How Open Education may change how learners learn

Has the open education or open courseware movement changed how people learn? Without a doubt it already has...and will continue to do so.

What is open education or open courseware and why is this important to education today? According to Wikipedia entry the definition is as follows:

Open education is a collective term that refers to forms of education in which knowledge, ideas or important aspects of teaching methodology or infrastructure are shared freely over the internet.

It was inspired by related concepts like Creative Commons, Open source, Open data and Open Access, and expands them to include lectures and other courseware.
(retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_education, 7/28/09)

Open education resources provide for more avenues for a learned to learn informally, hwat is lacking a mean to measure this learning, to determine if it meets academic standards. Will there be a recognized method of evaluating learning in the future that gives a student credit for his/her informal learning? Perhaps.

Will movements such as open courseware and open education lead to changes in how people interact as they learn and interact with and access information. People are hungry to learn, this is evident by my interaction with others in Second Life. I have noted changes in how I access information, web searches are the rule of the day, however since 1995 when I first got on the internet those searches have changed dramatically, resources are more openly available on the web.

Initially you had to pay for access, have a library card or pin number, but now resources such as MIT's open scholarly journals, Google, etc., have all made that information freely available.

I, like many I know, stay current on new events, moment by moment accessing Google News, which I did during the financial meltdown on an almost hour by hour basis, watching trends. I now keep track of news trends and information through Twitter.

Hoe people interact with information, as it exists and as news breaks, and then use that information to create new knowledge is the most exciting and perhaps scariest trend that exists today. But most exciting is how we use the information to learn.

In Second Life I meet new people almost everyday, and many of those I meet, from other countries and the United States are there to learn, specifically to learn from others everything from history, to the English language, to science. Those I meet, who are there to learn are looking for universities, language labs and to visit different sites they have heard about. The potential of virtual worlds as a place to access inforamtion and to learn is only beginning to be realized.

Furthermore the potential of the open education movement is only beginning to be realized as a means to improve our world, give us a common ground and bring high quality education resources to everyone. The future is bright as this unfolds! I can't wait.