OPEN LEARNING BY GARY W. MATKIN
Where are we in terms of the evolution of the traditional textbook? I believe it is inevitable that the extensive use of openly available digitized educational resources will rapidly replace printed textbooks and the teaching processes based on them. This replacement will be spurred by both cost concerns and pedagogical efficiency. State and local governments, now primarily responsible for adopting textbooks, are aware of textbooks’ rising costs and of the potential of the Internet to reduce such costs. For instance, in several southern states, funding has been forthcoming for the creation of
online high school courses that were intended to serve those schools without the resources to offer their own courses, and for students who did not have access to regular classes.
One consequence of expanding digital education resources has been the proliferation of national virtual high schools. These online courses use high-level instructional design and media-rich learning materials, so it is not too big a step to use these same courses to serve classroom-based students. For a fraction of what school districts spend annually on textbooks,
high–quality and easily distributed material can be offered online. In fact, a few high schools are already using fully digitized, rather than printed, textbooks.
However, the full consequences of a shift away from traditional textbooks and the highly politicized, bureaucratic, and sometimes idiosyncratic adoption process may not be apparent to K–12 administrators. The seemingly innocent and
vaguely optimistic phrase open textbook hides the most profound challenge that educators have ever faced.
Describing the Challenge
It is the challenge of moving the foundations of education and pedagogy from the spoken and printed word to the digitized word, from the real, time–limited, and spontaneously perceived image to the digitized, mediated, and constantly available image. It is the challenge of moving from a linear organization of information and knowledge (e.g., books and the Dewey
Decimal System) to the keyword– or phrase-based–search presentation of information (e.g., Google search and pop-ups). This
movement–which is prompted by new technologies—deeply infiltrates not only teaching and learning, but all aspects of our
lives. It is happening so quickly that the way the brains of our children are conditioned to handle data is fundamentally different than in the past, and very different from the brains of those currently responsible for formal education.
Once K–12 administrators understand this movement, they can better understand common problems in education that currently appear to be dissociated and are treated in isolation. As an exercise, as you read this article, consider the effects of open educational resources on educational finance, curriculum, the role of the teacher, the organization of formal education and
its manifestation in institutions, and–most profoundly–pedagogical methodology. The lens of the technological imperative
provides an essential perspective. This article serves administrators by projecting the immediate future of the open-textbook movement, but then expands the discussion to some immediate, practical steps that can be taken to open today’s schools to the technology–driven future they must face.
Defining Open Education
As an exercise in understanding this new perspective, let’s examine the idea of openness in education with a focus on the
notion of open textbooks.
Perhaps the most comprehensive concept of openness is open knowledge. The open–knowledge movement has an ambitious
goal of making the entire sum of human knowledge available to everyone, everywhere, at any time, for free. Upon analysis,
this idea quickly makes the distinction between knowledge and information. We know instinctually that, while information may
be necessary to acquire knowledge, knowledge is really the ability to use information in humanly meaningful ways. But
knowledge is acquired by learning, and learning is accomplished through mental processes. These processes can be
facilitated by formal education in the form of courses. This situates the OpenCourseWare (OCW) movement in relation to
open knowledge–OCW helps us use information to acquire knowledge. The Open Educational Resource (OER) movement
might include open courseware, but also makes open resources available at a granular level lower than the course.
The Open Textbook Continuum
So, what about open textbooks? Where does this concept fit? As printed form meets digitized form, the vocabulary becomes
inadequate. At first, open textbooks appear to be a species of OER, but logical extensions of the term open change the context.
It is more useful to imagine a continuum than to define the term. On one end of the continuum, we might imagine a physical
textbook that has simply been digitized and put on the Web for anyone to view. On the other end, we can conjure the most
wonderful open course anyone can imagine. To move along that continuum from left to right–from the static, digitized
textbook to the open course–we could add discrete but interacting features. Each time we add a feature, both the complexity
of the supporting infrastructures and the barriers to its production increase. In effect, added features push the concept
to the right as barriers push it to the left. At some point, so much of the traditional definition of a textbook has been
discarded that we have to find a new concept–open course.
Features of Open Textbooks and Courseware
The first big step along the continuum would take advantage, in different forms, of the dynamic nature of digitized assets.
Given the right infrastructure, digitized assets can easily be altered. The alteration of a static textbook, then, could be
prompted by a number of purposes. The material could be updated, say, to incorporate new knowledge. It could be improved
as students and teachers develop better ways of expressing concepts or ordering learning objects. It could be localized or
customized for a variety of learners, whether in different cultures or at different levels of education.
The customizable nature of dynamic material can allow the same material to be presented in multiple ways so that learners
can look at it through different lenses. For instance, a course could be modified to suit the learning needs of a student
with autism or a student who learns better through mathematical analysis. It could be added to, or it could be extended
to incorporate a deeper treatment of the material, to include new examples or learning aids, or to expand the subject matter
into a longer course. Its components could be unbundled and used in many different teaching and learning contexts. It
could be remixed or combined with other material to produce a new learning pathway or perhaps even an entertainment object.
