Session Title: We Are Not Your [insert expletive] Resource: Sustainable Use of Established Communities in Open Education
Presenter: Dave Cormier, President, Web Projects Lead, Edactive Technologies, University of Prince Edward Island
Time & Date: 11:15 A.M. - 12:00 P.M., Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Location: Rm. C100
Session Description: The debate around Open Educational Resources has taken up a fair amount of space in the realm of education and the internet in recent years. The discussion often centres around intellectual property and copyright issues or issues of context and ‘dumbing’ down necessary to allow for specific materials to apply to general contexts. One issue that has not had the same degree of attention is what the move to using an Open Educational Resource teaching approach can have on established communities that are in the process of producing information/content/knowledge. In the quest for an ever more authentic Open Education experience, many educators are turning to instructing their students to ‘join’ these communities. Using them, in effect, as resources that can be drawn upon to further instruct, inform or ‘educate’ their students.
In the early days of Internet, communities (e. g. Mirandanet) were established with the express intent of fostering collaboration and offering help to those who were coming into contact with them: this was their raison d’etre. Many of these communities judged (and continue to judge) success, at least partially, by the number of new registrants that have joined the community and the degree of traffic in their community space. As the Internet has matured, the idea of membership has complexified and has started to more closely resemble ‘real world’ communities.ﾠThese new communities are not funded by large corporations or academic institutions, but are grass roots organizations of self-selected members exploring their part of the long tail. Simply ‘gaining more members’, for instance, might be a negative if the new members do not acclimatize themselves to the culture of that community.ﾠ
Recent published work in community education and established work in communities of practice has indicated that knowledge created inside communities can be more contextually sound, and participation lead to a more developed lifelong learning experience. As the scale of the use of these online communities expands the pressures on them have the potential to change them to such a fundamental degree that they might lose the very community oriented aspects that make them valuable. Discussions leading to rules of engagement with online communities will be critical.
The positioning of online communities as ‘resources’ fundamentally de-contextualizes sensitive, organic constructs that should be treated with the same respect as ‘real world’ communities. This paper will draw on a combination of interviews with members very different web-based communities including “Edtechtalk” and “Glow in the Woods” and will explore the traditions of ethnographic research in order to examine the possible effects of ‘unnatural’ incursions. Existing best practices will also be examined in order to present strategies for the sustainable use of community ecosystems in open education.
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I often refer my students to participating in communities such as EdTechTalk during or upon completion of my courses. I may have, in hindsight, referred to them as resources, but have also stressed the importance or participating within these communities to various degress (e.g., lurking, listening, conversations, leading sessions, etc.). A couple of things come to mind as I read this:
- it would be interesting to interviews those educators who are “instructing their students to ‘join’ these communities” as to ascertain their understanding of these communities. I wonder what level of participation/exposure some of these educators have within these communities, and if they themselves understand the complexities of membership and participation (or if *anyone* in fact does).
- With this in mind, it would be interesting to correlate the perceptions of these educators with those of “core” community members (and those in between). I reckon there is a great degree of variance as to the perception of community vs. resource vs. website, etc. Then, how does a community bridge the gap among these perceptions? And whose prerogative is it to do so?
- How would you compare this to terrestrial communities and migration patterns? For instance, why do people move to Regina from the farm? Are these organic migrations, referrals, perceptions of “communities as resources”, or something else (Yes, I know it’s much more complex, but trying to draw parallels)?
I guess with all of this, the piece that stands out is how we determine and qualify the concept of ‘organic growth’ within our communities. Who decides? How does these beliefs impact community development And where would some of these perceptions be deemed to be more valid than others?
I may have gone way off course here, but hopefully some of these questions are worth pursuing in other spaces.
I can just tell this conversation is going to be a great resource….
I do see how it can be easy for University professors, professional development administrators and the like to direct their students to “join” open communities in education. Nevertheless, It is not enough to join a community and expect to automatically have access to new and higher levels of knowledge. My university experience was with access to local content and networks. Unfortunately most professors that were around then (early 90’s) are still in charge and really don’t have an understanding of how these open networks really work. As a member of multiple communities I see my participation in these networks as a give an take situation. I must be able to come in and engage myself in the different conversations that are going on. As more Academia type are part of these community they will go from directing/recommending open networks to modeling their own participation. Looking forward to conference and it’s manifestations in all of our online spaces. Jose.. Edtechtalk /other dude from Los Angeles, California.
@chris ur hilarious.
@alec - that sounds like a great research study. and i very much enjoy the idea of mapping out migration patterns. There was a bio phd student i was talking about doing that with once before he left for the private sector. Good points all.
@jose participation is the key word there. Participating isn’t something i normally do with a resource… and the more that that resource if ‘validated’ the less easy it’s going to be to ‘participate’ with it.
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