[Open-education] World Education Forum and Open Education / OER

Fri May 22 12:13:37 UTC 2015

Dear Cheryl,

many thanks - looking forward to your comments, as well as comments that
others on this list might have!

Many thanks!
Bjoern

On 22 May 2015 at 14:12, Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams <
cheryl.hodgkinson-williams at uct.ac.za> wrote:

>  Dear Bjoern
>
>  Good to know that you are aware of ROER4D! I would like to take these
> proposals to the broader ROER4D team before I commit to any new
> development, but in principle I agree that working together will help the
> broader open education cause. One of our colleagues, Sukaina Walji, is
> currently presenting at eLearning Africa and has made some new contacts who
> may very well be interested in such a group. It might also be good to
> locate other potentially interested parties such as emerge Africa (
> http://emergeafrica.net/ ), headed up by my colleague Tony Carr, which
> has a specific focus on online learning in higher education in Africa.
>
>  The new OER World Map project might also be a useful partner with
> respect for the pooling of OER. We have been in conversation with Jan
> Neumann in this regard and I am cc'ing him here too.
>
>  It will take a week or so to get comments back from our broader group
> before we can get back to you.
>
>  Kindest regards
> Cheryl
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Bjoern Hassler [bjohas at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 22 May 2015 01:31 PM
> *To:* Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams
> *Cc:* open-education at lists.okfn.org; freda.wolfenden at open.ac.uk; Thomas
> King; Sukaina Walji; Sarah Goodier; Tess Cartmill
> *Subject:* Re: [Open-education] World Education Forum and Open Education
> / OER
>
>   Dear Cheryl, dear all,
>
>  thank you very much for the response, I'm aware of ROER4D, and it's
> great to hear that you are working with TESSA.
>
>  I'd like to make a couple of concrete proposals:
>
>  (1)
>
>  *I suggest setting up an advocacy group (or join forces with one if
> there is one already) that will lobby donours and NGOs  for open licensing
> in international development, specifically in primary, secondary, and
> teacher education*. Obviously millions are invested in UPE and secondary,
> and often the resulting resources are not publicly available. Sometimes
> this is despite such organisations have policies that suggest use of open
> licensing (i.e. policy/practice gap).
>
>  IMHO there's a really great bunch of organisations doing things (OER
> Africa, TESSA, TESS-India, CoL, VVOB, IICD, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières,
> ..., and of course ROER4D, and I may add OER4Schools as well), but I think
> we could do even more if we worked together more closely, systematically
> lobbied, etc.
>
>  (Why not also HE? I do think the situation in HE is different: There's
> much more traction for OER in HE, and even in developing countries,
> universities tend to have reasonable connectivity these days, students are
> more empowered to find the resources they need etc - of course, I'm not
> saying that OER in HE is unimportant, far from it. But my suggestion is a
> group focussed on primary/secondary, where there are fewer resources,
> despite the international priority as per EfA/GMR/SDGs.)
>
>  (2)
>
>  *I would also suggest a joint pool of resources of OER for primary,
> secondary, and teacher education, available for offline use. *OER Africa
> already has a resource bank, that we could build on. However, IMHO the
> (comparatively few) OER that do exist (and are specifically for primary,
> secondary, TE) are not promoted enough, and at times (for the intended
> audience!) relatively hard to get hold of.
>
>  I think the existing OER for primary/secondary in SSA, S/SE-Asia etc)
> don't have high enough visibility - so lobbying is important. But we also
> need to put together what we have achieved, so that the existing OER can be
> easily used in structured programmes for teachers and in schools (offline
> where needed).
>
>  For instance, there are many projects that do "Wikipedia offline for
> schools" (with ZIM, Rachel Pi, IdeasBox, etc) - I do know the community
> well, and they are doing great things. However, I would argue that
> community is not connected enough with the education community: Often such
> offline projects do not include TESSA, OER4Schools, etc. Wikipedia and KA
> is fine, but why not also provide resources that are specifically meant for
> teachers?  So we need to package our resources as well as Wikipedia and KA
> do, so that they can be easily part of offline solutions.
>
>  Cheryl, does this sound of interest from an ROER4D perspective, and
> would ROER4D be able to contribute to such an effort?
>
>  Similarly, are there others on this list who'd be interested in