In order to accomplish this, educational materials that are modular in organization will find the most users and reusers.
Increased student engagement is a positive result of the use of dynamic material. Static textbooks cannot respond to
students, nor can students engage with the learning material in the same active fashion. In courseware, such engagement is
often a prominent feature of instructional design. Self–scoring examinations that loop students back to the material they
didn’t learn, complex simulations, and even interaction with other students are all logical extensions of the static model.
Open courses available on the Web also can be the center of communities of students and teachers, either temporarily
(students in a particular class) or long-term (teachers working toward the continual improvement of a particular course).
Social-interaction software can be added to the open repository of courses to facilitate these communities.
The technology of OCW permits the flow of information in metadata form, capturing results across groups of students
that can be used to measure student outcomes and improve teaching practice. OCW, and the communities of teachers it generates
and supports, can facilitate professional development in ways not possible or not as easily attainable with static texts.
Finally, open courses can incorporate supplemental learning resources easily and quickly through permanent links to
Web–based material. For instance, a student studying personality tests could take a personality–inventory test on the Web,
have it scored, and then write an interpretation of the test. A student studying Shakespeare could be prompted to visit the
Globe Theatre website. This just–in–time embedded linking is an unrecognized benefit of online education. And, of course,
it takes advantage of a huge and growing repository of openlearning material.
Barriers to Open Textbooks and Courseware
As wonderful as all these potential benefits are, they come at a cost. Generally, they are services rather than aspects of a product–and services often require both an initial investment and an ongoing outlay of resources. For instance, localizing a given set of material for a particular country (say, Brazil) would require some outlay of funds and probably some continuing funding to help Brazilians find that material and keep it updated.
It is tempting to revert to the traditional textbook model when considering both the initial and ongoing costs. Like the
traditional textbook, the open course does require an initial outlay of funds to produce the product. However, as we have
seen, a primary advantage of a digital form is its capacity to be changed at any time. Even easy changes cost something.
Financial models associated with open resources need to factor in the costs of maintenance of material, whether the maintenance
is simple updating, or the expansion of its usability for new audiences or purposes. This is crucial to incorporating
community development and maintenance into our model, lest we assume incorrectly that the public good and the power
of the ideas surrounding open textbooks/courseware will attract enough volunteers to support a movement of this size over
the long term.
Other daunting barriers to developing and sustaining open textbooks and courseware also exist to varying degrees in different environments.
Inertia–both in individuals and institutions–is a significant barrier. It takes energy and commitment to change the way we do things and what we are facing here are major and disruptive changes. For instance, adoption procedures, particularly within K–12, are slow to change.
Technology presents its own barriers. Developing countries often lack technological infrastructure or possess an outdated
infrastructure that makes it impossible to take advantage of OER. Even in developed countries, a lack of interoperability
and technical standards can make the distribution of materials difficult. Along with infrastructure issues often comes a lack
of end–user skill, particularly in students and content developers.
Even if all technological barriers were removed, we still face the issues of distribution and discoverability. How are users going to learn about the availability of material and then gain access to it? We often think of the Internet as an all encompassing distribution method. But if we want users to download and use open material, we have to consider how and
in what form it is delivered to them.
The lack of quality standards is a problem as well as a barrier
to adoption. If we can’t define quality in open resources,
or describe the methods we will use to assure its maintenance,
how can we convince governments and individuals to consume
OER even if it is free?
Issues of intellectual property and digital–rights management
also remain. These can be both costly and a barrier. The
use of the Digital Learning Commons license has helped clarify
some issues and created a pathway for those who want to
make their material freely available, but even the lightest restrictions
can cause problems, including the burden of maintaining
records and clearing material for use.
Finally, we cannot ignore the influence of politics on the
OER movement as a whole. OER, and especially those parts
of it that threaten economic interests, are in a political vortex
that cannot be avoided. The publishing industry and the relationships
with educators it has developed are entrenched in
the status quo. This is especially true in the K–12 sector, with
its complicated adoption processes.
Choosing a Path
If we follow the logic of the open–textbook–continuum narrative
above, forward progress involves selecting a point along
the continuum where the benefit and cost lines intersect, and
where the value of the set of benefits or features added equals
the cost of overcoming the barriers associated with the features.
Of course, real life is not that tidy.
First, we are not talking about striking only one such balance,
but many, each in the context and the domain within
which it falls, such as higher education or K–12. Also, there
are likely to be many efforts at developing open textbooks, each
effort at best only loosely associated with others in the same
domain. Efforts in California to develop open textbooks in
algebra are not likely to have much interaction with efforts in
the southern states to produce open textbooks in history. Each
will have significantly different contexts, including resources.
However, connecting the dots may be one place that foundations
can be of help, particularly where that connection
results in wider use of the material. Nonetheless, this conceptual
framework seems to be a useful way of capturing some of the
many variables involved.
A New Dimension Revealed
As we extend our examination of OER in the form of open
textbooks, an issue emerges: the difference in use between OER
in the form of extended educational pathways or courses and
smaller, more granular forms such as individual learning objects.
