% Foundations of Open Education % Matthew X. Curinga

Educational Technology 0858-502, Fall 2015

Keywords: open education, deschooling, OER, free culture, networked learning, peer-to-peer learning, p2p learning, open source education, hacking education, peer production, MOOC

Description: Open education combines practices from Free Software development with (radically) student-centered pedagogy. In open education, free learning resources are developed collaboratively using the global internet, tailored locally to the specific needs of learners, and studied collaboratively. Students in this course consider the underlying principles of open education: why it works, when it fails, how it relates to “traditional” education, and what we want it to look like.

We need to place our action in the specific context of domination and liberation where we live: the network society, built around the communication networks of the Internet.
— Manuel Castells, Internet Galaxy

Now instead the common is the locus of freedom and innovation—free access, free use, free expression, free interaction—that stands against private control, that is, the control exerted by private property, its legal structures, and its market forces. Freedom in this context can only be freedom of the common.
— Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri, Commonwealth

Inevitably, this hidden curriculum of schooling adds prejudice and guilt to the discrimination which a society practices against some of its members and compounds the privilege of others with a new title to condescend to the majority. Just as inevitably, this hidden curriculum serves as a ritual of initiation into a growth-oriented consumer society for rich and poor alike.
— Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society

Instructor:

Class meetings:

Instructor

Dr. Curinga’s Office Hours

Readings

Bibliography & readings

Barabási, A. L. (2003). Linked: How everything is connected to everything else and what it means for business, science, and everyday life. New York: Plume.

Benkler, Y. (2002). Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and “The Nature of the Firm”. The Yale Law Journal, 112(3), 369-446. download from moodle

Benkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Bollier, D. (2003). Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth. Routledge. Introduction

Brown, J. S. (2008). Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0. Educause Review, 43(1), 16-32.

Castells, M. (2003). The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford University Press. USA.

Cormier, D. (2010). What is a MOOC? [video, 04:27]

Crouch, C. H., & Mazur, E. (2001). Peer instruction: Ten years of experience and results. American Journal of Physics, 69.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. The Macmillan Company. New York.

Edu-factory Collective. (2009). Toward a global autonomous university. New York: Autonomedia.

Federici, S. (2011). Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. The Commoner, 24.

Hardin, G.. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(859), 1243.

Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Harvard University Press.

Iiyoshi, T., & Kumar, M., Vijay, S. (2008). Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge. MIT Press. Cambridge Mass.

Illich, I. (1970, July 2). Why We Must Abolish Schooling. The New York Review of Books.

Illich, I. (1971). Deschooling Society. Harper & Row. New York.

Kelty, C. (2008). Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Duke University Press. Durham, N.C.

Kamenetz, A. (2011). the Edupunks’ Guide to a DIY Education! Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. [website and ebook].

Lessig, L. (2004). Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. Penguin Press HC.

Mandiberg, M. (Ed.). (2012). The social media reader. New York: New York University Press.

Moglen, E. (2003). “The dotCommunist Manifesto”.

Morozov, E. (2013). The Meme Hustler: Tim O’Reilly’s crazy talk. The Baffler, 22, 66–67, 125–147. doi:10.1162/BFLR_a_00133

Norvig, P. (2012). The 100,000-student classroom [video 06:12]. TED2012.

Ostrom, E. (1999). Coping with tragedies of the commons. Annual review of political science, 2(1), 493–535.

Peters, M., & Bulut, E. (2011). Cognitive capitalism, education, and digital labor. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN: 1433109816

Rancière, J. 1991. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Stanford University Press. USA. ISBN 0804719691

Raymond, E. S. 1998. The cathedral and the bazaar. First Monday, 3(3).

Raymond, E. (1999, June 28). Shut Up And Show Them The Code. Linux Today.

Reagle, J. (2010). Good faith collaboration: the culture of Wikipedia. MIT Press. Cambridge Mass.

Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. eLearn Space.

Stallman, R. M. (1992). “Why Software Should Be Free”.

Turkle, S. (2011) Alone Together [video 16:24]. TEDxUIUC.

Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books.

(n.d.) “The Cape Town Open Education Declaration”.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press. Cambridge Mass.

Wiley, D. (n.d.). The Extended Argument for Openness in Education: Introduction to Openness in Education.. [in Course] Introduction to Openness in Education

Class Sessions

Sep 15: Foundations of Open Education & Connected Learning

Readings due:

Wiley, D. (n.d.). The Extended Argument for Openness in Education: Introduction to Openness in Education. In course Introduction to Openness in Education

(2007) “The Cape Town Open Education Declaration”.

