Online Learning at Acadia University
YouTube,
Dec 27, 2011
I think the video and resources here provide a good argument for the use of the term 'free learning' instead of 'open learning'. The argument, simply, is that 'open learning' has historically meant learning available by distance, without a fixed starting time, and without (necessarily) having to satisfy admission requirements. Open Acadia (blog) satisfies these criteria - but the use of the phrase 'Open Acadia' might suggest (as it did to me) that it is offering free resources, free access, or some such thing. But no. It's fully commercial - you pay your money, you access your learning. So maybe we should leave the term 'open learning' (and maybe even 'open learning resources') to the commercial providers, and adopt instead 'free learning' (and 'free learning resources') to denote the resources we are really trying to create (and all of a sudden, I have that much more sympathy for Richard Stallman's insistence on the use of the phrase 'free software'). Link to the video via Ray Schroeder, who copied and pasted without any analysis, as usual.
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