> contributing? What are the next steps?
>
>  All the best,
> Bjoern
>
>
>
>
> On 22 May 2015 at 09:51, Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams <
> cheryl.hodgkinson-williams at uct.ac.za> wrote:
>
>>
>>   Dear Bjoern
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for raising the issue of OER in developing countries. The Research
>> on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D)(http://roer4d.org/)
>> project is endeavouring to find out exactly how OER is being adopted or
>> not, in a range of Global South countries in three regions, South America,
>> Sub-Sarahan Africa and Asia. ROER4D comprises 18 sub-projects around seven
>> clusters engaging 86 researchers and associates across sixteen time zones
>> investigating the adoption and impact of Open Educational Resources (OERs)
>> in 26 countries.
>>
>>
>>
>> We are still in progress, so no data just yet, but you might want to
>> follow our progress on our website or be in contact directly. For a quick
>> overview the current ROER4D Slideshare deck (
>> http://www.slideshare.net/ROER4D) should be a good start.
>>
>>
>>
>> But to answer your direct question: “Given the global aspirations for
>> Open Education, OER, and CC, is this ok? Should we do more? Is enough being
>> done for primary/secondary education in developing countries regarding
>> ‘open’?”, the answer is no, we need to understand a lot more about what
>> people actually need as OER from the ‘bottom-up’ in terms of content and
>> format. You will be pleased to know that one of the ROER4D Sub-Projects is
>> specifically investigating the impact of the TESSA project under Freda
>> Wolfonden’s leadership.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams
>>
>> Principal Investigator of ROER4D
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------   Subject: [Open-education] World
>> Education Forum and Open Education / OER  Date: Wed, 20 May 2015
>> 19:53:21 +0200  From: Bjoern Hassler <bjohas at gmail.com>
>> <bjohas at gmail.com>  To: open-education at lists.okfn.org
>> <open-education at lists.okfn.org> <open-education at lists.okfn.org>
>>
>>  Hi all,
>>
>>  Is there anything OER or Open Education related going on at the World
>> Education Forum "Equitable and inclusive quality education and lifelong
>> learning"? It's possible that I've missed it... please tell me if I have!
>>
>>  Also, the last two Global Monitoring Reports only mention OER in
>> passing, with no mention of Open Ed. / Creative Commons or e.g. TESSA /
>> TESS-India. Here's how OER is mentioned:
>>
>>   *"Of greater significance is identifying other settings and learning
>> frameworks â€“ for example, distance and open education, non-formal
>> education, on-the job training and adult education â€“ that may
>> significantly augment skill acquisition among adults over the life course."*
>> (2015 report)
>>
>> *"The use of ICT for distance education also requires investment in
>> infrastructure, hardware and materials. South Africa is an example of a
>> country that is addressing this need through innovation in Open Education
>> Resources (South African Institute for Distance Education, 2010), which can
>> dramatically reduce costs for participating institutions and learners." (*2013/14
>> report)
>>   (My bold. Of course, even those brief mentions, if looked at in
>> detail, are to some extent problematic.)
>>
>>  Given the global aspirations for Open Education, OER, and CC, is this
>> ok? Should we do more? Is enough being done for primary/secondary education
>> in developing countries regarding "open"?
>>
>>  Looking at the tweets for the World Education Forum, there is of course
>> a big focus on equity, which is of course important, as that message hasn't
>> been fully heard yet by everybody. But we know from education that the
>> "what" is often easily agreed - the how is more complex. Of course OER
>> alone won't solve any problems, but I think we're probably agreed that OER
>> should be part of an equitable solution.Â
>>
>>  Any thoughts?
>> Bjoern
>>
>>  (For those who prefer twitter for discussion:Â
>> https://twitter.com/bjoernhassler/status/601073454524321792 )
>>
>>
>>    ------------------------------
>> UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN
>>
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>>
>
>
>

-- 
Dr Bjoern Hassler
Cambridge-Africa
University of Cambridge
Email: bh213 at cam.ac.uk
http://www.cambridge-africa.cam.ac.uk

Open Educational Resources for Teacher Education
http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/

OER for School-based teacher professional learning in sub-Saharan Africa
http://www.oer4schools.org

Aptivate | (http://www.aptivate.org)
Email: bjoern at aptivate.org

Mobile (UK): +44-7952-888939
Web: http://bjohas.de
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