Fluctuations in Learners’ Willingness to Communicate During Communicative Task Performance: Conditions and Tendencies

A person’s willingness to communicate (WTC), believed to stem from a combination of proximal and distal variables comprising psychological, linguistic, educational and communicative dimensions of language, appears to be a significant predictor of success in language learning. The ability to communicate is both a means and end of language education, since, on the one hand, being able to express the intended meanings in the target language is generally perceived as the main purpose of any language course and, on the other, linguistic development proceeds in the course of language use. However, MacIntyre (2007, p. 564) observes that some learners, despite extensive study, may never become successful L2 speakers. The inability or unwillingness to sustain contacts with more competent language users may influence the way learners are evaluated in various social contexts. Establishing social networks as a result of frequent communication with target language users is believed to foster linguistic development. WTC, initially considered a stable personality trait and then a result of context-dependent influences, has recently been viewed as a dynamic phenomenon changing its intensity within one communicative event (MacIntyre and Legatto, 2011; MacIntyre et al., 2011). The study whose results are reported here attempts to tap into factors that shape one’s willingness to speak during a communicative task. The measures employed to collect the data - selfratings and surveys - allow looking at the issue from a number of perspectives

Uncertainty, learning design, and interdisciplinarity: systems and design thinking in the school classroom

This paper explores aspects of learning design for design thinking within a small (circa 100) remote rural secondary (12-18 year old) school in the Highlands of Scotland. It introduces action research school teachers and final year (17-18 year old) pupils which explored how “real world” learning experiences can be brought into the classroom. It does so by joining two areas that are often treated as distinct practices. These are, the use of system theory and community development approaches to identify and map complex issues (Bell and Morse 2012), and the use of ideas from co-design to include non designers in the design process (Sanders and Westerlund 2011). The paper takes a grounded approach to the application of these ideas, simply asking “do they work”, and then “what”, “how” and “why”. In exploring those questions the paper tries to be open and transparent about learning design as a messy, uncertain and emergent proces

Open Education and the Hidden Tariff

This paper explores the promise of that Open Educational Resources (OER) would democratise access to education and ennui of many within the movement as the revolution is always just around the corner. It develops from earlier work which asked whether OER is a challenge to, or a product of, neoliberalism within education, which questioned the reification of the self in OER and the focus on particular types of content which seemed to create open education in the image of the academy. The paper uses the idea of digital labour to explore digital inclusion, who does digital labour, who has the skills to perform digital labour and who and how do people benefit from digital labour. It suggests seeing education as an exchange of labour and reward makes visible the hidden aspects of work, in particular it highlights the skills required to do education as digital labour and the unequal access and distribution of those skills contributes to unequal access to education, even when it is freely available and openly licensed online. Uncovering the hidden tariff within OER allows us to see where and how might address these inequities. In particular how we can learn from older traditions of open education which see it as a common good. Developing models of Open Educational Practice (OEP) to overcome the visible and hidden barriers and realise the benefits of open education

Open education P’s at the OU in Scotland: partnership, practices and the development of open educational policies

This paper explores the role of partnership and practice in the development of open educational policies within an Scotland wide project managed by the Open University (OU) in Scotland. It begins by exploring the open educational practices (OEP) of the OU in Scotland, in particular how partnerships have informed our approach. This is placed in the context of the OU UK, and looks at the role of having central and coherent policy as a platform for practice, while also considering the destabilising effect on innovations. This review of our present approach leads onto an exploration of the broader Scottish educational policy context. It introduces a new three year HE wide project led by the OU in Scotland, and the paper will review narratives emerging from the initial phase focusing on practice, partnership and policy at an organisational, with a view to understanding the development of these at a national level

Modernising the NHS: prevention and the reduction of health inequalities

No abstract available

Open Education as Disruption: Lessons for Open and Distance Learning from Open Educational Practice

This paper reflects on what Open and Distance Learning providers might learn from the Open Educational Resources/Practices (OER/OEP) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). It is based on experiences working on OER and OEP first at the OU in Scotland (OUiS) and more recently under the auspices of the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) funded Open Educational Practices Scotland (OEPS) programme hosted by OUiS. The paper by exploring the disruptive potential of MOOCs and OER within Higher Education. While it acknowledges lessons for HE it argues the focus on access and scale has obscured other lessons ODL might learn from opening up educational practices. Much of our work has centred on OEP and partnership with organisations outside the formal education sector. As such it has taken the possibilities offered by openness as an invitation to look at the relationship between the formal and the informal. The paper traces OEPS journey as it explores less apparent but no less important lessons around designing and creating open content through partnership in a way that is cost effective and context relevant

Antitrust Injunctions: A Flexible Private Remedy

The cost and time required by a treble damage action have traditionally acted as a strong brake to private antitrust enforcement. The author urges consideration by a potential litigant faced with this problem of the advantages of seeking injunctive relief, rather than treble damages; and he points out the special utility of the preliminary injunction. He also proposes some controversial and important possible uses of prior government action in preliminary injunction proceedings

Reflecting on Open Educational Practices in Scotland

This paper reflects on the work of Open Educational Practices Scotland (OEPS) a Scottish Funding Councils (SFC) programme to promote the development and use of free and open online educational resources within the informal and formal education sectors in Scotland. Hosted by the Open University (OU) in Scotland (OUiS) it leverages OU experience of Open Educational Resources (OER) in relation to the OUiS long history of working in partnership. OEPS joins two distinct but overlapping open traditions. Work on OER on the affordances of free and open online content, considerations of licence, platform functionality and the designing digital learning objects in for and through Open Educational Practices (OEP). With approaches from older traditions of open education, based on education as a common good and narratives on equity and social justice. For OEPS the merging of these discourses is based on a decade of OUiS work engaging in a series of diverse partnerships with employers, formal and informal education providers to support those diverse needs. The paper introduces examples of what this means in for and through practice. Exploring work we have done with Parkinsons UK to develop a series of OER focused on neglected area of curriculum Then looks at the work have done with the Scottish Union Learn (SUL) to promote use of free and open resources by learners in the workplace. Through these examples we explore possibilities of partnerships to bring new voices into the academy, to create supportive structures based on shared values and trust to support uncertain learners. It is our sense this approach allow the benefits of openness to be shared in a just and equitable manner. It then reflects on the issues that arise when you work in-between two senses of open

Antitrust Injunctions: A Flexible Private Remedy

The cost and time required by a treble damage action have traditionally acted as a strong brake to private antitrust enforcement. The author urges consideration by a potential litigant faced with this problem of the advantages of seeking injunctive relief, rather than treble damages; and he points out the special utility of the preliminary injunction. He also proposes some controversial and important possible uses of prior government action in preliminary injunction proceedings