At all levels, but particularly in K–12 settings, the most
interesting and profound set of dimensions deals with how we
expect materials to be used. In any context, a highly strategic
choice has to be made: 1) Create a coherent and complete
text/course/learning pathway that leads students from point
A to point B, or 2) Develop reference material with modules
that can be extracted from the whole and used independently
from other parts. Although this is not necessarily a disjunctive
decision–in that it is not necessary to decide in advance
which way to go–it calls into question the overall conception
and strategy for open textbooks.
Each of these choices has rationales and special issues associated
with them. The complete-pathway model is based on
the belief that learning is contextual; textbooks provide a context
for learning that presents material in a logical, linear fashion;
and students, particularly younger students, learn best that
way. If the complete-pathway model–a model that is the most
consistent with current text-adoption processes and the insistence
of uniformity of instruction guided by state standards—
is chosen, what leeway do individual teachers have to
modify instruction in their classrooms? How is the canonical
version of the course maintained and modified in the face of
great ease in changing it? Can different versions of the course
be maintained and used and, if so, how are these versions
brought into alignment with the officially adopted version?
We know that the textbook–pathway context is not the
only context employed in learning. Many instructors create their
own context and rely on textbooks to supplement that context.
We also know that learners must create or adopt learning
contexts for themselves. This montage
model, where more extensive
learning pathways or courses are
made more modular or unbundled,
is supplanting the linear
model, where one concept builds
upon another. In this model, material
is organized in such a way that
new and different contexts can be
built from individual learning objects
that can be separated from
the larger whole and reused in other
organizational schemes. Rather
than a learning pathway, our goal
in the montage model is to build
a learning environment where creative
individual teachers and learners
can be accommodated.
Perhaps the world of learning
has changed in favor of this more
modular approach? As the typical
elementary–school student multitasks
her way through the day,
mixing social interactions mediated
by technology with the consumption
of entertainment, again
using sophisticated technology and telecommunications and
learning, is her brain making new connections that older generations
didn’t make? If so, are we building OER for her, or
for the three generations before her? Instead of thinking of textbooks
and courses, should we be concentrating on producing
large-scale learning-object repositories that our montageminded
children and their creative teachers can easily cut and
paste into their own contexts for knowledge?
Next Steps
In the face of such a daunting inevitability of changes in teaching
and learning, what are administrators to do? While next
steps depend significantly on the local and temporal context
for administration, there are some reasonable suggestions of
wide applicability. Administrators can:
Identify and seek to overturn artificial barriers to the
appropriate use of open digital resources. Examples of such
artificial obstacles are the laws in some jurisdictions requiring
materials to be printed on paper, or adoption processes
that put limitations on the period in which materials can
be updated.
Wherever possible, encourage the use of digitized materials
to improve instruction. Already, much digitized material—
often supplied along with print materials from textbook
publishers—is available for teachers and learners. Teachers and
learners should be encouraged to become familiar with and use
these materials. Where possible, they should negotiate for the
ability to use digital enhancements to print materials in an open
format under broad licenses for use.
Invite groups of parents, teachers, students, and others
to study the use of digitized materials. The more the key
stakeholders become informed
about the nature and extent
of digitized and open-learning
resources, the easier it will be
to insert these resources effectively
into the teaching/learning
process.
Encourage and reward
demonstration projects, innovation,
and cooperation.
Administrators should be alert
to early enthusiasts and grassroots
impulses to experiment
with open resources and
provide some institutional
expression and recognition to
such efforts.
Develop formal and informal
digital communities.
Groups of teachers cooperating
on developing material in
their subject areas, parents
active in searching for instructional
resources, or crosssectional
teams assigned
specific goals are all examples of
groups that might be formed in anticipation of a convergence
on digital technologies in the schools.
Clarify costs of adoption and purchase of current
material to all stakeholders. Inevitably, the adoption of new
practices or materials will be compared on a cost basis with current
practice. Administrators should be clear about what
current costs are so that new possibilities have a clear and fair
standard to meet. Ideally, these costs should be established in
advance of any real proposal for change in order to establish
an unbiased stance in cost comparisons. Make sure that financial
models using open and digitized materials provide for adequate
support of ongoing maintenance and enhancement.
New instructional technologies, combined with the OER
movement, will permanently and radically change education.
Just as warnings of global warming are now gaining public
recognition, so too will the early effects of experiments in open
education penetrate the consciousness and practice of dedicated
educators. Those who recognize this new set of technology–driven
imperatives and are able to take effective action will be winners.
Those slow to recognize and act—and their students–will
lose out. According to the recent writings of Thomas Friedman,
the most open societies will win.
Gary W. Matkin, Ph.D., is dean of continuing education at University
of California, Irvine, a position he has held since March
2000. Prior to that, he was associate dean of extension at University
of California, Berkeley. Matkin has been involved in distance
education for more than 20 years and recently has been deeply
involved in the Open Education Resources (OER) movement.
Matkin is a certified public accountant. For more information and
a selection of his publications, visit www.unex.uci.edu.
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