OLDaily

OER18 Reflections
Laura Ritchie, lauraritchie.com, 2018/04/23

Laura Ritchie and her students hosted a session at OER18 describing how to write a song on a ukelele. This is the sort of session that would challenge me a lot, because my experiences making music are minimal and unpleasant. But the core of the session wasn't about music; it was about teaching and creating. "I will only ever know a small part of any of my students, and somehow I need not only to provide them with skills and tools, but also an open mindset for working. Open for me goes beyond the label." T

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An Open Education Reader
David Wiley, 2018/04/23

This is David Wiley's resource he has created for hi course on open educational resources. I assume that this is the basis for what Sheila MacNeill called Wiley's "potted" history of OER (I'm not really sure what 'potted' means in this context). As noted in her post, she disagrees with his sources ("predominately white, male, North American,  middle class"). I took a quick look through and find I'm not in there either. I wondered which criterion I didn't satisfy. But I think that the basis for Wiley's sources lies more in the very particular story he wants to tell (the one I've argued with him about for 20 years), and not in gender, race, income or geography. My contributions would run counter to his narrative. But still. In a history of OER I would think both Models of Sustainable OERs and Downes vs Wiley would qualify as significant, no?

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Scholars look for ways to restore respect for expertise
Mary Beth Marklein, University World News, 2018/04/23

I find the phrasing of the headline interesting, as though the scholars are trying to figure out how to get the rest of the world to listen to them. This was the focus of the recent AERA conference. The core of the issue, though, emerges in the desire of scholars to see people engage with reason and evidence more than emotion, hopes and fears. Which is fair enough, I guess - after all, I have been the first to argue in favour of correct and clear reasoning. But as the article notes, where are the academics and the researchers in the issues of the day? Why are their cloistered behind tuition barriers and subscription walls? Why don't we see them show what good reasoning and clear thinking looks like? If the only news you see is Fox News, you begin to think that Fox News is news.

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Open Chasms – definitions dividing or uniting the open community? Some thoughts from #oer18
Sheila MacNeill, howsheilaseesIT, 2018/04/23

This is a bit of a natural follow-up to Phl Barker's post of the other day. Sheilla MacNeill addresses what she calls David Wiley's "potted history of open, open source, learning objects" and argues "if we don’t explicitly address diversity,  actively seek to include, support and embrace different voices, it’s not the difference between purists and pragmatists that will divide a community –  it’s who is included and excluded." That's all very good, but the people who get to make that point are the people who are actually doing it, or better, the people who have been excluded. To presume that you actually have the definitive community to which you are the gatekeepers over who will be invited or (in my case, I guess) disinvited is over the top. Here is the community. Go talk to them.

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