Unesco. (2012) “The UNESCO Paris Declaration.”

Brown, J. S. (2008). Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0. Educause Review, 43(1), 16-32.

Moglen, E. (2003). “The dotCommunist Manifesto”.

Turkle, S. (2011) Alone Together [video 16:24]. TEDxUIUC.

Optional readings:

Wiley, D., Bliss, T. J., & McEwen, M. (2013). Open Educational Resources: A Review of the Literature. In J. M. Spector (Ed.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (pp. 781–190). New York, NY: Springer.

Sep 29: Deschooling, Unschooling, and Ignorance

Readings due:

Curinga, M. (2012) Ivan Illich: a brief introduction [video]. YouTube.

Illich, I. (1970, July 2). Why We Must Abolish Schooling. The New York Review of Books.

Rancière, J. 1991. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Stanford University Press. USA. Chapters 1 & 2

Oct 13: Free Software & Free Culture

Readings due:

Stallman, R. M. (1992). “Why Software Should Be Free”.

Raymond, E. S. 1998. The cathedral and the bazaar. First Monday, 3(3).

Raymond, E. (1999, June 28). Shut Up And Show Them The Code. Linux Today.

Videos

Open Source Cinema. (2006). Lessig Remix. YouTube. [Video 00:04:34]

Lessig, L. (2011). Two Things, Not One. [Video 00:20:28]

Kirby Ferguson. (2012). Embrace the remix.[Video 00:09:43]

Leadbeater, C. (2005). The era of open innovation. TED Talks. [Video 0018:58]

Question Copyright. (2011). Copying Is Not Theft [Video 00:01:00]

Optional Reading:

Lessig, L. (2004). Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. Penguin Press HC.

Lessig, L. Collection of Lessig Videos Blip.tv

Lessig on Stephen Colbert [video]

Oct 27: Peer production

Readings due:

Benkler, Y. (2002). Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and “The Nature of the Firm”. The Yale Law Journal, 112(3), 369-446.

Optional video:

If you would like some extra background on the reading and want to put the ideas in context, you might want to check out this TED video of Yochai Benkler explaining the ideas expressed in Coase’s Penguin (recorded in 2005)

Due:

Nov 10: The Commons

Readings due:

Bollier, D. (2003). Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth. Routledge. Introduction

Elinor Ostrom. (2010). Defining “the commons.” [Video 00:01:07]

Tragedy of the Commons. (2011). [Video 00:05:35]

Federici, S. (2011). Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. The Commoner, 24.

Optional readings:

Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Harvard University Press. [selections]

Hardin, G.. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(859), 1243.

Ostrom, E. (1999). Coping with tragedies of the commons. Annual review of political science, 2(1), 493–535.

Nov 24: MOOCs: Massively Open Online Courses

Readings due:

Cormier, D. (2010). What is a MOOC?[video, 04:27]

Norvig, P. (2012). The 100,000-student classroom [video 06:12]. TED2012.

Siemens, G. (2012, June 12). What is the theory that underpins our MOOCs.

Vollmer, Timothy. (2012, November 1). Keep MOOCs Open

Exoo, C., & Exoo, C. F. (2013, October 28). MOOCs: Corporate welfare for credit. Salon.

Dec 8: Resisting Open Education

Readings due:

Morozov, E. (2013). The Meme Hustler: Tim O’Reilly’s crazy talk. The Baffler, 22, 66–67, 125–147. doi:10.1162/BFLR_a_00133

Caffentzis, G., & Federici, S. (2009). Notes on the Edu-Factory and cognitive capitalism. In Edu-factory Collective (Ed.), Toward a global autonomous university. New York: Autonomedia.

Taylor, A. (2015). People’s platform: taking back power and culture in the digital age. New York: Picador, Henry Holt and Company. [Selections]

Dec 15: Papers due

No in person meeting, but final papers are due.

Assignments

Due Dates and Grading

Assignment Due % of final grade ————————— ————– —————– Participation ongoing 30% Open Education Report Oct 27 30% Critical Essay Dec 15 40%

Participation

This is a reading-oriented course. Whether class is conducted in-person or asynchronously online, you are expected to be prepared each week. In a typical week, there will be 40-80 pages of reading. Sometimes there will be videos to watch as well. Let’s call all of these texts.

When you read a text for this course, you should have two things in mind: (1) what is the text arguing? (2) to what extent do you agree with these arguments? You should be in touch with your study group to discuss texts before full group discussions.

Your grade in this area will be determined by the end of term particpant survey and the instructor grade.

