I might be dating myself here, but I remember when MTV (or Much Music in Canada) came on the scene. With it came a whole new revolution in music. We, in fact, became known as the MTV generation. With it came the call that video was here to kill the radio (Sure the song predates MTV by 2 years, but you get my drift). Here I write this post 38 years later, and while music has gone through its share of iterations, I think it is safe to say that the radio star is still alive and well.
What has this got to do with Open Educational Resources (OER)?
I do believe that OER is revolutionary. I think that it has the power to transform education. It offers so many benefits that have been written about by others who are smarter, faster, and stronger than I (see Rajiv Jhangiani, Robin Derosa, Catherine Cronin, Maha Bali, David Wiley just to name a select few). I have also heard that it is a panacea, a cure-all for what is broken with education.
In fact, with the use of terms such as OER, blended learning, adaptive learning, some have spoken of how Educational technology will be the death of face to face learning. With all this technology, will we need real live teachers anymore?
I do believe that we are in a shift. Just as music changed with the video revolution, the educational system will have to change as well. But just as we still have the radio star, I have to ask, will we still have teachers? I do believe that until we can create a machine that can experience empathy, us teachers will be just fine.
Just as the Buggles exclaimed in 1979, “ We can’t rewind, we’ve gone too far.” We are moving into the future in education. What can we do to make sure that our version of the radio star stays alive and well?
May 29, 2019 at 2:48 pm
I think it might makes us better teachers. We can focus on the conditions of learning and ensure that the OERs are accurate and relevant. Thanks for sharing your passion.
May 30, 2019 at 6:30 pm
As U2 famously sang a number of years later, “I can’t live, with or without you.” I think that’s where we’re at with technology in education, where we can neither hide from it nor run towards it, slow motion, with open arms and music swelling. I’ll try to give my take on one answer to your question: We as learners and educators must speak to the possibilities as well as the dangers of educational technology. The dangers include thinking it’s a good idea to exchange humans for machines and thereby diminish learning to a decontextualized and mechanical process rather than a fundamentally human process, relationship, interaction, and more. The OER question is connected to this – without a deep, human conviction about openness and when and how to use it, it can easily be distorted to other purposes. In the end we need to make good decisions about who we are as educators and learners and what we want our future to look like. I want mine with teachers… 🙂
May 30, 2019 at 9:30 pm
I certainly was intrigued by your blog, Chad, as I was listening to “Running to Stand Still” by U2 while engaging with my daily Feedly routine. I am fortunate to work at a school that invests time and resources to provide our students with the tools they deem necessary to be prepared for higher learning and for life. That has been in the form of technology directors, devices in all classrooms, and policies to help manage it all. In support of Irwin’s comment, the most important investment is spent on teachers through professional development, material needs, and wellness.
I agree with you that OER has the potential to be revolutionary. Oddly enough, as I prepare my teachers for next year I find myself ordering textbooks for them (still!). They desperately want online resources to adapt and create but there just isn’t enough material available, yet. So, is the technology of OER just another fad that appears to be running and the teachers are seemingly standing still? I personally think that OER will indeed change our education for the better; however, it will be the teachers that remain at the center of the shift. At least I hope so.