the students. Students and teachers can share what they have done throughout the year on the blog. In this way, students will see first hand that education is something to be shared, and not to be kept to self. We should be encouraging our kids to share their educational experiences with the wold, and to use the internet to their advantage to obtain and share information as much as possible!
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