Inclusion In, and Exclusion From, Open Education Communities

This special issue is the fifth devoted to Open Educational Resources (OER) and the fourth to be drawn from papers presented at the annual UK-based OER conference. For this special issue, the editors selected papers from the OER14 conference, held in Newcastle in April 2014. The main conference theme was ‘Building communities of open practice’ with further themes on MOOCs and open courses; academic practice, development and pedagogy; open policy, research, scholarship and access; and students as users and co-creators. As open education matures it will be the communities we develop that make a difference to the success (or failure) of transforming education through openness. The five chosen papers in this special issue exemplify one facet of building communities of open practice – how people may, in theory and in practice, be included in or excluded from such communities despite the potential of the openness on offer

Supporting team teaching of collaborative activities in online forums: a case study of a large scale

This chapter explores mechanisms for supporting a group of over 200 tutors working together to deliver team teaching of pre-set online collaborative activities to a cohort of over 3000 students studying a first-year undergraduate psychology module. It describes the development of resources in support of this team teaching, from the perspective of the module team chair with overall responsibility, and that of the consultant tutor who co-authored resources and oversaw an online forum where the tutor team raised questions, discussed implementation, and sought advice on issues arising. Feedback from tutors and students is summarised along with a note of changes implemented in response. The chapter concludes with a summary of recommendations for effective support of tutors conducting online team teaching of collaborative working by students

Mobile Collaboration for Language Learning and Cultural Learning

Locations outside the classroom represent social spaces or “settings” that offer a variety of affordances for language learning, but these opportunities will not be fully realized unless we make efforts to propose and try out new designs for learning in these settings. It is especially important to consider how learners might assemble, configure or help create learning designs that involve mobile technologies, tasks and resources corresponding to their needs, in readiness for chance encounters and for more sustained learning. Two key questions are pertinent to the issues outlined above when considering the nexus of collaboration, cultural experiences, and the interface between formal and informal learning: (1) What are the key findings from research studies and reported experiences of collaboration in mobile language learning, with particular reference to informal settings and cultural learning? (2) What do these findings mean for teacher roles, and how can learners be supported and developed to engage more effectively in collaborative and cultural mobile language learning? These two broad questions set the scene for this chapter and guide its structure. In the first part, we focus on existing studies to examine what has been tried and to establish the key findings. The existing studies include some in which we have been involved, often as lead researchers. After that, we consider teachers’ and learners’ changing roles and the foregrounding or development of competencies and skills that are important for more informal, and perhaps increasingly collaborative, mobile language learning. In the conclusion we propose a list of five areas of focus for teachers and learners to become aware that language learning with mobiles can operate across a highly‐flexible continuum from informal to formal learning and intercultural exchange

'Inspiration, ideas, encouragement': teacher development and improved use of technology in language teaching through open educational practice

This paper describes a study undertaken with language tutors who were engaged in a project to publish and create open educational resources. We sought to investigate how far working with open content could offer language tutors opportunities to develop professionally and acquire new technical knowledge for language teaching. Language educators face particular motivational challenges, and often have a lack of training in the use of technology for teaching. We applied a self-efficacy theory of motivation to understand the extent to which tutors felt confident and capable about open practice, and whether they perceived development benefits. On the whole our findings suggest that open practice may be an effective vehicle for professional development, for enhancing knowledge of technology in teaching and for alleviating some specific motivational barriers faced by language educators. However, they also revealed significant issues which challenge tutors’ likelihood of continuing with open practice, which would need to be addressed for the benefits of open working to be fully realised