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Stephen Downes

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We Learn

Stephen Downes, Half an Hour, Apr 04, 2010

David Wiley and Michael Feldstein have the same concern - that OERs will not be enough. This all in response to Anya Kamanetz's book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education. Wiley writes, "if we move wholesale to an independent study model of 'have fun at the library, honey, I'll pick you up at 3!' where DIY opportunities were the only opportunities offered, we're going to fail (in both senses) the vast majority of our students." And Feldstein writes, "edupunk and OER do nothing, in and of themselves, to help these student leap the chasm that they will have to leap in order to further their education. Pretending otherwise is pernicious." This post is a response to that. I argue, "If you get beyond the characterization of open education as an alternative institutional response, and see it in its much more true light as a set of mechanisms to encourage and allow creativity, engagement, and empowerment, then you locate in edupunk and OER the missing elements." As the title suggests, we do, in fact, learn, and there's is plenty of empirical evidence of that.

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