Blog #2: Open Learning – Sharing and Openness
From a very young age we are taught to share. It wasn't easy, that toy that Santa Claus gifted me for Christmas was mine, I didn't want my brother, or any body else to play with it. But over time our parents and other grown ups helped us see the benefit of sharing with those around us. I wasn't giving up my toy, loosing ownership, but the joy and pleasure that sharing that toy gave both my brother and I is hard to measure. Over the years I came to realise that sharing had so many benefits including that others were happy to share with me too. So why has the concept of sharing now presented me with so many questions?What does it mean to be open in the context of education and learning? Certainly when I first started as an educator in healthcare simulation knowledge was power, and there was nothing openly shared. Individuals and institutions were positioning themselves as experts, making financial or professional gains from selling their knowledge, content or resources. I am pleased to say that the pendulum has swung the other way, with people realising that patients are always at the heart of what we do, so it would be doing our patients a disservice not to share. This cultural shift in the international healthcare simulation community has results in many open source material available.
Whilst technology has been an enabler, I don’t believe it is the primary driver of this openness, instead I believe that it is about communities of practice (Wenger, 2000). Etienne Wenger summarizes Communities of Practice (CoP) as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” noting that any learning that takes place is not necessarily intentional. The cultural shift towards educators openly sharing their content, allowing other to adapt it to their local context, has been slow as, like when we were children, we learn the pros and cons of sharing.
I am a user of open sourced resources, and over the years have my favorite sites (www.litfl.com). Since 2012 the FOAMed – Free Open Access Meducation. In March 2013 the emergency medicine and critical care FOAM movement crystallised in a unique conference called SMACC (Social Media and Critical Care). This was followed a year later by an even more successful event held on the Gold Coast, smaccGOLD, before over 2,000 people assembled in 2015 for SMACC Chicago. Since then the conference has gone from strength to strength, with smaccDUB in Dublin (2016), dasSMACC in Berlin (2017) and become a community in its own right. It made sharing cool!
So whilst I source information from open sourced platforms I am not ready to share.
https://sleepingshouldbeeasy.com/why-kids-shouldnt-be-forced-to-share/
Just like the literature that suggests children shouldn't be forced to share, I don't believe we should force educators to share and make their work. I think we need to respect that sometimes the content is such that being openly available could be considered unsafe or unethical without appropriate controls.
Interesting read Kirsty, thanks. I think I agree, at first glance there seems to be no reason to not sharing, but in the discussion we had during the topic, it came clear that it is not as simple as publishing our content openly, or creating a you-tube channel to teach widely. Without saying that we should not share, it is a process that takes much effort and planning, and hopefully the support of our institutions or leaning communities, as you pointed out.
ReplyDeleteGood point! I totally agree with your reasoning at the end, that not everything must be shared. However, when it comes to education, I still think that the best result can be achieved by sharing and eventually through constructive discussion, without compromising privacy and ethical issues. .
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued by what you say about (non-shared) knowledge being power in the healthcare simulation community. Whereas you also mention that attitudes have been changing, do you believe covid-19 and the (from an outsider's perspective) suddenly arisen need for rapid exchange of scientific evidence on the virus and its treatment might have the effect of accelerating the move towards increased openness?
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this great reflection of yours with us, and I can totally relate to your chain of thoughts. I also believe sharing can help us to achieve the result we were looking for, but it needs have the "trusted" environment as the foundation.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your reflection on Topic 2. I too agree that there are limits to open-ness. In the context of education, I feel that it is also important to realise that as with all else, there is a cost to teaching and learning. While democratisation of knowledge is important, and in some instances crucial, the burden of cost must be discussed in order to be realistic, relevant, and sustainable.
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