Open Education Report

By the second week of the semester, you will choose an Open Education Project (see list below) to follow and study. You should plan to spend at least one hour a week participating in the project. Typically, at first, this will mean reading about it and following along. As you learn about the community, you can contribute more to its projects.

At our meeting on October 20, everyone will report back on the community they have been working with. You should consider:

  1. Basics
    • narrative description of the project
    • sample works (screenshots, links, diagrams, etc)
    • project goals
  2. Collaboration
    • how do participants collaborate?
    • what technologies support collaboration?
    • how is quality controlled?
    • how are decisions made and goals set?
    • who is allowed to participate and what access rights do they have?
  3. Community
    • what principles do participants have in common?
    • how is community maintained?
    • how are new members invited or excluded?
    • how do people learn how to participate?
  4. Openness
    • in what ways is this project “open”?
    • consider: licenses, technologies, production model, output model, access, cost, APIs
    • how does it fit in with other projects?
  5. Insight
    • how important is this project?
    • what is its potential impact?
    • does it reflect best educational practices and learning sciences?
    • does it support or enhance the social/political goals of education?

You will prepare a 5 minute lightning talk [1] [2] about your project to present to the group. From there, we will have a general discussion of the projects.

Critical Essay

Choose an area of interest that has arisen out of the course readings and discussions and write a reflective essay on this topic. Follow Chris Higgins’ Notes on the critical-interpretive essay for the structure of this essay, which should be: focused, interesting, motivated, and controversial. The chapters in Cognitive Capitalism, Education, and Digital Labor are typical of writing in this style. You should refer closely to the texts that we engage with during the semester in your writing. Your work must properly cite your sources, using APA styled references. You may include endnotes in your essay as well.

Essays must be approximately 2,500 words long. This is strictly an individual assignment (one essay per person). I strongly suggest that everyone schedule an appointment with the Writing Center before you turn in your draft, and then again before you turn in your final essay.

Late work will not be accepted for this assignment and there will not be an opportunity to re-write your final essay.

Your grade for the final paper will be based on the jouranl article evaluation process from the Journal of Peer Production

Their reviewers consider:

  1. Is the subject matter relevant? (6 points)
  2. Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Does the author cite relevant literature to support the claims? (6 points)
  3. Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s means of validating assumptions or making judgments? (6 points)
  4. Is the article well written? (7 points)
    • 1 point indicates that the writing renders the essay extremely difficult to follow, regardless of the merits of the argument. Essays will receive 1 point for writing if any of these conditions are met, or a are met in combination:
      • 5 or more incomplete or run on sentences
      • 8 or more spelling errors
      • 5 or more grammatical errors
      • no citations in the text or missing references section
    • 2 points indicates an essay with significant problems in grammar, spelling, and norms of academic writing
    • 3 points indicates an essay that follows the basic conventions of academic writing and has been edited to remove most spelling errors (<3) and common grammatical errors. Essays at this level exhibit awkwardly phrased sentences, poor word choice, organization, and lack strong transitions.
    • 4 points. Everyone should strive for at least 4 points for the writing of their essay. 4-point essays are basic, but well written works. They will be edited to remove lower order concerns such as spelling and grammar and also have the basic structure of higher order concerns: structured to develop argument, offers supporting details, parsimonious and focused. Essays at this level may have inconsistent or improper citations, suffer from awkward phrasing ad poor word choice, and lack transitions.
    • 5 points will be awarded for essays that are well edited, consistently use academic citations, and read fluidly and consistently. These essays will be improved by focusing on higher order concerns, making sentences more precise, stating ideas more clearly, and using grammar and word choice to enhance further enhance the themes of the essay.
    • 6 point essays read fluidly and exhibit a strong authorial voice and mastery of rhetorical structures, using wit, narrative, passion, etc. Each idea is fully developed while retaining our principle of parsimony.
    • 7 points, like 6 point essays, but also edited to the point where they are error free and suitable for print. It is very difficult to prepare an essay at this level without feedback from other readers.

Adapted from Process: Appendix A. modifications appear in italics

For this essay, you may use Chicago, MLA, or APA styled citation, but must be consistent in how you apply them (don’t switch styles). In addition to the references, you may include endnotes if necessary. The Purdue Owling Writing Lab is a good resource for citations as well as the basic elements of academic writing.

If your work is plagiarized or otherwise violates [Adelphi’s Code of Academic] you will receive zero points for this assignment with no opportunity to re-write it.

Open Education Projects

This is a selected list of open education projects. You will take a several weeks to try to get to know one of these projects, and then report back what you learned to the group. Here are some questions that might inform you study:

List of Selected Project Open Ed Projects